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@chris_s 124269 wrote:

1) Drop to a 7′ parking lane, 10′ travel lanes, 10′ turning lane, 11′ transit lane and BAM there’s 5′ for a Northbound bike lane.

This is a more general question, but it applies to your first suggestion.

Is 15′ (10′ travel lane plus 5′ bike lane) enough space for a vehicle to safely pass a bike without using the turning lane?

IIUC, the general rule for lane widths is that any single lane less than 14 feet is too narrow for a bike and a motor vehicle side by side, and riders are thus advised to take the full lane whenever it is less than 14′. But that rule only applies where there are no parked cars. Parked cars will render the rightmost 5′ useless, so bikes will not be safe from dooring anywhere to the right of the white line between the general and bike lane. But riding on that line invites very close passes from drivers who are afraid of yellow lines.

Seems to me that wherever the right boundary is adjacent to car doors, anything less than about 16′-17′ total should be marked as a sharrows, not a vehicle + bike lane. Is there an official guideline for this?

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@mstone 123981 wrote:

It’s a somewhat hollow victory, as the takeaway is that motorists feel that bikes can use the full lane where there is a sign. The real problem is driver education, and signage can’t fix that.

I’m not a huge fan of the “Bicycle May Use Full Lane” signs for precisely this reason. Bicycles are allowed full use of a lane just about anywhere, so the sign has no legal significance.

@jrenaut 123998 wrote:

Maybe every city should pick one really awful road, like North Capitol or something like that, and put up giant “NO BICYCLES” signs.

Haha. Except do it on a road where bicycling is illegal (e.g. I-395), not merely unpleasant.

Actually I wonder if would better educate drivers, rather than drawing sharrows on heavily used bike routes, to draw the opposite symbol (maybe a bike with an “X” across it?) on the few roads where cycling is not legal. Then if you don’t see that symbol, you would know that bicyclists have a right to use that road.

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Since it’s BikeArlington, and the other four stations are in Arlington, I’ll ask: does the favorite station of your choice also need to be in Arlington?

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@dasgeh 123857 wrote:

ALL of the bike lanes in Quincy have the door zone problem (ok, most. There are some, like on the bridge, that are not beside parked cars)

Yes, it’s the exact same problem both south of there (through Ballston) and north (on the other side of 66). The whole thing should be marked with sharrows wherever there is parallel parking. The road is not wide enough for a parked car, a bicycle, and a moving motor vehicle to safely coexist all to the right of the center line.

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@lordofthemark 123841 wrote:

I think the clincher was this

“In all my years of running, I have stayed focused on looking ahead and listening for what is coming from behind,” Bundy wrote. “I do not feel the need to keep looking behind during a run.”

If you are headed straight, as a walker, jogger, or slow rider on a MUT, your obligation, IIUC, is only to use your ears. But if you are actually turning across the trail, it is not reasonable to not also look. I think that is fair trail etiquette, and seems to be part of why the court found as it did.

Yes. This same etiquette should apply to streets as well. I’ve had to yell at far too many pedestrians failing to look up from their smartphones as they step out into a roadway either jaywalking or violating a signal. I can only assume that they figure it’s safe as long as they don’t hear an engine approaching. Glad I don’t drive a Prius!

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@lordofthemark 123840 wrote:

So it seems we both misinterpreted the picture the same way? Wow.

Me too, the first time I looked at it. It’s strange to see a MUP immediately adjacent to the left side of a one-way single-lane road that isn’t any wider than the MUP. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before. I just managed not to post any comments that would give away my confusion

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@Guus 123831 wrote:

I know that two cars can safely cross the intersection before the point that I need to merge into traffic. If I merge into the northbound lane before crossing that means everybody will have to wait for me.

I know exactly what you’re talking about, because I’ve tried that before. The problem is that you might initially see two cars waiting, but then it can quickly become many more that are whipping past, and you’re stuck.

Personally, I would like to see the bike lane on the northside extended to the crossing so no merging of bicycles and cars is needed at all. It would require eliminating three parking spaces on the street.

Unless you remove ALL of the parking spaces, you’d still have the door zone problem and need to merge into the lane at some point anyway.

