I’m sorry, I truly am. But I have to put off our usual morning links for yet another day.
The good news is my migraine pain finally went away, but left me so dizzy that I’m only managing to avoid tossing my cookies through the marvels of modern pharmacology.
However, I want to alert you to yet another threat to the previously settled dispute over installing protected bike lanes on Fountain Ave.
According to WeHo Times, the West Hollywood City Council will discuss an alternative proposal at this Monday’s meeting that would preserve parking on Fountain at the cost of the planned and promised protected bike lanes.
In other words, sacrificing human lives for the sake of convenience. Evidently, the death of Blake Ackerman on Fountain Ave wasn’t enough for them.
Opponents of these bike lanes will undoubtedly come out in force, and will need to be met with an equal and opposite force of supporters demanding that the council stick with the already approved plans.
This is an all hands on deck situation. If you ride on Fountain Ave — or would if it wasn’t at the risk of your life — or live or work nearby, you owe it to yourself to attend the meeting, or contact the councilmembers in advance.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go lay down before my stomach overturns the medication keeping it in check.
I think it is important to use proper terms. In California there are specific vehicle code laws that pertain to bike lanes. The State defines Class II bike lanes as lanes specifically for use of cyclists.
The ‘newfangled’ separated bikeways are called “protected” but rarely are – people have died hitting separators in the roadway and short curbs and plastic bollards really won’t protect anyone from a motorist crashing through – short of a K-Rail the protection is an illusion. At intersections they CREATE hazardous situations, setting up right-hook crashes and making it difficult to make a left turn. Passing slower riders in a narrow channel – debri and road hazard avoidance, motorist expecting us to stay in our space and hating that 95% of the road users loose lane width or parking for 5% of us that ride… of course there is push back. Extreme feds call them DEI and have killed funding. Motorists see them as part of the war against cars. Experienced competent road using cyclist are adept at defensive riding and taking lanes as pert of traffic.
Class II bike lanes are mandatory use and part of the road. Separated Class IV cycle tracks are not part of the road and not mandatory use.
They may be appropriate in SOME locations but the details of how we can merge in and out, where it puts us in harms way at every driveway and intersection, how well they can be maintained, how well engineered the intersections are all critical to safety and many poor examples have been installed.
Please don’t call them protected bike lanes – California calls them separated bikeways or cycle tracks. The Feds call them separated bike lanes but California law distinguishes them from bike lanes.
As someone who was hit while biking I would much rather be in the proposed bike lanes than riding in mixed traffic.
NACTO continues to use the term protected bike lanes, which is good enough for me. They also cite a studies showing they reduce the risk of collisions up to 90% on busy roadways like Fountain, while improving safety for all road users. I understand that there are anecdotal reports of injuries and fatalities caused by poorly marked barriers, but I have yet to see a study contradicting those cited above. If and when I see something like that, I will share it on this site.
On the one hand, the protected lanes seem like a good idea in general.
On the other hand, I can see being swiped by cars turning right even more than usual because those in the bike lane may be less aware than usual (feeling “protected”) and drivers may have even more of an “out of sight, out of mind” mindset.
Curious if there’s data related to the increase (or not) of cyclist safety with protected lanes like this.
According to NACTO — the National Association of City Transportation officials — protected bike lanes improve safety 50% compared to painted bike lanes, and up to 90% compared to a street with no bike infrastructure, while improving safety for all road users.