This photo in a New York Times article shows a bicyclist riding with a reflectorized shirt, which shows up well in a photo taken with flash on the camera, but the bicyclist has NO HEADLIGHT.
The manufacturer of the shirt wouldn’t want to distract people from promotion of this (gasp) cool and different product which might just possibly Save Your Life, by decking the bicycle out with legally-required nighttime conspicuity equipment which would alert the pedestrian stepping off the curb, or the motorist backing out of a driveway.
Nor would the vaunted journalists at the Newspaper of Record bother to inform themselves that they are complicit in a potentially deadly conspicuity shell game.
The article also includes an uncritical review of other reflectorized items, and of the Hovding inflatable bicycle helmet, which has failed US safety standards and which obviously will not work for collisions with overhead objects (tree branches and the like), as it depends on abrupt motion of the cyclist to trigger inflation.
As I wrote this, I had just returned home from a meeting on my bicycle, well after dark. Equipment: Bright Dosun LED headlight with shaped beam pattern; Union generator taillamp, but battery-powered with 2.4 watt bulb instead of the standard 0.6 watt bulb; 3″ diameter amber SAE automotive rear reflector; reflective material on the back of my Shimano SPD sandals; yellow non-reflective T-shirt and olive-green shorts; helmet without reflective material, not that I think additional reflective material is a bad idea as a supplement. Also, I obeyed the traffic law, used assertive lane positioning when appropriate, and a helmet-mounted rear-view mirror, which helps me time my merges into the travel lane. And here I am, safe and sound and grumpy as usual!
The photo below is from the KOMO TV/radio station news photo gallery.
View of crash scene
My response to Ryan’s comments went into enough detail that I have decided to make a post of it. My response follows his comments below.
Ryan’s comments
@John S. Allen
The sort of confusion you describe may have cost Gordon Gray his life last Wednesday after he collided with a cement truck. The sheriff’s department says that Gray, a 70-year-old bicyclist from Washington state, was cycling on a MUP when he ran a stop sign, entered a street running parallel to the MUP and was struck.
King County Sheriff’s Sgt. Stan Seo says the Kenmore man was biking southbound on 65th Avenue Northeast Wednesday morning when he was hit by a cement truck heading west on Northeast 175th Street. Seo said Friday that according to investigators, it appears the cyclist did not stop at a stop sign and was hit in the intersection. He says the cyclist had turned off the Burke-Gilman Trail shortly before the accident.
— The Associated Press, Komonews.com
If one accepts Sgt. Seo’s account of the events leading to the collision, then Gray was cycling on the MUP when he turned onto 65th Avenue to enter Northeast 175th street. (See this Google street map.) [You may click on the link to open the view in Google maps, or click on the image below to enlarge it — John Allen]
Location of Gordon Gray crash
Note that the Google map shows three stop signs of possible relevance. The stop sign on 65th Avenue is located just north of the MUP and crosswalk. The other two stop signs are located on the MUP at opposite ends of the crosswalk.
Once Gray entered 65th Avenue from the MUP and headed south, did Gray have a legal obligation to stop at the stop sign on 65th Avenue? I don’t think so, because after turning south onto 65th Avenue the stop sign was behind Gray and facing north.
Let’s assume Gray committed a traffic violation (running a stop sign) when he turned from the MUP onto 65th Avenue. Does that mean Gray is legally at fault for a collision which occurred on his subsequent turn from 65th Avenue onto Northeast 175th Street?
The account given by local law enforcement suggests Gordon Gray will be blamed for his own death, even if Gray is not fully at fault. That seems like an injustice for Gray, an undeserved vindication for confusing cycling infrastructure, and fuel for more of the ugly jeers that accompany the deaths of cyclists who truly are at fault.
My response:
This is an interesting situation, and especially so as cyclists’ exiting from bikeways into parallel streets becomes more common with the increasing number of sidepaths (or “cycle tracks”, or so-called “protected bike lanes”). The path in question runs parallel to and just north of an east-west street (Northeast 175th Street) and crosses another street (65th Avenue) which Ts into it from the north, with a marked crosswalk. There are stop signs for the path at either end of the crosswalk, and there is a stop sign on 65th Avenue Northeast before the crosswalk, as is usual. So, once Gordon Gray was in the crosswalk, there was no stop sign directing him to stop at Northeast 175th Street.
