coming to a bike lane near you?

[juanbenae]

traffic engineers are like children in that they always want what the neighbors have, and do as they are told when their parents,,, eeerrr the local bicycle coalition talks.... look for this eyesore coming to a bike lane near you. it is not a paint or a thermoplastic (traffic line & symbol roadway marker material thats applied in a melted, flowing state and cures into a ceramic type texture) as they would be slippery when wet. it is a dyed pavement slurry product that will be a maintenance nightmare as it fads, and quickly.. discuss...

[JavaBrewer]

For heavily travelled urban routes (cars and bicycles) I like it. The typical American driver is pretty clueless about cyclists and visual clues like this will probably help.

I can't comment on dye job - will it require more maintenance than the blacktop street?

[RWebb]

we have those as "bike boxes"

works great

[gtc]

We have those bike boxes. Total waste of money (doesn't really change how cyclists queue up for lights), and slows down car traffic (we can't turn right at a red light with one of those green boxes, regardless of whether a cyclist is present)

[NY65912]

We have them all over the city now. I really don't see it making it much better than it was before the lanes. The bicyclists that I happen in to around Greenpoint/ Williamsburg are out of town hipsters living off of daddy's dime and think they are entitled to everything including the road. This is Brooklyn for heaven's sake! Biking around on your iphone oblivious to the traffic around ain't gonna matter if your in a lane or not.

Post rant commment.....I think the bike lanes do make it safer for bikers, as long as they play by the rules too.

[vash]

Dyed pavement? Haha. Doesn't a city get fed money for making cyclist happy?

[red-beard]

We have bike lanes that are full of glass and debris

[Racerbvd]

Originally Posted by red-beard

We have bike lanes that are full of glass and debris

Yep, won't take long before regular drivers don't see the big lines anymore.

[lendaddy]

I know it's an unpopular sentiment but people should not be allowed to play on their bikes on busy multi-lane roads like those pictured above. The laws allowing bikes and cars to share the roadway are outdated, bikes have no business.

I could get behind 2 lane roads only 35 or 45mph or less limits.

[9dreizig]

Bike lane ? I thought that was my Fidelity financial retirement path!!

[vash]

Originally Posted by 9dreizig

Bike lane ? I thought that was my Fidelity financial retirement path!!

LOL!

crossing that off ramp would be crazy!!

[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by 9dreizig

Bike lane ? I thought that was my Fidelity financial retirement path!!

LOL, exactly my thought.

I'll echo lendaddy's comment. If bikes can't keep up with the flow of traffic, they shouldn't be allowed on the road. There are plenty of secondary roads that can be used for exercise. Roads are funded by car related taxes, built for cars, and utilized so that the other 99.5% of the population can get to work. If I decided to take a stroll down a busy street the distraction that it caused would quickly yield a police call, why is a biker any different?

[look 171]

I have been riding, racing and training for years in heavy traffic here in LA. what the heck did we do back then? We played by the rules, got in miles of training. NOw people are too dumb to realize where they are and what they are doing. Half of them have those ear phones stuffed into their ears blasting god only knows what they are listing to. We have to paint or stain special lanes for retards who can't read or function in traffic. Those goddamn bike computers that are linked up to their call phones are bad news. Like drivers, they are distracted looking at their maps and cadence or whatever instead of paying attention riding double pace line at 10 miles an hour its just nuts.

[mikeferg75]

I dig it, and to those who don't want to share remember it's not about recreation always, I use my bike to get to work 4 days a week. Looking at the road posted above, I would not want to use it for recreation anyhow, only if I had to, like to get to work. I ride an extra few miles each day avoiding the busy roads, but the notion of being banned from a certain city street is silly.

[RWebb]

I know it's an unpopular sentiment, but people should not be allowed to drive their cars on busy multi-lane roads like those pictured above. The laws allowing bikes and cars to share the roadway are outdated, cars have no business.

[lendaddy]

Originally Posted by RWebb

I know it's an unpopular sentiment, but people should not be allowed to drive their cars on busy multi-lane roads like those pictured above. The laws allowing bikes and cars to share the roadway are outdated, cars have no business.

I have no doubt you think you made a point there

Starting with the assumption that cars and bikes have equal right to road use is the very problem. They should not. Why a bicycle and not my shifter Kart? Why a bicycle and not a a dirtbike? Why not a skateboard?

Why not allow bikers on the hwy? If it hadn't "always been this way" no one would suggest bikes be allowed on multi-lane roads (because it's a stupid idea).

Some use their bikes to get to work and it's a shame that the .0000043% of the population that does so would be inconvenienced to improve the safety and efficiency of our roadways

[RWebb]

It's the law - wake up.

[jyl]

I ride my bicycle to work every day. Hard for me to see how I inconvenience car drivers. Let's see, on a city street, speed limit 25 mph, they occasionally have to pass me going 20 mph in a bike lane that they wouldn't drive in anyway, because it's part of the parking strip? Ridiculous.

[Bill Douglas]

As long as there really are enough cyclists to use the lane. It seems a shame to lose a comuter lane during rush hour (hours).

[jyl]

Around here (PDX) bike lanes are put on streets that are wide enough for the bike lane to not take away a traffic lane, and not wide enough to fit another traffic lane. There is a pretty good network of such bike-lane-equipped roads, and smaller roads with little car traffic that are designated bike routes. The result is that most bike traffic naturally gravitates to those roads, creating a critical mass of bicyclists - enough to force drivers to notice, yes, there are bicycles around.

The reason for the green bike boxes at certain intersections is that drivers tend to turn right without noticing that a bicyclist is stopped in the bike lane, creating a "right hook" accident. A girl, waiting at a red light on her bike, was crushed by the rear tires of a large commercial truck who turned right. His rear end cut the corner close and went right over her. That's when the green bike boxes and lanes started. I don't know that I often seen bicyclists actually stop in the boxes; when there are a lot of them, yes, but not in ones and twos.

I've only once seen a street redesigned to replace traffic lanes with bike lanes. That was a four lane curvy road that sent a river of 45-50 mph commute traffic, people weaving and passing each other like Mario Andretti applying makeup, through a residential neighborhood, close enough to cars parked curbside to make exiting the driver's door a scary experience. The city decided to forcibly "calm" that street by cutting it to a single lane each direction, with turn pockets and bike lanes. I think traffic calming was the goal, not creating bike lanes. Maybe enough accidents had happened there. That was in California.