Crap American Cycle lanes
Philip Davis
Posts: 965
Nice to see American mainstream media seems to be following the Warrington Cycling Campaigns crap cycle lane website. Today from www.slate.com:
http://www.slatev.com/player.html?id=1475273846
http://www.slatev.com/player.html?id=1475273846
I hate to advocate drugs, violence or insanity to anyone, but they\'ve always worked for me.\' Hunter S. Thompson
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Great observation, but I find this kind of thing (bike lanes ending abruptly) very common throughout the world.
Personally, I dislike bike lanes, and prefer cyclist integration into regular traffic, with heavy penalties for those who ignore cyclists right to the roads. But of course, this is a dream, and particularly in the u.s., any 4,000 lb. suv driver really giving a cyclist any considieration is wishful thinking. Cops are no better, as enforcing a cyclists rights to the road is of far less importance than getting to the dunkin' donuts.
Where I live, they've just come up with a novel approach to cyclists' safetey by painting a square at certain intersections bright green, and forcing cyclists to wait for green lights in the green square. Time will tell if this scheme works. I prefer to keep moving, and not be a stationary target to said suv's.
Link removed as it didn't work0 -
In the UK this 275ft lane would be the channel tunnel of cycling engineering feats....0
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Philip Davis wrote:Nice to see American mainstream media seems to be following the Warrington Cycling Campaigns crap cycle lane website. Today from www.slate.com:
http://www.slatev.com/player.html?id=1475273846
The odd thing is that he doesn't complain about it being a door-zone lane
Jeremy Parker0 -
Jeremy Clarkson (would you believe) did it better. Made real show of putting on all the gear, getting on the bike, cycling a few feet, and then saying that the problem is that they don't join up.
I believe Galway Cycling Campaign lists quite a few dangerous "cycle facilities", more or less seems like they're designed to be that way (dangerous) to make car driving road designers and pollies happy that they are providing a "facility", even if it actually increases the level of danger to cyclists and reduces the level of cycle use, both you would think contrary to government policy.
http://galwaycycling.org/node/72'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze....0 -
THe problem as always is that many road planners think that a pot of paint and a few signs is all they need to do make a cycle lane.
On a relatively busy but wide suburban road near me they decided they needed to put a cycle lane in. The problems with it are-
The stripe marking the boundary of the lane is just about the distance a cyclist would be riding out from the side of the road
The road was wide enough for cars to pass a cyclist easily anyway
The lane is regularly blocked by parked cars
The lane stops before you get to the main road rather than feeding into a advance stopping area
In effect they put the lane in so they could add it to the metric but not so as it would inconvenience the car drivers.0 -
275ft? That's almost 100m of lane! I have seen far stupider, lanes barely longer than a bike!
Just about every town in rural Ireland has a cycle "facility" like below at the entrance and exit to the town. The lane either side of the "facility" is always minimal. This is quite a good one (the blue bike sign in the middle of the grass marks the end!)
Honestly there are thousands of these, completely and utterly useless, replicated in every single town in the country.*
*useless for cyclists, I realise their intent is to slow traffic.0
