btppberk

The Union Tribune has an interesting article up about protected bike lanes and the trade off between protecting sports cyclists and your average person who just hops on the bike to go somewhere. (I avoided the Union Tribune firewall just by googling the story name.)

I'd be interested to hear what other people make of the article. I've never biked anywhere with protected bike lanes before, so I found this pretty informative. The south bound protected lane in Cardiff, with its sand, car doors, and oblivious people, freaks me out; the article convinced me that my instinct just to ride in the normal traffic lane is probably correct.

diphthong

i ride in the street through cardiff. the path works better for families and slower cyclists but those of us going 13+ mph will get frustrated, esp now
with all the joggers, dog-walkers, walkers, beachgoers in the bike lane when they're not on the dirt next to the bike lane. many of said denizens are
unaware/out of it/oblivious so i find it more dangerous to take the protected lane vs the regular, bike lane striped street.
the area is subject to typical mup behavior. it's about a .75 mile stretch. you can enter/exit the protected lane but you've got to slow way down and check
for peds/cars/cyclists so it's dicey to do multiple times.

i think it may work better dtown sd where some of it is already up and running. the key is (as pointed out in the article) awareness and
not being in a hurry. if you're in a rush, i'd stay out of the lanes since you're closer to peds and farther out of the usual scope of many drivers.

skidder

Th only one near me is a one mile stretch of 2nd Street/Westminster avenue in Long Beach between PCH and the LA/OC county line (none when you cross into OC). I've ridden that section many, many times over the past decades and never felt any danger from passing cars as there's an adequately-sized bike lane along the street. And I've never seen any drivers weaving into the bike lane, and there's no curb parking along the street either. They may work in heavily conjested areas (I know there are some in downtown Long Beach), but it seems useless along this section of road. Also a little unnerving when you suddenly come upon them; the pylons are green and kind of hard to spot if your not keeping your eyes on the road.

TakingMyTime

My problem with protected lanes is that the city does not seem to keep them as clean and debris free as I'd like. I've heard that keeping them clean and having the proper equipment to keep them clean was an unforeseen problem. I've ridden the stretch that skidder mentioned 3 times this month. I feel safe, but a lot of debris seems to make it's way into the bike lane. There is also a stretch on Studebaker (Long Beach) between Los Coyotes and Spring Street. I don't really know why they put one there because there is a service street that runs along that stretch.

2seven0

Spot on! I've had to exit the lane to avoid broken glass over the Westminster bridge more than once. Whenever I'm on that section of Studebaker I always ride on the access road.
West