Beware: Open season on cyclists at the Intersection of Doom

[kcb203]

I got hit there this morning at about 8:30. I was going eastbound and had the white walk signal. It was white when I arrived, so I was moving when I entered. The car that hit me had blocked the intersection and waited for several pedestrians to cross then pulled forward and hit me on my right side. I went down. There were several cyclist witnesses. The driver stopped and apologized and admitted fault–that she had been in the intersection after it turned red for her and then entered the crosswalk and hit me while I had the white walk signal.

This is what makes me mad: A cop saw the entire thing. He agreed that she had blocked the intersection and failed to yield in the crosswalk. We’re all in agreement on the basic facts. He wrote a report and facilitated the information exchange. But he didn’t give her a ticket–he just called it an unfortunate accident! Why is the cop even there if he won’t cite drivers who break the law and hit cyclists (or pedestrians)?

Topic

[lordofthemark]

@scoot 180331 wrote:

Do you actually use the bike lane on Clarendon Cannonball? I would not feel safe riding so close to parked cars at downhill speeds, especially given the potential for being trapped by a close pass if ceding the car lane.

Unless filtering through a traffic jam, I typically take a car lane the entire way from Courthouse Rd to Lynn St. (Since Key Bridge is my usual destination, I then encounter another bike lane on Lynn that is also too narrow to be useful for any purpose other than slow filtering.)

I am generally a strong seg infra supporter, but door zone bike lanes on steep downhills are about the least useful forms of seg infra for cyclists – even a physically weak cyclist can go at a speed that A. means they can more or less keep up with traffic B. Are very endangered by dooring. Only real benefit is traffic calming, by narrowing the lanes. Alternatively we could paint really wide parking spots to narrow the driving lanes – if we did that, many inexperienced people on bikes would ride in the left part of the parking lane (as they already do in many places) anyway. At least we would not be encouraging them to ride in the wrong place, I suppose. I suppose the wide parking spots could still be used for filtering? How bad such lanes are will depend on parking turnover.

[bentbike33]

@huskerdont 180327 wrote:

I feel like they believe it’s fixed with the little, nonstandard, no-right-turn-when-the-light-is-RED arrow that about half of motorists see and about half of those pay attention to.

ftfy

The following happen simultaneously: the Lee Hwy light goes green, the ped signal turns from white walky man to orange stop hand and the countdown begins, the no-right-turn arrow shuts off, open season on crosswalk users begins.

[Steve O]

@bentbike33 180345 wrote:

ftfy

The following happen simultaneously: the Lee Hwy light goes green, the ped signal turns from white walky man to orange stop hand and the countdown begins, the no-right-turn arrow shuts off, open season on crosswalk users begins.

I have also noticed that the white walky-man comes on a fraction of a second before the no-right-turn arrow does, encouraging drivers who have been looking to their left to go right on red to proceed. If they glance up at that moment, there’s no restriction.
IMO the no-right-on-red signal needs to come on when the cross traffic light turns yellow–several seconds prior to the white walky man, so that there’s a higher likelihood it will be noticed by the overanxious right turners.

[bentbike33]

@Steve O 180346 wrote:

IMO the no-right-on-red signal needs to come on when the cross traffic light turns yellow–several seconds prior to the white walky man, so that there’s a higher likelihood it will be noticed by the overanxious right turners.

Either that, or hang another no-right-on-red signal over Lynn Street where all of the overanxious right turners are looking anyway. This may be confusing enough (wait, I thought Lynn Street was one way, is there traffic coming from the right too?) to cause them to look to the right and see crosswalk users.

[accordioneur]

@scoot 180331 wrote:

Do you actually use the bike lane on Clarendon Cannonball?

Yup. I know I am in the minority here, but I rarely take a lane if riding solo. When on a bike I view myself more as a pedestrian than a vehicle. I tend towards box turn lefts, too.

[accordioneur]

@Steve O 180320 wrote:

Hold on. Did you study the map?

I completely agree that you believe your route is awesome.

[lordofthemark]

@accordioneur 180372 wrote:

Yup. I know I am in the minority here, but I rarely take a lane if riding solo. When on a bike I view myself more as a pedestrian than a vehicle. I tend towards box turn lefts, too.

Can’t resist my two cents. When I am on a bike, well I am on a bike. Neither a pedestrian, nor a vehicle capable of going 25 mph on a flat. I make my choices accordingly. But topography matters. On uphill grades above 5% where I can’t manage 9mph, I am less “vehicular “. But on a steep downgrade I can manage 25 or even 30 mph. At this point its only habit that, for example, keeps me using the downhill bike lane on North Hampton from Braddock to Fords Lane. But that is a residential area with low parking turnover. On Clarendon I imagine parking turnover is higher, so dooring risk is higher.

