From: nadeau@bnr.ca (Rheal Nadeau)
Subject: Re: Bicycle lanes!
Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd., Ottawa, Canada
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 23:13:39 GMT

In article <1992Sep8.183508.25325@csi.uottawa.ca> pete@aix1.uottawa.ca (Pete Hickey) writes:
>First, note that this is cross-posted. and fix your reply so that
>it goes to the appropriate group.

[ Hey Pete, it's ott.general, not ottawa.general! ]

>They've painted messages (`wear your helmet' and `Be visible') on
>the lanes which are upside-down on the left side message, which 
>indicates that they are bi-directional lanes.  It looks like this:
>
>   |       |       |          ||          |       |       |
>   |       |       |          ||          |       |       |
>   | Bikes | Bikes |  Cars    ||  Cars    | Bikes | Bikes |
>   |       |       |          ||          |       |       |
>   |   |   |  /|\  |    |     ||   /|\    |   |   |  /|\  |
>   |  \|/  |   |   |    |     ||    |     |   |   |   |   |
>   |       |   |   |   \|/    ||    |     |  \|/  |   |   |
>   |       |       |          ||          |       |       |
>   |       |       |          ||          |       |       |
>
>To me this seems weird and unsafe.  I suspect that maybe they
>just told some worker to go out and paint the messages without
>giving instructions.  Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe this is a safe
>way.

Definitely weird and unsafe.  Given any amount of traffic on those
lanes, I might choose to use the car lane after all!

>Now, on some other streets (Mount Bleu)  They've done something
>even more weird.  The cars ride in the street as usual, but the
>cyclists ride between the parked cars and the sidewalk.  There is
>about a meter-wide strip.  It looks like this:
>
>
>   |       |       |          ||          |       |       |
>   |       |       |          ||          |       |       |
>   | Bikes | parked|  Cars    ||  Cars    | parked| Bikes |
>   |       | cars  |          ||          | cars  |       |
>   |   |   |       |    |     ||   /|\    |       |  /|\  |
>   |  \|/  |       |    |     ||    |     |       |   |   |
>   |       |       |   \|/    ||    |     |       |   |   |
>   |       |       |          ||          |       |       |
>   |       |       |          ||          |       |       |

I drove by there Tuesday.  Since people seem to want to move
their cars away from traffic, this actually looks like:

>   |       |       |          ||          |       |       |
>   |       |       |          ||          |       |       |
>   | Bikes | parked|  Cars    ||  Cars    | parked| Bikes |
>   |       | cars  |          ||          | cars  |       |
>   |   |   |       |    |     ||   /|\    |       |  /|\  |
>   |  \|/  |       |    |     ||    |     |   ______  |   |
>   |       |       |   \|/    ||    |     |   |    |  |   |
>   |       |       |          ||          |   |car |      |
>   |       |       |          ||          |   |____|      |

How long before it looks like this?

>   |       |       |          ||          |      |        |
>   |       |       |          ||          |      ______   |
>   |       |       |          ||          |      |    |   |
>   | Bikes | parked|  Cars    ||  Cars    |      |van  \  |
>   |       | cars  |          ||          |      |____|   |
>   |   |   |       |    |     ||   /|\    |       |    /|\|
>   |  \|/  |       |    |     ||    |     |   ______   /  |
>   |       |       |   \|/    ||    |     |   |    |  |   |
>   |       |       |          ||          |   |car |      |
>   |       |       |          ||          |   |____|      |

(I didn't notice - does Mont Bleu have bus stops?  That would
add another complication.)

At least they're trying.  But the more well-intentioned but imperfectly
attempts I see, the more I realize that nothing will do except paying
the same attention to cycling we now do to cars.  In the meantime, I'll
just act like a small, underpowered import :-) and take my spot in
traffic.

The Rhealist - Rheal Nadeau - nadeau@bnr.ca - BNR doesn't bike