Bracelets for Bike Lanes?

On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 00:43:46 GMT, PMDavis
wrote:
On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 15:57:41 -0600, Pat Lamb
wrote:

I haven't ridden in a decent bike lane, where by "decent" I mean
well-maintained, well-planned, of adequate width, or safe. But I
haven't ridden on all bike lanes. Where do you find these wonderful lanes?


All new state roads in florida are required to have a four foot wide
bike travel lane built and striped each direction. It's the outside
lane on all roadways and drivers know to watch for bikes there.

So they're required to be BUILT. Are they designed and built safely,
so they don't evaporate when you come to a cross street, or a right
turn lane, and magically appear 50-100' later? Are they
well-maintained, or do they turn into trash collectors for broken
glass, rocks, cans, etc?

And do the drivers in Florida, who "know to watch for bikes there,"
respect cyclists and drive safely near them?

Pat

Email address works as is.

On 21 Mar 2005 18:37:02 -0800, wrote in message
.com:

Personally, I don't see how a stipe of paint makes me more noticeable.

Worse, they raise the perception that those are the /only/ roads you
can ride on. Bicycle Bantustans.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 21:15:48 -0600, Patrick Lamb
wrote:

On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 00:43:46 GMT, PMDavis
wrote:
On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 15:57:41 -0600, Pat Lamb
wrote:

I haven't ridden in a decent bike lane, where by "decent" I mean
well-maintained, well-planned, of adequate width, or safe. But I
haven't ridden on all bike lanes. Where do you find these wonderful lanes?


All new state roads in florida are required to have a four foot wide
bike travel lane built and striped each direction. It's the outside
lane on all roadways and drivers know to watch for bikes there.

So they're required to be BUILT. Are they designed and built safely,
so they don't evaporate when you come to a cross street, or a right
turn lane, and magically appear 50-100' later? Are they
well-maintained, or do they turn into trash collectors for broken
glass, rocks, cans, etc?

And do the drivers in Florida, who "know to watch for bikes there,"
respect cyclists and drive safely near them?

Pat

Email address works as is.


You can are review the design standards online at the Florida DOT web
site. They take the bike lane to the left of the right turn lane. So
from left to right, two auto lanes, a four foot bike lane going
straight with dashed white lines, and then the right turn lane. It's
continuous. It works surprisingly well, because the bikes can
approach all the way to the stop stripe even with a line of fifty or
more vehicles backed up at the light. I've been overtaken by a bike
rider in heavy traffic and couldn't catch up for about 3-4 miles.

They are consistantly maintained by the street sweepers that are used
to sweep all the streets. We don't leave broken glass on our roads
down here.

Whether the drivers offer "respect" to bikes is a subjective matter
that varies from one driver to another.