Painted bicycle lanes are actually dangerous in my opinion. I cycle almost every day in London for now about 6 years. I avoid streets with painted cycle paths if I can (and take parallel side roads instead).<p>The way I see it, painted cycle lanes makes cyclists feel secure, but does not create much awareness by motorists. They are mainly used on roads with a lot of traffic. Because they are painted they have sometimes hazardous layouts crisscrossing mainlanes (to turn right). The blue ones can be very slippery when wet. I really don't trust them when it is wet.<p>Having a curb between the road and the cycle lanes, or elevating the cycle lanes on the level of the sidewalks is much saver for cyclists, because motorists can literally not cross over them. It also forces the planners to do a good job when designing junctions. For elevated cycle lanes though, paint can help rasing the awareness of pedestrians who often got in the habit of crossing anything without looking.<p>What TfL needs is having their planners cycle to work, and to generally rethink their approach to pedestrians and cyclists. The fact that most pedestrian traffic light are often showing red even if no traffic is routed through them and the fact that many junctions with traffic lights for cars (even big ones) do not have pedestrian traffic lights, reeducates everyone not to care about the lights and just walk into the traffic. This is almost as much a hazard to everyone as cars (on smaller roads.with speed bumps anyway), as pedestrians can cross without warning. If this happens this obviously creates the risk of a cyclist (cycling on the far outside of the road to avoid cars) either swerving into traffic or taking a pedestrian out.
Are segregated lanes any better? It seems to me that the vast bulk of the danger for cyclists is at intersections (the dreaded right hook, mostly). A segregated lane can make it harder for a car to see you and prevents you from taking the lane to make yourself obvious.<p>What we need are protected intersections; the rest of the road can be painted or segregated, I don't really care.<p><a href="https://peopleforbikes.org/blog/four-u-s-cities-are-racing-to-open-the-countrys-first-protected-intersection/" rel="nofollow">https://peopleforbikes.org/blog/four-u-s-cities-are-racing-t...</a><p>It really doesn't have to be much, just bollards in the middle of intersections forcing cars to make a wide right turn would be enough.
If not about painted or not-painted. It's about is the bike lane 4m wide or 1m.<p>Painting 1m wide bike lanes is just because cities don't want to take away from cars.<p>Painting 1m wide bike lanes is trying to eat the cake and have it. There is no free lunch.<p>In Berlin most bike lanes are very narrow [1] while in Copenhagen most bike lanes are wide enough to feel safe and have two bikes next to each other. No one cares about paint.<p>[1] ... and winding, and blocked all the time by delivery trucks, parking cars and construction sites, and taking 90 degree turns around obstacles, and full of overgrown bushes ...
The title of the article is a bit inaccurate, the main criticism is that badly marked bike lanes are a waste of money that could better be spend on more adequate infrastructure (so bike lanes that adhere to minimum safety standards etc.)
Is any money getting spent on painted bicycle lanes in the UK? I'm surprised to hear that, because the very few I've seen there were a joke. The similar joke examples shown in this article don't seem far-fetched based on my (limited) experience in the UK.
This is BS title. Painted cycling lanes are an important part of the cycling environment. No, in themselves, they don't make me - as a cyclist - feel safe. But _without_ them, I will never feel safe. They need to be _added_ to by education from a young age and during driver training, as well as through cultural products such as TV programming, films, books, social media etc. And by "education" I mean the education to never swerve into bike lanes, watching out for bikers, never walking onto bike lanes as a pedestrian etc.<p>Of course, a hard separation of a bike lane from the other lanes increases safety; but that cannot be expected to exist everywhere, or in most streets even.
As someone who has recently started to use cycle lanes to move around London I disagree with the view expressed in the article. Many of the cycle lanes I use everyday in West / Central London are only painted.<p>I personally feel much safer in a cycle lane, even if only a painted one, simply because I don't have to worry as much about getting side-swiped by a bus. Seeing the end of a painted cycle lane is a good indication that the road ahead requires more complex navigation and will often cause me to slow down and be more cautious.
When there's no dedicated line, just use the sidewalk.<p>I go really slow near pedestrians / densely populated areas, and I try to minimize danger (think a child getting out of a building suddenly). Before it gets inconvenient or dangerous, I dismount.<p>I know this can mean a fine, and I am aware that this can put some pedestrians at risk of bruising (again, I am careful, respectful and slow when I go on the sidewalk). But between that and risking death-by-car, well, the choice is simple.
This waist could be "understandable" if UK was a pioneer in this field. There are countries with excellent biking infrastructure already. Learn from them.
Here's the letter from Chris Boardman and the other commissioners, which doesn't seem to be linked from the Guardian story: <a href="https://www.greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk/media/2145/19-1309-secretary-of-state-policy-ask-letter-for-cycling-and-walking.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk/media/2145/19-1309-s...</a>
Bike lanes exist to get bicycles "out of the way," which is why we have a decades-long alliance between the car-insurance lobby and the sell-bicycles lobby to get bikes off the road and on to facilities.<p>This is a losing strategy for people who actually ride bikes, the correct one is to lower speed limits.