Maybe this is cuz I’m a cycling newbie, but I have to say those bike lanes really do make a diff for me.

I guess my point is — due to biking advocacy and such, Santa Monica has a good # of bikers, as well as a good # of bike lanes. And because of that, I feel pretty safe in the bike lane. I get the impression that drivers’re (if grudgingly) paying attention to the fact that bikers exist — and many of them’ll smile and wave you through if you wanna make a left.

And I want bikers in other cities to experience this same kinda courtesy –

If there is a bike lane, under California law a cyclist MUST use it, and may only leave it to turn left or to avoid a danger . . . so just like the guy in the UK, if you skip the bike lane, you can be cited here.

As a former bike-lanes-at-all-costs kinda guy, let me list some of the dangers to be aware of, and make sure your city deals with those that can be dealt with.

1. Lanes in the door zone. It is dangerous to ride in the door zone. Period. You learned that the hard way, but a “dooring” has the potential to seriously injure or even kill a bike driver. (It is like hitting a low brick wall. If the hit doesn’t hurt you, flying off the bike at speed can.)

2. Bike lanes set bike drivers up for awkward maneuvers at intersections, where left and right turning cars more easily hit them. Even a bike lane safely outside of the door zone makes a bike creep up beside parked traffic and inside of right-turning cars.

3. Some bike lanes put both directions of travel on one side of the street.

There is more, but that is the gist of the argument.

The wider lanes theory is OK on a high-speed road, but on any street where the traffic is under 35 MPH (including a city street) it is still safer (and easier) to spend more time in the travel lane than you than you might think. This is especially true at intersections, where by occupying the lane in stopped traffic you create a cocoons of safety for yourself that does not exist when one slides up the side of a “car” lane.

I used to use the exact same comment that one of your poster’s did: That bike lanes raise car awareness, which they do to a degree, but are subject to all the problems noted. Instead, in Pasadena, we have gone to the use of Share the Road signage and edge-striping — to raise awareness and allow cyclists to better take-the-lane . . . seems to be working, too, as we have apparently a large increase in general cycling in the last five years. . .

As for Traffic Calming measures, they can and should be implemented one car-laden neighborhood at a time.

The biggest long term issue is changing attitudes — both the “what do you mean you didn’t ride here in a car?” attitude, and “it will never work here” one. It can, and does, one bicycle mile at a time. (grin).

Having said all that, may I strongly suggest, again, taking the Road Cycling course? You can contact the LA County Bicycle Coalition (website somewhere) as a start on that…

Roger

Parge — Traffic calming measures sound brill! Might be a lil tough here in LA to get put into action, since the car’s king still, but maybe target a road at a time –

If you want to read arguments against lanes and paths from vehicular cyclists, check out http://probicycle.com/ and http://johnforester.com/

One of the things that has occurred here in Vancouver is the combination of the creation of bike lanes/routes and the installation of traffic calming measures. This can take the shape of speed bumps/mounds, roundabouts, narrower intersections, bike-only intersections (cars have to turn rather than carry on straight through), and other bike-friendly/car-unfriendly diversions. Cyclist-controlled traffic signals are also a big help.

In most cases, our bike routes go through neighborhoods, off of the busy streets. One route, the Adanac bikeway, gets so much bike traffic, that only local car traffic seems to invade it. With the increase in bicycles, cars just get bogged down on these routes.

Found an interesting thread on the matter here…

For me, depends on what bike I’m on. On my skinny little road bike, I feel hesitant to get in there w/ cars – big steel machines vs. puny little road frame. On my Xtracycle, I feel alot safer riding in lanes w/ cars, I’m more visible….

Either way, drivers DO need to be better educated about sharing the road, I get annoyed looks and honks all the time for daring share space with them……