Is there place in our hearts for sharrows and flexposts?

Bike advocates have spent the last five decades stepping up their requests. They started out asking for the right to ride on sidewalks in the 1960's, but gradually moved on to asking for signed bike routes, bike lanes ("Just a little paint") and now protected bike lanes. The case for the safety and utility of protected bike lanes is impossible to deny, but is there still a place for paint and the dreaded flexposts?

I've noticed often that when new facilities are installed they're quickly criticized for not being protected, or for being protected but still having cars parked in them.  "Flexposts aren't protection," "Flexposts are useless,"  "Sharrows are bullshit" or other such statements are made. "Paint is not protection" is another favorite. 

[At the point let me implore you good readers to be patient. Nearly without fail, when a new facility is being installed someone takes to twitter to complain about it the day after work starts, which is often before it's completed. Then a few days later, the work is completed and the thing they complained about - no protection for example - has been addressed. Do not be that person. Put all critiques under your hat for a solid week.]

I like protected bike lanes. We should build a lot more. But I also think sharrows, flexposts and buffers have their place. It's true that they're not protection, just as it is true that a banana is not a helicopter. But as long as no one tries to claim that their banana is a helicopter, it seems odd to yell that at them when they offer you one. The appropriate time to call out a flexpost as not protection is when someone tries to say it is. The mere installation of a flexpost does not warrant it. 

While I'm not going to waste my time asking for a sharrow these days, they do have utility. As do flexposts and buffers. 

Sharrows are much maligned, possibly because they're much abused, but despite offering no protection, they have their place. On roads where, for whatever reason, there isn't room for a bike lane, they can serve three purposes - reinforce the legitimacy of bicycle traffic on the street, recommend proper bicyclist positioning, and offer directional and wayfinding guidance. Should cyclists have to "reinforce our right"? No, but we shouldn’t have to do sexual harassment training every year either. It would seem like once would do the trick. But it doesn't. So sharrows are like repeated training. A 2010 study showed that where they’re installed, cyclists ride farther to the left, as intended. And they can serve a wayfinding role, guiding cyclist between facilities, especially in places where I've seen them designed for that purpose. Sharrows can't offer protection, and have little safety benefit even when used properly, but they're not bullshit. If a DOT downgraded a plan from PBLs to sharrows, that would be bullshit; but merely using them is not. They’re not a substitute for other facilities (though they might be better than door zone bike lanes in some cases), but they’re not "worse than nothing." They are marginally better than nothing, which I understand may not be enough for some.

Buffered Bike Lanes

Buffered bike lanes often garner the "paint is not protection" complaint, which is largely true - it's not. But buffered lanes, lanes with more than a foot of painted shy space on one or both sides, can improve safety. Studies show that buffered bike lanes, especially those with flexposts "yield significant increases in perceived comfort for potential cyclists with safety concerns (the interested but concerned)." We've seen that on Pennsylvania Avenue NW, where the buffered bike lanes led to more cyclists using the road, and fewer crashes (there was an issue with cars making illegal U-Turns which is pretty specific to that unusual design, but the main idea remains). Furthermore, buffers in the door zone help keep cyclists from riding too close to parked cars. And while studies are needed to determine the safety of traffic-side buffers, it seems reasonable to expect that creating space between drivers and cyclists - even if it enforced only by paint is better than not creating that space. 

Flexposts 

Finally we come to flexposts, not as hated as sharrows, but often dismissed.  As mentioned above, Flexposts put "interested but concerned" cyclists at ease.   Flexposts are also effective at preventing cars from parking on a bike lane or driving in it. When they were added to the bike lanes on 1st Street, SE the number of cars parking in the bike lane dropped to zero. They were also usefyl in limiting the number of cars driving down protected bike lanes (when they go missing, it's noticed). Again, they aren't protection, but they serve a purpose.

While we can continue to work for more PBLs, the glamorous Marshas of bike facilities, can we also learn to stop hating these other Jans?

If we do, we find that the sharrows were inside of us all along.

Comments

[ACyclistInThePortCIty]

Agreed. It depends on context. Place sharrows on a low volume neighborhood street, that already has narrow lanes, and not much speeding, and they can be part of a "bike boulevard". Place them on a 35MPH arterial, not so much - or use them for a gap in the PBL network, where its dangerous to swerve into them, not so much. Buffered lanes where driveways make physical protection impossible, okay - where physical protection should be doable not so much. Flexposts where the problem is parking in the bike lane, okay - where its protection from fast traffic, not so much.

