Bicycle Austin forum

Jack

Member

Registered: 2013-03-27

Posts: 344

Pedernales 2-Way Cycle Track criticized

From this morning's paper:  http://www.statesman.com/news/news/loca … der/nmMW8/ 
The link includes an informative video of a drive near the facility.
Though a lot of the complaints from drivers amount to not liking the space being carved out and parking problems (showing the sense of motorist entitlement we so often contend with), another major part of the complaint comes down to -- the facility makes it harder not to hit bicyclists when you are driving around it.  This design feature is part of why MUTCD standards argue against physical separation of bike lanes on roadways.  The design is creating dangerous conflicts in the name of making people who ride bikes "feel" safer.

Of course, the physically separated bike lane prevents encroachment on the bicyclist's space between intersections.  AT intersections, it makes it far more difficult for motorists and bicyclists to see each other and negotiate around potential conflicts.  European studies show that the way to make these kinds of facilities safer is to transition the bicyclists and motorists into non-separated (shared) space well before intersections.  The Pedernales facility is repeating the mistakes of the 1970s, and that's really too bad, because it's expensive to build this kind of thing and expensive to take it back out to get it right.