L Street Bike Lanes

[Neal Edwards]

Does anybody else think the new L Street bike lanes actually make things worse, not better? The bike lane becomes the turn lane for every north bound street. The pylons make the lane too narrow for cars to pass, resulting in scary tailgating for cars in the turn lane, or worse, cars zooming up to the gap in the pylons just before intersections and muscling there way in. When one has both happen at the same time, as I did this morning, it gets downright scary. I’ve used L St. for 16 years and have always found the right hand lane to be the safest. After a few attempts on the new bike lanes, I think I’ll go back to the right lane.

Topic

[UrbanEngineer]

There are supposed to be bike boxes at the front of every East Bound L-Street intersection to accommodate cyclists who need to get over ahead of time to turn right up the road.

On a different note, I’ve been noticing a lot of cars taking up half the green painted bike lane when turning left. Sometimes it’s a tighter squeeze than I would recommend trying to ride in.

[ShawnoftheDread]

@UrbanEngineer 35751 wrote:

There are supposed to be bike boxes at the front of every East Bound L-Street intersection to accommodate cyclists who need to get over ahead of time to turn right up the road.
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Yes, but the light was green and I was the only one stopping. What I’ve learned is that I need to plan ahead and get over the block before or merge into the left turn lane.

[dcv]

@Greenbelt 35645 wrote:

They’re called “flex-posts” — maybe your trailer will put them to the test of their flexiness!

flexy like this? i love this video, can watch it over & over (make sure you have sound on)
[video=youtube_share;Bu_a5vq36K4]http://youtu.be/Bu_a5vq36K4[/video]

[Terpfan]

I haven’t ridden since last week due to a nice cold and work obligations, but I was in a MD cab last night going down L. Unfortunately he was clueless and I said you need to get over now trying to explain the bike lanes and he just went right up to the light and then turned left. I think he understood what I was saying after he made the turn, I just suspect this will be an ongoing issue for quite a while.

As for the 15th St question. I waited for the red figuring those with the red clearly can’t make that turn on a red. The only trouble with this approach is then merging into those going north or avoiding/waiting on those going south that are already on the cycletrack.

[jnva]

Lots of traffic enforcement out this morning on L street. Had a chat with one of the officers and she asked me how I liked the bike lanes. I said other than the two trucks parked in the lane right behind me, it’s ok I suppose. Also a beer truck unloading a couple of blocks back! She said they are supposed to be ticketing them.

[Author]

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