In the wake of substantial criticism about the design of the City's bike lanes, in particular the monstrosities on Broad Ripple Avenue and Illinois Street, Jon Murray of the Indianapolis Star reports that City officials will be holding a series of public meetingson the topic. The City's news release says the meetings are for the purpose of "teach[ing] residents how to use bike lanes, drive alongside bike lanes, safety tips, terms and signals for both bicycles and motorists, and how to read new bike lane signage and markings. Residents will learn how to plan their routes using the new bike lanes, greenways, and multi-use paths to get to their destinations.”Let me translate. "Residents you are stupid if you don't like our bike lanes. Obviously you just don't understand how to use them and we need to educate you." The City apparently is not interested in residents' feedback on the bike lanes or input on how to design the bike lanes better for motorist and bicyclist alike.
On a happier note, I am pleased to announce that the West 56th Street bike lanes, lanes which cover that stretch of road that run between Guion Street and Kessler Blvd, are some of the best designed bike lanes in the Indianapolis The 56th Street bike lanes avoid the flaws which characterize so many of the City's poorly-designed bike lanes. I have noted some of those flaws below:
- High speed traffic on the road (40 mph plus)
- Curbs frame the bike lanes cutting off a bicyclists' escape from a car drifting into the bike lanes.
- Bike lanes zig-zag in and out of traffic
- The bike lanes are insufficiently wide for bicyclists
- The bike lanes have debris or standing water in them.
- The bike lanes run by parked cars which leads to "dooring"
- Traffic lanes are significantly narrowed or eliminated to produce the bike lanes.
2 comments:
The bicycle lanes on Broad Ripple are irresponsible. They took an entire lane of car travel to make a silly bike lane and curbing, ruining that necessary East-West cross street so badly that I have to use also underbuilt Kessler to get across.
There is now no clear road across the River between Kessler and 86th Streets. That's shameful and embarrassing. This city cannot grow without a decent road system.
They really need to build a bridge across the river at 71st St. and create a through route from Meridian to Keystone.
The language of this directive from "city officials" sounds much like an ultimatum to us "residents". UN Agenda 21 comes to mind.
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