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Cycling commissioners say painted bike lanes don’t make cyclists feel safer

theguardian.com

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Re: Cycling commissioners say painted bike lanes don’t make cyclists feel safer

#21

Post by paulmd »

prennert wrote: post #10

Painted bicycle lanes are actually dangerous in my opinion. I cycle almost every day in London for now about 6 years. I avoid streets with painted cycle paths if I can (and take parallel side roads instead). The way I see it, painted cycle lanes makes cyclists feel secure, but does not create much awareness by motorists. They are mainly used on roads with a lot of traffic. Because they are painted they have sometimes…

They converted a 4-lane (2-lane each way) road near me into a 3-lane (1 each way + turning lane) with a wide buffer zone and a bike lane on each side. I see people taking the buffer zone as a lane all the time, just about had someone t-bone me a few months ago as I was turning and they tried to pass me in the buffer zone.

Grade separation or hard barrier, full stop.

Re: Cycling commissioners say painted bike lanes don’t make cyclists feel safer

#22

Post by drcross »

lucideer wrote: post #13
prennert wrote: post #10

Painted bicycle lanes are actually dangerous in my opinion. I cycle almost every day in London for now about 6 years. I avoid streets with painted cycle paths if I can (and take parallel side roads instead). The way I see it, painted cycle lanes makes cyclists feel secure, but does not create much awareness by motorists. They are mainly used on roads with a lot of traffic. Because they are painted they have sometimes…

> painted cycle lanes makes cyclists feel secure, but does not create much awareness by motorists > It also forces the planners to do a good job when designing junctions. Living in Dublin, I have the opposite perspective on this. I much prefer roads with painted lanes (or better, no cycle lanes), as having cyclists on the road necessarily makes motorists more aware of their existence (particularly when you have a lot…

Painted bike lines could have separated flexible bollards added to them which makes them far more effective.

Re: Cycling commissioners say painted bike lanes don’t make cyclists feel safer

#23

Post by yrro »

mcv wrote: post #5

Is any money getting spent on painted bicycle lanes in the UK? I'm surprised to hear that, because the very few I've seen there were a joke. The similar joke examples shown in this article don't seem far-fetched based on my (limited) experience in the UK.

Oh yes.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2009/nov/05/...

Re: Cycling commissioners say painted bike lanes don’t make cyclists feel safer

#24

Post by bryanlarsen »

Are segregated lanes any better? It seems to me that the vast bulk of the danger for cyclists is at intersections (the dreaded right hook, mostly). A segregated lane can make it harder for a car to see you and prevents you from taking the lane to make yourself obvious.

What we need are protected intersections; the rest of the road can be painted or segregated, I don't really care.

https://peopleforbikes.org/blog/four-u-s-cities-are-racing-t...

It really doesn't have to be much, just bollards in the middle of intersections forcing cars to make a wide right turn would be enough.

Re: Cycling commissioners say painted bike lanes don’t make cyclists feel safer

#25

Post by gnode »

choeger wrote: post #19
alrs wrote: post #9

Bike lanes exist to get bicycles "out of the way," which is why we have a decades-long alliance between the car-insurance lobby and the sell-bicycles lobby to get bikes off the road and on to facilities. This is a losing strategy for people who actually ride bikes, the correct one is to lower speed limits.

> This is a losing strategy for people who actually ride bikes, the correct one is to lower speed limits. I do not think that this is going to cut it. On a good day I easily do 30kph on a good road (that's why I prefer the painted lanes, btw., they tend to give you access to paved roads). With wind, or exhaustion, or any number of reasons, that speed can drop downwards to 20kph. Now I am definitely not the most well-…

> I presume you do not belong to that minority that believes traffic rules do not apply to bikes

Personally, I don't see much reason for speed limits to apply to bikes, or at least, for a speed limit intended for cars to apply to bikes. The two classes of vehicles have different concerns.

