Diamond at Canyon, Continued

My understanding, concerning the Diamond/Canyon bike lane configuration, is that DPW Director Kyle Zimmerman and Acting County Administrator Randy Autio will be discussing it early next week, according to what Kyle said last night at the T Board meeting.

Meanwhile, be careful out there. No system is perfect and lane markers, even excellent ones, don't have magical protective properties.

There is no design of your garden variety bike lane that is free from potential hazards under all conditions seen in an urban environment. As far as the bicyclist's traffic position, bike lanes put cyclists to the right of other traffic. That's fine when everyone is going in the same direction and the bicyclist is the low speed vehicle. But in an urban environment, that means others will be turning right across the thru bike lane at turn points. That also means you will be leaving the bike lane to turn left. 

That right turn issue is why a standard intersection design puts the bike lane between the right turn bay and the thru lane, often accompanied by an R4-4, sign (Begin Right Turn Lane Yield to Bikes) in order to manage lane changing. Council unintentionally put us in a weird box with its 2006 directive, which constrained the total road width and which said explicitly to use the turn bay as the bike lane. I would have preferred to keep the turn bay there and put sharrows in the right travel lane, and said as much last night.

One of the things that Neale Pickett and I both teach is that while a bike lane may be excellent for 99% of the time (and Diamond bike lanes are on balance, excellent close to 99% of the time--thank you, Kyle Zimmerman, Nancy Talley, and Staff!), it is incumbent on the cyclist to know when they are not excellent. At those times when they are not excellent, the situation requires one to either use the bike lane within its limitations or move outside the bike lane. That is a part of the social contract accepted by the cyclist when putting in bike lanes. I've posted on our LA bikes blog that cyclists on a downhill bike lane approaching turning and crossing points (i.e., northbound Diamond at Canyon) need to either:

1. Slow down and keep speed low in cases where turning and crossing conflicts can occur so you have time to react safely to adversity, or,

2. If moving faster than its safe in the bike lane, and especially if moving at the speed of traffic, then check for traffic in the travel lane, signal, and when safe, merge into the travel lane to control the lane and increase one's visibility. Note here: motorists cannot be allowed to get grumpy about this and harass the cyclist.

The choice to the cyclist depends on the cyclist's level of experience and comfort moving into traffic and the cyclist needs to understand the underlying reasons for the choices. Chances are very good that Neale and I will not get hit by a car at Diamond and Canyon. My worry is that now that we have a complete bike lane system, not all the cyclists or motorists are going to have done their hazard analysis and mitigation drill. Not to mention, be thinking.

There are some treatments for intersections that make them a little more intuitive or increase cyclist visibility to cut down on errors. Some are more avant garde and some are still (I think) awaiting approval from MUTCD et al.  Neale mentioned dashing the bike lanes as they approach intersections, which is an MUTCD "should" advisory rather than a "must", and which encourages both motorists and cyclists to understand that they have to work together and expect to be maneuvering around each other as they approach turning and crossing points. Brightly colored bike lanes  and bike boxes are another treatment to catch the motorist's attention, which I think Portland and a few other cities are experimenting with. But these have their own down sides, as discussed elsewhere. Where there is not room for a bike lane or where a bike lane is a lousy idea, Sharrows are now an approved MUTCD treatment. If you haven't seen a sharrow in Santa Fe, check out the picture below.

Nothing takes the place of the skill and experience of motorists and bicyclists, though. We should (must?), however, make intersections as intuitive as possible, and remember that bike lanes are a tool in our toolbox, not the whole box.

Sharrows, i.e., arrows combined with a bike symbol, 
reminding people that bikes will be in the lane
Sometimes, however, installed in door zones.