This is not the same situation I described in the earlier blog post. What I described is the confusion from having stop signs at the ends of a crosswalk. Traffic in the street is supposed to yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk but confusion arises because the stop signs indicate that cyclists in the crosswalk must yield to traffic in the street it crosses. These two requirements contradict one another. The confusion manifests itself in drivers on the street stopping and yielding to cyclists, whom the stop signs direct to stop and yield to the drivers in the street. It is unclear who may proceed. In practice, the cyclists usually proceed, and often without coming to a complete stop, but also cyclists are faster than pedestrians, and a motorist’s stopping often requires a cyclist to stop when they would otherwise not have to, because the motor vehicle would have passed before the cyclist reached the crosswalk. There are also the issues which occur at other crosswalks, that the first motorist in one lane may stop, but a motorist in another lane may not, requiring extra caution of cyclists due to their higher speed and longer stopping distance than those of pedestrians.
What you describe appears to be that cyclist Gordon Gray entered the crosswalk, and then entered the parallel street. Indeed, there was no stop sign facing him once he had entered the crosswalk, as he did not pass the stop sign for traffic on 65th Avenue Northeast. The legalities here are somewhat confusing. Probably the stop sign before the crosswalk did not apply to entry onto the parallel street. Was Gray required nonetheless to yield before entering the parallel street? He would have been, if he had passed the stop sign on 65th Avenue Northeast. A T intersection without a stop sign is an uncontrolled intersection, and so he would still be required to prepare to yield, perhaps also to yield: in some states, at least Massachusetts, where I live, stop signs are not posted where one street Ts into another, but yielding is required. A concern for self-preservation would also require being prepared to yield, whatever the legalities.
There are a few things which the news report does not indicate:
Which way was Gray going? Was he originally westbound on the path? Then he would have had to look behind himself for the truck.
Was he attempting to head eastbound on Northeast 175th Street (or westbound on the wrong side), and so he was attempting to cross in front of the truck?
Just what was the truck driver doing, or about to do? There is a large concrete plant with two driveways, across Northeast 175th street from 65th Avenue. Concrete mixer trucks in the same colors as those in the news photo are visible parked there in the Google Maps overhead view. It is possible, for example, that the truck driver was signaling a turn, suggesting to Gray that he would turn left into the driveway east of 65th Street Avenue Northeast, but instead was continuing into the next driveway when his truck struck Gray. The location of the truck in the photo at the top of this post suggests that.
Most than half of the collisions reported in this document are slow-speed rear-enders of the Google cars. That’s unusual. It might be that the behavior of the Google cars is more cautious than what human drivers expect, so the Google cars stop more often abruptly or at unusual places, and so are not tailgater-friendly. I’d suggest that the Google cars might be equipped with a rear-facing warning device.
It seems to me that self-driving cars will be able to avoid any collision where a human driver could avoid fault, and others. In other words, operators of non-automated vehicles (including bicycles) and pedestrians who follow the conventional rules of the road will be able to operate safely around automated vehicles. Vehicles with automated crash avoidance (not necessarily completely automated vehicles, even) will not rear-end bicycles, and so the premise of fear from the rear evaporates if automated crash avoidance becomes universal with motor vehicles. Self-driving cars will not be able to avoid collisions where avoidance would require violating the laws of physics. Vehicles with automated crash avoidance will be able to avoid some collisions in which the potential colliding vehicle or pedestrian is outside the field of view of a human driver, such as right-hook collisions, as long as there is a clear sight line to the automated vehicle’s sensor. Same for a large truck’s high hood which prevents the driver from seeing a pedestrian crossing in front.
