Hey guys. What's up? Tom here today with a question for you: do bike lanes suck? And
more specifically, ll be more specific, do painted bike lanes suck? And
even more specifically: Do painted bike lanes -- you know that stripe on the on the
road that delinates a bike lane -- do those type of bike lanes suck
worse than having nothing at all? Why this question? For two reasons. One was I
was at a conference recently and I saw a presentation by Dr. Jennifer Dill who is
this well-known researcher into safe cycling from Portland State University
and she presented some interesting information. One of the things they did
was looking at the perceptions of safety among people who ride bikes. So
they asked a bunch of people who ride bikes which kind of bike infrastructure
do they feel most safe. What came out really low among all these different
types of infrastructure was a painted bike lane, which struck me as a bizarre.
Painted bike lanes are supposed to help cyclists, right? That's why they are
invented. That's why they exist. And so to see this as one of the more unsafe types
of bike infrastructure it struck me as strange.
The second thing was a different study, this one is fairly new
it comes out of Australia and this study looked at the impact of motor vehicle
and infrastructure on passing distance. So it looked at the way cars passed
bikes depending on the infrastructure on the road. Of all the things they looked
at two elements in the street seemed to prompt motorists to pass cyclists closer
than other things and those two things were parked cars and on-road painted
bicycle lanes. So yeah the painted bike lane saw motorists passed more closely
than other types of infrastructure including nothing at all. So this is two
things that made me question what's the point of a bike lane. I mean this is kind
of bizarre, right? These things were supposed to help cyclists. I've been
thinking about this and I had an idea to do a little experiment in my own not
scientific as those -- not scientific at all actually -- but basically what I did
was strapped a camera onto my bike during one of my days of commuting to
work and recorded the ride and see how cars passed me in different
types of infrastructure. And I thought we could go through them and take a look so
let's do that. Here we go okay so I'm not going to go through
every moment of my bike commute because that's super boring but basically what I
did was cut down the instances when cars passed me. So we'll look at them.
First I want to look at regular streets so these are just regular streets mostly
residential streets no bike infrastructure at all and here we go.
Let's see here's me riding. There was a SUV passing me that's fine there was
enough distance there nothing too crazy about that.
Here's another instance and this one caught my eye look. Look at the
passing distance there. This person gave me like three meters this is a wonderful
motorist. Either that or a cyclist who happens to be driving a car. But yeah
look at all that space. I mean that feels really good on a regular street. Alright
here's another one this gets a little bit more interesting. See there's I'm
passing a parked car and remember parked cars or one of those
elements that encourage people to pass closely and look at that a car came
really close to me right there. That was pretty tight so that's interesting.
It's still a resident residential road. I mean I didn't feel dangerous at all but it's
still pretty tight. This is interesting as well. This is another residential road
in a more urban environment you can see there's lots of cyclists on this street
and this street is actually pretty narrow so I thought it'd be interesting
to see how cars passed me on this narrow street. And this is good because you can
see this guy in front of me. And here comes a car you know look at the
distance there that's not bad I'd say. I think there's sort of
a minimum distance for passing is a metre. Some jurisdictions have laws that
specify you must be a meter away. For my American friends, what's a meter? Like
two two and a half feet, something like that?I don't know? Look it up. Anyway
that's not bad. I think this motorist is doing a pretty good job and you can see
they actually cross the yellow line a little bit. It was safe to do so I think
that's the right thing to do to, give enough space to the cyclist. So not bad
right, that's not bad at all. And then think I think I've got one more - this
one's interesting because this is the same road but it rounds a corner right
here and things kind of get squeezed a little bit and I find this part very
dangerous. And you can see like right here though because it's not enough room
this motorist actually slowed down and let the cyclist go ahead
and then sped up and passed them with enough distance between them so hurrah
motorist good job. I have felt generally pretty safe in those
situations. Interesting, right? So that was that bike lane or that was
roads with no bike infrastructure at all. OK, next up we're going to look at some
of the painted bike lanes I rode on so this is just a strip of paint
on the asphalt and let's see what we get. So this is the a bike lane I take
on my way to work every day it's pretty narrow oh there goes a car, not bad.
There's enough distance there I think that felt pretty good.
