CYCLESENSE

opened the door. many miles of them. They published a zone bike lanes by former Boston City THE DOOR PRIZE TO AVOID I first encountered the arguments bike lane design guide book which pur- Coordinator Paul Schimek. The against door-zone bike lanes about thirty ports that non-door-zone bike lanes can reviewers who rejected the paper were Door-Zone bike lanes should do us all a favor and go away. years ago. In 1978, I helped write a manu- be squeezed into a narrow city . It unabashedly ideological in their rejections. al on bicycle facility design for the United achieves this magic through deceit: the One reviewer wrote, “There has been no by John Schubert States Department of Energy. I did what I scale drawings in the book are falsified. research to show that without bike lanes could to make the gist of this article feder- The cars in the drawing are well under cyclists would ride further out from the Imagine a traffic control device you must disobey to what I’ve read and heard: al policy. Obviously, I didn’t do enough. five feet wide, whereas much of the per- door zone . . .” save yourself from serious personal injury or death. Ride slowly and be ready to jam on A survey on the website of New sonal car fleet in the United States is over This is a bogus argument. If a traffic your brakes. Stay on the outside half of York City’s Transportation Alternatives six feet wide. In other words, they are control device promotes a dangerous Imagine that many “bicycle advocates” avidly promote the bike lane. Be ready to swerve. Watch (www.transalt.org) shows that roughly door-zone bike lanes. behavior, it is no defense to state that the the insides of parked vehicles for signs of two thirds of the respondents have either Cambridge, , a city dangerous behavior can exist without the this traffic control device. You don’t have to imagine it. activity inside. Rely on the fact that it’s had a dooring accident or have nearly had with door-zone bike lanes, had a high-pro- presence of the traffic control device. I’m talking about the door-zone bike lane. If you don’t want illegal for a person to open a car door one. file fatality on July 2, 2002. Dana Laird, a Before a door-zone bike lane is paint- a dooring accident (the act of being struck by a suddenly- without first checking behind. In the class Gutierrez thirty-six-year-old PhD candidate with a ed, you have the right to the whole dang Each of these bits of advice is utterly teaches, he has found that many riders promising career in international rela- road. Why give that up to ride in the opened car door while on a bicycle), don’t ride next to useless. Most people don’t ride slowly underestimate the width of the door zone. tions, was killed when an SUV door most dangerous part? parked cars in the door zone. You have the rights of a vehicle enough to stop in time. My colleague, He instructs his students to ride an esti- opened in her path. After Laird’s death, John Allen, a founder of the Cambridge mated five feet from parked cars. Then the pro bike-lane essay on the city’s web- In addition to the people mentioned by name, John operator, and one of Bicycle Coalition, calculates the maxi- they get out the measuring tape and learn site was revised to omit the part that said Schubert would like to thank many others of the gar- those rights is to mum safe speed for bicyclists at six or what five feet really looks like. the bike lanes “indicate the correct posi- rulous crew at groups.yahoo.com/group/BTI-list/ and claim safe space on seven miles an hour. The minimum non- Policy makers don’t seem to be inter- tion” on the roadway. librarian Riin Gill for their assistance with this arti- the roadway. The wobbling speed for many riders is also ested in changing the situation regarding Also in 2002, our nation’s cle. As always, Schubert cheerfully collects his hate door zone isn’t safe. around seven miles per hour. So the door-zone bike lanes. Transportation Research Board haughtily mail at [email protected]. Dooring acci- fastest speed you can ride safely is the The city of Chicago has installed rejected a very thoughtful paper on door- dents occur frequent- slowest speed you can ride at all. ly. Some are quite Be ready to swerve? No, I’m not severe, and more than making this up. Chicago’s department of a few are fatal. transportation says so at www.chicagocar- In my opinion, a to.com/bikemap/doorzone.html. It says, door-zone bike lane is “Keep track of traffic behind you so you’ll the result of a mis- know whether you have enough room if

guided belief that you must swerve suddenly out of the T WINTERS

bicyclists need special ‘Door Zone.” This is an unsafe and OBER space, marked just for nerve-wracking way to ride. R them, to feel validated, You can’t see through headrests or or to be encouraged tinted glass. Trying to do so is a danger- to ride. Increasingly common, police visit the scene of a dooring accident. ous distraction from the other things you According to pol- should observe while riding. icy makers, it is cost prohibitive to widen narrow city , so Motorists make mistakes. We avoid accidents by evading the only place to add bike lanes is the door zone, next to parked each other’s mistakes. But a door-zone bike-lane accident is what cars. The reason it’s available is because it’s too dangerous for engineers call a single point failure mode. If the motorist opens motorist traffic. But it is available, so we can put paint on it, and the door at the wrong time, the rider has no way to avoid the by gum, we can call it a bike lane! accident. The door-zone bike lane stands apart from other bicycle Moreover, a parked motorist can’t always see the approach- facility design controversies because it takes an ordinary street, ing cyclist. Dan Gutierrez, director of the California Association that was probably safe to begin with, and turns it into a trap for of Bicycling Organizations, once nearly doored a rider because uneducated riders who don’t know any better. the rider had popped from the sidewalk onto the road during the What do door-zone bike lane advocates tell cyclists? Here’s time between Dan’s rearward visual check and the moment he

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