Automated vehicles will not be able to avoid left-cross collisions where the bicyclist or motorist is passing on the right of other vehicles and concealed by them, or pedestrian dart-out collisions. The concept of fully networked vehicles is supposed to address this problem. All vehicles approaching the same place in the road network are envisioned as communicating with each other even when they are hidden from each other’s view. As someone with an electrical engineering degree, I consider this at best a very difficult proposition, and it might be described as a pipe dream. Bandwidth, interference and reliability issues lead me to ask “what could possibly go wrong?” Also, instrumenting every object on the road is only practical on a limited-access highway — no, not even there, because there will still be breakdowns, wild animals, debris. On other roads, is every pedestrian going to carry a transponder? I don’t think so.
Automated crash avoidance is easily hacked by rolling a trash can out into the roadway, and the like. The caution which automated crash avoidance inherently incorporates changes the dynamic from the one among humans, which can involve a game of bluff. To me, this means that automated vehicles will be extra-cautious in the presence of other drivers and pedestrians who do play the game of bluff, and so the progress of automated vehicles will be slow and erratic in, for example, Boston traffic.
All this leads to the question: does behavior change as these vehicles become more common? Does infrastructure change? Every new technology takes a while to find its feet. As Marshall McLuhan said, “We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future.” Do conditions become better or worse for bicyclists and pedestrians? And why? We have some control over this depending on the direction which is set for the technology, but also, time will tell.
Another serious issue I’ve heard mentioned is the car which is not only driverless but passengerless. There is potential for an increase in traffic if a car can be called to meet a person (like a passengerless taxi), or directed to drive around and around the block empty when a parking space can’t be found. I can’t say how serious this problem will be. To some extent, that depends on the extent of freedom afforded to people’s control over the driverless cars. It’s an interesting legal question involving private use of public space. We already face this question with congestion-pricing schemes. But on the other hand, fewer cars on the road might be needed, because the car-sharing model works better when a car can be called rather than only stationed. Again, time will tell.
Deputy: “I don’t care, you’re right in the middle of the road.” No, the boarder was on the shoulder, at least in the part of the video the TV station broadcast.
But the man was on a skateboard, not a bicycle. Under Utah law, the skateboard is defined as a vehicle, last definition here: http://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title41/Chapter6a/41-6a-S1105.html and so, under the law, the skateboarder should have been in the travel lane, not on the shoulder or a sidewalk, if any, as little sense as that may make.
So, the officer’s charge was false. If the boarder were defined as a pedestrian, then shoulder use in the absence of a sidewalk would be legal if the boarder was traveling opposite the direction of traffic (he wasn’t), — not that this is sensible when it would have required crossing to the far side of a multi-lane road. http://le.utah.gov/…/Title41/Chapter6A/41-6a-S1009.html.
There is a sidewalk, as shown in Google Earth and Street View images.
The TV station video is edited at 00:25. It doesn’t show the entire conversation between the deputy and the boarder before the boarder attempted to flee — so we don’t know about an opportunity to comply. Other question is how the boarder could comply if there was nowhere to go except up and down a road bordered by vegetation. The deputy ran after the boarder and attempted to stop him. Probably better to let him go. The boarder fought the deputy, violently. Not smart at all.
Ohio cyclist Patricia Kovacs posted an e-mail asking some questions about roundabouts:
Ohio engineers are telling us to use the inner lane for left turns and U turns. Both the FHWA [Federal Highway Administration] and videos available on our local MPO [metropolitan planning organization] website say this. I shared this when we asked for updates to Ohio Street Smarts. If the FHWA and MORPC [Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission] are wrong, then we need to fix it.
Would you review the 8 minute video on the MORPC website and let me know what I should do? If it’s wrong, I need to ask them to update it. This video was made in Washington and Ohio reused it.
Looking further into the problem, I see a related practical issue with two-lane roundabouts, that the distance between an entrance and the next exit may be inadequate for a lane change. The larger the roundabout, the longer the distance in which to change lanes, but also the higher the speed which vehicles can maintain and so, the longer distance required. I’m not sure how this all works out as a practical matter. Certainly, turning right from the left-hand lane when through traffic is permitted in the right-hand lane is incorrect under the UVC [Uniform Vehicle Code], and results in an obvious conflict and collision potential, but I can also envision a conflict where a driver entering the roundabout does not expect a driver approaching in the inside lane of the roundabout to be merging into the outside lane.
