Well, the anti-bike-lane meme continues to spread. I came across a fairly good depiction of why you must push hard for street-sweeping of bike lanes from Cary, NC (where I have a few friends), which learned the lesson that bike lanes are bad because they attract debris.
Of course, personal experience on Shoal Creek says otherwise (just as much debris with no bike lanes) as does experience on Bull Creek (just as much debris on the wide-outside-lane stretch north of 45th as on the bike-lane stretch south of 45th).
And I’ve previously made the point that bike lanes DO, in fact, provide more space in passing, although not on average, but rather, at the minimum, which is much more important.
But the thing that most people forget to ever think about is this: the transportation department in your city does not exist purely for the benefit of cyclists. Yes, radical, I know. On high-speed roadways, there is a public safety AND a public service benefit to separating slower-speed traffic, and it’s not just for bikes. Spicewood Springs Road west of US 183 has an additional right lane on an uphill stretch for trucks. And other truck lanes exist on rural roads throughout our area. Those car drivers have a right to good traffic flow too, after all.
In fact, the transportation department in your city views it as their mission to provide for good flow of traffic, even when the traffic is cars. This means that once in a while, you might have to keep right, since you’re slower traffic, and it may, in fact, inconvenience you. Just as it may, in fact, mean that you occasionally inconvenience motorists. Likewise, while it may have been more convenient for me to drive the old convertible loaded with junk on Mopac on one of our moving trips, the fact that I couldn’t go faster than 30 mph without stuff flying out meant that I drove, instead, on Lamar Blvd, and what’s more, I drove in the right lane until shortly before I planned on turning left.
These wide outside lane (or shared lane) zealots logic questions why we bother with lane stripes at all. The law says slower traffic should keep right (whether it be my wife’s pokey old Civic or my bike), and by their reasoning, in both cases other cars think that when I use the right lane, I’ve segregated myself and allowed others to think I have no right to the other lanes on the road. Certainly one could see that having lane stripes at all is kind of a waste, given their experience that cars always provide enough passing distance when sharing a lane. Why don’t we just turn Mopac into a two-lane highway? If it’s good enough for passing bikes, why isn’t it good enough for passing cars?
Part of the reason why this bugs me so much is that I have been occasionally commuting by bike from the center city to the far suburbs at various jobs over the last few years (my fans will please note that the slideshow linked there is from my previous residence to my third of four offices two companies ago). In contrast, on previous occasions when I’ve gotten into it with these anti-bike-lane yahoos, it becomes clear that they’re primarily members of the following groups:
- European cyclists – live in areas where suburbanization and the requisite high-speed arterials, useless collectors which don’t go anywhere other than the arterial, and cul-de-sacs simply don’t exist
- Urban cyclists – those who rarely venture on roadways with design speeds or typical speeds more then 35 or 40 mph
Why do these people consider themselves qualified to judge whether Jollyville Road in northwest Austin (45 mph speed limit, 55-ish design speed) should have bike lanes? I don’t think downtown is the right place for bike lanes either; but a one-size-fits-all solution is just stupid.
