The Bike Lane Debate:
Problems with bike lanes that most people don't think about until it is too late
Here's the bottom line—(in case you won’t read all of this)
In urban settings, I think that even bike lanes that are well designed often create more problems than they solve. Thus, at this point, given the dozens of research articles and reports I have read from around the world, I strongly prefer the development of wide outside lanes with effective road signs, education, and enforcement rather than separate bike lanes in most cases.
Bike lanes actually increase the likelihood of the three most common car-caused car-bike crashes. These are called the left hook, the right hook, and the drive out. (details in article below). They also increase the likelihood of ‘getting doored’ when installed in urban settings with parallel on-street parking (like many midtown streets)
Bike lanes help avoid only one type of crash, the least-common car-bike crash, which is a car hitting a cyclist from behind.
Bike lanes look simple, but they actually make the roadway more complicated for cyclists and motorists alike.
If cyclists routinely hit speeds approaching or exceeding 20 mph (like on the downhill from Yates east on Shady Grove) bike lanes are too narrow to ride in safely—at high speeds cyclists need more room to operate than is offered by the standard 4 foot wide bike lane.
Many bike lanes are installed by planners who do not ride bikes and who do not understand the complexities of bicycling in urban traffic. Just lay down a stripe of paint within the legal limits and it is done-- a bike lane! It is a lot more complicated than that. So I am strongly against blindly rushing to paint stripes on roads when it will do no real good and might even make things worse.
Now, for greater detail than in the highlights above—
Problems with bike lanes that most people don't think about until it is too late
1. Bike lanes can create conflicts that can kill and injure cyclists. How? Click here to read an in-depth article about it.
Bike lanes complicate the road and lead to more car-bike conflict than there would be without the bike lanes. In traffic engineer language, a conflict occurs when streams of traffic cross. Bike lanes create twice as many car-bike crossing conflicts per mile when installed in typical urban or suburban settings.
Bike Lanes increase the likelihood of the three most typical types of car-bike crashes-- the left hook, the right hook, and the drive out. Read the article above for depth.
Bike lanes subject cyclists to more trash and debris than roads with no bike lanes due to the 'street sweeping' effect of the tires of motor vehicles. Vehicular traffic tends to propel road debris to the curbline where it lies in wait for the street sweeper. In bike lanes, however, this litter 'migration' occurs more slowly, posing a substantial safety hazard for cyclists.
Bike lanes create the illusion of safety but increase the actual risk. Please take a moment to read about a cyclist who was killed in Cambridge as a result of a poor bike lane design that was within legal design standards, i.e., "up to code". Click here and also click here.
2. Bike lanes actually require more cyclist skills, not less. Why? Bike Lanes are thought to be better for novices-- just ride in the bike lane and you'll be ok, right? No, not really. Because of the issues mentioned in 1 (above), bike Lanes actually create more complicated traffic situations, require more complicated traffic decisions from the cyclist and require more complex traffic negotiation skills than simply riding on the street without painted bike lanes.
If cyclists never need to turn left and motorists never need to turn across the bike lanes, no problem! But that is not how the streets work.
3. Bike Lanes require more land for the Right of Way purchase-- they are more expensive than just making the outside lane wide enough to accommodate motor vehicles and bicycles. Why? A 4 or 5 foot wide bike lane and a standard 12 foot lane are 16-17 feet wide. A Wide Outside Lane (WOL) takes only 14-15 feet instead of the 16-17 feet required for the street with a bike lane. Cyclists and motorists can be easily share Wide Outside Lanes.
4. Bike Lanes segregate bicycles from other road users-- this is a bad thing. The bike lane becomes the ghetto and other road users (including the police) will sometimes use vigilante tactics to make sure bicyclists "stay in their place" on the road, even if it isn't safe or adequately maintained. Read more here.
Car-bike crashes do not occur on standard urban roads without painted stripes for bike lanes when cyclists operate their bikes using the same rules of the road as when they drive their cars and when drivers of motor vehicles treat cyclists as they treat any other slow moving vehicle. However, that situation takes education and enforcement, not engineering.
This seems to me to be a very heated area of disagreement in urban cycling. The arguments are generally between very experienced veteran urban cyclists (anti-bike lanes, pro road sharing) and non-cyclists or novice cyclists (pro bike lanes).
But, for example-- In Cambridge, Massachusetts experts recommended strongly that bike lanes not be painted on certain roads because they were too dangerous. The city painted the bike lanes anyway-- a cyclist riding in the bike lane was killed. I can understand the anger and frustration a little more when I hear how bike lanes have impacted cyclists in other parts of the country. You can read about the Cambridge fatality here and also here.
Definitions:
Bike Lane: A bike lane (4’ wide) is painted on the street that is shared with motor vehicles and all other legal road users.
Bike Path: A Bike Path is separate facility where no motor vehicle traffic is allowed-- true bike paths prohibit anything other than bikes-- no walkers, no runners, etc.
Multi-Use Path/Greenway: A Multi-Use Path or Greenway is separate from motor vehicles and usually allows all forms of non-motorized transportation (walkers, runners, dog walkers, skaters, children, cyclists, wheel chairs) Motorized traffic is not allowed at all.
FYI, Multi-Use Paths or Greenways have the highest accident rate per mile for cyclists. Two cyclists were killed in separate incidents when they crashed on an overcrowded greenway near Baltimore last year.