Re: Cycling commissioners say painted bike lanes don’t make cyclists feel safer

#26

Post by nizmow »

lucideer wrote: post #20
prennert wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a political level, I think a lot is lost already - at least in London. I am seeing daily both "fundamentalist" behavior from both cyclists and motorists (rarely from pedestrians interestingly). I am catching myself sometimes not paying attention at zebras and junctions to pedestrians who did behave predictively. This usually happens because I am busy watching back and forth watching out for a speeding car (or a dr…

Having cycled briefly in a few cities in the Netherlands (Amsterdam, Utrecht, Hague), and also in Copenhagen, I found the former cities excellent and the latter stressful. Copenhagen tends strongly towards segregated lanes: you have to be extremely familiar with the city layout to be able to pre-empt where to enter & exit, and local cyclists come across quite aggressive if you're not constantly perfectly aware of whe…

>The sheer number of cyclists means bad behaviour just does't seem to be an option for motorists: safety in numbers.

I was once almost hit by a car who didn't look coming from a side street in Amsterdam, the surge of cyclists behind me angrily shaking fists and yelling curses at the driver was quite something.

Re: Cycling commissioners say painted bike lanes don’t make cyclists feel safer

#27

Post by nizmow »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #17
prennert wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a political level, I think a lot is lost already - at least in London. I am seeing daily both "fundamentalist" behavior from both cyclists and motorists (rarely from pedestrians interestingly). I am catching myself sometimes not paying attention at zebras and junctions to pedestrians who did behave predictively. This usually happens because I am busy watching back and forth watching out for a speeding car (or a dr…

> I wonder sometimes of they are made intentionally narrow and winding to slow down cyclists I think this raises an interesting point. There are cyclists and then there are cyclists. You have those people out with the kids or bumbling along on a Boris bike; and then you have power cyclists in all of the gear on a carbon framed bike averaging faster than most cars in London. While some cycle lanes are perfectly approp…

That's a more difficult problem to fix. In Sydney, there are quite a few cycle lanes popping up but are almost all dominated by enthusiast cyclists in lycra on sports bikes, and I'd rather cycle on a road than deal with them. In the Netherlands, of course, cycling is a normal every day thing so the commuters far outnumber the enthusiasts and it's safer for everyone (enthusiasts / sport cyclists don't even bother trying to cycle during busy times, they'd be constantly stuck behind commuters).

Re: Cycling commissioners say painted bike lanes don’t make cyclists feel safer

#29

Post by reallydontask »

gnode wrote: post #25
choeger wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a losing strategy for people who actually ride bikes, the correct one is to lower speed limits. I do not think that this is going to cut it. On a good day I easily do 30kph on a good road (that's why I prefer the painted lanes, btw., they tend to give you access to paved roads). With wind, or exhaustion, or any number of reasons, that speed can drop downwards to 20kph. Now I am definitely not the most well-…

> I presume you do not belong to that minority that believes traffic rules do not apply to bikes Personally, I don't see much reason for speed limits to apply to bikes, or at least, for a speed limit intended for cars to apply to bikes. The two classes of vehicles have different concerns.

doesn't look like they applies to cars either.

Re: Cycling commissioners say painted bike lanes don’t make cyclists feel safer

#30

Post by protonimitate »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #24

Are segregated lanes any better? It seems to me that the vast bulk of the danger for cyclists is at intersections (the dreaded right hook, mostly). A segregated lane can make it harder for a car to see you and prevents you from taking the lane to make yourself obvious. What we need are protected intersections; the rest of the road can be painted or segregated, I don't really care. https://peopleforbikes.org/blog/four…

Intersections are dangerous for sure, but I think it mostly depends on the city and driving culture each has.

One thing that segregated lanes help immensely with is double-parking in painted bike lanes, and bus routes that weave in and out of bike lanes to make their stops.

Ideally we'd have both segregated lanes and protected intersections.

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