Left Turn Bicycle Signal in Copenhagen

There is clearly a social contract between engineers and the public that chooses to ride a bicycle through traffic signals that we design. As a designer, you try to make the indications as clear and unambiguous as possible and there is a certain amount of consideration for what the expectation is for a reasonable person to understand. I think this bicycle signal displays meets that criteria. The display is inline with the cyclist maneuver at the intersection. It is a delineated movement with striping on the pavement.

One might argue that it might be a little unclear at night, but I would take that arguement and in this instance it isn't reasonable to assume one should be able to make a left turn from the right lane. This sort of situation wouldn't preclude you from taking the lane and making the left turn, although it could be argued that the signal timing should be set up to insure that the arrivals of the motor vehicles occurred (faster speeds) followed by the bicycle traffic (from the upstream intersection).

I am blogging about bicycle traffic signals and I stop and wonder am I the only one that is thinking about this. Well, luckily I caught the following this evening from the Copenhagenize.com blog on traffic signals in Barcelona.