Bus/Bike lanes Ignored by Motorists

In other news, puppies are cute and Rosebud is a sled.

NBC breaks the story on cars driving in the bus/bike lanes on 7th and 9th streets downtown.

They do show a police officer telling a double-parked delivery truck to move along. The fine, they point out, for illegally using the bus/bike lanes is $0 because the District Council hasn't seen fit to set a fine.

NBC calls them bus only lanes, but that isn't accurate. Above I called them bus/bike only lanes - as did the sign above. That isn't accurate either. They are bus, bike & right turn only lanes. They have them in Rehoboth, DE, along with signs like the one to the right that explain exactly how they work (compare them to the ones in DC that leave the brain trust at NBC perplexed). The interesting thing in Rehoboth is that no one seems to drive in them illegally. It could be the signage, or that their is a real fine, or that it's enforced...or

It could be that DC's bus/bike/right turn only lanes were designed to fail. Let's go back a few years to when Dan Tangherlini was head of DDOT. DDOT studied creating a transitway along K Street - two designs had dedicated transit ways down the middle lanes and one had a curb running bus lane. DannyT wanted the line down the middle. Downtown business owners claimed that would be ugly and wanted the bus lane on the outside. DannyT claimed that would never work because with parking on the outside, cars would be constantly using the bus lanes to turn right and park. Around this time, Dan had DDOT put the bus, bike & right turn only lanes in on 7th and 9th streets and put them on the outside. They have been a total failure. Has Dan proved his point? Perhaps.

Comments

[scb]

I just started riding my bike to work and my route on K street is very direct. I wonder why they haven't bothered putting up bike lanes there. It's a very hectic street to say the least. With buses, people, and cars flying from you in every direction it could leave the weak of heart or accident prone open to disaster. I think this is a bicycle-able city and there need to be more bike lanes.

[GhettoBurbs]

Ocean City has the bus/bike/right turn only lanes too. Even when traffic is crawling, the only occupants of these lanes are buses, bikes, and right turners.

[Ren]

DE's sign seems a lot clearer to me than DC's.