BIKE: Mostly Well-Done AusChron Article on SCB (Bury the Hatchet)

[Thorne]

All of that makes sense, to one degree or another, if you don't already know
how safe and pleasant SCB is to ride on. 

Mike Dahmus <mdahmus> wrote:

"The cars expect them to be in the bike lane."  

Right you are.  That is, the paint has relegated the cyclist to a second and
lower class of driver confined to a side path irrespective of its safety for
travel, whether parking is allowed there or not.  Thank you, paint advocates.

"Speed differential is not high enough for this to be a big safety improvement
over simply riding in traffic, however."

That's my point.  Especially on SCB which is a low-speed, light-volume street
with lots of room for cycling and motorized traffic to interact safely.  This
goes for the vast majority of those I've seen cycling SCB over the years. 
Yes, kids ride there too, and kids can be unsafe riders.  Unsafe whether
there's a no-parking bike lane or not.  Instruction and gaining experience are
the keys there, not paint.

"FINALLY: Consider the benefit to traffic flow."

Again, consider what is being said here.  The "bike lane" as a species is
principally for the benefit of automobile traffic and is a mechanism that
prevents drivers from considering cyclists as a regular part of traffic.  The
bike lane causes problems for cycling safety as it purports to solve others. 
That is not to say that there are no circumstances a bike lane could improve. 
I'm glad to have some bike lanes (Stassney comes to mind).  SCB was the wrong
battle for little to no benefit. 

What city engineers and the UTC should be doing is looking at places that are
not already safe and pleasant to ride and determining whether improvements to
those places can make them so and also making sure that road improvements
(whether new roads or redesigned old ones) allow for safe cycling.  MD would
have us thinking that riding SCB is carnage incipient and it is plainly not. 
Fighting for painted stripes on safe wide lanes is not helping the cause. 
Before worrying about parking in bike lanes on SCB, how about rethinking that
crazy two-way bike lane next to the railroad tracks just to the west in the
same neighborhood?  How about finding the places where car-bike collisions are
actually occurring and looking for a solution to the demonstrated problem? 
How about not painting the bike lane all the way to the intersection so that
the unwary novice cyclist you are trying to help is encouraged to ride
unthinkingly to the right of right-turning traffic?  You'd also do more good
by lengthening some yellow light cycles around Austin or fostering more
green-signed bike routes so the newer cyclists can more easily find nice and
useful routes.

With all due respect to MD and with my sincere thanks for his caring about,
and hard work on, such matters.

Jeff