BIKE: right turn lanes on 360

[Mike Dahmus]

Lane S. Wimberley wrote:

>Good morning fair Austin cyclists!
>
>On another list today, I learned about some cyclists out on 360 being
>informed by APD that (a) APD is involved in stepping up enforcement of
>traffic laws among cyclists (and hopefully other road users), and (b)
>that proceeding straight through an intersection from a right
>turn-only lane to the shoulder on the other side is a ticketable
>offense.  The riders merely got a warning this time, but were told by
>the officer that the proper way to handle these intersections is to
>merge into right-lane traffic prior to the intersection, and move back
>over to the shoulder once through the intersection, and that tickets
>will be issued for such offenses starting very soon.
>
>Needless to say, this law is counter-intuitive to cyclists, as well as
>arguably impractical and downright dangerous.  I'll spare the
>discussion of why as I suspect all/most on this list already know and
>agree.  (Oh, silly me! ;-)
>
>Now, strictly speaking, I believe the officer was correct, as Texas
>law says that, with few exceptions, cyclists are bound by the same
>rules as motorists, so if it's right-turn only with no exception for
>bikes made explicit, then it's right turn-only.
>
>I will say, though, that I suspect the "right turn only except
>cyclists" signs on bike routes around town do tend to convince
>cyclists that this is normal, safe and expected behavior where there
>is a right turn-only lane, sign or no sign.  And, arguably it should
>be.
>
>Here's my feeling: right turn only should not apply to cyclists on 360
>(and possibly other places without explicit exception for bikes
>currently).  It seems the most straight-forward solution (as opposed
>to changing Texas law or APD/TxDOT enforcement policy) is to get
>signage out there to make exception for bikes explicit.
>
>Is this something that UTC would take up?  Is that the right place to
>start?
>  
>

Yes, this is something we should take up. I'll put it in the short-stack 
for agenda items for our upcoming subcommittee meeting (right now 
looking like early November since we'd like to do a joint meeting with 
UT in October).

I've wondered about this myself before. For clarification of a possible 
typo, you wrote:

"

were told by
the officer that the proper way to handle these intersections is to
merge into right-lane traffic prior to the intersection, and move back
over to the shoulder once through the intersection

"

This doesn't make sense as written. Did you mean that the officer told 
them that they needed to merge OUT of the right-turn traffic and INTO 
the right through-lane (the rightmost of the two lanes going straight)? 
This at least makes some sense, although not with 65 mph traffic.

Generally, it seems that TXDOT encourages cyclists to stay in the 
shoulder area even when a right-turn lane is carved out of it. This is 
implied, at least to me, by the geometric design of their intersections. 
I always thought this was a difference between TXDOT and the city which 
was of marginal consequence, but if the city police are enforcing this 
law in this way, it becomes a much more important distinction.

- MD