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Path: utzoo!utcsri!clarke
From: clarke@utcsri.UUCP (Jim Clarke)
Newsgroups: net.bicycle
Subject: Re: red flag projecting into traffic
Message-ID: <1460@utcsri.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 4-Oct-85 10:22:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsri.1460
Posted: Fri Oct  4 10:22:45 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 4-Oct-85 10:42:35 EDT
References: <1445@utcsri.UUCP> <118@drutx.UUCP>
Reply-To: clarke@utcsri.UUCP (Jim Clarke)
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 38
Summary: 

In article <118@drutx.UUCP> rdb@drutx.UUCP (BurnhamRD) writes:
>  ...                                         I ride on busy streets
>also.  I do not use a red flag, but I do make use of the white line
>on the street when I can.  I find that many motorist will drive as
>close to me as they can without crossing that line.  On a narrow
>street this makes me very nervous.

Oh, to have a white line!  Here we share the rightmost lane with the cars.
When there is a white line, it defines the rightmost edge of the roadway,
and vehicles are not supposed to travel to the right of the line.  Bicycles
are legally vehicles here.

In fact, the only case I know of where there is a white line on a city road
that I ride on is indeed a city "bicycle route".  But as far as I can make
out the white line is intended to make space for cars parked right of it to
open their doors without wiping out bicycles.  Naturally the line is widely
interpreted as meaning "bicycles stay right of here", but as far as I can
make out that isn't so.

Continuing this digression, what we have in this case is a bicycle route that
is *more* dangerous than when it was an ordinary old road.  It used to be a
standard four-lane road that was only as dangerous as any four- lane road.
To make it a bicycle route, it was converted to two lanes, each somewhat wider
than the old ones but not twice as wide, apparently so that there would be one
stream of cars with space for bicycles beside them.  The extra space left over
was used for the white-line delineated parking mentioned above.

Result?  Two streams of cars now squeeze into the single wide lane, and
bicycles have even more trouble not getting squashed.  However, presumably
the city's parking revenues have increased.

Sorry to go on like this.  I guess the point of this note is just that the
flag issue is a bit different here, since we're out there in the cold with the
cars.  Sounds like Denver might be a better place to be.
-- 
Jim Clarke -- Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4
              (416) 978-4058
{allegra,cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo}!utcsri!clarke


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