All in all, the safety record of roundabouts is reported as good (though not as good for bicyclists and pedestrians), but I’m wondering to what extent the issues have been subjected to analysis and research. When I look online, I see a lot of roundabout *promotion* as opposed to roundabout *study*. Perhaps we might take off our UVC hats, put on our NCUTCD [National Committee on Uniform Traffic-Control devices] hats, and propose research?
Thanks, Patricia.
This post was getting long, so I’ve placed detailed comments on the Ohio video, and embedded the video, in another post. I’m also working on an additional post giving more examples, and I’ll announce it here when it is ready.
Here are some stills from the video showing the conflict between through traffic in the outer lane and exiting traffic in the inner lane.
First, the path for through traffic:
Path for through traffic in a roundabout
Next, the path for left-turning traffic:
Path for left-turning traffic in a roundabout
Now, let’s give that picture a half-turn so the left-turning traffic is entering from the top and exiting from the right:
Path for left-turning traffic in a roundabout, image rotated 180 degrees
And combining the two images, here is what we get:
Conflict between through traffic and exiting left-turn traffic
The image below is from the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, and shows similar but not identical lane use. The arrows in the entry roadways direct through traffic to use either lane.
FHWA diagram of a roundabout with lane-use arrows.
Drivers are supposed to use their turn signals to indicate that they are to exit from the inner lane — but drivers often forget to use their signals. Safe practice for a driver entering a roundabout, then, is to wait until no traffic is approaching in either lane, even if only entering the outer lane.
A fundamental conceptual issue here is whether the roundabout is to be regarded as a single intersection, or as a series of T intersections wrapped into a circle. To my way of thinking, any circular intersection functions as a series of T intersections, though it functions as a single intersection in relation to the streets which connect to it. Changing lanes inside an intersection is generally prohibited under the traffic law, and so, if a roundabout is regarded as a single intersection, we get the conflicts I’ve described.
Sometimes, dashed lines are used to indicate paths in an intersection, when vehicles coming from a different direction may cross the dashed lines after yielding right of way or on a different signal phase. More commonly, a dashed line indicates that a driver may change lanes starting from either side. The dashed lines in a two-lane roundabout look as though they serve the second of these purposes, though they in fact serve the first. These are shorter dashed lines than generally are used to indicate that lane changes are legal, but most drivers don’t understand the difference.
That leads to confusion. If you think of the roundabout as a single intersection, changing from the inside to the outside lane is illegal anywhere. If you think of the roundabout as a series of T intersections, changing lanes should occur between the entries and exits, not opposite them –though there is also the problem which Patricia mentioned, that a small two-lane roundabout may not have much length between an entry roadway and the next exit roadway to allow for a lane change. That is, however, much less of a problem for bicyclists than for operators of wider and longer vehicles. It would be hard to construct a two-lane roundabout small enough to prevent bicyclists from changing lanes.
My practice when cycling in conventional two-lane traffic circles — and there are many in the Boston, Massachusetts area where I live — is to
enter from the lane which best leads to my position on the circular roadway — either the right or left lane of a two-lane entry;
stay in the outer lane if leaving at the first exit;
control the inner lane if continuing past the first exit;
change back to the left tire track in the outer lane to prepare to exit.
That way, I avoid conflict with entering and exiting traffic in the outer lane, and I am making my lane change to the right in the slow traffic of the circular roadway rather than on the straightaway following it. This is what I have found to make my interactions with motorists work most smoothly. Why should a bicyclist’s conduct in a roundabout be different?
It is usual to be able to turn right into the rightmost lane of a multi-lane roadway while traffic is approaching in the next lane of that roadway. I don’t know of any other examples in road design or traffic law in the USA where a motor vehicle is supposed to turn right across a lane where another motor vehicle is entering. Bike lanes are sometimes brought up to intersections, though the laws of every state except Oregon require motorists to merge into the bike lane before turning. The illustration below, from Dan Gutierrez, depicts the problem.
Right hook conflicts, from Dan Gutierrez’s Understanding Bicycle Transportation video and course.
