You might already know this, but if not, West Street has the northbound bike lane and one block over on Harrington Street has the southbound bike lane.
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I did not know this, but I was wondering if it did. Thank you for confirming.
Thatâs a really good reason to have them. I havenât watched videos yet (Iâm sure they are out there), but Iâve wondered how people living in bigger cities do it with having kids and getting them to bike safely.
In Miami Beach, and by my anecdotal observation, the bike lanes are used primarily by slower and younger cyclists. They are also used by scooters, electric bikes and sometimes Vespas. Putting it gently, I am not keen on motorized vehicles using bike lanes with slower cyclists and I think that should be policed especially for licensed Vespas. I digress.
Even with all of the cautions put in place (painted, separated, bollards, armadillos, etc.) there are still folks who ride on the sidewalks immediately adjacent to them. Personally, this is annoying as the sidewalks here are highly utilized by walkers and having a Citibike rider ring their bell for you to get out of their way on a sidewalk is not appropriate in my book. In some cases, and as someone else has pointed out in a previous post, the sidewalks in Miami/Miami Beach are often legacy and narrow in the urban residential neighborhoods of the city. There often isnât enough room for them to be shared effectively between walkers and bike riders. Ironically, itâs the walker who is often pushed into the bike lane so that a cyclist can pass on the sidewalk.
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Iâve heard them called armadillos. They replaced the flexible upright bollards in places that had them.
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Itâs definitely a point of debate in the cycling world. The slower riders and families love the protected bike lanes but the more recreational riders not so much. I definitely fall in the later group (not really a crazy sporty cyclist but Iâm not scared of biking on Glenwood Ave or other places without protection) so sometimes itâs interesting hearing perspectives from other members on BPAC who fall into the former group and figuring out how to compromise on those two perspectives.
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Ah yes thatâs the term! Thanks!
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That would be the little fellas!
Too bad we donât have an armadillo emoji to use!
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When I ride my Trek road bike for exercise, Iâm in the traffic lane. When I use the slower bikeshare bikes for transportation reasons, I am in the bike lane.
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I use an e-bike and ride on the road when thereâs no bike lane, but use the bike lane whenever thereâs one available. I honestly just want cars to be able to pass me to avoid potential road rage incidents. In the Netherlands, I believe the preference is either mixed traffic or separated, though in practice there are also some very wide painted lines.
According to this, fully separated lanes are required for roads with speeds of more than 50km/h (~31mph), and mixed-traffic is only allowed in roads with speeds of less than 30 km/h (~18mph). Given those numbers, Dutch regulations applied to Raleigh would require fully separated lanes in most roads and cycle lanes even in most neighborhood streets, though obviously neighborhood streets should just be significantly slower and safer, with bicycle priority.
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youâre preaching to the choir for most people here though I would probably say that we should just design neighborhood streets to have slower speeds in general (though retrofitting them now would take incredible amounts of time and money)
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Yeah, I know, I was just surprised when I saw how strict the laws were in terms of speeds there. 31mph is a very slow speed to require full separation.
I like a lot of the cheaper traffic calming measures the city is trying now, and the discussion in the sidewalk thread on separating sidewalks from traffic calming or using sidewalks as traffic calming to save money and time. Another potential one is mentioned in the article above, this is a cycle street that has a dashed line to visually narrow the street and slow down drivers:
Or, with brick ârumble stripsâ on the edges and sides:
I hope when the city starts work on the planned âneighborhood bikewaysâ, that they actually commit fully - both of the above ideas can be implemented with cheap paint and rumble strips, but feel more effective than a painted lane or sharrow in terms of slower speeds and safety.
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Iâd love for the city to use recycled plastic as replacement asphalt for these bikeways, that would be great for flood mitigation, plastic waste reduction, etc. Btw it has been done before elsewhere.
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I think youâll be disappointed by what the city is planning to do for neighborhood bikeways - itâs really just going to be sharrows and more signage. But thatâs because those projects are completely separated from traffic calming (similar to the response from the city in the sidewalks thread)
The city is actually looking to test out the âcycle streetâ concept you posted along Graylyn Drive between Ebenezer Church Road and the Umstead entrance because there isnât enough room to have 2 cars pass side by side and bike lanes. Not sure when thatâs going to be implemented.
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There is a company AWSL that does this with recycled tires.
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Thatâs disappointing but not surprising. Iâm just confused on the terminology. Whatâs the point of designating a road a âbikewayâ when itâs just a sharrow and signage? Iâd prefer the traffic calming to come first, otherwise it comes across like the City is just doing something to add more lanes to their bike map. Shifter has a good video on what weâre talking about here as well: Comparing real and fake bikeways and neighbourhood greenways - YouTube.
Thatâs exciting to hear about the cycle street on Graylyn, though. I usually have a âtrust the expertsâ mindset, even when I question their plans, so itâs good to have that validated by them trying out these concepts in Raleigh.
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pages 3-8 and 3-9 show what the consultant who did Raleighâs bike plan back in 2015 had in mind when they designated roads as neighborhood bikeways: https://cityofraleigh0drupal.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/drupal-prod/COR28/bikeplan-network.pdf
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Yeah, Iâm hoping to see some of these:
My wife and I rode a pretty good distance down a bicycle boulevard on scooters in Denver last summer, and it had a few intersections like this. Made for a great experience.
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You get a speed table! And you get a speed table!!
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I think that Iâd personally prefer to ride through quieter neighborhood streets than to be on a separated bike lane on a road like Falls of Neuse Rd., and Iâm not a concerned or skittish rider.
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as a kid in âearlier raleighâ who biked miles at a timeâŚwe improvised to not interact with vehicles. parking lot short cuts, some sidewalk ridings (many of which have few people walkign on them) or woody path shortcuts. as a commuting solution or with heavy usage ill take any kind of lane or physical seaparation now.
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