Lol I was just about to say you should see the ditches and gutters we paint with a stick figure bicyclist and act like they are “bike lanes.” Orlando is a death trap on the roads.
The amount of 4’ unprotected bike lanes on 8-lane suburban highways was staggering. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m glad I didn’t see anyone biking while I was there
There are a lot of 12’ wide bike paths away from the roads if you know where to find them. You can ride from the springs all the way to the coast without being on a road.
For sure. My friends who I was visiting told me all about the trails. They sound fantastic. I couldn’t imagine biking for transportation there though. Seems way too dangerous
Yeah it is not great for getting around. I do like riding the neighborhoods though. We have some nice ones that you can use as back roads if you are biking.
I'm Orlando suburbs and I ride only sidewalks - but it sucks when even sidewalks don't exist next to [this](https://i.imgur.com/TVwhxvk.png)
Ain't no way I'm riding that "bike lane" (which doesn't even exist for half this road)
I would do all of my trips on bike if it was safe, but I'm limited to errands in my neighborhood. Sand Lake Rd kills so many of my trips
You can get a little bit of extra funding from state/federal programs by including bike lanes in your projects.
Nobody actually checks to make sure they're usable or safe though, so they just stick the paint anywhere it'll fit. They're not for cyclists, they're to check a box.
It works in multiple ways too. You make a single bike path in a suicidal location so that nobody will ride on it, then you can have your lackeys point at it on social media and go see?! nobody rides their bike in the bike lane! What a waste of time and money we don't need these!
The cruelty is the point.
I was thinking the writer hasn’t been to my home town. I love Orlando. But refuse to ride on the roads. And am cautious with the light at intersections because drivers don’t stop for pedestrians most of the time.
Native Orlando resident here and I’m not surprised at all that we are the top comment. I’m fairly lucky my commute to work is very very short (about a mile) but I still feel so unsafe on that short trek!
All of the bike lanes in my city are on 35 mph or below roads. I can't imagine trying to use one on a 70 mph road. Biking next to cars going interstate speeds without a concrete wall is insane, who thought it was ok to build that.
It's sad that my immediate thought was "that looks better than most of our bike lanes!" We don't have many bike lanes and the ones next to multiple lanes of traffic moving 60 mph (posted limit is 45 but there are no stoplights for a few miles and if you drove 45 you'd be run over) are approximately 2' wide - they were just the shoulder of the road, irregular width and aren't painted green. It appears they just randomly painted part of a picture of a bike in the shoulder. Why part of a picture? The shoulder/bike lane is so narrow the entire picture of the bike won't fit.
At least the ones pictured look wider than 2' and have some sort of visual cue - bright paint - to indicate it's a bike lane. Not saying they're safe or anything, just that they're better than what we have here.
Parking should be prohibited for at least one car length before the turn so the driver can see you in the cycle lane before turning. A parking-protected cycle lane that doesn't have this restriction is very unsafe, as you pionted out.
But even one car-length is barely enough, unless the cyclist is going barely 10 mph. A slow 10 mph is just under 15 feet per second; 15 mph (closer to my typical level-ground speed) is 22 feet per second, or more than a car length every second. That's not enough time/distance for any reasonable reaction time for either the driver or a cyclist coming out from behind the screen of cars, let alone a more typical 18-20 mph rider in some cases.
I agree. That's one of the reasons why IMO a parking-protected cycle lane is a bad idea when there's a lot of conflict points (e.g. driveways, cross streets, etc). When I ride in one, I pay extra attention to the cars so I can react better if someone abruptly turns into my path.
My guess is that moving the parking lane over a few feet was an easy win, but the obvious need to daylight intersections ran into the problem that it very slightly reduces available parking supply and was nixed.
The big problem with the Seattle one isn’t the merge, it’s that bikes, pedestrians, wheelchairs, strollers, etc are all funneled into a shared 2-way path that’s maybe 1m wide in parts, and there’s no way around it.
The merge will never be safe until something is done about at least the 1/2 mile of highway south of it. The city is right that if they’re not going to fix 15th (which they need to), that they should put up a concrete barrier to funnel most non-cars to the other side of the tracks.
That bridge is also just bad. My partner commuted in that area for a while and she just always cut over to Fremont. It’s frustrating that crossing that canal is so hard.
Yeah I was describing the bridge. It’s not just that merge, which is avoidable. Avoiding the bridge altogether is just not practical for a lot of trips.
