Mindy

Or my personal favorite, “DO NOT ENTER WHEN FLOODED”

First off, the markings are in the draft manual that regulates all things related to traffic (MUTCD). San Francisco and Denver I believe were the first city’s to experiment with these markings. They were studied extensively before getting to the point where they are on the verge of being approved for use across the board.

The draft MUTCD gives five options for using Shared Lane Markings.
A. Assist bicyclists with lateral positioning in a shared lane with on-street parallel parking in order to reduce the chance of a bicyclist’s impacting the open door of a parked vehicle,
B. Assist bicyclists with lateral positioning in lanes that are too narrow for a motor vehicle and a bicycle
to travel side by side within the same traffic lane,
C. Alert road users of the lateral location bicyclists are likely to occupy within the traveled way,
D. Encourage safe passing of bicyclists by motorists, and
E. Reduce the incidence of wrong-way bicycling.

In both locations installed yesterday, option C. was the main reason.

On 6th Avenue at 13th Street we have standard bicycle lanes before and after the intersection. At the intersection the bike lanes drop off because of existing concrete bumpouts that extend into the road, exactly where the bike lane would normally be. This physical obstacle forces bikes to have to merge into the main travel lane for a short ways.

As for southbound Highland at 6th Street, six months ago the City installed a Bike Box. The Bike Box was installed to reduce the amount of bike/car conflicts at at the far end of the intersection for south bound traffic coming out of the University. At the far end of the intersection it is a shared lane for a short ways. The shared lane marking helps to alert motorists of the shared lane and instructs bikes to take the lane rather than ride the curb which presents safety concerns.

Info relating to Bike Box found here http://www.dot.tucsonaz.gov/bicycle/pdfs/Bike%20Box%20Brochure%20new.pdf

These two locations will serve as pilot locations for the use of Shared Lane Markings in Tucson. If folks seem to understand them and they seem beneficial, more could be used in the future, especially for Option A, to avoid the ‘door zone’.

The markings just installed actually were not done in standard traffic paint. They are made from preformed thermoplastic and are applied with a heat source so that they melt on and stick to the pavement. Preformed thermoplastic lasts a lot longer than paint. It’s the same stuff that our bike box and green lane on Mountain Ave are made from. The markings are about three feet wide and 9 feet long.

Thanks Erik for providing the forum to talk about bike issues in Tucson.

Erik

Try not to be too down when the city tries something new. These were invented in San Francisco about 10 years ago and we like em’ pretty well.