[drumz]

When getting interested in these issues I remember reading about how road engineers over-engineered for safety which made roads all the more dangerous (wider curves, moving back trees, etc).

Sometimes when people criticize a bike design as being inherently unsafe despite it being an improvement over what was there before I wonder if its the same mentality creeping through.

You see it with the 15th street cycle track with all its supposed flaws still is a far more popular route for its existence and while I don't have the numbers in front of me I don't think there's been any sort of increase in collisions on that street. Maybe I'm wrong but its hard for me to square my observed experience with the engineering heavy critiques of something like that.

For Sharrows I think they have their place but its needs to be an option after you've eliminated the others rather than a starting point.

I think Mt. Vernon Avenue in Del Ray is a good example of sharrows Best Practice.

There's only one travel lane each way and the corners all have bulb outs so you can't quite just ban parking and stencil in bike lane signs there.

But I'd be disappointed if they decided sharrows were the thing to get people biking on King or Duke Streets.

[Lissa Bell]

To the author: Would you consider lanes with flexposts "protected"?

I noticed that, in its 20x20 map, WABA lists lanes with Flexposts as "protected" bike lanes. In my personal lexicon, "protected" is a word I reserve for lanes with barriers that, well, protect me from a car even when the driver effs up (distracted, speeding, clueless, whatever). Flexpost lanes don't achieve that standard.

Please don't misunderstand me: "Flexposts + Green paint" are waaaay better than nothing.

But I think it's useful to put Flexposts and hard barriers in different categories, so that advocates and policy makers have a clear vision of what "job done" means.
Flexposts = job not yet done.
Hard barriers = job done.

[washcycle]

I do not refer to lanes with just flexposts as "protected" but I'm aware others do. I use the term "delineated". So there are bike lanes, buffered bike lanes, delineated bike lanes, buffered and delineated bike lanes and protected bike lanes. And possibly other flavors.

I don't see any lanes on WABA's map "mislabled". Which were you referring to? I'd be surprised if their position was that flexposts constitute protection.

[ACyclistInThePortCIty]

Flexposts won't protect against a malicious driver attempting to kill, a driver who has a heart attack, or one who completely loses control of their car. It likely will have an impact on an inattentive or distracted driver (because they make noise when struck) one who simply drifts into the bike lane etc. As for adding another category in between buffered and protected, I think the proliferation of terms may add to confusion.

[ACyclistInThePortCIty]

Note flexposts are used in many instances other than bike lanes to control driver movement - for example to change turning angles at intersection.

[washcycle]

What confusion?

[Crickey]

A graphic device should, to the greatest extent possible, be attention grabbing and totally self explanatory. I'm not sure sharrows are very effective on that score. That being said, I'm not sure there are better alternatives that I've seen.

[Jonathan Krall]

Quoting a comment: "I think Mt. Vernon Avenue in Del Ray is a good example of sharrows Best Practice."

The other day I was run off the road by an aggressive driver on Mt Vernon. I didn't feel like I was experiencing "best practices."

"There's only one travel lane each way and the corners all have bulb outs so you can't quite just ban parking and stencil in bike lane signs there."

They could strip parking from one side of the street and put in a 2-way cycletrack.

"But I'd be disappointed if they decided sharrows were the thing to get people biking on King or Duke Streets."

I agree. They did exactly that on Braddock Road and the result is crazy unsafe. IMO.

I think sharrows belong in only two places:
1. bike boulevards
2. the nearest dumpster

[ACyclistInThePortCIty]

'What confusion?'

In my experience, people other than complete streets professionals, and our hardy little band of bike advocates, already get a bit confused about the nomenclature - and adding a term in between buffered and protected for "defended by flexposts" adds to that - maybe a small cost, but I don't see the benefit.

[ACyclistInThePortCIty]

See

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumpers_and_splitters

[washcycle]

I think for larger public "bike Lane" and "protected bike lane" are fine. Delineated is more jargony, a term of art for nerds like us.

[Brendan]

I'd rather have justice. Death and injurious can be reduced but are inevitable. Justice has lower capital cost than infrastructure. Start putting people away in prison for years and society will get the message. Just like with MADD and drunk driving; not taken seriously until drivers who killed did time.

[washycle]

"Start putting people away in prison for years and society will get the message."

This is what we did in the drug war of the '80s and '90s and now no one does drugs.