What is up with the parking on Seventh Street?
safety August 12th, 2008
See anything wrong with this picture? I took this photo just after the pickup on the right had pulled out of its space by backing into the opposite lane and turning hard, and just before the SUV on the left swung across my lane to park.
And of course this insane parking scheme occurs on the heavily-used Seventh Street bike route, currently the only reasonable way to get from the University and 4th Avenue to downtown.
–Erik Ryberg
August 13th, 2008 at 6:30 am
Are there signs posted for “back-in” parking only? Another hazard, another day…
August 13th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Looks like they’re planning on making it “back in only” parking, like on University – probably *because* it’s a bike route.
If they are, I hope there’s not too much of a lag between painting the lines and posting the signs – two different departments you know.
August 13th, 2008 at 9:24 am
It seems like that’s happening on other streets as well. Back in parking is WAY scarier than regular pull in, the motorist rarely looks for cyclists when backing in. That’s been my experience on University anyway. Tucson is so backwards.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Yes, but the cyclist can easily see a car in front of them stopping and putting the back-up lights on, and have time to react appropriately. I’ll take back-in parking over nose-in any day.
August 13th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
I’d be interested to know if there are studies about this. I ride by both back-in and nose-in angled parking several times a week and I could be wrong but I actually think nose-in is safer. I get pretty nervous along University where it is back-in parking.
First, drivers can drive by an open space, see it, and reverse into it pretty fast and they sometimes miscalculate where you are (or just forget about you) in back-in situations, but they don’t seem to do so in nose-in. And, if you do get hit it’s the difference between hitting the side of a car and getting run over by a car going in reverse.
Also, people back out of nose-in spaces pretty cautiously because they can’t see. With back-in spaces they took one look to the left and if they don’t see a car coming they roar out of there without another though — perhaps not noticing that you are riding your bike directly into their path.
EBR
August 13th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
I guess my automatic assumption is that anyone behind the wheel of a motor vehicle is an incompetent fool, that I am invisible to them no matter what, and that rather than try to change things around making it easier for them to notice me, I prefer to change things around that help me to notice, react, and avoid them. Even if they do it very fast, I still get more notice and reaction time to a car in front of me stopping, shifting into reverse, and backing up; then to one overtaking me and suddenly pulling a quick right-hook. As for when they leave, it’s much easier to spot someone sitting in the driver’s seat (the best warning sign that a car may suddenly pull out) from further away, again giving me more lead time, when a car is in a back-in space than either nose-in or parallel parked, due to the fact that most cars here have darkly tinted rear windows.
August 14th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Thank you, Scott, for the reasoned parking assessment.
Back-in being the least worse of two bad situations.
“Busy” car drivers are really only looking to see the
big things on the road and most are so poor at backing
their vehicle that it slows them down considerably.
Cyclist should never go blithely through these congested
areas…they are going to increase in number and add a
streetcar to boot, in some.
August 19th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Not to mention the entertainment value. I had lunch at University Chipotle today, one of the front window seats, and had a great time watching clueless folks who couldn’t drive their way out of a paper bag try to back into those spaces. It takes most folks two or three slow, halting tries to get it right, and one car full of girls just gave up and walked away with their rear bumper still a good 6 feet away from the back of the space because she couldn’t go any further without climbing up on the curb to her right due to her not being able to match the angle right.