A decade ago, a driver upbraided me for not riding in a bike lane. None was present along the avenue where we encountered each other. I pointed out that out to her. Still, she insisted, I should have been riding in the lane (where nothing but a line of paint separated cyclists from motorists) on a nearby avenue which parallels the one I was riding.
I politely told her I was going someplace on the avenue where we crossed paths. (Pun intended.) "Would you drive along a street that doesn't take you where you want to go?"
She then launched into a lecture about how riding on the path is safer than riding on the street, which revealed that she wasn't a cyclist. Her claim that she had to go somewhere at that moment revealed that she'd lost the argument.
The reason why that exchange stays with me is that it revealed one of the many misconceptions that guide, not only everyday motorists, but too many planners and policy-makers.
Even in that supposed cycling Nirvana of Portland, Oregon.
On Monday, a police officer pulled over and cited a woman for not riding her bike in a lane. To be fair, the law she, a daily bike commuter, violated was not specific to the city but, rather, an Oregon state law. ORS 814.420 states that "a person commits the offense of failure to use a bicycle lane or path if the person operates a bicycle on any portion of a roadway that is not a bicycle lane or bicycle path when a bicycle lane or bicycle path is adjacent to or near the roadway."
Photo by Jonathan Maus, Bike Portland
When folks like me don't use the bicycle lanes--including the one that runs right in front of the building where I live--we are accused of being "reckless," "entitled" or worse. Truth is, sometimes it's more dangerous to ride in the bicycle than in a traffic lane. Too often, drivers park or pass, or pick up or discharge passengers, in bike lanes. I've even seen cops munching on their donuts or sandwiches in the cruise cars they parked in a bike lane.
If I am headed northbound on the Crescent Street lane, I am riding against the direction of vehicular traffic. (Crescent is a one-way southbound street.) If a car, van or truck pulls into the bike lane, for whatever reason, I have two choices. One is to detour onto the sidewalk. That option, however, is negated when the vehicle in question is from a contractor or utility company and construction or repair work on a building or power line obstructs the sidewalk. Such a situation leaves one other option: to veer into the edge of a lane where the traffic is going in the opposite direction.
Also, I've ridden along too many lanes that make it more dangerous for a cyclist to cross an intersection than crossing from a traffic lane would. To make matters worse, some folks like to end their evening revelries by smashing their booze bottles, or dumping other debris, onto the lane. And some lanes are hazardous simply because they're poorly constructed or maintained.
As I have never been in Portland, I don't know about the bike lane the ticketed woman was "supposed" to ride. But, because she has commuted by bicycle on that same route for eight years, I don't doubt that she has encountered some or all of the hazards I have described, and possibly others. If only the police in Portland--that supposed Mecca for cyclists--and Oregon lawmakers understood what that woman, or I, encounter regularly, they might finally understand that simply building a bike lane is not enough to ensure the safety of cyclists--or motorists.
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