More on bike lanes

Add comment October 1st, 2008

I read a story about a painted bike lane in Peoria that was being paid for from IDOT money. I wondered whether anything like that was considered in Rockford. Gary McIntyre, avid bicyclist and RMAP planner responded.

“The project that Peoria is doing is probably a demo project, hence the amount of funds coming from IDOT (and probably the Federal Highway Administration).  About 10 years ago, the City of Portland, Oregon tired on-street painting of some of their bike lanes.  But this application is still in the “experimental stage” according to John LaPlante (from T Y LIN International).  Mr. LaPlante was the chief consultant for the RATS/RMAP study. He also is involved at the national level in drafting and preparing the Federal guidelines for all of the geometrics and pavement markings and signs for highways, bikeways and pedestrian facilities.

“From the Portland experiment and from the national guide manuals (Manuel on Uniform Traffic Control Devices MUTCD) and the Bike Guide, the only time that colored bike lanes should be considered is where there are complicated weaving movements of a bike lane across a right hand turn lane.  Here is the web link for a report on this topic from the City of Portland:  http://www.portlandonline.com/shared/cfm/image.cfm?id=58842 . Note that this report is 9 years old.

“One of the negatives of this type of on-street paint application is that in wet conditions, the painted surface is very, very slippery.  The wet painted surface makes the light-weight bicycle unstable as the bicycle tires going over wet painted surface, especially when turning.  There is less resistance / traction between the tires and the wet surface.  Last fall I slipped on the Rock River Path at the Auburn Street Bridge on the damp/wet surface.  I had to get a new helmet since the one I was wearing was damaged.

“I have heard that several private companies no longer apply this type of paint coverage in their parking lots for pedestrians to cross between the front-doors and driveways because customers have sued them from falling on these wet painted areas.”