personal safety & signed bike routes in residential neighbourhoods

[OakLeaf]

separated facilities make cyclists feel safer and make motorists feel more secure, but to tell you the truth I think that's a bad thing… the last thing we need on our roads is complacency and good feelings… .

Exactly. The "magic white line." I've had drivers actually tell me that they get nervous when riders are too close to the line. Like it absolves them of any effort to pass at a safe distance. And I've obviously seen plenty of riders acting as though it's a force-field, too.

[Jolt]

In my experience, visibility is key, not separation from other traffic. But visibility depends on terrain and speed as well. On larger roads with higher speed limits, drivers don't have as much time to spot you and react to you as on city streets at lower speeds. And of course there's other traffic, intersections, the number of lanes etc. On the other hand, on quiet residential streets people can be very wandery and inattentive, so that fast bike riding is not a good choice. And my choice of route is usually a compromise between the fastest and the safest route. All in all i can't say that in general I would choose a bike lane over the road, depends on too many factors. Really good and separate and efficient bike paths are wonderful, and about as rare as white rhinos.

Here's an article with a table comparing the relative risk of accidents with different types of facilities on different types of roads: https://janheine.wordpress.com/2013/...rlds-together/. According to this, separate bike paths are safer on higher-speed roads with few intersections but not in any other case; on low-speed roads with lots of intersections any "facilities" appear to increase the risks. Makes sense to me, and would help city planners pick the best places to focus their efforts in terms of adding bike lanes/paths in places where they will be helpful while not putting them in places where they will be counterproductive.

[lph]

I've seen that one before, and it STILL makes me wince. He must have knees and elbows made of rubber. Hilarious, though.

[rebeccaC]

.......Honest I am a bit intrigued...there seems to be overblown fears here on use of separated bike lanes even IF they have separation barrier that a car cannot easily drive over. Not all separated bike lanes are crappy and a lot of cyclists behind and ahead of me, are ok. Most cyclists coming towards me in the parallel lane beside my bike lane in a twinned bi-directional bike lane, pay attention, stay in their lane and don't look as if they want to plough down any other cyclist.

Those who ride or have ridden on well-designed bike lanes know the value. It’s good to see some here who have and who posted in this thread. Perhaps those who haven’t or don’t have them locally may be just less likely to support them.....that's one of the values of education and local bicycle organizations. I guess I also give more credit to the learning ability of people who ride. I see all kinds of people on all kinds of bikes here commuting or just out enjoying the day on a bike and not having any serious problems on the bike paths or lanes. I saw it growing up in France, in other European cities, Canada and in the U.S. Nothing is going to be completely safe because there can always be someone making a bad mistake. Being aware of what’s going on around you is a good thing. Perhaps someone who can’t see a car/truck etc. parked in a bike lane and then can’t even manage to slow down enough, if even necessary, to get around it safely and instead just gets upset….should be thinking about where a negative attitude takes them. If someone wants to criticize an unfinished bike lane…so be it. If someone thinks there shouldn’t be any bike lanes…so be it. Anticipating failure isn’t something I do though.

Thankfully there are lots of people in North America working in a positive way to build bike lanes that make for more safety and usage…. especially in inner cities. Personally I would rather encourage those people to learn rather than just criticize their work.

[Crankin]

I don't have a negative attitude; I am being realistic. The behavior I have seen over the past 15 years has not been good. I've ridden on paths in other cities where it's more part of the infrastructure (Boulder, for example) and I still didn't like it. For some reason, I prefer riding on the road. I think part of it is because on a path, I have to look out for things that I find hard to predict behavior for, like kids, dogs and their walkers, riders who are squirrelly. Over the past 15 years I've become pretty good at predicting the stupid things that drivers will do. I also don't ride in places that are just too congested for me to feel comfortable in. I suppose if I lived in the city and I wanted to commute, I would appreciate a path. But, this is one of the reasons I live where I live. It's not that we don't have traffic, but basically, I go out my door and I am riding on country/suburban roads that people drive to, so they can ride. At one point, we had thought about moving to the city I grew up in, which is an older suburb, next to Boston. Then, we started riding. No way. I am not criticizing any bike advocacy work; in fact I belong to several of those organizations. But, I basically agree with Oakleaf. People who ride need to be seen as vehicles and ride as such. Otherwise, it's just confusing to drivers.

