The recent cycling accident happened on the Street I live on. A street I occasionally cycle on and my partner does as well.
Beyond having badly designed bicycle lanes, we have a lack of knowledge as to what types of bike lanes there are. There are two types, one is exclusive use the other is shared.
First, the shared. The symbol is the sharrows (two chevrons). The sharrows mean the bicycles have priority not exclusivity. When I drive towards downtown on Laurier I see that people do not understand this symbol. So disturbed by the green sharrows symbol that they move into the exclusive bus lane. Click pic below to enlarge. Click here to read about sharrows.
The diamond means it is exclusive bike use. It is green with a bicycle and a diamond. How odd that the City website only addresses the sharrows and not the diamond as a symbol.
The pic below shows the exclusive lane at the top of the pic but also shows where cars can pass through it towards the west. That is the site of the last accident. First, you’ve got cars from the left lane crossing the bicycle path to turn north on Elgin. PLUS you’ve got cars coming of off Queen Elizabeth Drive merging onto Laurier.
Everyone needs to be aware that as these lanes go one moment it is exclusive and another it is shared!
The city site has a tab on dooring which certainly is indicative of a problem! It suggests to cyclists, to avoid the potential area when a driver may open a door by keeping one meter away from cars – how far into the road does this bring the cyclist. Beyond educating cyclists on the danger of doors how about encouraging drivers to use the Dutch Reach per a post a couple of years ago.
Devyn Barrie addresses the recent death.