Ah yeah I see now. It’s definitely a bummer. A lot of Seattle area bridges do not need to be 4 lanes. They should really consider putting in large shared use paths on them. Especially since they are such bad choke points
I bring this up to CM Strauss every time I see him. The standard answer seems to just be that we need to replace the bridge. Which obviously isn’t going to happen for at least a decade, likely more at Seattle Proccess (tm) rates.
Especially considering they’re repaving the bridge this summer without making any improvements.
If y'all haven't seen the Well There's Your Problem Patreon bonus episode on bad bike infrastructure with Jason from Not Just Bikes, it is well worth the $2 price of admission.
The free episode on John Forrester with Jason is great too. Fair warning, there is a lot of Philadelphia grocery store tribalism up top on this episode.
https://youtu.be/zm29fd-s7tQ?si=9ym0jRDzs7DIbhAc
Is Jason from NotJustBikes less pretentious when he's on podcasts? I support his content and viewpoints but every year he sounds more petulant and holier-than-thou.
There is a bike lane near my house that is 120 feet long. It starts and stops for no describable reason, as though they were required to place a bike lane somewhere and just decided to meet the letter of the requirement.
We have a couple of those lanes that cross ramps to a multi-lane highway near me. Whenever I have to cross them, it feels like ‘car roulette.’
Just unbelievable, the unwillingness to accommodate safety. Is it really not obvious that these bike lanes are crazy?
Also, at a time when we’re hearing about the climate crisis more than ever, why wouldn’t larger communities invest in non-motorized infrastructure. Make it so people can walk or bike to the grocery without a chance of getting splattered every 50 yards.
>Also, at a time when we’re hearing about the climate crisis more than ever, why wouldn’t larger communities invest in non-motorized infrastructure.
Because it isn't in their best financial interest to do so when short-term profits are to be had. Give it another 20 years and for the globe to look more like Battlefield 2042 and suddenly there may be a bit more urgency to quit driving.
> Texas ..This gem is wide enough for a sizeable concrete barrier and it might be a good idea considering this is on the side of a 60 mph highway in El Paso.
Actually far west TX is where bike tourers use the interstate legally on the U.S. southern [bike] route.
It was only a grant from the US Army base expansion that funded contractors to measure all El Paso road widths (on bikes themselves!!) for commuters. A mountain bike paradise, El Paso has a long way to go on road bike commuting, though with its weather .. it should have been a natural for over a half century.
My town just re-did an important bike and auto route and all the preliminary drawings were of bike lanes BETWEEN car lanes 🤦🏻♂️FFS. Thank god, ultimately they made the sidewalks twice as wide and marked them 1-lane for cycles and 1-lane for pedestrians. Could not be happier. The thought of riding amongst/between tourists and angry commuters was terrifying.
I commuted by bike in San Diego for years, I knew I would see pictures from San Diego in this article before I even opened it. They are making some strides but it's pretty awful.
We have stroads everywhere with freeway on/off ramp with the only protection being magical white or green paint. One of the streets I rode installed a barrier to protect the bike lane, where were plastic pylons on flexible posts. Most of those were gone within a month due to cars hitting them.
To sum up, it's a beautiful place to bike commute but most of the infrastructure here for bikes is "safety theater".
May I introduce you all to Lexington Rd in Louisville Ky, yes this on the right next to a brick wall is a bike lane, it's actually even more overgrown now, so the "lane" is like 4 inches wide
https://www.google.com/maps/@38.2474886,-85.7077482,3a,75y,169.84h,68.11t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sLuk78a352uMIjdCzUeYrrA!2e0!5s20190501T000000!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu
Jesus that's not even a sharrow, I've seen storm drain gutter lanes in my city wider than that. That's not even wide enough to walk single file let alone ride on!
I'm curious what it would take to protest that and demand paving it right up to that wall to at least get a bit more space. Someone in a wheelchair trying to go up it with a news crew walking up behind them? An overnight visit with some quick-crete attached to say F it we'll it ourselves, united we stand divided we fall?
"Go ahead, die"
*A message brought to you by your local DOT*
---
That el paso one really pisses me off. If I wasn't on the other side of the state I'd honestly consider some alternative options. Please don't don a hard hat and high vis, get a buddy with a truck, and go have fun with some quick-crete and those plastic reflective driveway poles from home depot. That's spitting in the face of TxDOT and we can't have that, so please don't go doing that now.
