personal safety & signed bike routes in residential neighbourhoods

[Crankin]

I agree, Oak. I wouldn't trust the drivers around one of these lanes, but even more, I wouldn't trust the behavior of the cyclists! And, when I used one, it was just totally disorienting to me.

[shootingstar]

I have gone to several presentations where there were Dutch cycling educators and engineers that gave presentations here:

*Cycling safety education is mandatory for all Dutch schoolchildren by the time they are 9-10 yrs. old. We don't have any North American jurisdiction that requires this by law.
*Liability of car drivers vs. cyclists is reversed in Netherlands. The driver must prove that they didn't do anything wrong.

Separated bike lanes aren't necessarily for cycling fast if that's what you're accustomed. The more popular /well-used they are, then your cycling speed needs to slow down. That's the dichotomy. If you don't like it, cycle elsewhere on the/another road. I do if I can, when a MUP is too crowded.

Yes, there are cyclists that are negligent in their behaviour.

I honestly don't see how just having roads and no marked bike lanes, is any better. Seriously. It's old John Forrester thinking that assumes everyone, even children are competent cyclists and that drivers are reliable, competent. He was promoting his method...before the ubiquitous use of cellphone while driving --despite the efforts of some police for crackdowns.

I live in a city which is further behind than Vancouver or Montreal. The cycling mode share only started to increase when we started to have more bike-pedestrian bridges.. and a separated bike lane. In fact, this was seriously proven when a major 2013 river flood damaged several bridges in our city that the municipality had to be completely rebuilt ....millions of dollars. Now rebuilt, many people are using them...back to normal and now more since the bridges have been built wider to accommodate more users.

I don't see how a lot drivers not want a marked bike lane in the shoulder area. Sure, it may lull some cyclists, but for drivers it's a clear pavement indicator....to give space to cyclists.

By the way, let's not get into the driverless car scenarios in the future --if that terrible idea occurs in the future.

[Jolt]

I have gone to several presentations where there were Dutch cycling educators and engineers that gave presentations here:

*Cycling safety education is mandatory for all Dutch schoolchildren by the time they are 9-10 yrs. old. We don't have any North American jurisdiction that requires this by law.
*Liability of car drivers vs. cyclists is reversed in Netherlands. The driver must prove that they didn't do anything wrong.

Separated bike lanes aren't necessarily for cycling fast if that's what you're accustomed. The more popular /well-used they are, then your cycling speed needs to slow down. That's the dichotomy. If you don't like it, cycle elsewhere on the/another road. I do if I can, when a MUP is too crowded.

Yes, there are cyclists that are negligent in their behaviour.

I honestly don't see how just having roads and no marked bike lanes, is any better. Seriously. It's old John Forrester thinking that assumes everyone, even children are competent cyclists and that drivers are reliable, competent. He was promoting his method...before the ubiquitous use of cellphone while driving --despite the efforts of some police for crackdowns.

I live in a city which is further behind than Vancouver or Montreal. The cycling mode share only started to increase when we started to have more bike-pedestrian bridges.. and a separated bike lane. In fact, this was seriously proven when a major 2013 river flood damaged several bridges in our city that the municipality had to be completely rebuilt ....millions of dollars. Now rebuilt, many people are using them...back to normal and now more since the bridges have been built wider to accommodate more users.

I don't see how a lot drivers not want a marked bike lane in the shoulder area. Sure, it may lull some cyclists, but for drivers it's a clear pavement indicator....to give space to cyclists.

By the way, let's not get into the driverless car scenarios in the future --if that terrible idea occurs in the future.

I would love to see bike safety education (rules of the road and bike handling skills) made a part of phys ed in the schools. So many kids aren't taught how to ride safely as part of traffic, because most often their parents don't know how either, so we have kids riding to school etc. doing unsafe things just because they don't know better. Besides, learning how to ride a bike safely on the road will only help them when it comes time to start driving a car--they will already be familiar with the basic rules of the road and how to interact with traffic.

