Fabulous bike lanes!

[Torrilin]

I started biking to get around (again) about two weeks ago. I'm in Madison, WI which is supposedly a bike friendly city. There are separate, traffic controlled bike paths. There are bike lanes on many streets. There is extensive bike parking. My prior bike experience was in a definately bike unfriendy city (Harrisburg, PA). No bike paths, no bike lanes, no parking. But... the streets were often wide enough to take bike or pedestrian traffic safely, without disrupting car traffic.

I'd be a lot more in favor of bike lanes and bike paths if they were not just signed as if they were roads but if they were *treated* like roads. Over the last two weeks, I've found that roads get treated like roads, and bike lanes or paths are somewhere below a sidewalk. I'd rather not get stuck with being a 3rd class citizen. Most of my adult transportation has been my feet, so I've spent a lot of time as a second class citizen. On a regular road, I get to be a first class citizen again, even if I'm on a bike. My lane doesn't disappear without a sign. Other vehicles don't try to hit me. I have to stop for pedestrians, like everyone else.

Bike paths and bike lanes are confusing, because the signage is not consistent with normal roads. The usage "rules" aren't consistent with normal roads. The maintenance isn't consistent either. Traffic enforcement? Don't make me laugh. At least on a regular road in Harrisburg, a cyclist had to follow the rules of the road. Failure to do so meant you risked death, same as if a pedestrian didn't follow the rules. Never heard of a cyclist getting a ticket in Harrisburg, because running a red light was a good way to die. Same for a lot of the other dangerous behavior I've seen in Madison. And well, it's hard to ride on the sidewalk when a large chunk of the roads don't have any (see also, second class citizen).

I understand why someone would feel unsafe on a bike without a lane or enough space. It feels like all the cars are aiming at you at first. Gradually, you learn that the other driver wants to hit you about as much as you want to hit them. And if you can't signal reliably, or stop safely, you're too unsteady to be on the roads. You wouldn't drive a car with no brakes. Don't ride a bike that you can't stop with either. It's ok to say you're not ready for roads. You didn't get your learner's permit and hit the roads right away either. Big empty parking lots and quiet residential streets are your friends, just like they were with a learner's permit.

[Geonz]

Amen!

Our campus bike path system looks great on the surface... it's only when you actually try to use it that you realize how nutty it is... if 90% of the time a path is okay, and you only endanger your life 10% of the time (sudden merges with the wrong side of a road, places you have to swerve around hazards, places where you're suddenly supposed to cross to the other side of a four-lane road - not to mention the "usual" conflicts of crossroads and driveways, trucks parking in the lane, that bus stop that's in the middle of it...) , that's still NUTS but it looks great from your car window and it means you can holler at the cyclists to get on their sidewalks/paths where they belong.

It's a complicated topic, though, and to top it all off so much depends on the specific traffic dynamics and culture of a given community.

[fikustree]

I also live in a *supposedly* bike friendly town. To me, the barriers make a lot of sense. The bike lanes that we have seem to be worse than riding in traffic because of all the parked cars, parking cars, turning cars, lack of bike lanes in intersections (!) and that they don't connect to each other. Even the roads here don't connect to each other so all the traffic, bikes, peds, and cars get on these major roads. It is scary. I take the sidewalk sometimes because that seems safest.

northstar- How do people get in accidents on the sidewalk?

[Torrilin]

Hit a pedestrian. Get hit by a car pulling out of a driveway. Hit another bike. Hit/be hit by a tree. Same deal as a road really, only people don't expect you on the sidewalk.

Sidewalks are a bad place to ride. No line of sight if you're on a bike. You may have unexpected 6" (15 cm) jumps in pavement height. There may be low hanging tree branches, or obstacles like kids' toys or a store's sidewalk display. If I've gotta be on a sidewalk, I walk my bike. Then drivers understand what I'm doing. Other pedestrians understand, *and* I'm moving at a speed sidewalks are designed for.