Sharing v. Segregation

[KLizotte]

@invisiblehand 22237 wrote:

Is a bike lane a segregated facility?

Anyway, I largely agree with Dismal Scientist. If it matters, I try to think of cycling within a bigger context of transportation in general … this is somewhat old and I have not revisiting it in a while.

http://washingtonwheelman.blogspot.com/2010/12/advocate-safer-robust-and-efficient.html

Broadly speaking, forum discussions are difficult since it is often unclear what people mean by risk and what their subjective estimates are based on. So are we talking about a risk of collision? Risk of hospitalization? Risk of mortality?

What are we holding constant? Rider speed/aggressiveness? Convenience? Pleasure? Motor vehicle speed and volume? Pedestrian volume?

Largely — especially in a black hole like bikeforums.net — there is so much frothing in the mouth and declarations regarding what is “obvious” that, IMO, we tend to overlook some of these points that distinguish different points of view.

Consider something like the cycletracks on 15th ST NW. To me, they’re a “deathtrap”.** I tested them out once on the recumbent at a “normal” pace — this means a light to moderate effort and cruising around 12-15 mph — and there were a few close calls until I slowed down considerably more and this was primarily a function of being segregated (IMO) outside the primary viewing area of drivers since there never were issues when riding in the right lane. Now I suspect that if you’re riding slow and conservatively enough, that the risk (let’s say mortality and serious injury) of riding there is teeny tiny such that we’d have a hard time cognitively registering the number. Although I should point out that the inherent risk from cycling — for some reasonable distance, trip, person — is a tiny number such that we’d have a hard time cognitively registering it.

From the perspective of this bicycle advocate, the 15th ST cycletrack is something that almost certainly gets more people on saddle but encourages (1) the mindset that wildly overestimates the risks of cycling on roads, (2) a style of riding that either makes cycling outside of facilities less convenient and/or more risky, and (3) potentially makes cycling more risky within facilities under certain conditions.

http://tinyurl.com/7ovampn
http://tinyurl.com/78fz3p2
http://tinyurl.com/7gtrv4s

Moreover, it manages to do this while increasing the level of harassment on a route that I enjoyed for years. I’ll point out that taking the right lane puts me in a much better position to use the bike lane that leads up the hill at the end of the cycletrack.

Now is this worth it? Maybe. It depends on what you’re trying to do and what the net effects are. I myself, am willing to tradeoff measures of pleasure, speed, risk, convenience, and overall utility for people. Some environments are different enough that it makes sense to entertain alternatives; for instance, bridges and high speed roads with no/few intersections. But I think that we can go pretty far without segregated facilities everywhere if we concentrated on higher standards of driver responsibility and curbing extreme speeds on roads. I like the idea of bicycle boulevards too.

** Note I put “deathtrap” in quotes since I think the likelihood of mortality probably didn’t change much since cars would have to slow down a lot to make the turn. Nonetheless, I used the expression to convey an idea.

I have to somewhat disagree – lots of cycling accidents go unreported (broken bones, road rash, concussions). And look at the accidents that have occurred in the DC area just in the past few weeks: the cyclist on CaBi that fell off his bike and got run over by an SUV, the gentleman on Facebook that broke his neck vertebrae and bones in his face, various accidents on the Custis in Rosslyn, etc. In a year and a half of biking, I’ve had more injuries than 20+ years of driving, walking and taking public transit combined. I’ve also had three accidents while biking (two involved peds, one was sliding on metal). None of these were reported to “authorities.” I’ve also experienced driver aggression/harassment; none of which have been reported either. I think the data shows major undercounting when it comes to bike incidents.

Until Google manages to implement its driverless car everywhere, electronic gadgets will in all likelihood increase driver distraction. Also keep in mind that you will always have newbie drivers (16+ year olds) on the road that despite their best intentions will make bad decisions. Include tiredness, impatience, drugs/alcohol, cell phones, sun glare, bad weather, and the best laws in the world can’t protect us. If this were not the case then 33K+ people wouldn’t die on the roads every year.

