But if you look closely at 0:30, 0:52 and 1:05 in that film, you'll notice the straight through bike lane is to the left of the left turn pocket. I believe NYC is installing bike traffic lights in these locations so that the obvious conflict is avoided. However, at one point early in the film, a taxi is parked in the bike path in the intersection, obviously confused as to what to do. Bikers are riding in front and in back of him because they feel like they should rule the world and pedestrians are doing what they do in NYC.
I don't feel that installing a second roadway and signaling network will ever be as effective in the US as it is in Holland. I believe many if not all of these situations can be effectively avoided by rearranging the bike and turn lanes as shown below. I would like to see the bike track and turn path cross before the intersection. This would certainly require well thought out designs to allow drivers and cyclists sufficient time, visibility and slow speeds to make this work. The benefits would be the cyclist is then placed in a correct position at the intersection, and bike traffic lights are no longer required since the regular lights would function just fine (except for the issues they pose for cyclists anyway, which I'll cover in another post).
No comments:
Post a Comment