Rode through a good stretch of greenway on a Cardinal e-bike last week and noticed the signed 10 MPH speed limit – but it’s impossible to stay below 13-15 MPH on a Cardinal bike, since the motor will kick in.
Seems like a bit of a contradiction to effectively ban city-owned bikes from much of the city’s bike network.
I’ve seen full on pelotons rolling through on the greenway. I don’t think there is any enforcement of the speed limit.
I never understood the 10 mph speed limit. Even casual / leisure riders will easily exceed that speed on flats without an e-bike. It’s hard to go that slow on a bike unless you are going uphill.
15 mph seems like the sweet spot to allow ebikes, scooters, and leisurely cycling.
As a frequent runner on the greenways, I’ve only noticed the speed limit signs in the more congested areas (IE Shelley Lake, etc). Also as a runner, I appreciate keeping the bike traffic a little slower in busy areas b/c those out for afternoon strolls are oblivious to the runners/bikers actually getting training in and tend to take up the whole pathway. Weekend afternoons are especially bad. As a distance runner, I can’t completely avoid certain areas, so it is inevitable I have to run through busier portions of the greenways. So yea… 10MPH is a bit arbitrary, but just situational awareness of busy areas (and clueless casual walkers) keeps folks a little safer.
10MPH is certainly a leisurely speed for seasoned riders, but greenways often have twists and turns, and hills and valleys that could be unsafe at faster speeds given the paths are shared with pedestrians of various ages and abilities. Road cyclists and mountain bikers should not consider greenways as infrastructure to hone their riding skills or as opportunities to exercise at peak performance levels.
This is pretty much it. I believe Cary’s is 15MPH. At Shelly Lake I definitely go slower. The same typically goes when I’m passing people in general. My commute ride is a bit faster, but it’s the same to where I’ll slow down when passing people and go slower when going downhill. It is a bit tough to judge speed without a speed meter.
The greenways are pretty lawless as far as I am concerned, and I have no prob riding 15-20 thru most of it
I would not call the greenways lawless, certainly, there is police presence on the greenways in certain areas and there is volunteer program the City of Raleigh police have for monitoring activity on the greenways.
One thing to remember is that the greenways are designed for and used by a wide variety of cyclists and pedestrians; often times families with children either in carriages or using their first or second bike. As such, they need a wide berth and more experienced and or faster cyclists need to adjust so accidents are limited
So I think the 10 MPH limit is a good standard, but clearly not applicable when going down hills.
I cycle often and sometime jog on the greenways. Certain sections are very busy and certainly slower speeds are warranted. But long stretches on certain segments see much less traffic.
I will exceed the 10mph every time I am on it. It’s not practical to go that slow. I do slow down in congested areas. And I just recently got a bike bell. It’s lets people know you are coming. Previously I would call out from behind, but folks are often are not paying attention, get confused, or are listening to headphones.
A bell helps tremendously, and I would encourage any cyclist who regularly uses the greenway to get one. Works way better than calling out ‘on your left’.
Yep… that is the “situational awareness” I mentioned in my post as well. (Gen X rant…) These days folks are so dialed into their phones and have earbuds in blaring music, podcast, etc, they pay little attention to what is going on around them. It is a huge safety issue be it getting run down by a bike or worse yet getting mugged from behind. I’m all for not living my life in fear, but I that also comes with paying attention to what is going on around me. (hands over soapbox)
I mean, if I’m doing a long training run on the greenways, I am going to have my headphones in to keep it bearable. It’s already painful and boring enough.
Bells are super helpful compared to yelling - I’ll already be on one side of the path if I’m running, but it does feel like some bikers just want to hurtle down the middle.
If people would get into the habit of staying to the right except to pass, I don’t think there would be much of an issue. But when you have some people who walk on the right, some people in the middle, and some on the left side for some reason, there’s no predictability, and it’s frustratingly difficult for comparatively faster traffic to get through from either side. It’s similar to the idiots who sit in the left lane on the interstate but that’s a discussion for another day.
I have kids and I appreciate that there is a speed limit on the greenways to discourage people from racing along at dangerous speeds, but IMO 10 mph is a bit too low.
Many bikes are simply not designed to go that slowly. When my kids were younger I would regularly pull them in a trailer and on most rides my average speed while pulling two kids up and downs hilly terrain was above 10 mph.
And some people absolutely have no situational awareness, often walking three, four, or even five people across, taking up both the left and right lanes. When you call out “passing on your left” between 10% and 20% of people move to their left. 
This is so much conversation about a speed limit I have never once seen anyone care about or enforce. It usually just works out fine.
If it’s a rule that’s never enforced, then why have the rule?
If it’s because some curved segments aren’t engineered for high speeds, then why set the rule for the entire system? Plenty of roads have 25 MPH signed around curves but are 45 MPH otherwise.
Obviously, my entire ride worked out just fine. It just felt very strange to be breaking that rule the entire time, and knowing that 99% of bike share use at, say, the art museum was similarly lawbreaking. I guess it was also somewhat jarring because the Cardinal bikes have a speedometer up front, which is not on my usual bikes or even most other shared bikes.
My guess it’s more of liability issue for the city, vs. actually enforcing it. I have never seen any cyclist pulled over on the greenway for speeding.
But if someone were to crash either at a turn or into pedestrians, and lawsuits pop up, the city can deny responsibility by saying the speed limit was exceeded.
I’m no lawyer, but that’s my guess.
I feel like most debates about “speeding” (whether car or cyclist) generally ignore nuance. Clearly, there’s a difference between a civilian cycling past at 12-15 mph, and a Tour de France trainee mowing everyone down at 35 mph. For some reason the US in general has an obsession with designing seemingly all infrastructure as conservatively as possible (gradual curves, great sightlines, etc to apparently minimize accident potential), while trying to mold behavior to an arbitrary level that doesn’t reflect what the infrastructure is actually capable of. Same reason why so many drivers speed…the roads feel way too comfortable to drive as slowly as the speed limits try to mandate.
I’d be in favor of raising them to 15 mph and then actually enforcing them
