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Bike News Roundup: A dragon in the 2nd Ave bike lane

It’s time for the weekly Bike News Roundup! First up, you know how the 2nd Ave bike lane is commonly considered the worst bike lane in Seattle? Well, here’s the tweet of the week:

Pacific Northwest News

Halftime show! Here’s a video about US cycling infrastructure, narrated by a dry, unimpressed Dutch person:

National & Global News


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13 responses to “Bike News Roundup: A dragon in the 2nd Ave bike lane”

  1. I noticed those paint marks on the BG trail in front of Google this week and was hoping that’s what it meant. On my commute between Ballard and UW that’s by far the worst-maintained section, so this is really great news.

  2. X

    I know statistically it’s irrelevant, but when they say 94% of bicyclists in Portland “wait at red lights”, they don’t actually mean “wait at red lights until the light turns green”, which would be the normal meaning of that phrase. (An impressive 89% actually do that.)

  3. A

    Boo frickin hoo..

  4. Todd

    The one and only time I used this bike lane — it sucked and ended up crashing in the curg due to a car that decided to make a left turn in front of me. I’ll never ride in that bike lane again. Besides, the crash, I’ve never had so many potential casualties waiting to happen.

  5. The worst part about the 2nd Ave bike lane is that its very presence seems to lead some drivers to be furious if a cyclist does the only safe (and legal) thing: taking the full adjacent auto lane. I daily choose to do this rather than ride the tight-rope between turning cars and opening doors, and it’s the one place in the city where I consistently have negative interactions with drivers (i.e. honking, yelling out open windows, throwing things at me on one occasion, passing/swerving illegally, and other dangerous or threatening behavior).

    Note that I’m generally pacing the flow of traffic when these things happen — the hill allows you to go at a pretty good clip. So the animosity and intentional recklessness some drivers display is difficult for me to understand.

    1. Leif Espelund

      I ride all the way over to the right in the bus lane. Nobody bothers me over there. Of course I’m also turning right down Madison so it makes sense. That bike lane is a death trap.

      1. Tom Fucoloro

        That’s also my usual strategy, but it doesn’t work well in non-peak times when the bus lane becomes parking :-/

      2. I often move to the right as well, but not all the way into the bus lane. I ran into someone at a SBAB meeting a few years ago who had gotten a ticket for riding in the 2nd ave bus lane. Note that the signs there, unlike other bus lanes in the city, don’t indicate that bikes are OK.

        So it becomes another issue for drivers, who think I should move to the right, even though that would be illegal. This type of catch-22 is one of the best arguments for sensible infrastructure downtown: clarifying expectations makes everybody get along better and behave more safely.

  6. Todd

    This lane sucks. End of Story

    1. It could be the worst, I hope they would come up with plans to make this lane fix, even in a bit.

      1. Leif Espelund

        I think one of the strangest, if not worst, pieces of biking infrastructure to me is the spot just north of the University Bridge, where a nice wide bike lane turns to a green painted bike lane (good, though somewhat scary because of merging vehicles) then suddenly goes away entirely for about 30 feet (bad) before turning into a fairly narrow bike lane again (okay). Crazy. http://goo.gl/maps/WLMyF

      2. Tom Fucoloro

        I asked SDOT about that back when the lanes opened. They blamed a lack of funds to move the island curb. I would hope it is on some deferred maintenance list somewhere, but probably not. Could be worth bringing back up.

  7. Clark in Vancouver

    Wow. That Edmonton Sun opinion article seems like something from The Onion.

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