Turning the Corner on Bike Lanes

A two-dimensional solution to a three-dimensional problem

It's possible that many municipal workers and civil engineers become entranced with the plan views on their blueprints and don't consider the real-world applications of their decisions. A case in point that I see everywhere is the first bike lane marking that appears outside an intersection. I maintain that these are placed too close to the intersections to be of any use for those turning onto the marked roadway, likely just because someone with a two dimensional overhead drawing saw that new traffic may enter a given road at an intersection and determined that the logical spot for the bike/chevrons graphic is, of course, just at the exit of the intersection. 

The trouble is that, from the driver's perspective, the visuals are hopelessly distorted - made abstract - by the driver's position when negotiating the turn. If the driver is looking well ahead, where he/she should be, the bike lane marking is certainly not recognizable for what it represents (assuming it isn't missed all together.) 

The proposal: Just move the first post-intersection bike lane graphics further down the road, so that drivers can find them once they have finished the relatively intense action of navigating the turn (No pedestrians, cyclists, or other vehicles hit? Check!) and are able to properly process any new information that comes from driving straight forward. Easy peasy. 

This example is for a left-turning driver, but I'd posit that the same issue applies to right-turning. 

I'm not saying adopting this will make cycling any safer, but it will certainly help municipalities communicate most effectively on their limited budgets. These suckers can cost over $100/apiece, so bang for the buck really matters. May as well ensure every driver sees every marking.

Bike Lanes - Exasperations to the Editor

artist: Peter Drew, Adelaide. Image: carltonreid, flickr

To quote a sailor more eloquent than me: "I've had all I can stands, I can't stands no more!"

As a member of my city's Cycling Committee, I see the degree of resistance our conservative citizens have toward any change, especially where the almighty auto is concerned. After reluctantly reading yet another screed in the local rag against a bike lanes trial along our Lakeshore Drive, I felt I had to say something, lest these frightened masses whip themselves into a fury that runs our Cycling Master Plan right off the road. The straw that broke the camel's back for me was one citizen, who had the temerity to drive around for an entire hour on a mild day this January counting bicycles (nice way to treat the air, eh?!) to build his case that there aren't enough of "us" to justify expenditures on bike lanes. There are several issues I want to address before I give up on this godforsaken region, but to stay on topic for my reply to the editor, I kept it to the following:

In response to __________'s Letter to the Editor, 'Where were all the cyclists?'

19 bikes in the middle of January sounds great, given that most cyclists have their steeds in storage! But no, you are correct, Mr. _____, Burlington is "not Holland or Europe." It is a city - those are a country and a continent. If you want to experience large, sprawling cities, you should visit some of those found in Holland and Europe. They are simply ahead of where Burlington is; they were enlightened enough in days gone by to create the networks necessary for their large, latent contingents of interested-but-hesitant cyclists to hop onto their bikes. Having lived and biked in a "sprawling city" in France, I am speaking from my experience. Until such time as Burlington has a comprehensive network of bike lanes that allows a person to cycle from any given Point A to Point B without risking a "squeeze play" with automobiles, people like you will always be able to point to anemic numbers as proof of failure of initiatives such as these. Instead, they are a sign that we still have work to do, and, perhaps tragically for some, compromise to make. 

The big picture I see here is that each person who chooses to bike instead of drive is making a comprehensive change in their life. Whether it is for recreational, fitness, or commuting purposes, this revised lifestyle alters the entire make-up of their day. This is in exchange for what, realistically, might amount to a delay measured in seconds or, in a worst case scenario, a few minutes? It seems like a reasonable compromise to ask of fellow citizens: many seconds - if any - from one to improve many hours for others. This is not a comprehensive lifestyle change for drivers - you're just being asked to share the road here. Now that I think of it, perhaps, Mr.  _____, you are afraid this trial will be successful, in which case your hour of driving around the city will entail passing countless cyclists?!

To anyone who says cyclists should be segregated to one artery like the hydro path, I say, Get real. What motorist would tolerate one single, partial, route across this city? It is nice that it exists and I thank the city - and all of us taxpayers - for the option and I use it when it suits my needs, but what if I want to go  anywhere else? Like you, Mr.  _____, I may want to spend an hour travelling from east to west in this large, sprawling city, but, unlike you, I just don't want to drive to do so.

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It is amazing how effective it is to wait for five minutes before sending out diatribes like mine. I axed a ton of insults and sarcasm.

