<story><title>Google Wants to Make Silicon Valley as Bike-Friendly as Copenhagen</title><url>http://www.fastcoexist.com/3050776/google-wants-to-make-silicon-valley-as-bike-friendly-as-copenhagen</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hyperion2010</author><text>Based on the photo at the bottom they are going to fail the same way that many other US cities have failed when trying install bike lanes.&lt;p&gt;You MUST put the parked cars between moving traffic and bikes. If you do not bikers are going to get hit and doored and will obstruct turn lanes.&lt;p&gt;Pretty much everywhere in Europe gets this right. Traffic -&amp;gt; parking -&amp;gt; bikes -&amp;gt; peds. How did the US get everything completely backward?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Pxtl</author><text>That approach works in cities that have established massive cycling communities - the Montreals and Copenhagens.&lt;p&gt;The mid-step approach for North American cities is an extra-wide bike-lane clear of the door zone with dotted zones that require drivers to shift into the bike-lane if they want to turn right.&lt;p&gt;Basically, the bike lane is effectively a &amp;quot;bike lane and right-only-turn-lane&amp;quot;.  It&amp;#x27;s less protected than the parking-protected bike lane, but it avoids the right-hook problem.&lt;p&gt;This way drivers will always see the cyclist when they wish to go right.&lt;p&gt;In urban areas with established cycling communities where you have enough density that cyclists are &lt;i&gt;expected&lt;/i&gt;?  There you do the parking-protected lane.  In that kind of environment, cyclists are common-enough that drivers expect them and know to look for them.&lt;p&gt;My city (Hamilton, Ontario) uses both, and I get a lot more right&amp;#x2F;left hooks from cars on the protected lane than I do on the right-turn-plus-cyclist lane.  The protected lane is a great endgame and we &lt;i&gt;need&lt;/i&gt; to get there, but step one is &amp;quot;take the &lt;i&gt;whole&lt;/i&gt; right lane and make it cycling&amp;#x2F;right-turn-only&amp;quot;.  It takes a lot of space but it&amp;#x27;s a great way to begin.&lt;p&gt;The problem is the popular approach is completely half-assed: the glorified shoulder in the door-zone, with no information for drivers about pulling over into the lane to turn.  That leaves both the right-hook open &lt;i&gt;and&lt;/i&gt; the door-prize.</text></comment>
<story><title>Google Wants to Make Silicon Valley as Bike-Friendly as Copenhagen</title><url>http://www.fastcoexist.com/3050776/google-wants-to-make-silicon-valley-as-bike-friendly-as-copenhagen</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hyperion2010</author><text>Based on the photo at the bottom they are going to fail the same way that many other US cities have failed when trying install bike lanes.&lt;p&gt;You MUST put the parked cars between moving traffic and bikes. If you do not bikers are going to get hit and doored and will obstruct turn lanes.&lt;p&gt;Pretty much everywhere in Europe gets this right. Traffic -&amp;gt; parking -&amp;gt; bikes -&amp;gt; peds. How did the US get everything completely backward?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>TulliusCicero</author><text>I agree with you. To a certain extent there&amp;#x27;s institutional inertia around it now. Another issue is actually pedestrians not liking the idea of cyclists (who are all reckless scofflaws, of course) being right next to them. What they don&amp;#x27;t realize is that a) the reckless cyclists are a tiny minority of the people willing to bike in good infrastructure, and b) even a reckless cyclist probably still poses less of a threat to a pedestrian than a car, so moving people out of cars and onto bikes is almost always a win for pedestrian safety.</text></comment>