(I emailed this to the author a few days ago.) I’m not saying these findings would hold up with better ridership data. But they were surprising findings, nonetheless. Plus, nobody wanted to hear it.
Once you have a condition where you need to move left, out of the bike lane, it's a big step. But depending on your route, you may need to avoid pavement issues, trash or other debris in the bike lane, vehicles crossing the lane, or you may need to turn left or pass slower bicycles. And the aditional problem that if there's a marked bike lane, drivers will expect bicycles to remain in it.
Sharrows don't provide subjective safety, they just remind everyone that bicycles are allowed there, and should be expected there. (Of course, when they're marked too far to the right, it's worse than not having any markings)
In hindsight, this was a missed opportunity to build this infrastructure at a time when cycle usage (and therefore public support) was very high... and cycle participation has plummeted in the decades since to 1.7% of all journeys. Now, cyclists have the right to use all UK roads (except motorways), but only the bravest actually do so.
Meanwhile, the Netherlands has fantastic cycle infrastructure and participation is very high - although still lower than it once was in the UK! I don't think it is hyperbolic to say that given what we now know about climate change, harmful emissions and the health consequences of inactive lifestyles, this is a national tragedy.
Good cycle infrastructure encourages more people to cycle, and the rights of cyclists are better protected in societies where more people cycle.
[1] http://www.cycling-embassy.dk/2015/10/23/how-to-decrease-rig...
What? From the article
> we can conclude, that very rarely it is the cyclists who make the mistakes. Therefore, we mostly collaborate with the truck drivers and the authorities in solving the problems.
It's not a huge problem, its just one of the main recurring accident types. At most crossings the closed bike lane opens and becomes an combined right-turn lane and bike lane. It's routine to for +10 cyclist to merge with cars turning right. The fatalities from right turns are almost exclusively due to trucks and lorries that have hard time viewing cyclist in the mirror when they are close together.
Remember the majority of the population here cycles. So it is more of a public campaign to be aware of one of the more dangerous situations and provide information on how to avoid it.
Also see https://youtu.be/HjzzV2Akyds from 6 minutes on for right turns in Copenhagen.
As far as width goes, in European areas with high cycling rates bike lanes are very wide, nearly a car lane wide, so one can pass. American ones tend to be very narrow because cycling use is low and biking is treated as marginal.
You can have roads without bike lanes at all that are still safe for biking, but they have to be sufficiently narrow and slow. Most American streets are extremely wide, and so people often speed, which is an extremely common complaint in American residential neighborhoods. The difference is that most people will ask for a stop sign, which sometimes doesn't do anything, or they ask for speed bumps, which cost a lot of money.
First rule of bicycle safety: "Paint won't save you."
I think the benefit is likely due to increased numbers of cyclists on those routes (and other routes - just a general heightened awareness of bicyclists).
I personally treat them as preferable to nothing, and except on really busy streets, preferable to door zone bike lanes.
Of course there are options better than either, and I prefer those. But I also don't really think bicycle affordances are the solution -- a legal/policy war on cars and drivers is.
I (used to :/) bike to work daily and was mostly scared of the intersections where the right lane crosses the shoulder/bike-lane to give drivers a quick right turn. A co-worker almost died on the scariest one after getting hit from behind, but was lucky enough to roll next to the car and only lose the bike.
Other risky ones are where the driver that's merging in won't expect a bike and suddenly blocks the bike lane to get a better view of the traffic. This generally happens on the long streets with fast traffic 45m/h+ as few bikers take the risk making it more likely that drivers "forget" that there's bike traffic.
Additionally, you can continue the bike lane paint within an intersection. But I don’t recall the data on that.
And yeah, those mixing zones are a disaster, especially when the bike facility completely disappears 100 feet before the intersection.
I do avoid one local intersection that I would otherwise use frequently because they haven't done anything and a large percentage of the time I pass through it cars get too close to me or someone else. In that case, part of the issue is that cars are effectively going from a freeway to a street level highway that turns into a freeway. Even though drivers here are generally much more chill than any other city I've lived in or visited, put them in a "near freeway but street level" situation and they will try to run you over.
Here they have been continuing bike lanes in intersections more often lately. I think they have often just used dotted white lines and do not use them both directions even if there are bike lanes both ways. I wouldn't be surprised if stuff like that and sharrows do nothing at all in any particular location but if there are enough of them all over the place might help remind drivers that cyclists exist. Or maybe they don't really do anything ever :/.
Of course the dangerous area isn't plain road at all, it's junctions. Drawing bike lanes on the road and giving up at junctions is all too common, and rather like the drunk searching for his keys under the streetlamp because it's where the light is.