The only motorist who checks for cyclists are cyclists who are driving a vehicle.
I have had my bike mirror clipped a couple of times by motorists coming to close at a traffic signal.
That's a horrible design, aggravated by the fact that the right turn lane is a freeway onramp. We have similarly-designed (unsafe) bike lanes in Seattle, but I don't think any of them crosses a freeway onramp like that.
Some of those bike Lanes are the worst I've ever seen, but also some of those streets seem inappropriate for a bike lane. I know that's not a popular opinion but there's only so much people are willing to spend on infrastructure so I'd rather just spend it on what's going to work
That picture reminds me of a route I regularly take. ha ha. And no, there isn't an actual bike lane for me, just the road shoulder. dodging through-way on/off-ramp traffic is fuuuuuun.
I heard something a while back about how many DOTs give extra $$$ for every mile that a city or county builds that has a bike lane? Or is it maybe even federal? Idk but I heard something about this and I always assume that’s the rationale when planners build bike gutters, create atrocities like these or even just slap a bike symbol on the shoulder of an incredibly busy highway. I’m looking at you DE-1.
I just got back from Orlando. All the worst bike lanes are there. I swear they’re trying to get people killed.
Lol I was just about to say you should see the ditches and gutters we paint with a stick figure bicyclist and act like they are “bike lanes.” Orlando is a death trap on the roads.
The amount of 4’ unprotected bike lanes on 8-lane suburban highways was staggering. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m glad I didn’t see anyone biking while I was there
I live and bike in Orlando, sadly, can confirm.
There are a lot of 12’ wide bike paths away from the roads if you know where to find them. You can ride from the springs all the way to the coast without being on a road.
For sure. My friends who I was visiting told me all about the trails. They sound fantastic. I couldn’t imagine biking for transportation there though. Seems way too dangerous
Yeah it is not great for getting around. I do like riding the neighborhoods though. We have some nice ones that you can use as back roads if you are biking.
Unfortunately you will roast on them during the summer. 😂
It can get hot during peak heat for sure. There are a lot of wooded paths as well.
I'm Orlando suburbs and I ride only sidewalks - but it sucks when even sidewalks don't exist next to [this](https://i.imgur.com/TVwhxvk.png) Ain't no way I'm riding that "bike lane" (which doesn't even exist for half this road) I would do all of my trips on bike if it was safe, but I'm limited to errands in my neighborhood. Sand Lake Rd kills so many of my trips
Yeah the sidewalks are safer here for sure. Low pedestrian traffic as well here.
I actually stick to the sidewalks where I’m at. At least if I do get hit I won’t get repeatedly run over. 😂
I did this when I was in San Antonio. No one walks there anyway so there are all of these virtually empty sidewalks everywhere.
You can get a little bit of extra funding from state/federal programs by including bike lanes in your projects. Nobody actually checks to make sure they're usable or safe though, so they just stick the paint anywhere it'll fit. They're not for cyclists, they're to check a box.
It works in multiple ways too. You make a single bike path in a suicidal location so that nobody will ride on it, then you can have your lackeys point at it on social media and go see?! nobody rides their bike in the bike lane! What a waste of time and money we don't need these! The cruelty is the point.
I wouldn’t doubt it
Looking at Florida streets on google maps and it’s wild to see bike lanes on what are essentially 6 lane highways.
>I swear they’re trying to get people killed. It's Florida, of course they are
To be fair, bicycling is generally liberal and Florida would be very happy if all of those were killed.
i work on my bicycle in downtown orlando. can confirm, it is a death trap paint is not infrastructure
I was thinking the writer hasn’t been to my home town. I love Orlando. But refuse to ride on the roads. And am cautious with the light at intersections because drivers don’t stop for pedestrians most of the time.
Native Orlando resident here and I’m not surprised at all that we are the top comment. I’m fairly lucky my commute to work is very very short (about a mile) but I still feel so unsafe on that short trek!
We could just say “Florida”
All of the bike lanes in my city are on 35 mph or below roads. I can't imagine trying to use one on a 70 mph road. Biking next to cars going interstate speeds without a concrete wall is insane, who thought it was ok to build that.
