Painted Bike Lanes Are Atrocious & Here's How to Fix Them

i find ironic whenever an American (yes I only find this argument used by americans) opposes having separate infrastructure dedicated to bikes (or public transport) on the ground of taxes. the argument goes "I pay taxes for the road while bike don't, they should either pay and be insured or not be getting anything at all" and really... considering how low US taxes, especially on fuel, and how rare toll roads are, one would think they would know better.

“Paint is not infrastructure.” AMEN! I think municipalities add these painted bike gutters because they’re inexpensive and every mile of “bike lane” counts toward the “bicycle friendly” designation.

Another problem with painted bike gutters, especially in a denser, urban area, is that inevitably cars will illegally park in them, forcing us bikes to move into a live motor vehicle lane to get around them. That ends up being more dangerous than if there were no bike gutter at all. It is a very frequent occurrence, a transgression that police seem unable or unwilling to enforce.

I crossed Canada on my bike using these stupid bike lanes the whole length: I can tell you that your critic is very well articulated and absolutely correct.

I was nearly killed on one. I'll never use a painted bike lane next to traffic ever again.

I appreciate this video as a civil engineer. The only thing holding us back is the lack of DOT's spending money to update their standards. So adding good bike infrastructure usually is "out of scope" on our plans.

Having ridden as a vehicle for the last 67 years I can comment that the problem has got worse over the years. It isn't just that there are more cars, nor even that the cars move faster. Cars require parking. With more cars there is more parking making the existing roads ever narrower while needing to carry more. Those parked cars swing open doors with negligent abandon notwithstanding laws. But the WORST feature is the change in attitude "roads exist for cars (only)" which did not apply when I was young. That attitude permeates every aspect of road use including road laws and enforcement.

My favorite type is the painted bike gutter full of large cracks beside 100 kph/60 mph traffic. The cyclists brave enough to ride on these have an epileptic warning amount of flashing beacons to try and ward off the instant death that would follow, and I don't blame them, crazy as they are.

When I lived in Pittsburgh, PA the mayor was attempting to encourage more cycling by building separated bike lanes. People lost their goddamn minds. They hated it, and the response used to make me so angry. "You don't want me cycling the street, and you don't want separate bike lanes. It seems like what you do want is for me to not exist."

What's really wonderful about painted bike gutters is all the debris that accumulates in them which includes glass, screws, nails, boards and the occasional credit card.

Thanks. My bike was my only form of transportation [except for buses when the snow was too deep] for a few decades when I lived in the District of Columbia. It isn't merely the lack of infrastructure; it's also the law and its interpretation. A biker was killed in the Georgetown neighborhood one day by a trucker who made an illegal turn. The judge refused the manslaughter charge and ruled that it was a "failure to yield." A child in Northern Virginia was injured by a motorist but the judge apologized in dismissing the suit against the motorist by saying the law at that time did not allow a non-motorist to sue. Much remains to be accomplished.

Great video. One major reason not to mix bikes and cars in with a bike gutter is where all the trash ends up in gutter damaging bikes. Always worth mentioning.

Let's also reframe the notion of road "ownership". Roads were in place long before cars, and bicycles proliferated streets during that era. An era that lasted more than a century. It was only over this last hundred years that we have turned over nearly all roadways to automobiles.

I agree. I feel like I'm about to die every time I ride my bike on a bike gutter

My son lives in Reno, close to McCarren Blvd which is heavily shown in your video. I've ridden my bike on that "bike lane" on McCarren and it is probably the most unpleasant biking experience I have every had. I don't care what the speed limit is on McCarren as in reality it's a freeway with traffic signals. Reno bike infrastructure sucks. As a result, nobody rides on the roads.

another problem with the gutters is that they get often filled with pebbles, leaves, fallen branches and other types of trash coming from the road 💩

Dude, I can't believe how much footage you got of terrible bike infrastructure. I chuckled at the bike gutter that was too narrow for the bike symbol. Good video BTW.

I love how there's typically 3-4 lanes (in one direction) for cars next to a 3 foot bike gutter on low-use suburban roads.

I guess you could consider me a vehicular cyclist. When I was growing up and a young adult, there was no bike infrastructure to be found anywhere. I lived in a more rural/small town area and if you wanted to ride your bike somewhere you just shared the road with cars most of the time, using shoulders when available and safe enough. Later, I used my bicycle to commute to work while in college, on city streets, again with zero infrastructure. Back then the advice was to learn hand signals, occupy the lane when turning left, things like that. I did that and I was fairly comfortable with it. What strikes me about these painted bike lanes is that -- as a "vehicular cyclist" -- there's a lot of them I would flat-out refuse to ride in. They put me in mind of the narrow shoulders with sharp drop-offs you find on a lot of higher-speed rural roads (as opposed to the really rural roads with no shoulders at all), where you'd have to be suicidal to try to ride there. They're the worst of every world. You're far enough off to the side that a distracted driver won't necessarily notice you, but you're not able to be far enough off to the side to be safe from those same distracted, line-hugging drivers. In situations like that I would always, always ride a couple of feet into the road. Far enough that people coming up behind me in cars were more likely to notice me, while leaving some actual room to move over to the right if someone was nevertheless getting too close, without risking hitting the edge of the pavement and crashing. And these stupid painted lines are saying to bicyclists: here's where you belong! Oh heck no.

good bike infrastructure and good transit should be build because of safety and economic reasons , oil is at 110 this mourning , and people are still using cars to make 2 miles to get to school or the shopping mall , this is madness .