Arguments for/against bike lanes?

Question

What are the arguments for and against bike lanes? Can anyone summarize the best reasons they're good for and bad for cyclists and automobile drivers?

For example, Are there some environments particularly suited for bike lanes? Are there some types of locales that would be particularly suited for them, where they wouldn't cause resentment?

Answer 1

AGAINST

One of my primary issues with bike lanes is that motorists tend to think that you have to stay in that lane. So when you have to move right because of debris, garbage cans or parked cars in the lane it further annoys ill-informed drivers.

Additionally, drivers come to expect you to be out of traffic, riding on the shoulder, and will squeeze by you closer.

Many bike lanes are placed immediately to the left (traffic-side, may be right depending on the country) of the parking area, so if you remain in the bike lane you are in the "door zone".

Bike lanes tend to increase confusion and conflict at intersections, either forcing the cars to cross the lanes in an awkward manner, or enticing cyclists to filter to the front of the lane and possibly blocking turning actions by motorists. Bike lanes encourage passing on the right, which can be a very dangerous action for the cyclist.

Finally - by law in most places every lane is a bike lane... there is no possible way for designated bike lanes and routes to be marked to every destination I would like to visit, and by law when I am in the lane I am traffic, I'm not blocking traffic. (sorry, I get a little militant about bike lanes, especially when they are the primary focus of improved cycling infrastructure rather than wider roads with calmer traffic.)

FOR

As someone with some experience teaching workshops for new bike commuters, I find that the existence of convenient bike lanes and multi-use paths makes taking those first trips easier. Novice commuters feel more comfortable riding on a marked bike lane, even if they don't realize that they may be marginally less safe in a bike lane at the far right edge of the roadway, generally a riskier position.

There are some places, like one particularly popular area in Salt Lake City, where rather than position a lane demarcated with white lines to the side of the travel lane, the DOT painted a wide green lane with bike icons almost in the middle of the right-most travel lane and erected signs that read "Bicycles Allowed Full Use of Lane." This is not a bike lane, but a hybrid or shared-lane, and I love it because it reinforces the fact that bikes are traffic, and roads must be shared.

Answer 2

In theory great except for:

Painted white line on side of road - great except for everybody turning right across them at each junction, cars parked in them, busses pulling in and out of them, grit+broken glass+leafs+litter swept into them, broken drain covers, or are so narrow you can't fit a bike in them.

Separated bike lanes - either take you miles out of your way to give you a scenic route, or go alongside a busy road until they come to a major junction or freeway ramp and then just end - starting again at the other side of the lethally dangerous part.

Bike lanes that are either positioned by people who are complete morons, or are cynically putting in the minimum bike lane they can to claim some sort of government target.

Images are from the famous warrington cycle lanes now available as a book:

Answer 3

In London there are some new 'Cycle Superhighways' painted in blue with lots of associated signage (and publicity), they're envisaged as arterial routes from the edges of the city into the centre. Obviously they're only useful if your journey is close to where they are but they have had some quite obvious effects even in the few months of their official existence.

Pro:

• Everyone knows about them. On that route cyclists aren't just tolerated, they're expected and this makes everyone safer.
• Every traffic light has an Advanced Stop Line (ASL). This means that at all traffic lights the cyclists are very visible to the other waiting traffic. One frequent criticism is that cycle lanes often seem to melt away at pinch points, which is not the case here.
• it makes red light jumpers even more obvious. When a bundle of cyclists are waiting and someone jumps, it underlines to car drivers that we're not all at it.

Con:

• there are almost too many cyclists. The lanes are often clogged and overflowing into the rest of the road. While the road is the cyclists to use as well, there is still a feeling of "that's your blue bit, the black bit is for cars".
• it makes red light jumpers even more obvious. When a bundle of cyclists are waiting and someone jumps, it makes car drivers even more aggreived, "all these facilities and you still jump reds?"
• it underlines that bikes are different. I don't want different, I want respect and my fair share.

Answer 4

Bike lanes often have dirty, inferior roadway and angry SUV drivers eager to force you into the bicycle ghetto.

An extra wide right lane is a much better solution:

• Roadway is kept in better repair
• Roadway is swept clean by normal traffic flow
• Cyclists are not bullied by inattentive or bully drivers
• Wide right lanes are cheaper and easier than special bike lanes

Answer 5

I find that bike lanes are helpful in getting beginners comfortable riding "in traffic", except that then they also learn that they "can't" ride on roads without them.

Answer 6

The problem in the UK is that for every well designed useful bike lane there are at least 10 useless bike lanes created that just lead to drivers forcing you of the road.

In the UK bike lanes seems to be a “trick list” item that are mostly not wide enough to be of value and stop as soon as you get to a junction. There seems to be no willingness to take road space away from motor cars on the sections of roads/junctions that would benefit most from bike lanes as reducing the capacity of a road is unthinkable.

Answer 7

The table/graph "Preferred separation of bicycles and motor vehicles" (Ausroads, 2009) as visible here (Australian Bicycling Council, Cycling on Higher Speed Roads When to Provide for Bicycles on Higher Speed Roads) on page 2: http://www.austroads.com.au/abc/images/pdf/ns1525_fs_one.pdf indicates that the Australian standard for introducing cycle lanes (being separately marked spaces on a public road) in an urban environment is centered at 5000 vehicle movements a day with the 85th percentile of speed being 55km/h. If we consider the abominable "shoulder lane" of Australian practice to be a genuine bicycle lane then this would be extended into higher speeds and fewer traffic movements.

The road treatments suggested by Ausroads rarely come to fruition in NSW, with separated facilities almost always being inappropriate routed shared use paths with broken sight lines, corners well below speed, or merely being remarked standard footpaths neighbouring roads. Where such paths are routed appropriately for commuting, such as the Illawarra's SUP Coastline Cycleway there are still numerous engineering flaws such as redundant curves, edge encroachment, failure to route mark.

Australian path building practice, road marking practice, or route marking of mixed traffic routes rarely follows this practice in urban environments in NSW.

Imagine, if you will, civil engineers who when responsible for constructing infrastructure are hindered at every turn, and whose responsibility to produce a road or way has been converted into the production of a leisure amenity for children.

Answer 8

My take is the following: There are no con's for bike lanes! :-)

Think of it: Are there discussions of pro's and con's of sidewalks (aka pedestrian lanes)? No! Why? Because they are useful! It's a matter of protecting the fragile against the one ton metal boxes that are propelled at 50km/h!

However, there are many con's for how local politics have decided to implements bike lanes because they fail the purpose of it: there are inconsistencies, they are not enough separated from the road, they are placed dangerously, etc. Each time we witness such mistakes which should contact our local council and tell them about it. OK, I agree, it's not always useful, where I live they don't listen at all. But that's why there is elections, and I vote where my mouth is!

In Toulouse, bike lanes are nice but improperly done in most cases. They can even lead you to a one way street with no bike lane and you will be against the traffic (rue A. Dauménil)! Or they share part of the sidewalks leaving no room for pedestrians (allée M. Sarraut). Or they share the road (just a bit of paint) and suddenly the road gets narrow and you get squeeze between a car and a high sidewalk (avenue C. Pujol), which means you are in danger! So yes, bike lanes in Toulouse have lots of con's, I just hope they will do a better job at it.