You Don’t Need to Ride “Contra-Flow” in the New Bike Lane
Mayor Adrian Fenty by 15th Street's contra-flow bike lane yesterday—no police escort in sight!
Yesterday, I did a little reporting on D.C.'s brand new, contra-flow bike lane, which is protected by a lane for parked cars (look closely above.) It's a pilot project on 15th Street NW, and the District Department of Transportation plans to carefully study how riders are responding.
"We want to see how it works. We know it’s not perfect. There are things we can probably tweak," says John Lisle, spokesperson for DDOT.
Back before the lane was installed, DDOT gathered information about how many bikers were using 15th Street, how many were going with the flow of traffic or against it, and other observations about bikers' behavior. Now, the Department is planning on sending out employees again to do the same counts and pull bikers aside to gather feedback.
One problem has already been recognized: Although the contra-flow lane is meant for southbound bikers going against the northbound flow of traffic, "it’s obvious people will use this lane in both directions," says Lisle.
Go ahead and break the rules, says Lisle. Just watch where you're going and don't pedal into anyone.
For the next project, "we’re talking about a protective lane on both sides [of the road]," says Lisle.
The first lane on 15th Street, which took about two weeks to construct (but was in the planning phase for roughly a year), cost $100,000. DDOT is hoping to "roll out" several more protected lanes by Spring 2010, according to department transportation planner Jim Sebastian.
Photo from DDOT Facebook page.
4:19 pm
I can assure you I never said "go ahead and break the rules." We do not encourage people to ride the wrong way in the southbound lane, but we know it might happen.
10:54 am
As I wrote to John on Friday:
According to my notes, you said: "It’s obvious people will use this lane in both directions...On M street [southeast], we’re talking about a protective lane on both sides... I know some people are using it to go the wrong direction. For us, that’s fine. If people are going to use it, that's fine...There may be an issue of safety."
From that I wrote--without quotes--Go ahead and break the rules, says Lisle. Just watch where you’re going and don’t pedal into anyone.
I extrapolated that DDOT recognized the lane had flaws and was concerned, as usual, for people's safety. And that if anyone at DDOT happened to be biking, driving or walking by someone breaking the rules of the contra-flow bike lane, your natural response would (probably in your head) be go ahead...just watch where you’re going and don’t pedal into anyone.
3:09 pm
The important point to note about the implications of bikers using the intended contraflow lanes as they see fit is that the mere presence of these new "biker enthusiast" entitlements encourages a disdain and disregard for long held and commonly accepted safe biking practices. There will likely be more incidents as these "contraflow" configurations proliferate.