Originally Posted by
Korina
Would it? You don't think taking away the center striping would encourage drivers to go slower and more cautiously? Full disclosure: I came thisclose to getting my license a quarter century ago, so my car perspective is as a passenger.
Tl;dr, I'm just whining.
It's a frustrating fact that despite living in a rural area surrounded by forest, there are very few places to ride ( not counting mtb trails) that aren't cluttered by cars, usually going well over the speed limit. All of our side streets go straight up for 1/10 mile and end in someone's driveway. There's one particular road, West End Rd., that's popular with cyclists for its beauty. It's rural residential, so plenty of traffic; despite being barely two lanes wide, with 3" to 6" shoulders and sections that are winding and rolling, drivers feel comfortable going alarmingly fast. It's those parts that make it unsuitable for edge lane treatment, no matter how I try to twist it in my brain.
I have no way of knowing if it would make drivers more or less cautious--the reason they don't recommend these for high traffic/higher speed roads is that it actually increases close encounters between oncoming cars. That's ok if you have a lot of visibility and time to react, but as soon as those factors decrease, the crash rate will go up.. My point was with
mr_bill 's implication that lack of data about cyclists getting hurt was an indicator that the arrangement doesn't harm cyclists. My point, which I might have buried, is that lack of data doesn't tell us that at all. No news is no news..
As a driver, I would find that dotted line to the right very confusing as it doesn't conform with how a dotted line is usually employed on U.S. roads. TBH, the more I'm looking at this "solution", the less I'm liking it. The Cambridge example
mr_bill was pointing to really exposes the problems with it nicely--people who have to use those roads in their neighborhood hate it because it really isn't clearly telling anyone to do anything differently than they would have already, and the residents preferred sharrows as at least they told everybody where they are supposed to be.