Cassia wrote in part:
> ... I would love to get some references on why that is so dangerous
and
> ineffective. Especially appreciated would be Canadian references,
> followed by Ontario.
>
> Since I need to "prove" this to bull headed bureaucrats who don't
ride
> bikes,...<snip>
I'm no fan of bike lanes myself but, Good Luck.
"All the evidence available suggests that striping bike lanes on the
roadway
has a positive impact on the actual and perceived safety of
bicyclists...
A recent study comparing roads with striped bike lanes and with "wide
outside lanes" confirmed that in addition to creating more orderly
traffic flow,
the striped lanes encouraged safer behavior by cyclists..."
http://www.bicyclinginfo.org/insight/faqs/bicycle_facilities.htm
Bike lanes seem to be effective traffic calming devices for young,
brain-
challenged, or plain bad drivers/cyclists. Personally I completely
ignore
the lane stripes when positioning myself in the street, like most
experienced riders.
That doesn't mean I don't often find myself riding in a bike lane, and
it certainly
doesn't mean I can't appreciate that the presence of the lane stripe
might make me
safer or just more hassle-free with respect to some passing vehicles.
Moritz' survey revealed a small advantage for bike-laned roads over
plain
ol' wide curb lanes, and, not surprisingly, a huge difference between
those roads
and narrow-curb-lane roads. Wide curb lanes are still the cyclist's
best friend,
bike lane or no. Even though Moritz' survey could really be seen to
support the
concept of wide curb lanes, rather than lane stripes, and even though
it is
replete with problems like all other bicycle accident stat
clustermunches,
the survey has been disappeared down the memory hole by bike
lane-haters.
They simply pretend it doesn't exist. This artful ignorance of
available
evidence is exactly what Forester (the original bike lane-hater)
accused the
World of 30 years ago--a conspiracy of sorts to willfully ignore an
accident
survey while making safety claims about bicycle facilities.
Basically, anyone who starts reciting accident stats as if they really
mean
something should have insults and vegetables hurled in their general
direction.
Your town aldermen, ombudsmen, and comptrollers, if they're smart,
might
do something like that to you. Anyone who thinks they have to ignore an
accident
survey to make a point is giving the survey too much credit; anyone who
needs
an accident survey to make a point is giving the point too much credit.
Bike lanes come with some advantages (facilitating road-sharing by
vehicles with
vast differences in speed, encouraging more beginners to ride the
streets) and some
problems (mainly keeping inexperienced riders too close to the side of
the road in
situations that demand they be farther out in the lane). It's not the
end of the world
if your town decides it likes bike lanes. I suggest gently introducing
the
concept of sharrows instead of bike lanes. Sharrows, well applied, may
just give
us the advantages of bike lanes without the problems.
But then, the bike lane diatribes would cease, ushering in an era of
great upheaval
in newgroups across the land.
Robert
r