[OakLeaf]

I guess I also give more credit to the learning ability of people who ride.

My whole position is based on my feeling that people who use the roads, both with and without motors, CAN learn, and WILL learn. But there have to BE rules, and the rules have to be conveyed to road users, and neither is the case with segregated facilities. People can't learn if there's nothing there for them to learn and no one to teach them!

Anticipating failure isn’t something I do though.

And right there is the problem with bike lanes. The entire concept of safety, is anticipating failure and working to prevent it. Planners assume that they can build whatever they like with no rules at all, and that people willl somehow, by osmosis, figure out how to use it. But one person's a priori idea of how a separate-and-unequal facllity is supposed to work is often very different from another's, and that is precisely the source of the problems we're talking about.

[Eden]

My problem is that it is not actual safety, but only the illusion of…. There's plenty of data to back that up and one rather flawed Canadian study to refute it (they studied a 10 or so block section of separated bike track with *no* intersections and declared that separated cycle tracks reduce cyclist accidents by an amazing 80-90%!!! - total BS- though I do suppose that it prove well that intersections are the problem area… a place that cannot be separated, and the rest of the cycle track is simply window dressing)

I know that some people advocate for making people feel safer, even if it is totally fake, just to get more people out riding. I simply cannot agree with that approach. I don't think it's any coincidence that since Seattle started with these lanes the collision rate for cyclists has increased and it's not just because there are more people out there - the rate of collisions per 1,000 riders has increased, it's been proportional. I think that it's ridiculous that they installed facilities downtown that simply confused drivers… they actually have had to station volunteers and police officers down there to stop people making left turns on red across the lane when the cycling signals are green-straight and some of the volunteers were nearly hit by cars…

All these markings and signage confuse people more than ever… There was a fascinating experiment in Europe. There was a bad intersection in a small town - lots of collision between cars, lots of accidents with pedestrians. It had multiple crosswalks and signs, an ever increasing number of them. The town decided to strip them all away. Took away the lines, the signs, everything. People slowed down and paid more attention because they didn't think the signs and lines were doing the job for them. They started paying attention to what was happening, rather than trying to read all of the signs telling them what to do.. Accident rates went down.

[salsabike]

I would like to see the continuation of research and development on multiple ways for people who ride to ride safely--not just feel safer, but be safe, as well. Not everyone who rides a bike is going to be comfortable with vehicular cycling, and I'd like alternative ways for them to be able to ride. I think that can be done in time, and I'd like to see that work continue.

I did see the Roosevelt/UW bike lane as a driver and it scared the daylights out of me. It dumps out very sharply with little notice or signage just before the U bridge, where a third lane merges in from the left. I too would not ride it as a cyclist yet. But that doesn't mean I want all those bike path alternatives wiped out in general principle. I want them improved. I like greenways too--bike routes through quieter streets that can get you through parts of the city.

I think multiple approaches to safe riding are really worth continuing to look at as long as they are done well and carefully. The world each of us is comfortable in, riding-wise, isn't necessarily the same as other people's, and I'd like those other riders to also have safe ways to ride in the city.

[Lelani Carver]

A street very close to home is being resurfaced right now, with bike lanes to be added during the final re-striping. It has on-street parking now, so it remains to be seen whether the bike lane will turn out to be too narrow, too close to the door zone, or both. As a very tentative road rider myself, I'm at least encouraged that my local town is finally doing something about cycle routes.

It turns out my street is considered a "bike route," so we're thinking of putting together some kind of "cyclist network" signing in our window. DH is doing a simple website, simpler than a couch-surfing site, where cyclists could check for a bike friendly location that offers air pumps, water, and so on (without actually opening our home up to strangers). We'd have to clean out the garage and make a space where cyclists could find the bike pump, and maybe a water cooler in the summer months.

[OakLeaf]

Wow, what a cool idea Lelani! Kudos to you and your hubby!