Counter-Flow Bike Lanes

[DanB]

I'm very intrigued by this blog entry at the IEEE Spectrum site, about how Paris has put in counter-flow bike lanes on one-way streets. Could be very useful in a lot of places in Minneapolis:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/gre ... ette-first

[batjerk]

It could be useful here. I certainly hope that if done here the bike lanes would be wider, or at least more distance between the bike and the cars. Also, it should be noted that our residential streets are posted at 30 mph here, but in Paris, they're 30 kmh which roughly equates to 18~19 mph.

If residential traffic speeds were posted at that speed, I don't think there'd be any need for a bike lane in the first place, really. I generally ride at least that fast. Okay, maybe for slower folks a lane would be required.

That said, in Minnesota, if you drive a car, clearly 10 mph = 0 and 40 = 30 and so on. In places where the posted speeds are 10 mph people routinely travel at 25-30. So, if we had posted speeds of 18, no one would go that slow until they were forced to.

[mamapedal]

We have one I know of in Minneapolis, it's on 5th St SE starting just east of Central and running all the way into Dinkytown.

The biggest problem with it is that despite the pavement arrows (albeit in need of repainting) in the lane that indicate that the lane is counter-flow, many riders go the wrong way in the lane anyway and then get all pissy if told that they're going the wrong way.

[DanB]

We have one I know of in Minneapolis, it's on 5th St SE starting just east of Central and running all the way into Dinkytown.

The biggest problem with it is that despite the pavement arrows (albeit in need of repainting) in the lane that indicate that the lane is counter-flow, many riders go the wrong way in the lane anyway and then get all pissy if told that they're going the wrong way.

Which is odd, given that people are pretty good about the one-way nature of the loop around Lake Calhoun.

I'm sure some people will freak over this, but: maybe if we had cops ticket a bunch of wrong-way riders, it would get peoples' head in the game.

[shizzy]

We have one I know of in Minneapolis, it's on 5th St SE starting just east of Central and running all the way into Dinkytown.

The biggest problem with it is that despite the pavement arrows (albeit in need of repainting) in the lane that indicate that the lane is counter-flow, many riders go the wrong way in the lane anyway and then get all pissy if told that they're going the wrong way.

my thought is anyone who misses arrows painted right on the pavement is beyond help. I have stopped and pointed out the painted markings on various lake paths to people and had many say they didnt even notice them.

[batjerk]

People have an uncanny ability to miss the obvious.

I'm not against receiving tickets for doing dumb things. Seriously, motorists should get speeding tickets for speeding, everyone should get tickets for running stop signs and red lights, cyclists (and I may have to use the term lightly) should get tickets for salmoning.