Ninety5rpm

Quoting:

Baltimore Residents Peddling Frustration Over Safety Of Bike Lanes

Protected bike lanes are becoming more prevalent across Baltimore, but some say the lanes are driving them crazy and putting lives in danger.

Baltimore Residents Peddling Frustration Over Safety Of Bike Lanes « CBS Baltimore

DrIsotope

This is of course a city with a murder rate 8 times the national average, and nearly 25% of the population living below the poverty line. But of course, gotta focus on the big problems, like bike lanes. Bike lanes stopping people from street parking? When will the madness end!?!

MidSouthBiker

Baltimore bike friendly?
Isn't this the city that started a bike share program, then had to shut if down because of theft of the bikes? I bring this up because the big city north of me is going to implement a bike share program next Spring. I give it a year, bike lanes or not.

Skipjacks

I live here.

The bike lanes are stupid and pointless.

They aren't real bike lanes. They are a bike lane logo painted in the middle of normal travel lanes more of the time. They aren't really dedicated "bike only" lanes. They are signs that say "ride your bike in this heavy traffic area!"

When there are dedicated bike lanes they are even more pointless. There is one place I can think of where the bike lane starts at the interstate and goes about a half mile up a hill then just stops abruptly with a hard shoulder on the road forcing any biker into traffic on a road that a bike simply does not belong on. (First image below) I drive this road regularly. I have never seen a bike in this lane and you'd have to put a gun to my head to get me to try and ride a bike in this death trap lane. The red circle is the bike lane marker. The blue oval is where the lane just disappears.

(Second image below)
Here's that same 'bike lane' 100 yards earlier where the 'bike lane' darts across 2 lanes of traffic when the interstate traffic suddenly appears as a merge lane on the biker's right AT FULL SPEED who then try to get left 3 lanes to make a left at the upcoming intersection. (Red circles show the bike lane markers. Yellow shows the traffic flow)

Not that anyone would be starting a biking trip at an on ramp for an interstate anyway.

(Third image below)
Here's another spot where the 'bike lanes' are simply logos in the middle of every car travel lane. They aren't real bike lanes. This is a VERY busy section of road with no shoulder at all. Multiple intersections in a short period. But they slapped a bike lane logo on the lanes and declared it safe for biking.

These are just random examples that I thought of off the top of my head. I see other crazy bike lanes around this area all the time.

There is no forethought into bike lanes here. Someone asked for bike lanes. So the city and county counsels appeased them by sending a road crew out with a bike lane stencil and apparently told them to just paint it anywhere it would fit.

Ninety5rpm

You're right. Those aren't bike lanes. They are shared lanes marked by shared lane markings (sharrows) and probably "Bikes May Use Full Lane" signs. They are useless because most cyclists ride on the edge nevertheless. If cyclists would follow the guidance and ride down the middle of the lanes (except to release faster traffic when safe and necessary), they would be very useful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_lane_marking

Skipjacks

The 3rd image I posted is of a share use lane. (Though in a spot where if you're on a bike you're BEGGING to be run over. It's legal to ride there. It's not smart.)

The first 2 images are not a shared lane. That far right 'lane' is a 'dedicated bike lane'. It is NOT a car lane. It's about 3 feet wide and is separated from the car lanes by a solid white line.

And a true dedicated bike lane shouldn't ever cross over an interstate off ramp with no light and a full run out merge lane. A car has no reason to stop coming off the highway if the intent is to continue straight. It's a 40mph ramp that blends seemlessly (for a driver) into a 50mph road. You'd never expect a bike lane to be on your left crossing in front of your to get to the far right. There is no sign on the off ramp alerting you. (But fortunately no one is stupid enough to try and ride a bike in this spot anyway. This was just marked as a bike lane so the county could say they have bike lanes.)

Skipjacks

Here's a street view of those first 2 images I posted...

This is what you see as a driver coming off the interstate, expecting to merge into a 50 mph road where the exit ramp becomes a travel lane. So no need to merge.

The blue is the bike lane that is not notified to the driver coming off the interstate. (Who's looking for a bike lane to be on their left? No one. That's who.)

You can see where it crosses over the car's red path of death.

If you're in that bike lane to the left, you can't even rely on your eyes to know when it's safe to jump across to the lane on the right. Traffic is coming off the turn of that ramp at 60mph (It's marked 40) and will be on top of you before you get across.

The pedestrian crosswalk (for which there are signs on both sides of the off ramp alerting drivers to the cross walk) is also funny because i'ts probably NEVER been used by a pedestrian ever. There's nothing here to walk to or from. Behind you is an interstate. Ahead of you is a road with nothing on it for a while. There's an apartment building to the right but no one's walking from there to anywhere in this area.

There are places like this all over the area. They make no sense.

The best bike safety to follow in this area is your own brain. Look at the road. Make a decision about what the safest place to ride is. Follow your own personal logic, not the lack of logic of some arbitrary highway administration official who picked random spots for 'bike lanes'.

tyrion

This is likely true. But bike lanes are a relatively new thing in most places and we've got a lot to learn about their design.

I wonder how many cities and regional authorities are making the same mistakes in bike lane design.

Are European countries better than USA at bike lane design?

Ninety5rpm

I was commenting only on the part of your comment which I quoted. Those particular words were, as far as I can tell, only about shared lanes.

Rollfast

Bike lanes have to end before intersections and resume (if they do) across the intersection. But I didn't see much that looked different than here in Ontario, Oregon.

Leisesturm

In the aggregate, cyclists are not the most reasonable of human beings. They seem oblivious to the reality that motor traffic traveling alongside will occasionally need to turn. They do not want motor traffic crossing bikeways neither at intersections nor at crossovers. They imagine that cars will just... ... well... cars outnumber bicycles millions to one. The continued confusion, contradictory and chaotic state of cyclist advocacy needs some focus. If cyclists drag this out to a showdown it won't be motor traffic that goes away.

bobwysiwyg

+1

Rollfast

Aren't Baltimore residents kinda against a lot of things?

detroitjim

Prime reason why you need cyclists input before implementation. Most of the Civil engineers designing this crap don't ride a bike.

nayr497

We went from zero bike share programs to THREE in the last few weeks. I'm an avid cyclist and ride daily. To be honest, I really, really don't like dockless bike shares. The bikes are suddenly all over town, some have fallen down, some block sidewalks and bike lanes. I'm all for docked, but seeing fallen down, brightly painted bikes all over town is an eyesore, in my opinion.

Rollfast

Don't they have KICKSTANDS?