Monday, September 3, 2007

Second-class citizens?

These barrels have been stored (?) along the State Street "bike route" for at least going on three weeks.

This particular stretch of road isn't particularly comfortable for cyclists, anyway, what with Jersey barriers on one side and heavy, 35-mph traffic on the other. It gets downright heady when some Bozo comes riding his bike in the opposite direction, and trying to occupy that same space. (That happens to me with unsettling regularity.)


Perhaps the ACHD folks (or contractors... whoever) haven't perceived that the barrels are narrowing down the lane by 60% or so.


I'm assuming some big project must be forthcoming along that stretch. But when? And can't they find a lower-impact place to store the barrels in the meantime? I'd suggest the right motor-vehicle lane. After all, they have two lanes to work with.

4 comments:

Apertome said...

How about just taking the right lane until the workers move the barrels? If motorists complain, maybe they'll listen ...

Bikeboy said...

Yeah, apertome, that's the strategy I've been trying to use. (Trying to straddle the white line is a good bike-control exercise.)

I get nervous when I look in my little helmet rearview mirror, and see a garbage truck or cement truck barreling down on me from behind. (When my life passes before my eyes, I always wish there were some cooler stuff in it, like winning the $300 million powerball, or going on the road with the Grateful Dead or something.)
(-;

misc. said...

Wow.

If I was still in my early-20's radical phase, I'd move those barrels into the right lane at 4 a.m.

Thankfully I'm more mature now.

Anonymous said...

ACHD claims to be bike friendly but this is another example to the contrary. They recently restriped the bike lanes and some are 2 feet wide and some are 4 feet wide.

Consistency would be the best for bikes. No turn lane across bike lanes, no orange cones in bike lanes, and many more.