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Comment by keeganjw | Hacker News Reader

I will say, not all bike lanes are created equal. In the Netherlands, a lot of bike lanes are built as proper infrastructure. They're separated with a curb, nicely paved, free of debris, heck they often have their own traffic lights. In many US cities, they just slap some paint on the ground and call it good.

Having ridden on both types, the Dutch style bike lane feels much safer.

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Paint is not infrastructure. I regularly cycle to work clocking up about 200km a week. Entitlement, aggression and abuse by motorists has a major impact on the numbers of people cycling. Segregated cycle routes are essential.

I first became a US urban biker in 2003 before urban bike infrastructure really existed in the US, and I always felt and still feel safest riding on streets that have lots of traffic and no bike lane. Most US bike lanes are just paint between the parking spaces on the curb and the travel lanes. As such you can never predict if cars will enter the bike lane. I personally feel less safe in these unprotected bike lanes than I do riding in the normal travel lane because I find it less predictable. In the US if a car can physically get into a space, a driver will eventually go there.

This works for fit people with the wherewithal to approximate average speeds on the choked roadways. Bike lanes are towards the low end of what constitutes bicycle infrastructure, but they do give a great number of people the confidence to get out on their bikes. This is good for all cyclists, as all evidence points to “more bicycles; better average safety.”

Look to parents with kids in tow as an indicator species for the health of a bicycling ecosystem.

That said, I am personally wary of bike lanes for the reason I suspect you are: I’m constantly needing to be hyper vigilant about cars turning right across the bike lane. When I’m clipping along in traffic, I’ll move left in the lane at intersections to prevent this. Bike lanes can make this maneuver harder, especially if they have a painted buffer that is littered with tire-shredding debris.

I suspect, but haven’t seen research, that the right hook scenario is lessened for slower moving bicycles (i.e. the kind that are perhaps more drawn to bike lanes). There is a longer span of time for an overtaking vehicle to observe a slower bicyclist in the bike lane, which I’d guess reduces the risk of the driver turning across. Add to that, a slower moving bicyclist isn’t going to run into the side panel of a car turning across the bike lane with as much force.

This segregated kind of infrastructure is what it would take for me to consider riding a bike. The typical US painted bike lane is just way too dangerous.

The Dutch-style infrastructure is safer. It's important to mention that earlier bike lanes in the Netherlands weren't initially implemented in their current form; they, too, started out as painted lanes. It's when the roads they were on required resurfacing that they were then properly separated from automotive lanes.

Bike lanes in the US can be pretty haphazard, in many cases they're sprinkled discontinuously around the area like a tease

it almost feels more dangerous to merge into and out of motor traffic at every other intersection

Worse still is having to merge in/out of traffic to avoid parked vehicles. In the state of Oregon, you are legally entitled to the same rights as any other vehicle on the road, but that also means you are legally obligated to move over when possible so faster vehicles can pass. In practice, this means swerving into the lane of car traffic to get around cars parked on the curb, and then moving back into the "bike lane", repeatedly. It's frightening, even if drivers here tend to be very considerate to pedestrians.

There is probably an exception for safety — you don’t have to merge into the rightmost lane if it is not safe. (You’re describing a scenario where it isn’t safe.) I know WA cycling law has such an exception, but I don’t know about OR specifically.

The discontinuity is silliest part. What's the point of a bike lane that just... ends?

Worse still, the fact that few are using the bike lane to nowhere is used as a justification for not building any more of them and completing the network.

It's just incredibly backwards.

Although it is a first step, most bike lanes in Brazil are put where they won't take space from cars and tend to be just some paint (not very good paint at that) on a few disconnected paths or in places of leisure because, you know, bikes aren't serious transportation.

I wish the ground on the bike lanes was a different color. Color is a nice cue that you’re entering the bike lane when walking

They objectively are safer.

A bike lane in the doorzone encourages biking in the most dangerous region of the lane.

With proper education and driver training you can pretty much limit that to a few scratch marks here and there. There are plenty of cycle-gutters painted on the road here in places where the preferred path for cyclists is not that path with parked cars next to them as you describe, yet accidents rarely happen and are almost never serious. Though they can be completely avoided with proper separation .

> With proper education and driver training

This will not happen in the US, and as a safety mechanism it ranks low on effectiveness.

Yeah, I'll take a proper (i.e. well-maintained surface, free of debris, etc.) separated bike road if there is one. If it's badly maintained, or just painted some part of the road that could be spared, I prefer riding in a proper "car" Lane.

Same in my area. Sometimes the lane is cut every 400m and changes sides. But even then, a bad bike lane is often safer than no marking at all, which signals car owns the road.

Hoping to see more safe variants.

For me it's not about safety, but visual and noise pollution.

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