On Thursday, November 21, 2013 10:49:11 AM UTC-5, Dan O wrote:

The bike boxes do practically remove a hassle that I routinely
face. Sitting in the bike lane at a red light (can you believe
that I routinely face even this? :-), waiting to go straight ahead.
Car turns right on red. Fine, no problem. Another car turns right
on red. No problem. But now my light is about to go green, and
these right-on-red people are not even looking at the light -
instead they're looking to their left for clear to turn right on
red, and following the car ahead turning right on red one after
another. Now my light is green and still they're ~streaming around
the right turn (now with the green light but either unaware that
I'm there or not caring.

Good illustration. You put yourself at the far right, even though you're planning on going straight. And it produces problems for you. That's hardly surprising.

Traffic at interesections, in general, operates by "destination positioning.." That means vehicles that are turning left stay to the left, perhaps even in a left-turn-only lane. Similarly, vehicles that are turning right stay to the right, and those going straight stay toward the center. When lanes are marked with arrows, they always conform to this supremely logical scheme.

.... except for bike lanes, of course. Your straight through bike lane is to the right of motorists who want to turn right. You shouldn't be surprised that it causes problems. It will cause problems whether or not it is painted green. It's putting you in a well-known blind spot, and asking motorists to do something that's contrary to 100 years of traffic practice and expectations.

Needless to say, I don't experience that problem of yours.

It would reduce many, if not most of the fatalities in London, from what I recall. It would have prevented the death that served as the trigger (or excuse?) for Portland's bike boxes.

Horse manure, pure and simple. The truck that creamed Sparling
waited at the red and started his turn on the fresh green.

OK, I thought it was a right turn on red. Sorry.

To reduce the moving right hooks, I'd prefer teaching cyclists not to pass moving motor vehicles on their blind side. That means don't run a green "invitation-to-a-right-hook" lane up to the intersection.

What *do* you do with it? ... Never mind, I know - we erase it
and tell the bicyclists to man up and drive like a vehicle, right?

Right, Dan. It works.

- Frank Krygowski