Applicable sections or the Uniform Vehicle Code are:
11:304 (b) — passing on the right is permitted only when the movement can be made in safety.
11:308 (c) — a vehicle shall be driven only to the right of a rotary traffic island.
11:309 (a) — no changing lanes unless it can be done in safety
11:309 (d) — official traffic control devices may prohibit lane changes
11:601 (a) Right turns – Both the approach for a right turn and a right turn shall be made as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway.
I’ve moved the comments here from another post, which was getting long.
Here’s the Ohio video:
Summarizing my comments about the video, it shows roundabouts, a useful, time-efficient though space-intensive intersection design, but it gives some questionable advice on design and on how to use roundabouts. There are safety issues, and also legal implications are unclear, due to a contradiction of normal rules of the road.
While good advice for pedestrians is given, the video includes an overhead view of a roundabout in a residential area with a crosswalk at only one of the three legs of the intersection.
The advice for bicyclists to walk in the crosswalks is a surrogate for good design of crosswalks (or crossbikes) so bicyclists can safely ride through them, also reducing delay to both bicyclists and to traffic on the roadway.
In the video, a bicyclist is shown properly centered in the right lane to exit a roundabout, but just before that he is riding adjacent to a truck, contrary to advice also given in the video. He was in danger of being left-hooked at the previous exit.
Contrary to normal rules of the road, the video shows and advises that some drivers exit the roundabout from the inner lane, while other vehicles travel through in the right lane. Through-traveling drivers are expected to yield to the ones left-hooking them. What traffic law actually applies is unclear. If there is a special rule for roundabouts, it violates the usual rule and also violates the principle of destination positioning. Bicyclists usually would rather be in the right lane when exiting,
More-detailed comments about the video are below. The URL at the start of each comment links to the location in the video which relates to the comment. I’ve published the same comments on the YouTube page with the video.
0:50 Overhead view shown briefly shows the inner lane leading to a 4-lane exit. However, if you look closely, there are nonetheless dashed lines between the lanes and through arrows in the outer lane, — so the markings do not indicate that all traffic coming from previous entrances must use the inside lane. The markings maximize capacity by allowing exiting from either lane, regardless of where entering — though there is then a conflict between traffic passing an exit in the right lane and exiting from the left lane. My best advice for bicyclists who are riding through the roundabout is to ride centered in the outer lane while approaching the exit to avoid an unnecessary merge and avoid being right-hooked by exiting traffic or left-hooking through traffic, while also being in clearer view of entering traffic than if riding around the outside. Also, the drawing does not address all bicycling and walking movements. There is one cyclist shown in the illustration, riding with the direction of traffic on the sidewalk directly above the roundabout in the image, and that’s OK, but there are no ramps to and from the roadway to the sidewalk; on the other side of the intersection, there is no sidewalk; and there are no crosswalks across two of the three legs of the intersection, in a residential area.
1:00 Police officer narrating indicates that roundabouts “make our communities safer not only for motorists, but for pedestrians as well.” This contradicts the example in the overhead view, which lacks a full complement of sidewalks and crosswalks, and he also does not mention bicyclists.
2:00 Yield principle is good. Yielding is a fundamental principle of traffic operation which is not widely-enough understood. 2:10 vehicles are shown exiting the roundabout in the right-hand lane of a four-lane roadway, and that’s OK.
2:50 “The lane allows left turn, straight-ahead movements and U turns only,” with the unstated implication that drivers must remain in the left lane while exiting.
2:55 “Allowable right-lane movements include right turns or straight-ahead movements.” The two previous statements together establish a left-hook conflict between straight-ahead movements in the right lane and right turns from the left lane.
3:12 Animation at shows a vehicle exiting from the left lane, crossing the right lane in which through movements are permitted.
3:34 “When driving in the left lane, always maintain your lane position until you exit” — left-hook conflict.
3:40 A vehicle making a straight-ahead movement yields to traffic in both lanes when entering. The entering driver may not know whether the driver coming from the left intends to exit (conflict!) or not (no conflict!). The exiting driver is turning right from the left lane, in violation of the principle of destination positioning.