[rebeccaC]

on low-speed roads with lots of intersections any "facilities" appear to increase the risks.

According to the article that's a street with a speed limit of 20mph or lower. The article also says those streets can be excellent candidates for the bicycle boulevards he likes which could be even better than protected bike lanes. His conclusion is also that better facilities bring out more cyclists...that should be the goal.

A focus on intersections is important in good bike infrastructure design and a number of good solutions are found in Europe and Canada. Since that article came out two years ago NACTO’s urban bikeway design guide and others have done some good work researching intersection treatments for bike lanes and protected lanes. One thing helping is the signalized separation in some U.S. cities, Chicago’s Dearborn St. and Seattle’s Second Ave are two good examples. The Anne Dusk study I referred to earlier is also an important look at how Montreal has done it.

shooting star….isn’t Calgary doing a new educational program in conjunction with the new cycle lanes being done in the city centre?

[Eden]

I can't agree that the Second Ave bike lane in Seattle is an example of a good road treatment… granted 2nd Ave has *always* been bad if you were foolish enough to use the "facilities" put there, but the best option, as tempting as it is to pass by all of the traffic, is still to take a lane- the middle of it. Downtown especially, it is easy, super easy to move as quickly as any of the traffic. Lane control puts you in a position where you are visible and you have room to react.

The old configuration, I'll admit, was suicidal. It was a single direction left hand bike lane next to parked cars (2nd Ave is one way) that put cyclists at severe risk because no one was expecting cyclists to be passing them on the left, and passing is what they were usually doing as downtown traffic is normally quite slow. Problems arose when left turning motorists would turn across the path of cyclists proceeding straight. Problems arose with people exiting parking garages. Few people pulling away from the curb parking on the left ever expected fast moving cyclists to be approaching them from behind *and* because the driver ends up on the far side when parked on the left hand of a one way street their field of view can be severely limited - just what they can see in their right hand wing mirror and of course there was the door zone… It had an accident rate of about 1 person per month. It needed to be ground from the pavement.

Unfortunately the new treatment is really not much better. It is still on the left… now it is bi-directional and the parking has now been moved to the right of the "protected lane" The only good thing about it is that at very least users are no longer subject to the door zone or parked cars pulling out from the curb, which they were in the old configuration. There is probably some signalization to try to prevent conflicts at left turn intersections, but now motorists not only have to be aware of cyclists coming up from behind on their left, they also have to be aware of cyclists moving against the flow of traffic on the left too!… and not all turns are made at intersections, nor do all motorists follow the new signals - there has been a big problem with people still making lefts on red (which you can do from a one way street onto a one way street if it is not signed "no turn on red"). There have been more than a few cyclists hit while using this new "safe" lane - often from motorists turning into or exiting parking garages because visibility is poor. It's almost ironic… September with much cheers and lauding the new lane opens. October… the new *safer* lane is already undergoing reconfigurations because of a rash of accidents. So much for one a month and the illusion of safety.

[shootingstar]

Rebecca:
shooting star….isn’t Calgary doing a new educational program in conjunction with the new cycle lanes being done in the city centre?

Well, the city uses the cycling advocacy organization (and gives them money) to run Canbike cycling skills program in the summer. Past few years. It's not a ton of people taking up on it. I'm talking about 10-15 people per course. Same sort of program in major Canadian cities in the past 20 years. It's strictly only up to the municipality and only if there's going to be funding. Sometimes from city or province.

The cycling education I think that you might have read for this summer, would be also outreach general public education with more marketing. The city will also hire student cycling ambassadors to be in certain downtown areas...

Of course all of our new separated bike lanes over the next 2-3 yrs., are not for the suburban areas. The emphasis of new separated bike lanes for the next 2-3 years, are only in the downtown area...not in the suburbs. I guess for negative response of some TE forumites here, that would meet their needs: no separated on road bike lanes in the suburban areas since people seem distrust/dislke them intensely.

