14th Street NW – Bike Lane

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  • January 16, 2013 at 3:11 pm #912704
    UrbanEngineer
    Participant

    Changed my commute up today and ended up taking 14th street in. The bike lane from U St to Thomas Circle is terrible. Drivers tend to dislike having bikes ride in the main traffic lanes when there’s a bike lane present, but when there’s construction on every block (in addition to the normal bike lane blockages such as cars lined up in it for turns, double parked vehicles, and bus’s picking up passengers), that bike lane is absolutely useless. Might as well remove the bike lane and put sharrows in for that entire stretch to let the drivers know I don’t belong in that bike lane. Considering the amount of construction that looks to have been started a while back, they probably should have done this a few years ago.

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  • January 16, 2013 at 3:51 pm #960027
    jrenaut
    Participant

    The last 6 months or so, 14th has gotten really bad. Prior to that it was actually really nice (except the bike lane really, REALLY needs to continue up the hill north of Florida).

    January 16, 2013 at 4:04 pm #960031
    Terpfan
    Participant

    I tend to avoid it and go over to 15th cycletrack. Not only is there construction, but also Metro buses to deal with. And no one seems to respect the painted lines in the circle.

    January 16, 2013 at 5:06 pm #960043
    jrenaut
    Participant

    15th is SO SLOW, especially southbound. Last time I tried it I hit almost every single light right at the beginning of the cycle. Quicker to walk.

    I do take it north, though.

    January 16, 2013 at 5:09 pm #960044
    ShawnoftheDread
    Participant

    @jrenaut 40705 wrote:

    15th is SO SLOW, especially southbound. Last time I tried it I hit almost every single light right at the beginning of the cycle. Quicker to walk.

    I do take it north, though.

    I found that in the evenings it takes me about five minutes to go from L Street to H Street because of the lights on 15th. Much quicker to just ride in traffic on 17th.

    January 18, 2013 at 4:23 pm #960309
    UrbanEngineer
    Participant

    There are plenty of southbound options in the area, so I’m not going to complain about the lack of available routes, but some of the infrastructure on these routes is poorly maintained, not respected, and incapable of meeting their intent. I would include the contraflow portion of the 15th street cycletrack in this due to the amount of debris in the lane. A heavily trafficked cycletrack will run into safety issues at the pinch points caused by the debris. The light timing of the contraflow portion is a nuisance but not really a safety risk unless you consider tempting cyclists to jump the red a safety risk.

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