This has nothing to do with frustration

From a WTOP story on the new downtown BID artistic bike racks. 

During the unveiling of the new bike rack, which feature bright red bird cutouts, as many as 15 cars cut through the barriers that separate the L Street cycle track from the lanes for motor vehicles.

One man stopped and rolled down his window to answer a reporter's question: Did he know he was in the lane designated for cyclists? "Yeah" he said. When asked why he stated simply, "Because I'm parking in this garage."

He motioned to a parking garage on his left and moved on. But had he travelled a few more feet, he could have made his turn legally. The bike lanes feature broken lines to indicate where drivers can cut in to make their turns.

D.C. Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh, a cyclist herself, noted that the driver had Virginia plates. But he wasn't alone. She watched as a number of cars did the same thing -- cutting through the flexible bollards, crossing over a solid line to get into the cycle track.

Seeing another large white truck make the same move she said, "It's happening again!" and then spotted the bright red "D" logo. "Now, see, that's completely unacceptable! Our own government truck?"

It was a D.C. vehicle.

Cheh says the continued conflicts between motorists and cyclists are a sign of the District's transition from a car-centric downtown to one where "pedestrians have their sidewalks, cyclists have their cycle tracks, cars have their lane."

 

Comments

[kbikeva]

I am SO SO glad Mary Cheh was there to see it ... she can give eye witness info when she demands police enforcement.

[SJE]

A ticket writing campaign from MPD will educate the drivers very quickly.

[DE]

I sometimes think it's hopeless. The only reason I don't get run over every single day is that I pay more attention than the *sshats do.

But no, I'm not frustrated either. :>)

It's still more fun than driving, Metro, or (especially) the bus. And with luck, with more and more of us out there, things will get better eventually.

[Charmaine]

I ride the L St. track on my commute and I see this and many more infractions daily. Unbelievable and VERY unsafe!! :(

[Bill on Capitol Hill]

Remember the bad old days, when cars had a right to both the streets and the sidewalks?

[UrbanEngineer]

"pedestrians have their sidewalks, cyclists have their cycle tracks, cars have their lane."

I do think it'll be nice to see the bike infrastructure expand but I fear this mentality may bring an even greater belief that we NEED to be in cycletracks and bike lanes.

[Rob P]

To be completely frank, it's one thing for Mary Cheh and others to witness what we've been complaining about, but did any of these drivers get busted? If no, then you know exactly why they do it and keep doing it.

Is Cheh going to propose bringing back a dedicated traffic enforcement division for MPD? It feels like that's the only sustainable solution at this point. MPD has done short-lived enforcement of Penn and L after major complaints, but then they stop, and the bad behavior ramps back up.

I don't use L. I'd rather ride on Penn from Washington Circle to the White House. Even without a dedicated lane, it feels safer. That's a problem.

[I forgot]

And what is truly ironic is that left turns into parking garages would likely be more safe if the cars merged into the bike lane and then turned left rather than turning left directly across the lane. This his how it is done at streets; why not at garages?

[Brendan]

The more complex the system, the more errors you have.

Cycletracks will be our ghettos.

[Atlas]

I just refuse to use bike lanes and cycle tracks, full stop. Too dangerous.

[Greenbelt]

They should fully protect that track and make it two way with cuts at the garage entrances and separate bike signals at the intersections. Frankly, every major road should have this.

[Jonathan Krall]

" I fear this mentality may bring an even greater belief that we NEED to be in cycletracks and bike lanes"

"Cycletracks will be our ghettos"

Is this a new variation on the "jack-booted thugs" that Fox News always promises and never delivers?

[JJJJJ]

Exploding bollards are the only solution

[UrbanEngineer]

Jonathan,

I'm not sure what that statement means nor how my comment and the cycletracks will be our ghetto's comment are related.

I'm all for bike infrastructure. I'm not for the belief that "cars have their lane". I've never made it anywhere on my bike without having to take the lane at some point during my trip.

[Brendan]

UE, I think we're sort of saying the same thing and biking the same way. DC could build 100 miles of cycletracks and still not be able to provide a network that gets me everywhere I need to go solely by cycle track or bike lane. At some point, I'll need the road.

The drivers' perceptions will be, "With all these cycletracks taking away my road, how dare this bicycle dare be out of their track and in front of me. If I can't be in the bike lane, the bike can't be in the car lane."

The cycling community as a whole might be safer and get increased numbers, but every bike outside a cycle track will be at higher risk.

After a couple years of that, the Council might just decide that bikes oughta stay in their track/lane and not be in the road.

I don't know if that's going to happen, but it could happen. Then we'd all be saying we should have been careful what we wished for.

Shorter story: cycle track news doesn't excite me.

[Crickey7]

I confess to mixed feelings about bike lanes. On the one hand, they are critical to attracting large numbers of cyclists. On the other, we will never have a complete network, and they do reinforce the idea that all roads belong to cars, and bikes should use only the bike lanes and the multi-use paths that drivers like to mistakenly call "bike paths."

[Tim]

Crickey7, the roads already belong to cars. The fact that cyclists are legally allowed on them, and that a tiny percentage of us choose to exercise that right, makes no difference. Most people will never choose to cycle alongside fast or busy motor traffic.

So the answers are threefold.

1) Make the traffic slower where appropriate - lower limits in residential areas, tighten the bends at junctions, etc.

2) Make the traffic less busy where appropriate - filtered permeability, like a bollard in the middle of a small residential road so that cars can't cut through and use it as a "rat-run". Avoid big roads which "conveniently" (for drivers) cut across urban centres - make drivers go around.

3) On bigger routes where fast or busy motor traffic is unavoidable and appropriate, segregate - good quality continuous physically protected space for cyclists (and not shared space!).

This is not a hierarchy of provision; all the measures are equally important and appropriate depending on the type of road.

This is how it works in civilised countries such as the Netherlands. People often ride bikes on the same roads as cars, but on only on slow minor roads where the speed is under 20mph AND the number of cars per day is under 2000 (or 2000 PCUs).
http://rachelaldred.org/writing/20mph-2000pcu-using-it-for-local-campaigning/

And unless you can do this, and do it everywhere, then the large numbers of cyclists will never show up, because having half of your journey feel safe and pleasant (while the other half feels suicidal) doesn't help. Although of course you have to start somewhere.

The Dutch never feel deprived or sidelined because they have a much better option than cycling on the fast busy road. And as for risk and danger? Well of course they have far fewer deaths and accidents per mile cycled than other countries, despite the fact that they don't wear helmets and that everyone from school-kids to grannies is cycling. That's how dangerous proper bike-lanes (or cycleways) are.

[Crickey7]

I'm a little tired of the hoopla about how the Dutch do things.

We have a different starting point. We need to do things our way, even if we make mistakes. I'm so over the Dutch when it comes to cycling. The DC area is as good a template as any right now for how we in America are going to meld cars and cyclists.

[ACyclistInTheSuburbs]

Its not just the Dutch its the Danes too. And city after city copying them. I don't know of any examples of cities that have gained large cycling mode share by relying on cycling in the general traffic lanes on fast, busy streets.

As for the fear that cyclists will be banned from the general travel lanes, I think a city with lots of transport cyclists (drawn in large part by segregated infra) is unlikely to see that happen. Where I see the strongest rhetoric for banning bikes is precisely in those suburban jurisdictions with limited bike infra, because those are the places where biking is least "normal" and most likely to be seen as recreational.