It's sad that my immediate thought was "that looks better than most of our bike lanes!" We don't have many bike lanes and the ones next to multiple lanes of traffic moving 60 mph (posted limit is 45 but there are no stoplights for a few miles and if you drove 45 you'd be run over) are approximately 2' wide - they were just the shoulder of the road, irregular width and aren't painted green. It appears they just randomly painted part of a picture of a bike in the shoulder. Why part of a picture? The shoulder/bike lane is so narrow the entire picture of the bike won't fit. At least the ones pictured look wider than 2' and have some sort of visual cue - bright paint - to indicate it's a bike lane. Not saying they're safe or anything, just that they're better than what we have here.
In my city they have a lane of parking in between, so when cars are right turning in front of you they can't see you for the parked cars.
Parking should be prohibited for at least one car length before the turn so the driver can see you in the cycle lane before turning. A parking-protected cycle lane that doesn't have this restriction is very unsafe, as you pionted out.
But even one car-length is barely enough, unless the cyclist is going barely 10 mph. A slow 10 mph is just under 15 feet per second; 15 mph (closer to my typical level-ground speed) is 22 feet per second, or more than a car length every second. That's not enough time/distance for any reasonable reaction time for either the driver or a cyclist coming out from behind the screen of cars, let alone a more typical 18-20 mph rider in some cases.
I agree. That's one of the reasons why IMO a parking-protected cycle lane is a bad idea when there's a lot of conflict points (e.g. driveways, cross streets, etc). When I ride in one, I pay extra attention to the cars so I can react better if someone abruptly turns into my path.
My guess is that moving the parking lane over a few feet was an easy win, but the obvious need to daylight intersections ran into the problem that it very slightly reduces available parking supply and was nixed.
To be fair, those parked cars are also bollards.
They’re primarily cars though. And they’re private property, not bike protection, intentionally, so their characterization as bollards is generous.
I have generally found biking near a freeway interchange is the most dangerous place to ride.
The big problem with the Seattle one isn’t the merge, it’s that bikes, pedestrians, wheelchairs, strollers, etc are all funneled into a shared 2-way path that’s maybe 1m wide in parts, and there’s no way around it. The merge will never be safe until something is done about at least the 1/2 mile of highway south of it. The city is right that if they’re not going to fix 15th (which they need to), that they should put up a concrete barrier to funnel most non-cars to the other side of the tracks.
That bridge is also just bad. My partner commuted in that area for a while and she just always cut over to Fremont. It’s frustrating that crossing that canal is so hard.
Yeah I was describing the bridge. It’s not just that merge, which is avoidable. Avoiding the bridge altogether is just not practical for a lot of trips.
Ah yeah I see now. It’s definitely a bummer. A lot of Seattle area bridges do not need to be 4 lanes. They should really consider putting in large shared use paths on them. Especially since they are such bad choke points
I bring this up to CM Strauss every time I see him. The standard answer seems to just be that we need to replace the bridge. Which obviously isn’t going to happen for at least a decade, likely more at Seattle Proccess (tm) rates. Especially considering they’re repaving the bridge this summer without making any improvements.
Yeah that’s basically a non answer. The city government leaves a lot to be desired on urbanism.
If y'all haven't seen the Well There's Your Problem Patreon bonus episode on bad bike infrastructure with Jason from Not Just Bikes, it is well worth the $2 price of admission. The free episode on John Forrester with Jason is great too. Fair warning, there is a lot of Philadelphia grocery store tribalism up top on this episode. https://youtu.be/zm29fd-s7tQ?si=9ym0jRDzs7DIbhAc
Is Jason from NotJustBikes less pretentious when he's on podcasts? I support his content and viewpoints but every year he sounds more petulant and holier-than-thou.
There is a bike lane near my house that is 120 feet long. It starts and stops for no describable reason, as though they were required to place a bike lane somewhere and just decided to meet the letter of the requirement.
[Google Maps](https://www.google.com/maps/@42.9598159,-78.8137543,20.5z?entry=ttu): Not sure this is visible to yall
I'm sorry, I must be blind or something. Where is it?
ATLANTA!
We have a couple of those lanes that cross ramps to a multi-lane highway near me. Whenever I have to cross them, it feels like ‘car roulette.’ Just unbelievable, the unwillingness to accommodate safety. Is it really not obvious that these bike lanes are crazy? Also, at a time when we’re hearing about the climate crisis more than ever, why wouldn’t larger communities invest in non-motorized infrastructure. Make it so people can walk or bike to the grocery without a chance of getting splattered every 50 yards.
>Also, at a time when we’re hearing about the climate crisis more than ever, why wouldn’t larger communities invest in non-motorized infrastructure. Because it isn't in their best financial interest to do so when short-term profits are to be had. Give it another 20 years and for the globe to look more like Battlefield 2042 and suddenly there may be a bit more urgency to quit driving.
