Bicycle Austin forum

Jack

Member

Registered: 2013-03-27

Posts: 344

Re: Speedway bike boxes

Of course it's usually easy to move far enough left to allow a motorist to turn right (just try not to get trapped too far to the left when things start moving again.  Studies in the US and Europe show that few bother moving to the center of the lane in a bike box unless they arrive later than the first ones to arrive (who tend to stay to the right as if there were no bike box). 

I am wondering also about the green left turn boxes placed at some intersections (Barton Springs and S. 1st, for example)--they are placed far forward and to the right -- placing a rider exactly where the rider is blocking someone wanting to turn right on red and placing the rider forward of the normal stop line for traffic moving forward.  They strike me as a bad idea, but I don't have any data yet to support my impression.  Plainly the idea is to promote the option of crossing an intersection in the right lane, stopping, and re-orienting in the right lane going the direction 90 degrees different, but the boxes are placed so that right-turning traffic might suddenly find a bicyclist (when not hidden by cars in lanes to the left of the right lane) popping up in front, so that right turning traffic is blocked, and the cyclist is placed further forward than the stop line.  I'm not sure the boxes are encouraging safer behavior.

Jack

Member

Registered: 2013-03-27

Posts: 344

Re: Speedway bike boxes

More on bike boxes:
James Mackay is a practicing traffic engineer who participated in a summer 2009 scan tour of European bicycle facilities. He is a member of the National Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices Bicycle Technical Committee (NCUTCD BTC). These are his comments on European vs. US bike box implementations: (the 2009 scan tour produced this document:  http://www.international.fhwa.dot.gov/p … l10010.pdf  )

Bicycle advance stop line implementations I saw in Europe amounted to a five-legged stool, with resultant stability and functionality.

I get very concerned with American implementations that amount to a two-legged stool.

Proposals I see over here lack the individual contribution and resultant system stability of the sum of following five factors which provides a functional system over there:
1.Near-side-only signals, which greatly reduced motorist encroachment on bike boxes and pedestrian crosswalks;
2.Traffic signals that provide an advance red/yellow phase indicating that a green indication is imminent;
3.Trixi mirrors (convex, internally heated mirrors placed on the near side signal pole, directly beneath the motorist’s traffic signal);
4.Right Turn on Red “RTOR” -or the UK equivalent of LTOR – does not exist in these countries (serving to preclude operational conflicts), and;
5.Cell phones are not to be used while driving.

Overall the bike boxes were used in cultures with much higher numbers of bicyclists. A motorist in the countries we visited would be much more likely to see a bicyclist using a bike box. This would specifically include truck drivers.

I don’t recall seeing traffic enforcement in the scan tour countries. Seemingly, there was a much stronger social contract in effect. In particular, bicyclist compliance with signals and other traffic control devices was much higher than what we are used to seeing in the U.S.

James Mackay, P.E.

Secretary (Emeritus as of January, 2011), Bicycle Technical Committee, NCUTCD

Last edited by Jack (2014-03-24 15:47:14)