Bike Lanes - Safety, Politics, and History

This is a response to Cyclists, Bike Lanes published on Sep 26, 2006

Interestingly, the article to which I am responding is written by the same author who brought us the insightful peace entitled: Global Warming, Doom and Gloom, published on Oct 27, 2006. In this piece the author, Youranter, equated Dr. David Suzuki, a scientist who is one of the forerunners in commenting on the effects of Global warming, with Chicken Little. He also goes on to sling some mud at Al Gore for his role in producing an environmentally-themed documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. “The global warming issue is based on junk science,” opines Youranter.

It should not be surprising that someone who does not view global warming as a threat may also not agree with a policy which adds bike lanes to roadways. However, let me also state that this issue is FAR from clear cut. There are, in fact, many bicycle advocates who would agree that bicycle lanes are not an appropriate solution, and in fact can make commuting by bicycle less safe! In John Forester’s seminal work, Effective Cycling (The MIT Press), he discusses how the presence of bike lanes and bike paths can in fact be a way of segregating cyclists and preventing them from having access to the roadway. The bike lanes are a likely place for dangerous debris to collect after being pushed over by car-traffic, which can cause accidents or catastrophic flats; and are more subject to: doors of parked cars opening into riders from the rider’s right side; inattentive drivers ahead of a rider not recognizing the cyclist’s lane and right-of-way and making a right turn in front of them, causing a collision; oncoming traffic not seeing the marginalized cyclists and making left turns in front of them; etc.