[accordioneur]

In terms of cyclists taking the lane in areas where there’s a bike lane, I also fear that non-cyclists will see that and think, “gosh, we ruined a perfectly good travel lane to make room for a bike lane and these crazy cyclists don’t even use it,” which could increase opposition to further bike infrastructure.

OAT, I tried part of SteveO’s suggested route through Rosslyn today. The use of the 17th St. bridge to cross over Ft. Myer Drive is clever, but I did have a car on my tail up 17th and down the ramp as I negotiated the complicated merge onto N. Lynn. I felt it was trading one set of traffic problems for another, but it’s always nice to have alternatives.

[lordofthemark]

@accordioneur 180394 wrote:

In terms of cyclists taking the lane in areas where there’s a bike lane, I also fear that non-cyclists will see that and think, “gosh, we ruined a perfectly good travel lane to make room for a bike lane and these crazy cyclists don’t even use it,” which could increase opposition to further bike infrastructure.

One hopes that people who drive there regularly will note the people on bikes struggling slowly up the hill in the bike lane in the other direction, and conclude that speed and gradient might have something to do with different behavior in the downhill direction.

But not everyone thinks like that, so sure, some will just see it as those damned scofflaw spandex wearing Lance wannabes wanting their bike lane and STILL not using it. But if they raise that in any public forum, they are not likely to get taken too seriously, as all local transportation officials are aware of speeds and gradients, and know that such downhill doorzone bike lanes are usually striped for traffic calming more than for the benefit of people on bikes.

Personally I am all for optics of all kinds, but will not actually place myself in serious physical danger for the sake of optics. Of course if you ARE very interested in the optics of unused bike lanes, I can (semi obsessively) repeat that commuting to NSF via the King Street bike lanes would be great for the cause (and you would even get to ride in a similar downhill lane on the part of King Street south of Janneys, but there you would only encounter twigs and other crap in the lane, not car doors)

[huskerdont]

@accordioneur 180394 wrote:

In terms of cyclists taking the lane in areas where there’s a bike lane, I also fear that non-cyclists will see that and think, “gosh, we ruined a perfectly good travel lane to make room for a bike lane and these crazy cyclists don’t even use it,” which could increase opposition to further bike infrastructure.

This is not a concern I can bother with. If infra is substandard or dangerous, I will happily refuse to use it. The downhill bike lane toward Rosslyn is definitely one I will not use as apparently intended, as is the door-zone lane on the downhill on Lee passing by a Dunkin’ Donuts (at N. Monroe). People park there and quickly throw their doors open to dash in for coffee, and it doesn’t matter to me that the designers apparently thought cyclists going downhill on a curve where a door could seriously hurt someone was a splendid idea or whether the BMW behind me blowing the horn (actually happened) agrees that I should be there.

Gravel and glass in the bike lane since the cars strew it there but the streets are never cleaned? Same thing.

Also, it kind of already is some peoples’ perception. I read in comment sections fairly often complaints from noncyclists that cyclists don’t use the lanes provided. Given the reflexive hostility toward cyclists exhibited by some, I just can’t worry.

There is no solution to this mess, but if there were a solution, it would be to get pretty much everybody out on a bike.

[accordioneur]

@lordofthemark 180395 wrote:

commuting to NSF via the King Street bike lanes would be great for the cause

We’re not moving our business to King Street. You Alexandria ganevim already stole NSF and PTO from us. Genuk!

[lordofthemark]

@accordioneur 180403 wrote:

We’re not moving our business to King Street. You Alexandria ganevim already stole NSF and PTO from us. Genuk!

“Wherever I go, I am going to Eisenhower East” One of the more obscure sayings of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav.

[Steve O]

@Steve O 180320 wrote:

Hold on. Did you study the map?

@accordioneur 180373 wrote:

I completely agree that you believe your route is awesome.

My route is not awesome, but mostly tolerable. You kept mentioning Ft. Myer Drive, which my route avoids entirely, which is why I wondered.

[consularrider]

@Steve O 180477 wrote:

My route is not awesome, but mostly tolerable. You kept mentioning Ft. Myer Drive, which my route avoids entirely, which is why I wondered.

I rode Ft Meyer Dr almost every day for seven years. How else was I supposed to get from the Intersection of Doom to SA-6, I liked Nash even less. What’s it like these days?

[Author]

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