Bikes lanes coming to 4th Street SW

Photo by Wes

Between D and I in SW.

Comments

[Brendan]

I'll have to see where they put the northbound lane. There's a series of poorly finished manholes that sit in the preferred line. Forces cyclists to ride hard up against parked cars, seriously take the lane, or slalom between those two options.

[twk]

Shouldn't the sign say "Begin Door Zone"?

[wes]

I rode the northbound lane in to work this morning... as Brendan feared, the lane is right in the manhole slalom course. Not much can be done about that except repaving the street. I veered into the travel lane rather than the door lane. South-bound doesn't have that problem.

[KG]

I sent an email to DDOT last night about the northbound lane. The solutions I see at this point are 1) move the bike lane further left away from the door zone 2) switch to sharrows or 3) patch up the pavement around the manholes, pronto.

Unfortunately, I think the striping will probably be a done deal by today and pavement patching would probably cost too much/take too long, so the only solution is just to ride outside of the lane and put up with the drivers who honk at me.

[J]

The southbound side looks wider than normal, so the door zone should be plenty easy to avoid.

I like the idea of patching the manhole covers so that there's a more gradual slope, not a sharp bump. Riding outside of a clearly marked car lane is just going to look bad. And drivers won't readily see why - it'll just look obnoxious.

Any idea who we should all start emailing to get patchwork going?

[washcycle]

mike goodno at ddot. AND the dc service request system.

[Eric]

I emailed Jim Sebastian and Mike Goodno about this. I think that aside from a complete resurfacing of the street, the best solution would be to narrow the north bound travel lane by a foot or two and widen the bike lane.

[dennis]

the bikelane just south of this stretch (between I & M SW) is still a terrible mess. Too much short term parking that has to cross the bike lane (or flat out uses it for parking).

Station4 used the bike lane for their valet parking for a while, but seemed to have listened to people complaining about it.

[Brendan]

Call off the dogs. This lane is pleasantly wide. The inside line is clear of the manhole covers. I was able to ride my usual line and still be inside the new lane.

[Westnorth]

The manhole covers in question are for a Pepco trench that seems to gradually shift towards the middle of the road as one heads north:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paytonc/6682171139/

I once counted ten (!) illegally parked cars along the one block that's Waterfront Station, including a Metro police vehicle. It's gotten such that I congratulate parking enforcement officers whenever I see them there. Being greeted every day with this sort of widespread law-flouting makes me really angry when drivers try using that "cyclists are the habitual scofflaws" line.