New 1st Ave orange bollards are baby steps towards common sense
Fri, 11/06/2009 - 8:08am | by blindeke
Two large SUVs parked in the 1st Ave bike lane.
Well, at least the city is listening. They installed those familiar orange plastic wands sporadically along 1st Avenue, to try and better mark the limits of the bike-only zone.
I went down there this week to see what it was like, and it didn't take me very long to find many cars parked way over the line. In fact, as I was taking a photo of one black SUV parked in the bike lane, another (even larger) black SUV started to park directly within the bike lane.
I went up to the woman and informed her where the parking was, and she snipped back, "OK, you can go now."
Clearly, the city hasn't quite reached the point where its self-evident to drivers where to park. They're improving, but at this point, 1st Avenue is still a half-baked bike lane.
Comments
Snow Plowing
Has the city indicated how they will handle snow plowing with the "orange plastic wands" in place?
Disaster
I spent a good hour on Hennepin and 1st Avenue yesterday. Both designs are not working. The bus only lane has no markings on the pavement and is dangerous for cyclists. We basically lost the bike lanes on Hennepin with the new design.
1st Avenue is a door zone heaven. The lane needs to be wider and have a physical buffer. Did the city of MPLS really think that design was going to work? As Bill's picture demonstrates 1/3 of the lane is the curb/gutter. No room to manuever away from doors or objects in the road.
They need a curb with signage and the meters. Why are the parking meters still on the sidewalk 3 feet removed from the parking.
My only guess is that traffic engineers must have designed these bike lanes, cause they don't work.
Snow is easy, bobcats. Boston and Philly have small trucks that fit to remove snow from tight narrow spaces.
I like the Hennepin lanes
I like the ultra-wide Hennepin lanes. You are absolutely right that we lost the bike lanes, as there are always cars in it (and they are never turning right). Also unfortunately they are going to scare off a lot of novice cyclists. But now at least we don't have to worry about cops parking in them (they apparently have switched to parking in the 4th St bike lane)! And seriously, the lanes are wide enough that it is a breeze to move with traffic in them.
The 1st Ave lanes are more problematic. Another sign that we're going to have to wait for some bureaucrats to retire before we have a transportation system that works for every user.