This is the sad reality of being a cyclist: we are the neglected middle child. In the eyes of the law, we are vehicles. In the eyes of motor vehicles, we are an annoyance that slows them down. So, the motor establishment builds separated bikeways for us and tries to use the law to force us to use them. Then pedestrians find these bikeways convenient and pleasant, and make them so dangerous for cyclists as to be essentially unusable. Then they post to HN (or whatever) and complain about all the bikes using the bikeways and how dangerous this is for their pleasant afternoon walk.
Personally, I don't believe in advocating for bikeways for this reason. Bikes will never get to use them, and if they cross traffic at all, they are death traps (because drivers don't look for objects moving as fast as bicycles on the sidewalk when they are turning). The only exception is the lakefront trail because it has a total of 12 street crossings in 20 miles (4 of them in the last mile of the north side, two that have essentially no traffic, and two in the last mile on the south side). This property makes it safe to use. All it needs is a really nice running path and sidewalk closer to the lake (so that pedestrians won't even want to use it), and finally you have a bicycle expressway, one of the few places anything in Chicago can go 10 miles in 30 minutes. This will never happen, though, because it will cost money and because the recreational cyclists will force the pedestrians off the pedestrian-only part onto the bike-only part. Sigh.
I think the best general solution is what Chicago does: a lot of streets have a picture of a bicycle painted onto the right traffic lane and signs that say "shared lane, yield to bicycles". This lets cars know that bikes are doing the right thing. Then you just need bicycle driver education (I like "Effective Cycling") so that the cyclists stay safe and don't impede the flow of traffic. Unfortunately, I've found that getting on a bicycle seems to mean turning off your brain and doing whatever feels right, which is often wrong.
(And that's why I don't like bike lanes, because they make doing the wrong thing feel like "the law". "There's that stripe, so I must make my left turn from the curb, that line on the road says so." Then they die and everyone whines about how dangerous cycling is.)
>>(And that's why I don't like bike lanes, because they make doing the wrong thing feel like "the law". "There's that stripe, so I must make my left turn from the curb, that line on the road says so." Then they die and everyone whines about how dangerous cycling is.)
... or they don't turn from the curb, cut over to the left lane and drivers get pissed because "my tax dollars paid for that bike lane and you'rs still blocking me" I agree, there's really no way to win.
Have you checked out the new cycle lanes on Kinzie/Jackson yet? What are your thoughts? I haven't been able to get down there yet (I'm in MKE and life keeps getting in the way) but I feel like I myself would hate riding in them. Of course the advantage is that these new bike lanes (protected and otherwise) might draw out far more riders than we see currently. It's a hard dilemma for me because I want to see more people biking and accepting bikes on the road, but I still want to be able to go my own speed and safely mingle with traffic to get where I'm going.
For those of you not from Chicago, Chicago has created an experimental bike lane on a downtown street. They put some reflective poles in the middle of the side of the road where cars park, then designated everything from those poles to the curb a bike lane. Cars now park to the left of bicycles and to the right of cars, creating an interesting setup. There is no risk of being "doored" now, but traffic coming out of side streets can't see bikes in the bike lanes. They've compensated for this with tons and tons of paint on the road and lots of signs.
I have ridden the Kinzie one in both directions. I usually need to turn left at Clinton or Des Plaines, and this is now very difficult, as it's tough to move from the poled-in area to the real traffic lane at speed. To turn at Clinton, I have to cut over traffic right after the bridge. To turn at Des Plaines, the lane change is simpler because the poles are gone, but that giant hill makes turning left there very difficult. I like to get over to the left well before the intersection so that I don't miss the turn due to too much traffic, but the poles force me to stay in the bike lane longer than I might want to during heavy traffic. (OK, there is never any traffic on Kinzie, so this is not a real problem.)
The stop signs along the route are very difficult for everyone, because nobody knows how to react to this weird lane thing that exists nowhere else on earth. Should cars yield to bikes? Should bikes yield to cars? There are some signs put up that try to tell you what to do, but I've read them a million times and can't remember what they say.
Kinzie is such a lightly-used street that I don't understand how these dividers help make the road safer. That big hill at the 5-way intersection is the only thing non-ideal about Kinzie, and of course that's never going to be fixed. Some reflective poles in the middle of the road don't do it for me.
While this doesn't excite me, there are changes that would. Parked cars could be removed from the side of the road, leaving enough room for cyclists and cars to truly share the right lane. (No need for bike lane markings; the extra room is just as good and much cheaper to create.) Speed limits could be lowered from 30 to 25, so that, with training, bikes and cars could actually be going to same speed. This means that traffic light timings would be just as good for bikes as for cars, meaning that there would be no travel time advantage for cars.
I doubt this will happen, so as a substitute, how about giving people speeding tickets in Chicago? I've never seen anyone get one, and I've seen people getting off the freeway and continuing to drive 75 on the surface streets. 75 on a city street? Come on.
Agreed, Kinzie would probably be better served by a bike boulevard template [1]. Milwaukee is trying something else, it seems like there will be a driving lane, then a half-curb type thing with a raised bike lane on the right. [2] No parked cars. I'm not sure how it will work (completion 2012) but I'm curious to see, it will certainly be easier to get in/out of it mid block.
Milwaukee is pretty bike-friendly in general though. Well sort of, the people typically will respect you on the road but don't ask them to spend a dime on bike lanes, trails, or anything else not related to driving a car as fast as possible. My ride to work (8 mi. now) is primarily on an off mile street so traffic is light and I have almost no problems with cars.
I like the bicycle boulevard idea a lot. Traffic is not what scares cyclists, it's the speed difference that does. If everyone is driving 15mph, then nobody feels like they're in danger.
Also, getting hit by a car at 15mph is quite survivable.
Personally, I don't believe in advocating for bikeways for this reason. Bikes will never get to use them, and if they cross traffic at all, they are death traps (because drivers don't look for objects moving as fast as bicycles on the sidewalk when they are turning). The only exception is the lakefront trail because it has a total of 12 street crossings in 20 miles (4 of them in the last mile of the north side, two that have essentially no traffic, and two in the last mile on the south side). This property makes it safe to use. All it needs is a really nice running path and sidewalk closer to the lake (so that pedestrians won't even want to use it), and finally you have a bicycle expressway, one of the few places anything in Chicago can go 10 miles in 30 minutes. This will never happen, though, because it will cost money and because the recreational cyclists will force the pedestrians off the pedestrian-only part onto the bike-only part. Sigh.
I think the best general solution is what Chicago does: a lot of streets have a picture of a bicycle painted onto the right traffic lane and signs that say "shared lane, yield to bicycles". This lets cars know that bikes are doing the right thing. Then you just need bicycle driver education (I like "Effective Cycling") so that the cyclists stay safe and don't impede the flow of traffic. Unfortunately, I've found that getting on a bicycle seems to mean turning off your brain and doing whatever feels right, which is often wrong.
(And that's why I don't like bike lanes, because they make doing the wrong thing feel like "the law". "There's that stripe, so I must make my left turn from the curb, that line on the road says so." Then they die and everyone whines about how dangerous cycling is.)