Traffic may generally be more “predicatable” than peds but when an accident does occur, it will almost always be far worse than a bike <> ped interaction.

Given the choice, I’d rather bike someplace where I’m segregated from traffic and peds.

[DismalScientist]

@invisiblehand 22237 wrote:

Is a bike lane a segregated facility?

Sorta, sorta not. After all, it’s just paint. I would prefer sharrows, but if it makes someone happy, it’s fine with me (Unfortunately, some drivers think that bicyclist should not stray out of bike lanes.

[KLizotte]

Quote:

Originally Posted by invisiblehand
Is a bike lane a segregated facility?

To me a traditional bike lane is not segregated because there isn’t a physical barrier preventing entry by drivers and car doors may swing into the bike lane zone.

[dasgeh]

@DismalScientist 22242 wrote:

Routing is very important for cycling safety. I wouldn’t choose to ride on a busy/unfriendly street just because it happens to be the most direct route.

You seem to agree that the situation of distance between users and escape paths depends on the route. But that argues against your initial statement that

@DismalScientist 22216 wrote:

Distance between users seem to be a lot closer on MUT than roads. Generally there are a lot more escape paths on a road than a MUT.

I think your point about routing goes to the bigger picture: the most appropriate solution for bike facilities depends on the particular location. For example, to get from Washington Blvd (say, at N Bedford) to S 2nd Street, what to you suggest is the best option? Shared facilities on Washington Blvd itself? Encourage cyclists to take the road (that’s kind of an exit ramp from 50W to 27S) to Fillmore Street and cross there? Or a segregated path (which is what’s there now, though it’s sub-par in its current design). And for cyclists coming the other way — are they supposed to take the exit ramp from S 2nd St onto Washington Blvd, fight with the cars getting off onto 50, then continue in the lane on the residential part of Washington Blvd?

I don’t use the 15th Street cycletrack very much, but it does seem like it’s poorly designed — not enough warning for motorists to make it better for cyclists to use, at least heading northbound. I have more hope for the L and M Street cycletracks, if only because the length between blocks is longer (for the parts of familiar with).

So my point is just this: when we’re talking about bikes-cars, there’s no reason to take either segregated or shared off the table, or to myopically look at one street (without looking at the bigger picture of available routes).

I do think, however, that segregating (at least with paint) bikes and peds is important for encouraging cycling to become part of normal transportation.

[DismalScientist]

@dasgeh 22281 wrote:

You seem to agree that the situation of distance between users and escape paths depends on the route. But that argues against your initial statement that

I think your point about routing goes to the bigger picture: the most appropriate solution for bike facilities depends on the particular location. For example, to get from Washington Blvd (say, at N Bedford) to S 2nd Street, what to you suggest is the best option? Shared facilities on Washington Blvd itself? Encourage cyclists to take the road (that’s kind of an exit ramp from 50W to 27S) to Fillmore Street and cross there? Or a segregated path (which is what’s there now, though it’s sub-par in its current design). And for cyclists coming the other way — are they supposed to take the exit ramp from S 2nd St onto Washington Blvd, fight with the cars getting off onto 50, then continue in the lane on the residential part of Washington Blvd?

I don’t use the 15th Street cycletrack very much, but it does seem like it’s poorly designed — not enough warning for motorists to make it better for cyclists to use, at least heading northbound. I have more hope for the L and M Street cycletracks, if only because the length between blocks is longer (for the parts of familiar with).

So my point is just this: when we’re talking about bikes-cars, there’s no reason to take either segregated or shared off the table, or to myopically look at one street (without looking at the bigger picture of available routes).

I do think, however, that segregating (at least with paint) bikes and peds is important for encouraging cycling to become part of normal transportation.

