Some of our friends in other states, as well as some local advocates have asked me about why bike lanes shouldn’t be striped solid at intersections. Here’s a picture of just such a facility in Florida, care of our friends at CommuteOrlando.com:
http://commuteorlando.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/onramp1.jpg
Bike Lane Striped Solid at Intersection in Florida
Here’s a slide that gives a visual representation of the problems created by this bike lane treatment (and even a wide lane under Far To Right law guidance): http://www.cyclistview.com/uploadedphotos/Incompatible-Destination-Lanes-Draft.jpg
Problems with Incompatible Destination Lanes
And here’s a detailed explanation in terms of Engineering and Planning and the Legal/Operational issues that result: Read more…
The LA Times covered the conviction of an ER doctor who assaulted two cyclists in Mandeville Canyon last year in a case of road rage turned deadly:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cyclist3-2009nov03,0,761131.story
The question has been asked by the press and local advocates, “What can we learn from this incident?”
Last year, shortly after the incident occurred, CABO VP, Brian DeSousa and CABO District 7 Director, Dan Gutierrez, made a quick turnaround video answer to this question in order to help local advocates brief Los Angeles City Council members on improved cyclist/motorist relations.
The key is to improve motorist/cyclist cooperation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKSVwhLMjBk
The current draft of the City of Los Angeles Bicycle Master Plan (BMP) gives up on bicyclist use of the vast majority of the roads in the city and focuses on bikeways. In effect, this plan allows LA Dept. of Transportation (LADOT) to simply ignore the overwhelming majority of roadways as facilities that bicyclists will use and relieves them of any obligation to make the surface standards, intersection designs, and signal detection support bicycling on this majority of roadways. What follows is a re-write of the top level policies with existing policies augmented and a small number of important new goals and policies added. My changes are identified by [square brackets]. Read more…
