the case for separated bike lanes
An interesting video via Russ Stark
From the YouTube description:
Advocates from Transporation Alternatives, The Project for Public Spaces, and The Open Planning Project join “Gridlock Sam” Schwartz and Enrique Penalosa to call for New York City to consider experimenting with some physically separated bike lanes in the near future.
It’s a good short video, with some nice examples of different bike lane construction around the world. It’s interesting that London is used as an example while there are some serious cycling advocates over there trying to abolish bike lanes (with the idea that chaos leads to safer roads, in a nutshell).
I don’t think all bike lanes are wonderful or necessary, but having some physical separation on major routes would be a Good Thing. Interaction with traffic is (i think) the main deterrent to increasing the number of bike commuters. I can see the potential counter-argument that pedestrians won’t want to cross bike traffic to & from their cars, but i’d be interested to see how much of a problem it is in practice.
While watching the video, i couldn’t help but think that many of complaints about drivers would be solved by stronger enforcement of existing traffic law. Parking and turning on a bike lane should be disallowed, if it isn’t already, and enforced as such. Loading zones could be marked as allowed, otherwise cars ought to stay out.
Likewise, i can’t help but wonder how many fewer people would use a cell phone while driving if police more strictly enforced proper turn signal use?
2 Responses to “the case for separated bike lanes”
Exactly I think that enforcement of the traffic laws should be first and foremost. The attitude that motor vehicles can do whatever they want seems too prevalent. Separated bike lanes could be nice but they also make for a lot more restrictions on the cyclist for making turns etc.
I really enjoyed this video. I agree with you about enforcing existing traffic laws. If every minor traffic infraction had heavy penalties, we would suddenly very safe streets and our city govt. would be well funded.