Some of you may have seen the bike lanes on Hillsborough Street. You might like them, you might not. There was some recent discussion on the Raleigh Bicycle & Pedestrian Advocacy Google Group about converting the bike lanes into sharrows (shared lane markings) and what the preferences might be.
There was some visualization work completed that let’s you see where these sharrows would be placed and how they migh tbe implemented. For example, the visualizations show several options for the placement of sharrows including:
- Bike lane removed, sharrow centered 11 feet from curb or 4 feet from parked cars
- Bike lane removed, sharrow centered 15 feet from curb or 8 feet from parked cars
- Bike lane converted to fog line (bike stencil removed), sharrow centered 17 feet from curb = 10 feet from parked cars
For those of you unfamiliar with sharrows, there is also a diagram showing the actual dimensions of sharrows. Check out all the visualizations provided by Steven Waters at livingstreets.com/hillsboroughst/.
What’s your take on the proposed sharrows?
If the travel lane is narrow, it’s safest for the cyclist to ride in the center of the lane. If sharrows are used in narrow lanes, the sharrow should be placed in the center of the lane; that is the guidance given by traffic engineers and planners who are most experienced with bicycling issues. If the lane is wide enough for safe side-by-side sharing, there isn’t much point in using sharrows, because drivers really don’t harass cyclists on such roads. Note that the determination of wide or narrow is made after removing the 5′ door zone from the road width if on-street parking exists. On Hillsborough, that leaves an 11′ usable lane, which is narrow, and therefore the sharrow should be in the center of the usable lane.