DIY Geurrilla Bike Lanes, Sharrows, and Separated Bike Lanes
Thursday, August 23rd, 2007I live in LA. One of the more dangerous or difficult American cities to be a cyclist. I commute to work by bike every day, and I’m lucky enough that it’s a relatively short ride, with pretty wide roads and/or bike lanes. (Still, I did manage to get hit by a car in the 1 year and 4 months I’ve been doing this commute.)
LA is Busted, and the City Ain’t Gonna Fix It
Even though LA’s cycling community seems to be growing exponentially as evidenced by the 1300+ cyclists showing up for the Midnight Ridazz bicycle rides, you don’t see the city doing a whole lot to provide safer streets for folks on bikes. In a town where the Department of Transportation’s deputy mayor drives a Hummer, LA is happy to fork over the money for helicopters and police presence during Ridazz or Critical Mass rides, but why are so many daily commuters still getting hit?
From this LA Times opinion piece on LA bike lanes:
Of Los Angeles County’s 6,400 miles of surface streets, only 481 miles have bike lanes (320 inside the city limits — five fewer miles than much smaller Tucson). In milk carton terms, if L.A.’s total street mileage equaled half a gallon, bike lanes would constitute a sip of about 4 ounces.
If traffic is one of the city’s biggest issues, I see the bike as a primary solution. But if perception is that riding in the city is not safe (and rightly so), then current drivers aren’t going to opt to ditch their car in favor of two wheels. And if the city isn’t stepping up and putting serious effort into what I see as an urgent issue, then we just have to take things into our own hands!
Do It Yourself Urban Planning and Bike Lane Creation
City won’t give you a bike lane? Make one yourself! That’s what folks around LA and other cities like Portland and Toronto have been doing. These cyclists sneak around their cities with self-made stencils and spray paint bike-related symbols onto the roadways, claiming bike lanes themselves where the cities won’t provide them.
Bike Lanes and Sharrows - Pros and Cons
It’s important to note that bike lanes and Sharrows — shared use arrows, bike icon with two chevrons above it — do have their issues. Bike lanes tend to be placed right next to parallel parked cars so that riders are exposed to getting doored by the parked cars — one of the most common causes of injury for cyclists.
I’ve also noticed that cars tend to crowd you when you have an explicit bike lane, I’m not sure why, maybe they think that painted white line comes with an invisible force field as well. More likely, they’re busy blabbing into their cell phones and have no idea what’s going on around them, “oh my gawd, did you see Top Chef last night?!”
Cars also like to accelerate past you, only to cut you off by turning across the bike lane. That’s a nice move I’ve seen countless times.
Sharrow - photo by Todd Boulanger, full photoset on Flickr.
Separated Bike Lanes
The ideal solution in my opinion would be completely separated bike lanes. This provides the most protection without impeding drivers — which I think would also result in a healthy improvement in drivers’ attitudes towards cyclists. Unfortunately, the guerrilla cyclist can’t create a separated bike lane on their own, but still, I think this video (YouTube) about the “Case for Separated Bike Lanes” in NYC is worth watching, there are some really great ideas here and examples of successful implementation of separated lanes in some European (and even American) cities. Dream big! Maybe we’ll get something like this one day.