So for the suburbs: put all the cyclists on just the park MUPs and they will not be encouraged to use bicycles for transportation since our paths rarely lead to schools, all major shopping centres, etc.....I'm being facetious. Have a few marked bike lanes but not separation barriers, right? My city is doing exactly this. Why bother wasting money on separated bike lanes in suburbs? The reality is that people in the suburbs have chosen to have a car-dependent life and many prefer that, no matter what I/we may think. Many people in the suburbs continue to get furious about the city wasting money on downtown separated bike lanes or any cycling infrastructure.

Cycling education combined with expanded, detailed awareness of bike routes that people cycle with experienced commuters, is helpful. Looking at a bike map still does NOT cement understanding in wannabes that our city does have some lengthy off-road MUPs that connect to a major linear park but also will take cyclists right by several major shopping malls in the suburbs via a MUP without inference of shopping mall car traffic. I cycle these routes weekly on weekends....and I don't see hardly any cyclists!! These same long park MUP routes connect up to the city's zoo and science centre, other local attractions.

Cycling for transportation attitudes is different from Toronto or Vancouver.

I cannot complain about crowded MUPs in our city: there are whole sections of a 700 km. parks system of connected MUPs. Only 25% of the whole system is busy and crowded enough to slow down cyclists at certain times from spring to fall. Most of the time, it's...empty on a beautiful sunny weekend when I'm on it. It continues to floor me but indicates the city where I live, a huge % of locals don't cycle often at all. But this system needs to be connected to on-road safe cycling routes.

Some of the crummy connections is that transportation engineers normally aren't trained on human behaviour aspects for cyclists and drivers. I've met transportation engineers...who don't cycle. They don't take mandatory courses at university on this. The push in their training is transportation efficiency, technical construction of infrastructure, technical understanding of materials and coping with volumes.

It's then not surprising, the shocking excitement by some people of driverless cars. It's like children playing in a fantasy world of model cars with mathematical calculations without babies and children (human beings) who make independent decisions --both logical and illogical with different human response rates on action as they travel.

[Eden]

Of course all of our new separated bike lanes over the next 2-3 yrs., are not for the suburban areas. The emphasis of new separated bike lanes for the next 2-3 years, are only in the downtown area...not in the suburbs. I guess for negative response of some TE forumites here, that would meet their needs: no separated on road bike lanes in the suburban areas since people seem distrust/dislke them intensely.

That's actually sound like the complete opposite of what people have been saying here… the slower and busier the road and the more intersections it has the less desirable it is for it to have a separated cycle track - that's when the cycle track carries the *highest*risk to the cyclist and vehicular cycling the lowest…. Not only that, in higher density areas it's impossible for cycle tracks to actually go to all of the places where cyclists would need to travel. The higher speed more suburban streets with few intersections and less on street parking and fewer destinations lend themselves better to the creation of safe bike lanes and separated trackways.

As far as driverless cars go… well I expect I'd never experience a punishment pass from one of them…

[VeganBikeChick]

Eden, it doesn't sound like 2nd ave is any better. I rode it once by bike when it just had the left bike lane - and once was enough for me. I likened it to a death trap.

[smilingcat]

Oui!! No matter how well the cycling and car traffic is integrated onto one road, there is always some idiot who is willing to disrupt it.

sharrows: shared bile and car lane. TAKE THE LANE!! Well some idiot try to run me over on one never mind what all the street signs said and sign on the road said. He WANTED TO RUN ME OVER!!

bike lanes next to a parked car: Boy do I hate those things. I take the road. I've also had a guy going the wrong way on a bike lane. He forced me into the road and he kept trying to go to my left forcing me literally onto the yellow line. We stopped face to face and he said I need to be going on his left. We had a screaming match. HUH? He thought the bike lane was bi-directional.

For city planners and street designers, bike lanes and pedestrian traffic as an afterthought. If they commuted most of the time, maybe they'll see the light of day on what works and don't work.

Yes we NEED BICYCLE EDUCATION FOR EVERYONE AND NOT JUST CYCLISTS!!

