First (of many) thoughts on Bike Lanes in the city

Let me start by saying as an avid biker, you should not be surprised that I am a big fan of bicycle lanes on city roads. Done right, they make it clear to both car and bicycle drivers that bicyclists belong on the road and that biking is a legitimate form of transportation. Not only do they make it easy and safe for cars to pass bikers provided both parties are in their respective lanes, but they also give bikers a bit of a relief from feeling like they have to "keep up" with traffic. Having used and observed the bike infrastructure in Cambridge and Somerville for the past few months, I am also certain that they promote biking to a certain extent, although if that is the only goal, I'm sure there are better and more effective ways to do that.

On the other hand, there are some serious drawbacks to bike lanes as they currently exist. The first drawback is the most obvious and serious one: this and this . Many car travel lanes are in the door zone and it isn't a problem for a simple reason: a moving car will wreck an open door! But it doesn't work for bike lanes because an open door will wreck a moving biker!

The other big issue, it seems to me, is a simple one. Bike lanes are striped with solid lines. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a safety measure of some sort or what but it just seems wrong. If there are two lanes of traffic moving in the same direction, there is typically a dashed line between them right? Isn't that standard? Not with bike lanes. The big problem here is it seems to be a message to bikers to stay within the bike lane and to cars to stay out of it. While in general that's a good idea, the fact is when cars make right turns and park, that car should (carefully) move into the rightmost lane, in this case a bike lane (I'm pretty sure they teach somewhere when you get your license). When bikes need to turn left, they shouldn't be doing it from a bike lane on the right side, they should do it from the left most lane (again, basic rules of the road). If this doesn't happen, bikers get "right hook"ed and bikers do stupid things. MassBike teaches vehicular cycling, which means if a bike is going straight and a car is turning right, the car should be positioned to the right of the cyclist and the cyclist should most likely be in the wider car lane. I think dashed lines between moving lanes do a much better job of sending this message.

Finally, why do we spend money on paint to do this? If I'm driving a car that's say seven feet wide, I'm pretty sure I'll figure out that I'm not supposed to use the lane that's five feet wide when there's a ten or twelve foot lane right next to it. Likewise if I'm on a bike I'll realize that there's a lane intended for me! I'm pretty on top of like that. I'm guessing this person knew that that wasn't going to work well, and s/he didn't need a sign to tell him/her. Again, this in many cases encourages poor vehicular bicycling. When a car needs to use the narrow lane it should and when a bike needs to use the wider lane it also should.

So although I like bike lanes, for these reasons I think we need to be careful in implementing them, and I'll go into some of that in the future. Thanks for making it this far!