🚀 go-pugleaf

On 2011-01-05, Keith Keller <kkeller-usenet@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us> wrote:
>
> Any opinions on the new bike lanes near Glen Park, on Bosworth and
> Lyell?  (I have my own, but I don't want to bias the discussion at the
> outset.)

Sure.  They're well-intentioned, which is great to see, and it's also
good to have evidence that bike improvements are occurring.  Those
are the general items.  And specifically, the painted lanes in the
short block of Bosworth eastbound between the 280 on-ramp and the
Bosworth-Lyell split are useful, delineating four separate travel
lanes (two turning, two straight).  Drivers seem to get the idea
better and are lining themselves up for their lane earlier.

However, I have many more problems with the implementation:

 - the pavement wasn't fixed before painting.  There are still huge
gouges in the asphalt within both the bike and car lanes.

 - The eastbound, downhill lane on Lyell is not needed or desirable.
Bicyclists can get a a lot of velocity going down that hill, far too
much to be confined to a small curbside lane while aggressive drivers
try to pass by even faster.  I've been ignoring the bike lane and
taking the full lane as I zoom down the hill.

 - The westbound counter-flow lane on Lyell (between Alemany and
Still) is a crazy idea.  First, there's no good way to get onto it,
since nobody is expecting a left turn onto the formerly one-way
street.  You have to hang out in the middle of Alemany waiting for a
break in traffic.

  Second, cars coming up Still, despite their new stop sign at the
right turn, won't be looking for a counter-flow bicyclist.  The
counter-flow lane is not apparent to these drivers (they can't see
it due to a raised island) and there is no signage indicating that
someone may be approaching from the left.

 - The westbound lane of Bosworth between the Bosworth/Lyell
intersection (at the 3-way stop) and Arlington has a bike lane
striped, but they left the last couple of parking spots in the way
such that the bike lane ended up too far out toward the middle of the
road.  Cars making this turn frequently use the bike lane to avoid
having to make a slower, sharper turn around the center curb.

 - Even after all these street changes, there is still *no* good way
for a pedestrian to cross Bosworth anywhere east of the crosswalks
at Diamond, all the way down to the crosswalks at Alemany.  People
are constantly cutting across underneath the San Jose bridge, despite
the fast moving traffic coming down the hill and the parade of
evenly-spaced cars coming up from the two stop signs at Lyell and
Bosworth.  Why was a pedestrian crossing not considered?

-- 
Gregory S. Sutter                       "How do I read this file?"
mailto:gsutter@zer0.org                 "You uudecode it."
http://zer0.org/~gsutter/               "I I I decode it?"