9700 E. Lake Highlands Drive, north bound
9800 E. Lake Highlands Drive, north bound
9700 E. Lake Highlands Drive, south bound
9800 E. Lake Highlands Drive, south bound
E. Lake Highlands Drive is a tree-lined residential collector in my neighborhood that connects Plano Road to Buckner Boulevard. It was built as a two-lane divided thoroughfare with on-street parking, 30' from curb-face to curb-face, and meant to be configured 11'/11'/8' (the parking lane).
To improve intersection flow, it is striped as a three-lane (six-lane divided) road, 10'/10'/10', from Buckner to Peavy Road (and a block beyond), and from Northwest Highway to Easton Boulevard (and again, a block beyond). This leaves about a half mile between Easton and Peavy oddly striped as a two-lane roadway, 10'/20'.
I recently took Kimberly Thorpe on a short bike ride on this street to demonstrate how easy it is to ride on a collector-thoroughfare, and to show what a bike lane on this roadway (and many others) would look like unless it was swept weekly ($1000 a mile every time). The regular maintenance schedule for collector street sweeping is less than once a year. Get used to it.
The only difference in the two sets of photos above is the road striping. Where there are three lanes striped, cars "sweep" the roadway clean... even on a low volume collector like Lake Highlands, keeping the lanes clean. Where the automobile travel lanes are removed, debris accumulate. Underneath these leaves you will find sand, mud, branches, broken glass, drink bottles and cans.
Now even though State law requires a cyclist to use a bike lane if present, it also allows you to leave it for safety reasons (like too much trash or debris). So what's the point? Aside from the increased hostility encountered by cyclists who leave a bike lane ("Stay in your own lane!"), I guess I don't know. Leaves and mud do help to complete any street, organically.
Roadways are set up to allow for predictable behavior by all users. This is what makes them function with the high level of safety they enjoy (and it is a high level, so enjoy!). But a bike lane (as I have extolled ad nauseam) creates situations that defy predictability. A travel lane that can be expected to need to be vacated frequently doesn't add to safe operation. Remember, the bike lane advocates like to praise the studies that show cars pass cyclists both closer and faster if the cyclist is in a bike lane, reducing the margin of error for any sudden movements... like having to abandon a lane because of debris accumulation.
This is one of the reasons that motorists who hit cyclists while overtaking them often claim "the cyclist suddenly swerved in front of me". Far better (and safer) for the overtaking vehicle to change lanes to pass, but that might mean that we cyclists have to truly share the whole road, not just take our share in the gutter.
Happy cycling!
4 comments:
Actually, after some practice, I find it quite simple to avoid the risk of getting run over in a SWSS scenario when changing from a bike lane to the "general" traffic lane for any reason I need to do so. I simply treat the move as I would any other lane change - negotiate the change with overtaking traffic, make the change, and then do whatever action is appropriate afterwards.
Overtaking motorists seem HYPNOTIZED at the sight of a cyclist in a bike lane signaling a left. Their experience and prejudice tells them the foolish cyclist is going to just make a full left turn from that bike lane right in front of them, so they hang back as if glued in place. It doesn't occur to them that a fool would not bother signaling at all, nor ensure the motorist concurs with the move. I think they actually feel cheated when I then DO a simple lane change instead of acting like a drunken sailor. In rare cases where the motorist DOESN'T pay attention to the signal, the one following him almost always will, with feelings of sanctimony about the jerk who almost killed the poor cyclist. Meanwhile, I'm chuckling to myself over the predictability of it all. One thing I've learned I have to be careful about is signal timing - you want to do it just as the last motorist you want to complete his pass is passing so he can't see the signal and lock up his brakes in panic.
In some ways, having most people on bikes act like total idiots makes life much simpler and safer...
Dallas must have some extraordinarily dirty streets. Here in MPLS, our bike lanes are very rarely cleaned by the city and it is quite rare to find bike lanes cluttered with debris. Best of luck cleaning up your city.
Corvallis, Oregon (home of the nation's most extensive bike-lane network) sweeps the lanes once a month except in the fall. Then it's once a week.
You won't have sand and gravel, because you don't use that on streets in the winter months like Dallas does (no salt here).
Congratulations on living in a city where leaves never hit the street, and debris don't exist. Must be a miracle of clean living.
Boeing sweeps the aisles of their Everett factory daily, so I don't think you can conclude much about the cleanliness of a place based on how often they sweep a place.
BTW, Boeing rarely has leaves, sand, or gravel cluttering up their factory aisles.
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