I am not suggesting a one or another “solution.” I think you and mstone are creating this straw man where we vehicular cyclist think that cyclists should take the most direct way and travel on roads that are inappropriate. mstone suggests that people who live anywhere near 50 and 29 can only get anywhere by bicycle by actually riding on 50 and 29.
You ask how I would get from Bedford to S 2nd on Wash Blvd? I don’t look at routing on such a micro basis. I’m not that familiar with that particular area, but if the question is how would I get from somewhat north of 50 to the gate for Fort Myer on 2nd Street, the answer is that I would take Fillmore to cross 50 to 2nd St. I am not familiar with the bike path along Washington, but I imagine that it crosses the ramps to 50 in some nasty way. I would think the street route would be safer.

I ride L and M everyday on my commute. Traffic doesn’t move that fast in the area and I am comfortable on the street. I don’t know what the proposed cycletracks are going to look like, but it seems as if they will be something like bike lanes on the left side of the street. I hope they are not two-way like that on 15th street. That will introduce the same design issues. If I were to put bike lanes in, I would put them on the right, even though I would prefer sharrows. If the left side cyclotracks are protected, I would worry about left hooks from left turning cars.

I use segregated trails every day, so I don’t think that I view this as my saying they should not be built. I merely suggest that they are not the safety panacea their proponents often claim, particular as they have been built in practice. I could take the Custis and associated segregated facilities for 80% of my commute (and it is direct), but I choose the streets for most of it, primarily for safety purposes. Am I being irrational?

[mstone]

@DismalScientist 22302 wrote:

I am not suggesting a one or another “solution.” I think you and mstone are creating this straw man where we vehicular cyclist think that cyclists should take the most direct way and travel on roads that are inappropriate. mstone suggests that people who live anywhere near 50 and 29 can only get anywhere by bicycle by actually riding on 50 and 29.

Well, once you get outside the beltway, there are pretty significant chunks which are connected only by high-speed multilane roads or very circuitous detours. It’s a big region, and the situation outside the urban core is different than it is downtown. E.g., how many safe beltway crossings are there, excluding separated infrastructure like the W&OD? Fairfax is in the process right now of creating a master plan which will (hopefully) be a guide to getting better bike infrastructure over (probably) the next 3 or 4 decades. The process of getting that approved and on the books is only made harder if opponents can say “hey, look, even bike people don’t want this bike infrastructure” (ignoring the very different realities on the ground in one area vs another).

[dasgeh]

@DismalScientist 22302 wrote:

You ask how I would get from Bedford to S 2nd on Wash Blvd? I don’t look at routing on such a micro basis. I’m not that familiar with that particular area, but if the question is how would I get from somewhat north of 50 to the gate for Fort Myer on 2nd Street, the answer is that I would take Fillmore to cross 50 to 2nd St. I am not familiar with the bike path along Washington, but I imagine that it crosses the ramps to 50 in some nasty way. I would think the street route would be safer.

My point is that you have to look at routing on such a micro basis. Just to look at this example (it was on my old commute, so I’ve very familiar): Fillmore has a huge hill, and getting around the hill involves either Washington Blvd or a huge detour (if you’re starting/heading East). In fact, between the hill and the length of the detour, lots of people choose to bike on Washington Blvd. The sidewalks along the southbound side of Washington are horrendous. It’s not actually that bad to bike southbound on Washington until you get to 50 — then it turns into a highway.

Which leads me to my other point is that shared works better sometimes and segregated works better sometimes. The MUP beside Washington south of 50 is actually pretty good — it absolutely needs to be wider under the bridge, and the crossings of the exit ramps need better lighting and signage, but those crossings are far better (in the daylight) than any near Memorial Bridge. So I’m ok with the solution of shared access (with better signage) on Washington Blvd until 50, and a MUP to get from that point up to 2nd Street.

I’m not saying that cyclists should always take the most direct route. But I am saying that some detours are just too long, and in practice people won’t take them. They’ll go with other options: take a busy road, salmon, take a sidewalk, or *gasp* drive. If our goal is to design facilities to promote safe cycling, we have to realize that most people won’t take unreasonable detours (or bike up steep hills). We have to figure out a way to make the direct (or direct-ish) routes safer, or admit that we’re not serving that part of the community.

Oh, and when I ride on L and M, it’s in the middle of the day. Traffic moves at a pretty good clip then. I think you have to take that into account as well.

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