AND YES BE SEEN. Ive had epithet thrown at me for my gaudy bright cloth. Hey, I'm still here BE VISIBLE AND BE SEEN!

[OakLeaf]

thinking that assumes everyone, even children are competent cyclists and that drivers are reliable, competent.

I'm not assuming that at all. I'm saying that able bodied adults need to behave like competent drivers when they operate vehicles, and if people willfully refuse to do so, the appropriate response isn't to spend hundreds of millions of dollars so they don't have to.

Children need to learn to drive cars and motorcycles too, but we don't create a whole parallel system of roads for them to do so. I think we all recognize what a disaster that would be!

[PamNY]

I agree, Oak. I wouldn't trust the drivers around one of these lanes, but even more, I wouldn't trust the behavior of the cyclists! And, when I used one, it was just totally disorienting to me.

Why would the behavior of the cyclists be different? Some cyclists ride safely; some don't. Traveling a couple of blocks in a separated, bi-directional lane isn't going to change that.

One factor that I haven't seen discussed here is that, at least where I am (NYC), cyclists are required to use bike lanes when they are available. Cyclists can be (and have been) ticketed for riding outside the bike lane if one is available.

[Crankin]

We don't have enough bike lanes for that to happen. Perhaps it does in the city, where there are more bike lanes each year. But, based on what I've seen driving into Boson every month for our theatre night, cyclists are still dodging cars and weaving between them. However, my son *was* ticketed in Cambridge, for running a red light on his bike. Every so often they go on a rampage and do this.
As far as my comment above, of course there are bad cyclists on the road, but being on a multi-directional path just has so many more opportunities for accidents. The cyclists I've seen on bike paths, don't seem to stay to the right and don't follow any rules, on the whole. So, I fear that these are the people who would just cross over into my lane and there would be a head on collision. When I rode the multi-directional path in Quebec, I was going in the direction that was opposite traffic. I was not happy when I got to the cross street and had to make a left, off of the path. There were no special provisions to do this, whereas, if I had been on the road, I would have taken the lane and done as any other car would do.

[ny biker]

Why would the behavior of the cyclists be different? Some cyclists ride safely; some don't. Traveling a couple of blocks in a separated, bi-directional lane isn't going to change that.

One factor that I haven't seen discussed here is that, at least where I am (NYC), cyclists are required to use bike lanes when they are available. Cyclists can be (and have been) ticketed for riding outside the bike lane if one is available.

As near as I can tell you can pretty much be ticketed at any time for any reason in NYC. Recently a cyclist there was ticketed for "riding on the sidewalk" after he was struck by a car while riding on the road and thrown onto the sidewalk by the impact.

[Eden]

In Washington state cyclists are explicitly *not* required to use bike lanes even if they are present. In Oregon, I believe they are.

[OakLeaf]

Traveling a couple of blocks in a separated, bi-directional lane isn't going to change that.

A couple of blocks isn't. But when a cyclist is taught that their place is off the street, they're discouraged from learning traffic skills, and they literally don't know how to behave. It's not that their INTENT is to ride unsafely. More and more, I see riders kitted out on moderately or even higher priced bikes, in helmets and high-visibility jackets, riding on the sidewalks or against traffic or hugging the curb. It's no longer just the stereotypical people who look like they're either homeless or have lost their drivers' licenses to DUIs, people who never rode bikes before and have suddenly found it's their only transportation. It's people riding solely for recreation, trying to be safe, but with no idea how to do so, and in the process endangering everyone, themselves not least, but me as a pedestrian enormously.

I'm with Smilingcat. I've never been much of a fan of graduated licensing for cars only, but I've said for years that no one should get a car drivers' license until they've had a motorcycle license for at least two years, and mandatory bicyclist education before that. Sure my initial reaction to that statement is "good luck with that," just the same as yours probably is, but like I said before, which costs more, hundreds of millions of dollars for these terrifying dangerous separate-and-unequal roads - or hundreds of thousands of dollars to make sure everyone knows how to use the roads we have, and is cited when they don't?