4:15 “The driver in the right lane cuts off the driver in the left lane intending to exit.” This is exactly the same as saying “The driver in the right lane traveling straight through cuts of the driver in the left lane intending to turn right.” The vehicle in the left lane is behind the one in the right lane and not in a position where the leading driver would normally have to look when continuing on a roadway. Both the movements shown — going straight through in the right lane and turning right from the left lane — are permitted movements, according to the animation shown previously — but turning right across a travel lane without yielding is a violation everywhere except, as describe here, in a roundabout.
4:30 “Never change lanes inside the roundabout.” Troubling advice, and especially for bicyclists — not only results in hook conflicts, but also results in unnecessary delay.
4:45 “U Turns are only allowed in the left lane” – Good enough except for the issue with hook conflicts at the exit.
5:15 “If you follow a truck into a roundabout, do not attempt to pass.” Good advice anywhere it would be necessary to share a lane with a large truck to pass it.
5:26 “When emergency vehicles approach, always give them the right of way.” More generic good advice.
6:03 “Never stop inside the roundabout. Instead, continue through the roundabout, then pull over to the shoulder…” (when an emergency vehicle needs to use the roundabout). This would apply in any intersection, but it may be a bit more confusing in a roundabout.
6:10 Advice for pedestrians is good, assuming of course that there is a crosswalk. “A roundabout crosswalk is the same as an unsignalized crosswalk”.” Well, it is an unsignalized crosswalk. More generic good advice.
6:40 “Bicyclists are encouraged to use the crosswalks by walking their bikes.” Sure, bicyclists may become pedestrians and walk their bikes but this is contrary to the current Dutch practice where the bikeway is designed so motorists can yield to bicyclists who are riding, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEXD0guLQY0. A person walking a bicycle in a crosswalk is delayed, and delays other traffic, more than one who is riding, and, broadside to the traffic lanes, is a much wider obstacle — and so more vulnerable — than a pedestrian without a bicycle. Don’t expect bicyclists to obey “Mickey Mouse” advice, but do expect them to get into trouble when crosswalks aren’t designed for safe yielding at bicycle speeds. Safe practice in a crosswalk which is not designed to work at bicycle speeds is to slow or stop before entering the crosswalk, allowing drivers to yield, and then cross quickly, but not all bicyclists may recognize the need to slow, and brakes also occasionally fail. Safest practice is to design crossings so everyone can see clearly and yield, regardless of who is required by law to yield. A roundabout should have ramps to/from the sidewalk, aligned with the direction of travel on the roadway, so bicyclists may enter from the roadway and exit to the roadway…see page 168 of FHWA document here: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/00067/000676.pdf. A Wisconsin page giving roundabout resources includes a link to a video describing both options for bicyclists (near the end of the video).
6:50 “If you choose to ride through the roundabout, the same rules apply for a bike as for an automobile.” The bicyclist is hidden behind a truck while crossing a leg of the intersection and then exits at the next leg, properly centered in the outer lane. The bicyclist would have been vulnerable to a right hook if the truck had turned right at the first exit, and would have been safer merging to the inside lane, and then back to the outer lane — or even better, not riding next to the truck, as was previously suggested in the video. The video image does not show a conflict with a bicyclist exiting from the inside lane, though this problem is shown (and bad advice is given) earlier in the video for motorists. Also, if a roundabout is designed for a 20 mph speed, riding through it is not nearly as intimidating as the video would make out — and a bicyclist in the roundabout is not going to cause nearly as much delay, if any, as one in a crosswalk or bikeway outside the roundabout– granted that riding in the roundabout is only for confident bicyclists.
7:54, again: “Never pass or drive adjacent to a truck in a roundabout.” This is exactly what the bicyclist was shown doing.
I’ve prepared a full translation of the important paper by Dr. Volker Briese of the University of Paderborn in Germany about the history of German bikeways from 1897 through the start of World War II. This has previously been available only in German, or in a highly condensed version in English in the narrowly distributed Proceedings of the 1993 International Cycle History Conference. You may read the English translation here, and find your way to the other versions as well if they are what you would prefer.
The last word in safe bicycling, NOT! I mean, this could be a premature April fool’s joke!
