Sunday, July 21, 2013

Multiple Lane Transition with a Green Bike Box

Boston has done a bit with green paint that I thought were notable. Here's a series of photos of an application that you don't often see in the American context. I didn't have a lot of time to study the intersections. 
Here's a photo of a bike box across multiple lanes
the bike lane lead is provided to go from the right hand side to... 
the left hand side, you can see there's also a transition that can occur from the lane
the transition to the left hand side occurs for under the bridge so that you can continue on through the system avoiding a conflict.
     
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2 comments:

  1. NickJuly 22, 2013 at 11:23 AM

    I've always been dubious about the utility of a bike box for left/right bike lane transitions.

    From what I can tell, the US application of this concept originated in Eugene, OR: https://maps.google.com/?ll=44.052147,-123.088075&spn=0.00092,0.001022&t=h&z=20

    The big question in my mind, is where do you wait for the red signal so that you can use the box? Certainly, not *in* the box while cars are traveling, and certainly not in the leading bike lane, where through bicyclists may want to continue.

    At least in the Eugene example riders can wait out of the way in the parking lane for a red signal to allow them to safely scoot to the other side of the street, but in your Boston photos there is no such refuge.

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  2. pkoonceJuly 24, 2013 at 9:00 AM

    It's a good point, the designers should leave a refuge for those that are not comfortable waiting in front of the vehicles on the left hand side. In this Boston example, there is a refuge on the right hand side in advance of the bike lane, so the box doesn't necessarily have to provide that space. The left side transition seems to work here because the red time is fairly large.

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