Bike Lanes + Rumble Strips...

... a possible marriage made in heaven? The thinking I've got behind this is that if we can lend a "tooth" (better yet, "fang") to our lanes where they are most exposed, like long bridge merges, we will rattle some drivers to alertness. More to come on this...

I Will Die on Upper Middle Road...

... and please, just don't say He went doing something he loved.

There are two principles behind the following rant:
1) There must be a grand design behind all of this.
2) I must not know it.

In Oakville, Ontario, over the span of many kilometres, a road exists that links up various Points A to countless other Points B. It stands, or more correctly, lays, as a testament to audacious civil engineering. In fact, it transcends audacious, bypasses courageous and inventive, settling somewhere between cheeky and downright cynical.

Four lanes of blacktop are squeezed tightly within immeasurable tracts of suburban greenspace; a grassy No-Man's Land far larger than what has been fought over and died for in any number of wars. The end result demands a high level of skills, vigilance, and good fortune - on the part of both cyclists and drivers - to avoid contact.

How it could be...

... and how it is, alas, on Upper Middle.
But it could be I just don't yet get it, perhaps more research is needed. I might learn, for instance, that the municipality reserved these enormous regions of unused terra firma to bolster a future Pan Am Games bid. The Games selection committee would behold the vast rolling oceans of boulevard (18' to the just the sidewalk in places, whereas the traffic lanes are only 12' wide) and have no trouble imagining hosting all of the track and field events between the sidewalk and townhouses that run from Sixth Line and Oxford Street.

It's conceivable the Department of National Defense appropriated the gulf between neighbourhoods for a makeshift airstrip in the event of World War Three. As luck would have it though, the Western world of today appears to be mired in a period of relative peacefulness, and the prospect of C5s taxiing through town is as remote as Toronto's likelihood of meeting its bike lane targets.

Fall fairs, plowing matches, tractor pulls, tennis tournaments, monster truck races, steeplechases, cricket games and jousting festivals have been variously proposed for these stretches of sod, and although the city fathers have smugly denied them all, the fact remains the entire wad of these could be held simultaneously and there'd still be room for a dedicated bike lane and a bocce pitch.

But, you counter, there is a bike path! Well, yes. And no. A partial one exists. It hopscotches Upper Middle, schizophrenically skipping between north and south sides. This no doubt serves that small, mythic demographic of cyclists (who, in their entirety, form a small demographic) who never emerge from the block they live on, choosing instead to ride around and around until either their dogs are too bored or it's time to drive somewhere again. The meandering course of these bike pathlets is conducive only to "toodling" - a derogatory term civil engineers coined to disparage that pie slice of unwashed masses that chooses to be aimless out-of-doors. It certainly doesn't support cross-town commuting - the reason why Upper Middle itself is as straight as can be for drivers.

Some wag suggested that the current paths may be fragments of some larger, alien geoglyphs - huge chalk drawings scrawled out by intelligent beings from outer space. The paradox here is if they couldn't see the grief these routes would give to serious cyclists then these beings may have been a few bricks short of a load, hardly capable of holding down even a junior civil engineering position. The only other feasible explanation that comes to mind is perhaps these are remnants of a failed marketing crop circle brainstorm. Heads likely rolled when advertisers realized that no matter how clever their message may be, it was doomed if only zeppelin passengers could see it.

Born as they are of the best intentions, it's a pity to say it but bike paths' very separation from roadways has given rise to a new, unforeseen hazard: the high-speed pedestular right-hook. Cyclists wishing to cross an intersection from an inset bike path are all but invisible to a motorist's peripheral vision. When said motorist makes a right turn, unless the cyclist is as slow as a pedestrian, a collision is hard to avoid. This inadvertent ambush of drivers is then legislatively solved by municipalities declaring that cyclists must dismount when they cross intersections, in order to give the hapless motorists a fighting chance. Fair enough - if you're a motorist. Discriminatory if you ride a bicycle. This thinking thrusts cyclists into a netherworld between motorist and pedestrian. For that period of time and space where a cyclist is obliged to dismount and walk, their status as motorist is effectively revoked, a slight no less vexing than demanding pedestrians remove their shoes before crossing or motorists check their oil before turning right on a green. Clearly, to paraphrase Jeff Bridges' character from The Big Lebowski, The Dude does not abide.