CaBi van in bike lane while balancing

I’ve complained to them before about this exact spot – they blew it off as being the only feasible spot, which I don’t buy.

On the bright side, taking the lane there saves you from the daily attempts at right hooks. My favorite is the far left lane right hook without even looking. That’s extra-special.

@jrenaut 116268 wrote:

On the bright side, taking the lane there saves you from the daily attempts at right hooks. My favorite is the far left lane right hook without even looking. That’s extra-special.

I’ve only ridden through Thomas Circle a few times, but I’ve taken the lane every time. If someone still tries to right-hook you (from the left lane), you at least have more time to react.

If there were no bike lane, they’d be blocking a lane of traffic. It seems to me that vehicles like that have to go to the curb, and block whatever lane, car or bike, that’s next to the curb. It’s ironic in this case though, yeah.

I’m OK with this if there is no nearby alternative. The vans shouldn’t be driving onto the sidewalks.

Maybe they could park on Highland Terrace: https://goo.gl/maps/RU1Iz

But the staff members would have to cross the Massachusetts Ave. lanes multiple times, while pushing heavy CaBi bikes. There will be speeding drivers and drivers who take aggressive right turns off the circle without even looking. (This happens almost everywhere.) Over the course of a year, I’d have to think that risk of injury would be significantly higher for those employees if they are parking the van on Highland Terrace a few times a day during rush hour and pushing heavy bikes across those lanes.

Even if the van was allowed to drive onto the sidewalk, would it be possible? The van driver would have to turn onto Mass. Ave. briefly before making a hard left onto the sidewalk. There may not be enough space to do that. The other option is to drive directly from Thomas Circle onto the sidewalk, but that would also be awkward, with the curb and the lack of room to maneuver the van into place.

Why not stop in the traffic lame instead of the bike lane?

@PotomacCyclist 116405 wrote:

The employees are going to be shuttling back and forth across the bike lane very frequently. It still wouldn’t be usable. Even if the bike lane opened up temporarily, there would still be the risk of employees moving into the bike lane suddenly. The employees or an oncoming cyclist might not see the other party.[/quote]

I disagree. They would not be continually in the lane. They go back and forth, and spend a good bit of time either at the kiosk or in the van, and people would be able to pass at those times. The visibility into the back of the van is great, so I fail to see how either party could fail to see the other.

@mstone 116407 wrote:

I disagree. They would not be continually in the lane. They go back and forth, and spend a good bit of time either at the kiosk or in the van, and people would be able to pass at those times. The visibility into the back of the van is great, so I fail to see how either party could fail to see the other.

I’ve seen the rebalancing staff running pretty quickly between the van and the station at other locations. It would be pretty easy for someone to miss them if they weren’t looking in that exact direction at that moment.

At Thomas Circle, there are other distractions. The cyclist has to be aware of the car traffic in the circle as well as car drivers leaving the circle or entering the circle. I’ve walked around there and through the crosswalks and found it challenging to keep an eye on all of the traffic patterns. If a cyclist were trying to squeeze between the sidewalk and the van, they would have to look for all of these car traffic flows in addition to looking for the rebalancing staff.