As much as I HATE sharing the road with the spandex crowd, this board has caused me to give them more respect and not want to run them into ditches. I saw this design and was really impressed. Instead of demanding equal rights and staging protests and whatnot, someone came up with a really good idea that works for everyone and improves safety. Pretty cool.
Thats how it works in a lot of places in Europe. Copenhagen and Stockholm have those parallel roads throughout the city.
Wouldn't work in Vancouver B.C.
Our cyclists are too lazy to use a stop sign, they sure won't expend the extra energy to go all the way around that intersection.
That would't work around here.
First, the streets are too narrow.
Second, the bikers don't stop for lights, or signs. A lot of them don't even stay in the designated bike lanes.
This is a good idea in theory, but needs some tweaks to work in reality. Good luck getting a semi turning right through those interactions without wiping out all of the cyclists and pedestrians behind the "corner refuge island". At least it's better than all the random green paint they use in Portland.
A better idea is to move cyclists off of the main, busy roads and onto parallel rounds with lower traffic volumes. Granted that won't work in congested down-town areas, but it's a start. Just because a road is an areterial for cars doesn't mean it has to be one for bikes too.
^ they put up a bunch of the "sharrows" or "sharons" and the green marked lanes in Richmond leading up to us hosting the international cycling championships. It's helped a bit but 1/3 the cars still ignore them/ pass people in the bike lanes as if it's a new car lane.
There's plenty for each group to hate about the other if that's how they want to feel (speaking as a member of both).
I'm hoping that over the long haul, more people will be on bikes, and cyclists will normalize and get over variations on the "I'm a kid again, no rules!" or "Yield before me, for I am green", and cars will get used to the conventions we work out with that increased cycling traffic (and decreased auto traffic, at least relative to what we'd have if we didn't have cycling traffic).
Was anyone actually hoping for a quick, easy answer? Nah, this group's too realistic for that...
You'll need to log in to post.
