As a cyclist, do you prefer to ride in the bike lane or do you consider yourself part of traffic and take the lane? What's your rationale? What city do you live in? What's the biking infrastructure like there?
Bike Lane Or I Am Traffic?
- Thread starter LaikaComeHome
- Start date
I prefer the bikes e when there is one. I'd live iin small town, Kentucky so we don't really have bike lanes. What we do have are horrible drivers that expect you to pull over into the grass every time a car comes up behind you. This town doesn't do much to help cyclists with safety.
I live in Southern California, and there are tons of bike lanes here. It's not a cyclist's haven necessarily, but we did recently pass a law that makes drivers give cyclists three feet of leeway minimum from the bike lane as they pass or they can face a ticket. I don't know how much that's being enforced, though. Anyways, I prefer using the bike lane when it's available, and I see dozens of cyclists using these lanes whenever I'm out and about.
It depends on where you're at. In places such as NYC and Seattle, there are bike lanes everywhere, so you should obviously use those. However, more often than not those bike lanes are obstructed either with construction or vehicles (see Casey Neistat's video Bike Lanes) and so you should merge with traffic and become part of traffic. I'm pretty sure in some US states bikes are pedestrians on footpaths and they're traffic when on the road, but I could be wrong. Just see if people yell at you when you're out on the street or whether they yell at you when you're on the sidewalk, or consult your local authorities.
I like to stay in the bike lane. In my city, there are quite a few bike lanes that go nearly everywhere in town, and they are nice and wide so I feel safe in them. Unfortunately, nice bike lanes aren't in every city or town, and in that case I would probably overtake the lane.
I am working on developing a system to help improve the road experience of cyclists so would you please complete this short survey? (10-11questions detailing your cycling experience) Thank yougavinfree said:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/126Q9hRY80ADylFRmnZKj0VHNNmrzU6_9zJEVVZloEpE/viewform?usp=send_form
Bike lanes can be a joke. As I have said in enough other posts, I like to keep to the bike trails. But I have been on my share of bike lanes and more times then not, they just stop. Especially appreciate when this happens around a narrow curve. I say bravo to the planners of these lanes, they can all pat themselves on the back.
If there's a bike lane I use it. They were made to be used for the safety of cyclists so I'll use them and am thankful for them.
The amount of times I've driven down a road with a cycle lane and yet seen a cyclist riding along the road baffles me. If there's a bike lane, USE IT!!. It's what they were made for.
The amount of times I've driven down a road with a cycle lane and yet seen a cyclist riding along the road baffles me. If there's a bike lane, USE IT!!. It's what they were made for.
Bike lanes where I am are a joke. They only exist for small stretches of road and often aren't even paved that well. There's some areas of my town where the regular road will be nice smooth pavement while the bike lane will have tons of potholes and broken concrete that make it unsafe to ride on if you're going fast. I wish my city would spend more to improve them but they did a few years ago and faced backlash so I'm not surprised.
I think things would be better if bikes were treated as regular traffic so people got used to sharing the road.
I think things would be better if bikes were treated as regular traffic so people got used to sharing the road.
