Originally Posted by
CliffordK
How many pedestrians in that walkway to the right of the Jersey Barriers?
I think I'd just slip between the Jersey Barriers and the fence. Could they make the walkway 1 foot wider and accommodate both bikes and pedestrians?
Quite a few, actually. Until the wrecking ball comes, that eyesore of a parking ramp (background in the photos) is THE major facility for car commuters between the Capitol and Lake Monona, and that block is how a lot of office drones get to/from the ramp. That photo was taken rather late, after most of the office crowd had left.
There just wouldn't be space to make it a shared bike/ped "lane". And given the speed of traffic at "rush" hour there, on a bike you're better off in the right lane. It's just that they could have "codified" it better with a sign more visible to the car commuters. Fah, it's a one- or two-year project, minor issue in the grand scheme (the redev is supposed to include a swank "bikestation"), just another "gee whiz" observation.
What I dislike is when signs are deliberately placed in the middle of bike lanes and road shoulders... causing cyclists to do dangerous merges simply to get around the signs.
A few years ago, they had to close a short stretch of one of the MUPs for utility work or some such. They thought they were doing us a favor by putting up a "notice" sign a week or so in advance, with the dates, etc. But they placed it so it was blocking ALL of one direction, and HALF of the other. I posted an
Onion-esque "headline" about a Beltline lane closure announcement, done with a sign that blocked all but one lane, to the local listserv. Then mentioned what it was really about. They moved the sign the next day.