About Bike Lanes...

[lph]

Aaagh! Never ride against traffic! Just say no!! (sorry, get a bit hyper about that )

Some bike lanes are pretty spooky, since a lot of drivers see them as a handy, large space for them to pull over into, or veer into before making a turn. But it helps if you just assume that all drivers ahead of you are about to make a turn at the next intersection, and ride correspondingly. You can also never be too visible, bright clothes, lights, whatever. And if I feel I get more attention if I ride "purposefully" - I turn my head and check behind me a lot, try to catch the drivers eye, place myself a bit closer to the line of cars than the sidewalk, and use obvious LARGE hand signals well in advance.

A friend saw me and joked that I looked like a bike cop - fine with me

[Crankin]

When I rode in Quebec this summer, there was one part of the Route Verde, that was on the road (a lot of it was) that had one bike lane on the opposite side of the street from the direction we were travelling. It definitely WAS 2 way for cyclists. The lane was marked off by dividers at some points, but everything I know about safe riding made this feel very weird, especially as we climbed up a hill going in the opposite direction of the traffic. A few other cyclists passed us going the other way and that was spooky, too. Most of the Route Verde was on larger roads with a very wide bike lane on both sides. Cars were very aware of bikes here.
So, I suspect the use of these lanes is quite different in different countries.

Robyn

[gnarwhal]

In my town there is a contraflow bike lane which is only for bikes going towards the oncoming traffic, it's on a one way road going down hill as the cars go uphill. it's got blind corners and parking on it and it's scary as anything.

Unless you can see all round and you're in a specifically marked contraflow lane NEVER ride against the traffic always always ride with it.

[Geonz]

One of the things I learned pretty quickly in this fair town was NOT to assume that traffic planners made bike lanes with bicycle safety in mind. We've got some very new lanes down the middle of the road in a new development that have more design errors than Carter has pills. Gosh, nobody uses the lane, which is a good thing... anybody foolish enough to use 'em would probably not have the wherewithall to sue the folks responsible for putting htem there if something happened...

And of course there are our campus bike paths, famous in picture and story.

Most cyclists around here avoid the routes that have bike paths because drivers do express their indignance when we don't use them - and I can't blame them, really. You can't tell on a driveby unless you're a traffic engineer.

You can write your town council people.