On Mar 9, 9:03 am, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Mar 8, 10:42 pm, Dan O wrote:



On Mar 8, 3:08 pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Seriously, isn't this your big chance? There may be a bike lane I
(and others) would say we'd like, one that's truly valuable beyond
it's added width. Why not post a photo?

I don't have a pic handy, and it wouldn't matter anyway, since it's
traffic dynamics that make a bike lane worthwhile, but the one I'm
thinking of runs along the gutter of what was at one point in time the
very busiest road in the state. Most "cyclists" are scared ****less
to ride the road at all (this "fact" is published), and I've had my
share of close calls there, but since it's the only best most direct
route for along way to where I need to get to, I ride it regularly.
The bike lane is rough and debris-strewn and has some nasty standing
water and buses stop in it and there are like a zillion driveways with
lots of traffic pulling in and out, but without that bike lane
allowing me to stay mostly out of the way of a million impatient
cagers, I would go another way. Take it FWIW.

I think you missed the phrase "beyond the added width." If you remove
the stripe, you have as much pavement in which to "stay mostly out of
the way." You'd have less debris too, which probably means more
available room. The stripe adds no room.


I don't know how you could be more obtuse. Width is not the issue.
Sharing the lane is the issue.

Bike lanes wouldn't do much good on most roads IMO, but the bike lanes
on this particular road - a road and traffic that I know intimately
and you don't at all - are highly beneficial to the cooperative and
harmonious flow of traffic.

I have pretty much no problem sharing the road. What I have a problem
with is motorist hostility.

What is one of the most fundamental tenets of driving a car on the
road. Keep it between the lines, right?

Sharing the lane to pass a bicyclist in the same lane - no matter how
wide it is - presents drivers more of a stressful conundrum to drivers
than simply keeping it between the lines.

Many drivers will simply refuse to pass until they *can* move to the
next lane. On such very busy roads, just changing lanes can be a
stressful endeavor if feasible at all. Traffic stacks up traffic
behind, fomenting still more impatience, stess, frustration,
resentment, anger, and hostility in still more drivers. And to whom
will these drivers direct all of their pent up anger? That's right -
the bicyclist, who they feel is "in the way", and whom they are about
to take *their* crack at in this lane sharing gang bang.