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Sebastian Wren wrote:
>
> Shoal Creek and Exposition Blvd. are excellent examples of bike lanes
> with parking.
>
Hi -
Regardless of the merits of replacing the turn lane on North Loop with
on-street parking (I like the idea and think it's worth thinking about)
I must point out that Exposition no longer allows parking in the bike
lane, and the Shoal Creek "shoulder" is widely seen as a catastrophic
breakdown in the city's ability to put public safety above the concerns
of a handful of politically active and extremely vocal neighbors. In
point of fact, the city's traffic engineers refused to certify the
striping on Shoal Creek as a bike lane, citing safety concerns and fear
of a lawsuit. In the end, they wouldn't sign off on this until it was
agreed that what was installed would be called a wide shoulder, not a
bike lane.
The city's official policy now is that bike lanes are either
automatically no-parking zones, or, when this is not possible, the bike
lane striping is removed whenever next the street is re-striped.
Since I've spent a considerable amount of time working on these issues,
I'd like to mention that allowing parking in bicycle lanes does present
a significant safety problem, as it forces bicyclists to leave the lane
and merge with higher speed motor vehicle traffic when going around
parked cars. Motorists can't seem to put 2 and 2 together and always
seemed surprised and angry when a bicyclists merges in front of them to
avoid a parked car. And if enough cars are parked in the bike lane, the
facility becomes virtually useless. Moreover, *any* parked cars should
be viewed as a significant safety concern for less skilled and younger
bicyclists. I keep saying this over and over, and will say it again:
until we provide routes where parents feel safe letting their 8-year
olds bike around by themselves with their friends, we've failed at
providing adequate infrastructure to truly allow for an alternative
transportation culture to flourish. Many Class A bicyclists and John
Forrester disciples will be shocked and offended by this pronouncement,
so let me say it again: we're not talking about you -- until we provide
bicycling and pedestrian infrastructure that is safe for 6-year olds and
unattended 8-year olds, most people are not even going to think about
biking as a transportation alternative.
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