Here's a great comment from the article: Prinzrob2 days ago
As the Oakland District 1 bike/ped commissioner representing this part of the city (North Oakland, not Downtown), I'd like to respond to a number of the points in this article. Locally, this super-sharrow installation was met with curiosity and optimism at first, as a better-than-nothing attempt after years of unsuccessful advocacy for a road diet and bike lanes. The bicyclist survey referenced in the article was implemented by Bike East Bay, the non-profit I work for, in partnership with the City of Oakland. However, after plenty of real world experience it is widely agreed to be unsuccessful (no change in passing distance or vehicle speeds), in part due to the application in a residential neighborhood with long blocks between traffic lights that encourage high vehicle speeds. It is also highly confusing as there are often large gaps with no cars parked along the curb, making it unclear (legally and practically) whether a bicyclist should still ride on the green sharrows or toward the empty right side of the roadway. >From my experience and from the study results most bicyclists end up riding outside of the green stripe, regardless of conditions, and drivers (especially during commute hours) are just as impatient as usual with bicyclists in the lane. Every time I ride here I can count on being buzzed by drivers, honked at by bus operators, and was even once subjected to an intentional hit-run (non injury) right on top of the green lane and next to a Bikes May Use Full Lane sign. This is not an environment which will encourage many people who aren't already out there biking to try it out. While a reduction in crashes is a useful goal, it is much less meaningful than getting more bicyclists on the road. If the goal is to increase bike mode share, to reduce door zone conflicts, for drivers to pass at a safe distance, and to reduce turning movement conflicts, any shared lane situation will be less effective than a dedicated bike space in the same footprint. And going beyond the implications for bicyclists, sharrows don't result in the positive safety implications for pedestrians that come with a road diet, via fewer travel lanes and reduced vehicle speeds. Thankfully, a parallel street called West MacArthur is receiving a full road diet with buffered bike lanes and 10' travel lanes in 2016, and I expect a good portion of the existing 40th Street bike traffic (including myself) to shift there once the project has been completed. Local bike advocates are working with city staff to replace, not add, sharrows all around the city with dedicated bicycle facilities, especially in "gap closure" situations where a bike lane was previously dropped in favor of keeping additional travel lanes or parking spaces. We have also been told by city staff that the 40th Street super sharrows treatment will not be repeated elsewhere, contrary to what was stated in this article. I personally will oppose any use of sharrows except in single lane neighborhood "bicycle boulevard" routes with significant traffic calming. Traffic-calmed, narrow neighborhood streets plus physically protected bikeways on wider arterials is the type of family-friendly bike network we are planning for the future of the city. Allowing things like supersharrows just provides an excuse not to do the harder work and compromises involved with creating better facilities. On Mon, Oct 26, 2015, 17:02 Jym Dyer via Bikies <[email protected]> wrote: > Quoting Lance Green: > > I believe we could get better biker awareness by committing > > to paint bike lanes and stops with a single, CONSISTENT color, > > preferable a bright green. > > =v= I agree with this, though I think that making this a solid > green makes it too easy to confuse with a bike lane. Shared > space is more clearly indicated with dotted lines or alternating > blocks of green. I left a comment on the CityLab article with > two photos showing alternating blocks in San Francisco: > > http://disq.us/8py0ix > > New York City has a variant with dotted line and chevron (not > sharrow) stencils. > <_Jym_> > _______________________________________________ > Bikies mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org >
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