Idiot and inconsiderate riders make it harder for the rest of us. One of my routes takes me through a short stretch of a light industrial area with several train tracks. I get caught at the tracks fairly often. Traffic can get backed up substantially. This section of the road is the only reasonable route to connect a large residential area to the Mississippi River Levee Path.
It is Central Avenue in Metairie LA, between Airline Highway and Jefferson highway if you want to look at it on a map. It's a narrow 35 MPH road. It is often that I see abhorrent bicycling behavior at these tracks. Cyclists will often filter to the front. When they do, they leave all of the cars they just filtered past stuck behind them on a narrow road that leaves motorists no good opportunities to go around them.
Yesterday I saw a first. As the guard arm lifted and the first of the cars started crossing the tracks, a kitted out roadie riding astraddle the double yellow started passing the cars that were accelerating up to speed. I thought it might be excusable if he were going to turn onto a nearby side street but he didn't. The side streets run to the levee as well and have little to no traffic. I always use them rather than stay on Central. Seems like the most respectful and the safest strategy.
The net effect was that he passed a line of cars on the double yellow, then tucked into traffic and kept the cars he had just passed stuck behind him for over a half mile. Mind you, that these were motorists who had just been stuck at a train track for 10 minutes.
Motorists will lump me in a group with riders like that and treat me accordingly. Not cool. I couldn't help but express my displeasure to him.
This shot shows the track and the cyclist's direction of travel.
