Monroe Street Bike Lane, Interrupted by bulb out

Monroe Bike lane interrupted by bulb out
Originally uploaded by volcrano

And this is looking east. You can see that the bike lane just ends at the bulb out and past that, where the bike lane begins. This cannot be what DDOT intended.

Comments

[Jack]

I think Silver Spring will be giving up its "worst bike lane" title soon... maybe DC wants to claim it?

that definitely needs a pass-through for bikes

[jeff]

Wow, that's bad. That's a much more telling angle in the photo than in the last posting. wow.

[Chris]

Unfortunately, given some of the designs I've seen, I suspect maybe it IS what DDOT intended. Or maybe they think of it as a temporary "solution" (which is what I was told regarding the piss-poor disappearing bike lanes on 14th Street at the Target).

[Richard Layman]

So you see this as a more serious transgression than me. I think that they shouldn't have made a dedicated left turn lane there, after all it's only for buses and make the cars wait behind buses waiting to turn! Then the lane could have shifted slightly.

It's reasonable to make accommodations for pedestrians as much as cyclists...

Similarly, on the 900 block, I would remove the painted yellow median, and shift the lanes to keep a continuous bicycle lane there on the north side of the block.

[washcycle]

Absolutely it's reasonable to make accommodations for pedestrians, and I don't mind the bulb outs, but this one was poorly executed.

If they had done what you suggested it would have been much better. One through traffic lane, then a bike lane, then widen the whole sidewalk over the bridge into the bulb out. Much better.

But, that isn't what they did.

[jay]

Gah. I hate bulb outs. I've never seen them executed in a way that "calmed" traffic, except to put me in the way of speeding cars.

[Contrarian]

I have to disagree that "This can't be what DDOT intended." This same scenario plays out all over town: there's an intersection with a left-turn lane. The road doesn't get any wider, but suddenly there's an extra lane. So the space for the turn lane comes out of the bike lane, in accordance with DDOT's "wishful thinking" school of facilities design, which states that cyclists can just make themselves real small when they need to.

The bulbout would be fine if there was no left-turn lane and the roadway just followed the countour of the curb.

[Jack]

Mont. Co. has been putting some bulb-outs in. They put them right in the shoulder, and if you're riding in the shoulder, watch out. They installed a bulb-out (actually a bus stop pad) on a fast road with good shoulders and said they first checked to make sure it wasn't a "designated" bike route before they did it. But every road is a bike route, designated or not.

[Jack]

Guess what? Residents along Cedar St. in Silver Spring (remember the world's stupidest bike lane? -- http://www.thewashcycle.com/2008/05/stupidest-bike.html ) are protesting providing an actual intelligent bike lane in front of their homes again. The contraflow lane (reserved for bike use) would allow cyclists to legally ride southbound on a one-way northbound street…
http://www.gazette.net/stories/02042009/silvnew185538_32476.shtml

[Chris]

In the example given, I would just drive right down the center of the motorized traffice lane well before I get to that bulb out. Problem solved.