Another Good Idea from Portland: Bike Boxes

One of our favorite writers, Erica Barnett from the very good WorldChanging blog, shares with us a story about "Bike Boxes" from one of the most bike friendly cities in the Country, Portland Oregon (Bike Boxes: A Simple Idea That Could Save Lives, January 7, 2008). A bike box is just a large, brightly-painted area adjacent to an intersection where cyclists are allowed to rest during red lights and where cars are not allowed to go. The picture makes it pretty self-explanatory.

They are installing 14 of these at busy intersections in Portland where crashes involving a "right hook" in which a right-turning driver fails to yield to a cyclist riding on the right side of the road and hits the cyclist, are the most common type of cycling accident. Erica tells us that bike boxes are popular in Canada, Netherlands and U.K where according to a report by the UK Department For Transport, bike boxes can "significantly improve safety for cyclists at signal controlled junctions." Lets hope we start seeing these around here soon.

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Chris Hamilton is the Commuter Services Chief for Arlington County, manager of CommuterPageBlog and a biking/Metro commuter from Rosemont in Alexandria.

Comments

[Allen Muchnick]

Actually, bike boxes are a not-very-bright idea that should NOT be implemented in Arlington or elsewhere. Bike boxes are just a poorly conceived bandaid for poor bike lane designs, such as those in Oregon, that position straight-through bicyclists on the right side of right-turning motorists, increasing the risk of "right hook crashes".

For a rational discussion of this topic, please see:
[http://www.bikexprt.com/bikepol/facil/stopline.htm].

The solution to poorly designed bicycle facilities is not to overlay them with more poorly conceived bicycle facilities. Rather, the solution is to eliminate the original design flaws and to better educate the bicycling public.

Bicyclists fare best (and are safest) when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles. Bicycle facilities that promote non-vehicular bicycling behavior are NOT a solution to anything.