Title: Fwd: Re: [Mpls] Bikes, Busses, Cars, and Public
Health
Resend,
bad address, my apologies.
Dyna
Sluyter from Hawthorne
Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 11:01:37 -0500
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: dyna <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [Mpls] Bikes, Busses, Cars, and Public Health
Cc:
Bcc:
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Our
city engineers' hearts are in the right place when it comes to laying
out bike lanes and such, but the execution has been rather inept. Bike
lanes should be on the right, rather than left where Minneapolis has
been putting them. Historicly, traffic engineers worldwide for quite
good reasons have put the slowest traffic next to the curb or ditch,
and the fastest to the center. Minneapolis' contravention of this
sound engineering principle confuses all road users and puts the most
vulnerable road users- cyclists- in the center of the road approaching
traffic. This creates a potential for head on collisions at combined
speeds of up to 60 miles per hour, versus rear end collisions at a
closing speed of typically 15 MPH if the bike lanes had been properly
located on the right. Such an accident would be horrendous in any
lane, but I suspect the difference between 15 and 60 MPH impact speeds
would be between serious but survivable injury and life and death.
Ultimately I suspect Minneapolis will face a multimillion dollar
liability suit for such an accident and the bike lanes will be moved
to their proper place on the right.
Another mistake made in
creating the bike lanes was taking a foot or so of width out of each
traffic lane. This results in a lane of 11 foot width of narrower.
Problem is, big trucks and busses are 10 foot wide across the mirrors,
leaving only a few inches clearance on many downtown streets.
Strangely, the same engineers who
gave us these scrunched down lanes in downtown have given us spacious
16 foot wide right lanes on many bridges. All it would take is a bit
of paint and signage to create bike lanes on these routes like the
Plymouth and Broadway bridges. As long as they've got the striping
truck out they might as well restripe some of the ancient 40 foot wide
4 lanes (Broadway around Central comes to mind) into two twelve foot
lanes plus bike lanes.
A note to the trike and pedicab promoters:
Given that a standard bike lane is only 4 feet wide, it would be wise
to keep the width of these vehicles to the Dutch standard of of 1
meter (39.37 inches) width.
On another subject, any more sightings of Rick
Roche ads or mailings?
Dyna
Sluyter from Hawthorne
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