GamblerGORD53

Just face the facts. The design is ignorant. The bikes are protected until every intersection, where NEITHER can see each other.
How the hell can you go 20 mph in that circumstance?? It has ZERO SAFETY. Plus granny needs to get out on the CURB.
Neither is it better where they put stupid, no right on red. Is it better to turn when bikes are moving?? WTF. I just ignored it when I was in DC.
LAB are run by imbeciles. IMO.

Rick

A few years ago I saw a similar setup from somewhere in or near Seattle but I don't remember there being parking meters. It is really common to read about bicycle infrastructure funding for bicyclists happening but when they are done it is missing what makes it work properly or safe.

livedarklions

I can tell you that in New England, there's been a move away from parking meters to parking kiosks that require you to walk a half block or so to put money/cards in. People had a little trouble with them at first, but it's pretty easy once you know the rules. The problem here is these are the same parking meters in exactly the same places, so people won't get that the parking spaces moved unless it's made painfully obvious. Frankly, it looks like all it would take is for someone to park on the bicycle symbol on the road, and there would be literally no way to tell that was a bike lane.

mschwett 

yeah. one car parks over the symbol and it’s hard to tell what’s up. easily fixed. paint the lane green, switch to electronic meter kiosks at every 8th space or so.

it’s also much for convenient for drivers to be able to pay by app, you just enter the number on the space on your phone and you’re done.

Vismund B

Where there are parking meters for the spaces we use the muni-meters where one meter serves all the parking spaces. And now, there’s an app so you don’t even need to use any meter. Just pay from your phone. Then there are some where there are no meters.

When they first installed (painted?) many of these bike lanes, people still parked near the curb right in the bike lane. But people quickly learned to stop parking there; now they just obstruct them temporarily for their own convenience.

What tends to happen more often now, is that people will park in the turning lane, which completely obstructs drivers view of cyclists, and makes it hard for cyclists to see cars which causes many “oh sh*t” moments at intersections where cars and bikes are stopping short to avoid each other.

Inisfallen

I'm not so quick to say it's ignorant. I ride in lanes just like that (but in far heavier traffic) and it seems to work pretty well. Not perfectly, of course, but it seems like a pretty good way to share the limited road space available here in NYC.

Pretty much this. Vismund B lives in Queens, I live in Brooklyn, both boroughs of New York City, so it's the same system, the same Department of Transportation, for both of us. V_B is right that, for the most part, people don't park in the bike lanes, but they will stop there to take on or discharge passengers or cargo. It's annoying.

And the turning lane thing is real. As are drivers turning left across the bike lane (for some reason they're mostly on the left side of the road, at least on the large north/south avenues) without checking for bikes, forcing the cyclist to hit the brakes or turn left with the car to avoid being run over.

All that said, as imperfect as the system is, people have mostly gotten used to it, and it works pretty well. It certainly works better than what we had before, which was no system at all.

I-Like-To-Bike

It doesn't seem that the bike lane-parking situation where you live is anything like the confusing and counterintuitive layout in Dayton.
I take it from the posts here that parking meters in Brooklyn and Queens (or anywhere else) are NOT lined up along the curb and assigned to each legitimate parking spot located on the other side of a bike lane and a no traffic separation lane, as apparently is the case in the Dayton.

It is the presence of the multiple parking meters lined up along the curb for each parking space that makes the Dayton layout a losing proposition for all concerned.

Inisfallen

No, in NYC, we don't have meters on the curb anymore -- V_B describes the layout pretty well.

I don't know anything about Dayton -- maybe there's a plan to replace the meters, maybe not, I don't know. But I do like to see lanes carved out of the roads for bicycles.

I-Like-To-Bike

The Dayton layout was the subject of the OP and was described there.
Maybe there is a plan to replace the meters or erect physical barriers to prevent motor vehicles from parking alongside the meters at the curb; but until such time as that occurs, anyone expecting motorists to not notice the presence of parking meters alongside the curb and to ignore the standard parking procedure in their presence throughout the U.S and elsewhere, may be smoking something funny, under the influence, or may be even considered ignorant in some quarters.

mr_bill

Who is smoking, who is under the influence, and who is ignorant?

Parking meters? Check.
Ignoring "standard parking procedures?" Check.
In the U.S? Boston, Check.

195 Beacon St - Google Maps

It took a few weeks to get used to. But people got used to it before the flexposts, but the flexposts really helped too. (But we do have a brief problem during move-in every year, but that's almost over for another year.)

Oh ye of little faith in humanity.

p.s. We also have snow, and humanity still gets it right. And there are no flexposts in the winter.

-mr. bill

livedarklions

Hey, long time no see! Good to see you're starting to ride again.