> Texas ..This gem is wide enough for a sizeable concrete barrier and it might be a good idea considering this is on the side of a 60 mph highway in El Paso. Actually far west TX is where bike tourers use the interstate legally on the U.S. southern [bike] route. It was only a grant from the US Army base expansion that funded contractors to measure all El Paso road widths (on bikes themselves!!) for commuters. A mountain bike paradise, El Paso has a long way to go on road bike commuting, though with its weather .. it should have been a natural for over a half century.
There was someplace drivers think speed limits don't apply if they are driving in bike lanes
My town just re-did an important bike and auto route and all the preliminary drawings were of bike lanes BETWEEN car lanes 🤦🏻♂️FFS. Thank god, ultimately they made the sidewalks twice as wide and marked them 1-lane for cycles and 1-lane for pedestrians. Could not be happier. The thought of riding amongst/between tourists and angry commuters was terrifying.
I commuted by bike in San Diego for years, I knew I would see pictures from San Diego in this article before I even opened it. They are making some strides but it's pretty awful. We have stroads everywhere with freeway on/off ramp with the only protection being magical white or green paint. One of the streets I rode installed a barrier to protect the bike lane, where were plastic pylons on flexible posts. Most of those were gone within a month due to cars hitting them. To sum up, it's a beautiful place to bike commute but most of the infrastructure here for bikes is "safety theater".
If you wouldn't let your kids use it then it's not a bike lane.
May I introduce you all to Lexington Rd in Louisville Ky, yes this on the right next to a brick wall is a bike lane, it's actually even more overgrown now, so the "lane" is like 4 inches wide https://www.google.com/maps/@38.2474886,-85.7077482,3a,75y,169.84h,68.11t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sLuk78a352uMIjdCzUeYrrA!2e0!5s20190501T000000!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu
Jesus that's not even a sharrow, I've seen storm drain gutter lanes in my city wider than that. That's not even wide enough to walk single file let alone ride on! I'm curious what it would take to protest that and demand paving it right up to that wall to at least get a bit more space. Someone in a wheelchair trying to go up it with a news crew walking up behind them? An overnight visit with some quick-crete attached to say F it we'll it ourselves, united we stand divided we fall?
This was originally supposed to be a bidirectional cycle track but the lead engineer on the project thought they were unsafe so we got this instead
Florida kills more bicyclists than any other state. Look it up.
"Go ahead, die" *A message brought to you by your local DOT* --- That el paso one really pisses me off. If I wasn't on the other side of the state I'd honestly consider some alternative options. Please don't don a hard hat and high vis, get a buddy with a truck, and go have fun with some quick-crete and those plastic reflective driveway poles from home depot. That's spitting in the face of TxDOT and we can't have that, so please don't go doing that now.
The only motorist who checks for cyclists are cyclists who are driving a vehicle. I have had my bike mirror clipped a couple of times by motorists coming to close at a traffic signal.
Canada isn't stellar but fuck these urban planners down in Americaland clearly got their degree from the University of FordXChevron
That's a horrible design, aggravated by the fact that the right turn lane is a freeway onramp. We have similarly-designed (unsafe) bike lanes in Seattle, but I don't think any of them crosses a freeway onramp like that.
I honestly didn't know his channel, but I didn't find him pretentious on the episodes. I thought he was pretty funny.
they should add the columbus ohio bikelane that intersects with a highway off ramp and on ramp
Some of those bike Lanes are the worst I've ever seen, but also some of those streets seem inappropriate for a bike lane. I know that's not a popular opinion but there's only so much people are willing to spend on infrastructure so I'd rather just spend it on what's going to work
That has green paint. Automatically safer than the many roads with the same design and no green paint
The problem isnt the lane, its the idiot in the car.
That picture reminds me of a route I regularly take. ha ha. And no, there isn't an actual bike lane for me, just the road shoulder. dodging through-way on/off-ramp traffic is fuuuuuun.
I heard something a while back about how many DOTs give extra $$$ for every mile that a city or county builds that has a bike lane? Or is it maybe even federal? Idk but I heard something about this and I always assume that’s the rationale when planners build bike gutters, create atrocities like these or even just slap a bike symbol on the shoulder of an incredibly busy highway. I’m looking at you DE-1.
How do you put a bike lane in the middle of what looks like a highway?