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@Guus 123817 wrote:

Quincy/Washington crossing, going north

This is a badly designed road, and the markings are misleading and dangerous. The bike lane should either completely end before the Wash Blvd intersection (with merging and sharrows markings), or at the very least it should be a right-turn only bike lane at the intersection (with all bikes going straight or left merging before the intersection). Then it should be marked as a sharrows from the WashBlvd intersection all the way up to 14th St N; the marked bike lanes are in the door zones and are therefore useless.

I recommend merging into the northbound vehicle traffic ahead of the intersection, and then taking the center of the lane until you pass the last parked car. That way you won’t lure impatient drivers into attempting dangerous passes. If anyone honks, blame the traffic engineers.

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George Mason is flatter than the alternatives (except maybe bobco85’s “fun” route), but you do have to climb a moderate hill in traffic marked with sharrows. You could instead exit W&OD at Columbia Pike and cut through the Columbia Forest neighborhood. The hill on 11th Street is steeper than the one on George Mason, but obviously has a lot less traffic.

Or you could exit in Glencarlyn Park and take S Greenbrier to Columbia Pike, and then go up S Jefferson Street. This is the most direct route but also the hilliest, and getting across the Pike to Jefferson could be tricky.

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Is there a way to report a non-emergency traffic signal problem? The web site doesn’t seem to offer that as an option, it just says to call 911 at the top of the page for traffic lights not working. 911 seems wildly inappropriate for reporting malfunctioning traffic sensors.

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But if you remove those cones, motorcycles can still fit through. Needs more bollards! :rolleyes:

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Meh. I stopped calling my passes once I realized that everyone I was passing had their windows up and A/C on. 😎

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Me: Checking out a CaBi from the new station at S Walter Reed and 8th Street S yesterday afternoon around 4pm.
You: Wave of drivers headed southbound on the newly repaved roadway

First I thought I heard vehicles passing awfully close behind while I was loading my bag onto the rack. Then I realized why.

Newsflash: There are NOT two southbound car lanes here! Please drive single-file like you did when there were lines painted on this road. Some of you came within inches of the flexposts at the corners of the CaBi station.

Arlington, please repaint the lines ASAP.

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@DrP 123173 wrote:

The options NPS put in do not make sense for people on foot or bike (great for the cars who are enjoying the park, however). It is much to far to go around nor is it obvious that you need to do so the first few times you cross (I had no idea the other ways around when I first crossed the bridge years ago. I come off the Rock Creek trail and see the bridge. I go towards it. I get to the other side and see the trail below me. I see no way to cross the road, nor that there is a way to get to the trail from that side either). That whole area is a mess.

This is an excellent point.

The first time I ever rode across that bridge (long before I ever discovered this forum) I too was confused. I was also coming from the trail along Rock Creek Parkway, took the upstream side of the bridge heading westbound, and wanted to get down to MVT. I did not notice the desire path (perhaps for the best!), but I remembered that there were crossings on the south side of the bridge and so I tried to figure out how to get over there. It was early on a Saturday, and traffic was very light, so I decided to jump off the curb and take the lane going around the circle. I figured I could transition over to the trail before the first crosswalk, but I was wrong: I didn’t realize until I got to the southern part of the circle that there was temporary orange plastic fencing between the roadway and trail. Plus the same fencing was right along both sides of Washington Blvd at the time. So when I got to the pink circle on the image below, I ended up half-walking, half-riding my bike as a salmon in the roadway, southbound until reaching that first crosswalk (where gaps in the fencing allowed me to get out of the road and join the trail)! Thankfully there was so little traffic and the few drivers I did encounter during this episode were very courteous and accommodating.

People driving cars in this area always get signs telling them exactly how to get where they need to go. People riding bikes often get nothing, and that sometimes leads to undesirable adventures.

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@dasgeh 123193 wrote:

But I-66 is long, direct and continuous, and doesn’t stand out. It is the color scheme. I think something between gray (to be used for areas cyclists can’t use – rivers, property, I-66, etc) and red would be best.

True. For fully saturated colors I don’t think the hue matters much. But you could take the same hue and reduce the saturation (i.e. dilute it by mixing with gray). You’ll want to retain enough of the color so that these routes are still visible within the network and are distinguishable from the freeways where bicycling is illegal.

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