"Why on earth would we build a protected bike lane when you already have a perfectly good sidewalk?"
The perfectly good sidewalk:
@bikepedantic it's like this for a mile. A MILE.
@DrTCombs @bikepedantic I was out yesterday and had to ride in a bike lane that was reduced by half because of overgrown foliage.
@roadskater @DrTCombs @bikepedantic Florida suburbs have a different drainage system. I haven’t seen those grates in years. 🍀
@DrTCombs said by someone who never walks, clearly. 🚗 🧠 at work
That's just a really wide curb.
(No wait, I see the curb in the photo now, but wow, it's still not much more than that.)
@DrTCombs Is this a sidewalk you're even supposed to be on with a bike? The ones I love are the "you can just ride your bike on the sidewalk" "oh, bikes aren't allowed on the sidewalk" combos.
@wordshaper @DrTCombs another fun one is that Oregon law bans e-bikes from sidewalks, and the transportation planners will build a brand new "multi-use path" and designate it as the bikeway, but there is no such legal definition, so it's technically a sidewalk (and we have a mandatory sidepath law so then you're not allowed to ride in the street either) i.e. you can risk a legal battle or get in a car.
@enobacon @wordshaper this sidewalk isn't marked as a bike facility, but its twin on the opposite side of the road is a signed ped/bike combo, but only if you are going in that direction. If you wanna go the direction I'm going, you can either ride in the sidewalk (which sucks) or mix it up with the cars that are routinely clocked going 60+ (despite the posted speed of 35mph).
I had my kid with me today, so we opted for the itch from poison ivy rather than probable death from cars.
@enobacon @wordshaper our laws don't yet know what to do with ebikes, thankfully.
@wordshaper
I normally ride the wrong way on the opposite sidewalk (signs be damned) because we normally take a left at the bottom of the hill, and I'd rather take our chances with driveways and try and cross 5 lanes of speeding traffic.
But today we needed to go right, so we had to take the poison ivy side.
@enobacon @wordshaper @DrTCombs after all his life, John Forester couldn't at least prevent the one law he had a good opinion on?
@DrTCombs Sidewalks are for pedestrians and disabled people. Bicycles belong in the street.
@gcvsa You clearly have never attempted to ride a bicycle on this road.
@DrTCombs Bicycles do not belong on sidewalks, period.
@gcvsa tell it to the traffic Engineers, police, and drivers people have to deal with if they don't ride on the sidewalk. Most people on bikes are going to be careful enough that anybody using that sidewalk will be fine, but you can't expect people (especially not children) to "take the lane" under whatever conditions just for some absolute rule. Most state laws allow for biking on sidewalks with e.g. the same rights and responsibilities as a pedestrian. The rest is an infrastructure problem.
@enobacon Whether or not it is safer for bicyclists to ride on the sidewalk has nothing to do with whether or not bicycles belong on sidewalks. The proper solution is to fix the road. I'm not telling anyone not to ride on that particular sidewalk; it's my guess very few people feel safe walking on that sidewalk.
@DrTCombs sidewalks are for *walking* - bikes need their own space too.
@DrTCombs This is such a common problem! 😡
@DrTCombs Reminds me of my experience biking to Will Rogers State Historic Park in LA
@DrTCombs as a rider this setup is terrifying
@DrTCombs [jeff foxworthy voice] you might have a bad sidewalk if you have just as much width for drainage as you do for people walking