The Volvo promotion, also touted on the blog The Verge, is more an exercise in creative photography than anything else, but also does a lot of fearmongering. Buses are shown twice endangering bicyclists to the extent I have to wonder whether the videos were posed. A clip shows a bicyclist smashing into the back of a car, which can be avoided by maintaining safe following distance, not by any lights or reflectorized items.
Bicyclist running into car in Life Paint video
A bicyclist describes a left-hook (in the UK, right-hook in right-side driving countries), a type of crash which is avoided by not overtaking between a vehicle and the kerb (curb).
It is very easy to make reflectorized materials look splendidly bright by using a lamp on or next to the camera. As usual in promotions of nonstandard reflectorized products, a bicycle is shown in the video emblazoned with the product — which only works for the driver of a motor vehicle whose headlamps are aimed at it — but without the headlamp required by law for the bicyclist to alert others.
Saddle angle: wow.
The bicycle’s saddle is at an impossibly uncomfortable angle.
A photo of three bicyclists is clearly a composite: there is no way that one after the other would light up. Also note that part of the rear wheel of the bicyclist on the right is lit up, because it is inside the area from the original photo with a light near the camera.
Composite image from Life Paint video.
And who is to imagine that the chain, tires — and rims — on a bicycle with rim brakes — would be spray-painted?
Bicycle painted all over including rims and chain.
Same with another clip where the bicyclist’s clothing flashes on and off while the bicycle remains bright. In any case, reflective coatings are nothing new, but one which is designed to last only 10 days, now that is a new twist in safety products. For information about earlier reflective coating promotions: http://www.bikexprt.com/witness/fabric/index.htm
Here’s another picture from Indianapolis which I discovered online. Its geometry is slightly distorted, as it is from a screen shot. New York Street, in this picture, makes a two-way pair with Michigan Street, which I discussed in my previous post.
You may click on the images to enlarge them and get a clearer look.
New York Street at Arsenal — proposed treatment
Let’s compare this with the Google Street View on which it is based:
New York at Arsenal N.Arsenal Avenue — Google Street View
I’m not going to discuss this in such detail as in my previous post, but please note:
The proposed two-way separated bikeway is no more than 5 feet wide where the two bicyclists are traveling. (Compare with the bicyclists’ height and the diameter of their wheels, approximately 27 inches.) This bikeway is also between raised curbs and doesn’t even begin to be wide enough for safe two-way travel. It isn’t even wide enough to conform to guidelines for one-way travel.
The perspective is odd. The bikeway becomes wider and the travel lanes, already barely wide enough to contain the small cars shown, become narrower in the background.
The bikeway is described as “protected” but it crosses several driveways and, astonishingly, it opens into the street in the foreground with bicyclists facing the direction of traffic. What are bicyclists supposed to do here? Riding against traffic is illegal, aside from being highly hazardous. Here’s the view from across the intersection with Arsenal Avenue.
New York Street before N. Arsenal Avenue
Some additional trees have been added in the proposal; smooth pavement has replaced the worn pavement in the Street View, the cloudy sky has been replaced by a blue sky, and shadows have been added to simulate a sunny day. As in the picture in the earlier post, these changes create an optimistic, appealing effect, but they have nothing to do with the bikeway.
And, again, as I asked in the other post, how is this bikeway to be cleared of snow?
New York Street is much narrower than Michigan Street until a couple of blocks east of this point. I don’t see how there could be room for both a contraflow bike lane and a with-flow bike lane. In my opinion, two-way bicycle traffic is better accommodated on Michigan Street. A route could bypass the narrow section of New York Street by using Vermont Street, a couple of blocks to the north. That street also has an underpass under Interstate 70 — see Google map. This route would, however, require two-way bicycle traffic on reversing the one-way direction of part of N. Arsenal Avenue.
New York Street connections
Any bike lane on the narrow section of New York Street ought to be on the left side, on the opposite side from parking: looking up and down the street in Google Street View will show that the present bike lane is in the door zone of parked cars.
Treatments at intersections should favor motorists’ merging into the bike lane before turning, and bicyclists’ overtaking turning motorists on the street side.
