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Protected bike lane for Elston Ave - Carry forward Project from Cycle 4
Elston Avenue is a main diagonal artery that bicyclists take everyday to get to work. It provides easy access for residents to bike to neighborhoods like Logan Quare, Wicker Park, Irving Park, etc..
Converting Elston's bike lanes in both directiosn into protected one-way bike lanes will save lives and encourage more people to use the bike lanes. The vast majority of Chicago's bicycle crow does not use these lanes, because it is just too dangerous to bike on them today.
It would mean, we move the bike lanes right next to the sidewalk and move the car parking into the street. Today, it is set up in the opposite manner.
This has already been done on Milwaukee Avenue - another diagonal street that a lot of bikers use - https://chicagocompletestreets.org/streets/bikeways/barrier-protected-bike-lanes/
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Conversation with James Kowalsky
You bring up some valid concerns, but nothing that can’t be mitigated with proper design of the road (if visibility of turning cars is an issue, then we might limit parking and turn radius near driveway entrances). I appreciate your concern for pedestrian and biker safety, but research shows that protected bike lanes are safer for all road users (pedestrians, bikers, drivers) than the painted lanes we currently have on Elston. It’s nice that you feel safe enough to bike throughout the city. For what it’s worth, I do too. But I can’t in good conscience bike with my family on Elston because the current road design is just too dangerous. That significantly limits how many places we can get to by bike. I imagine there are other people who would opt to bike for some trips if an arterial like Elston was made accessible to people who are less confident biking in the street than you and I. We should make biking more accessible for everyone.
Of course this always comes down to good design, we've all experienced the bad at some point.
The risk of doorings and right hooks in a protected bike lane are valid, but those risks exist in the current configuration as well. These potential hazards are low-speed in nature and likely will not cause fatalities.
However, in the current configuration a motorist can hit a cyclist from behind at over 30mph, which is almost certainly fatal. Even a poorly designed protected bike lane is safer in this respect.
Also, in the current configuration pedestrians have to cross both lanes of traffic AND the bike lanes in one go. There is nothing preventing a car from using the bike lane to pass a car that stopped at the pedestrian crossing. The most recent CDOT design standards eliminate this risk when the bike/parking lanes are switched because there will be a pedestrian island in place of the nearest parking spot to the intersection to improve visibility and give peds multiple chances to cross and rest.
I don't think research has been conclusive. ATA and groups are citing old studies or results about how cyclists/pedestrians feel instead of evidence of reduced collisions.
Jan Heine, editor-in-chief of Bicycle Quarterly, wrote, “Any barrier that separates the cyclist visually from other traffic effectively hides the cyclist. This is counterproductive to safety. Moving cyclists out of the roadway altogether, on separate bike paths, is even more dangerous, because drivers don’t look for (or cannot see) cyclists off to the side.” He continued, “On streets with frequent intersections, separate paths only make cycling less safe. I wish those who advocate for them would look at the data and stop asking for facilities that will cause more accidents.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dianafurchtgott-roth/2022/09/08/bike-lanes-dont-make-cycling-safe/?sh=72122f7b4ca8
A 2019 study of Denver found separated lanes increase collisions.
Also, Effective Cycling by John Forester is an great resource.
I just want to point out that the above is an editorial piece written by a employee of the Heritage Foundation, and is not a conclusive peer reviewed study. For one of those I would point to this one published in the Journal of Transportation & Health: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214140518301488?via%3Dihub
It took data from 12 large US cities over a 13 year period, and showed "the evidence suggests that high-bicycling-mode-share cities are not only safer for bicyclists but for all road users". This is a much more legitimate source to look at when making policy decisions.
Thank you for finding a credible source, Benjamin.
You are just quoting from the headline, can you post the full article?
I want to agree with other commenters that the main concerns of cyclists not being visible in the current protected bike lanes is not because cyclists are separated from traffic but because other parked cars are blocking other drivers view. The solution is not to make the bike lanes more dangerous, but to make intersections safer for bikes and pedestrians by reducing parking and other obstructions around intersections (ex: https://nacto.org/publication/dont-give-up-at-the-intersection/protected-intersections/). This solution above is obvious to anyone thinking critically about the problem of road safety, and arguing for reducing cycling infrastructure (instead of how to actually make our roads safer) is not arguing in good faith for safer roads.
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