I can't tell from the picture, but are there signs there in addition to the flexposts? What I found surprising about the Dayton setup was that they really don't seem to have put up any signs about where the parking is now, just relied on people figuring out the painted boxes in the street.

I have faith in humanity's ability to learn the new arrangement, but you do have to put at least some effort into teaching it to them. Nothing above the surface of the road is just not enough notice.

I-Like-To-Bike

Yeah, I'm sure the Boston drivers have legal parking and not ever blocking bike lanes down pat, don't know why there was ever any need to install flex posts for such clever and considerate drivers since they figured it all out (got used to it) on this street without them.

livedarklions

I've ridden on bike lanes in Boston. People don't park in them much to my knowledge. There's a lot of screwing with the flexposts though.
No idea why you think the sarcasm is appropriate. He's saying there were a few weeks of confusion. You're not claiming that people can never learn the new arrangement, are you? That would be silly.

The one difference between Dayton and Boston in this regard is that the bike lanes appear to be much better marked in Boston. Signs are important. Pavement paint is almost useless, especially when winter takes the paint off every year.

I-Like-To-Bike

What is silly is for someone to rant about ignorant motorists as the cause of the parking "confusion" seen in the introduction of an entirely new and unusual parking arrangement in Dayton that was still lacking the marking, warning signs, flex posts or other accoutrements necessary for the proper use of this confusing parking/driving arrangement. Obviously Boston found it necessary to make adjustments like installing flex posts to their layout because it was not working that well without them.

livedarklions

You AND Op both went over the top with the ignorant rhetoric just in opposite directions. I think we disposed of blame the ignorant drivers stuff at about post 2. Mr. Bill certainly said nothing of the kind and neither did I.

Rick

I started this post knowing some of us would go to the dark side and assume. The main point is the people implementing the bicycle infrastructure already know they are creating something that is not first rate. This is why I am not in favor of improperly built death traps they call bicycle lanes. In some places in the US they do bicycle infrastructure better. Painting lines in the road has never been enough. I read about a dangerous intersection were they were going to have a separate traffic light for the students and when it came time to implement this the painted line death trap was there solution.

bblevens

Agreed. That is not a protected bike lane. The idea looks good and gives the cyclist tons of room.
But after driving and curb parking for decades it will be hard to change peoples habits. IMO poor planning and design.

stephr1

If there was a way to put the parking meter out by the parking spots, that might help clue people in to what's going on. Wonder how many people will park in the proper place and not bother to feed the meter?

AlanO

They need barriers, this seems really unclear.

foothillbilly

Plenty of people are seriously ignorant, but some of them are also hostile.

SteveG23

"Counterintuitive" is an understatement. The bike lanes should be adjacent to vehicle traffic, not between parked cars and the curb. This way, people have to exit cars and walk across the lane where bicycles are whizzing by, to get to the curb. I expect lawsuits arising from the big safety risk to children and to elderly and disabled passengers.

livedarklions

Yeah, no. Getting caught between the line of parked cars and fast-moving cars on a bike is definitely a lot more dangerous than exiting a parked car several feet away from a bike lane. You get out of the car, stand on the diagonal line until you see that there's no bike coming, and then cross the lane. What's the problem?

Also, most people get out of the car on the driver's side, so if the bike lane is between the parking lane and the traffic lane, most people exiting the car will be stepping right into the bike lane.

SteveG23

I didn't suggest eliminating the safety lane in between.

livedarklions

You realize how far that puts the bike lane out into the street? At that point, there's no reason to have the bike lane.

Anyway, that makes no sense. If the safety zone is adequate on the driver's side, why isn't it adequate on the passenger side?

SteveG23

My concern is the ability of passengers getting out of cars to be able to reach the sidewalk safely, without crossing any moving traffic - including bicycle traffic. The safety zone between the car and the bike lane, on either side of the car, provides a buffer so the car door isn't opened in the bicycles' way, providing a degree of safety for both; if it's on the driver's side but the car is parked against the curb, the driver can then walk around the car to the curb without crossing traffic.

Car passengers who will be getting out of the curb side of the car on city streets include small children, the elderly, and the disabled, whom you won't find on bicycles in this environment. The Dayton system places their needs far behind those of bicyclists'. Think of a blind person, or one in a wheelchair, having to get out of the car and then cross between the gaps in bicycles, rather than having direct access to the sidewalk. I know my elderly mother-in-law, who has all her senses but walks very slowly and has issues with balance, would be terrified. She just wouldn't go downtown.

Yes, it would be lovely if every road could have a truly separated bicycle lane, but that's not realistic - there generally isn't room (or funding). In the Dayton situation apparently they decided there was both, but I think they got their priorities wrong.