Oh a nice Porsche yeah usually it's the Porsches who pass me really closely
but that was pretty good actually. It's not bad not bad at all . Right there. So
this is later in the day this is on the opposite side of the street on the way
my way home there's a bit more traffic now, so you can see you know there's
enough space there again not too bad. Just like the other way I'd say so far
on both roads and painted bike lanes two things feel pretty good. Hurray calgary
motorists -- I disparage you guys all the time but you're proving me wrong
today good work! But oh here comes a jeep see that one's getting a little tighter
right there right you know it's I would say it's not unsafe but it's getting
closer. It's probably closer than that one meter I mean this is just me looking
at it I don't know exactly how far it was but I remember feeling that one was
a little tight. Here we go more there's another one that's not bad so so far so
good or and here's one here's a big truck and
look at that that's definitely too close you can see the wheels they're just
outside the other side of the bike lane and I felt this one too it's very close.
So this is I think this is the problem you know and look at yeah you can see up
ahead here I think yeah they even cross into the bike lane a little bit.
Not too try to shame any motorists you know, that's a big vehicle and a small lane.
I mean maybe they maybe you just have bad judgment maybe they weren't trying to
hurt me. Here's another one see again there that's pretty tight.
See, it's interesting right? Like out of all of the passings I would say this is
reflective of the day - that painted lane they were pretty close on those
bike lanes. I mean there was a lot of incidents most most passing motorists
were pretty good but definitely there are some close moments there - I can see
why if you'd think about it that painted lane is almost like this psychological
barrier where as when there's nothing it's up to the
motorists to sort of use their judgment so you know most people don't want to
kill uh someone on a bike so they give a wide berth, but when that that barrier is
there are at least a psychological barrier an artificial or a visual barrier
they do seem to get a little bit closer. They do they feel like you know
that's that's the cyclists space this is the motorist space it's and then maybe
don't feel like they need to move around or they should move around you know. This
is interesting. I'm not blaming motorists specifically, although
there's always dicks out there, but I just find it interesting that you
know the infrastructure almost encourages close calls in this case.
OK, just for fun now I thought I would look at a third type of bike infrastructure
which is the separated bike lanes and let's take a look how closely vehicles
can pass so as you can see like it's barely it's not even an issue in this
case because there's really so much space between the bike lane and the car.
And there's a barrier there, and there's a pole in the middle so you're
not gonna see a lot of people you know coming in that close it's just it's not
even an issue in this situation. I felt much safer in a separated bike line like
this than any other type of and I was riding. OK, on to the next one this is a
little bit different you can see this one has a concrete barrier separating
them and look at me, this is a one-way traffic street and this with a
two-way bike lane and I'm on the inside lanes so in this case it's like almost
laughable that you would think about it because cars aren't passing they're like
10 or 15 feet away from me. And look you can see all the bike traffic here as
well you know this is the safest of all. I mean I've been coming
close to vehicles in this case so it's barely even an issue. So there you go,
separated bike lanes a totally different scenario, totally different feel and you
can when you're riding you can just feel it -- it just feels different.
You're not coming close to cars you just feel safe. And so there was one day of
commuting for me. What do I think? I think maybe all of that research is true.
At least from this commute on a street with no infrastructure at all there's
lots of vehicles gave me lots of space when there were parked cars there things
did get a little bit tighter and then compared to a cycle track which
I felt completely safe. Like cars were so far away from me I
didn't worry about it at all which is interesting but then in the painted bike
lane which is when I had the most close calls which also reflects the research
I told you about earlier so it's really
interesting to think that a bike lane painted for people actually may make
your commute more dangerous. And maybe it's not a surprise because most
cyclists all already perceive painted bike lanes as not being safe so I guess
it comes back to the question the beginning: Do painted bike lanes suck?
Yeah I think they do. The perception is they're dangerous which means they don't
encourage people to ride and motorists pass more closely in those painted bike
lanes so what's the point? I mean I'd love to see some data on whether there
are more collisions between cars and bicyclists in a painted bike lane I
don't have that data I don't know if it exists if you know of it please let me
know I'd love to see it. But it stands to reason that if there are more close
calls in passing that there probably would be more collisions as well. So I
know the conclusion there is do we not do painted bike lanes? Maybe. If you're
going to do bike lanes we should do them properly. Make them safe so that people
are encouraged to use them. Anyway interesting. If you have any thoughts please
share them with me or if you have any data that I should look at love to see it.
Thanks for watching see you next time. Be safe!