Bike Path FAIL? Chicanes on the Stevens Creek Trail

Sometimes a longed for bike improvement comes with something unexpected. For years, bicyclists had to hop a curb to enter or exit the Steven Creek Trail at Evelyn Avenue in Mountain View. When the city finally installed a nice wide curb cut, they also installed chicane fences and a directive to “walk your bike.” Among the local bicycle advocates, some cried foul, others defended it, and some like me are left pondering on the fence.

What do you think? Are widely spaced chicane fences appropriate where a bike trail meets a 35 mph road?

Until recently, entry and exit to the trail was from a sidewalk with a steep curb.

Now there’s a curb cut with fences to slow bikes before they enter the road.

The sign says “walk your bike” but it’s wide enough that no one does.

Location: Steven’s Creek Trail at W Evelyn Avenue, Mountain View, California, USA.

 

Bike Lane FAIL: Sharrows on the Edge in Los Altos

Sometimes a good plan becomes a FAIL when it hits the street. The Los Altos Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC) clearly advised city staff that sharrows should be centered 5 feet from the curb in a narrow lane like this stretch of 1st Street. Somehow the sharrows got shoved to the gutter, just like the cyclists will be.

These misplaced sharrows are on a popular bicycle route, between stop signs on short city blocks.

There’s clearly not room in the lane for a car to pass a bike safely.

There are no sharrows further down 1st Street, where street parking creates a door zone hazard.

Location: 1st Street between Main and State Streets, Los Altos, California, USA.

City staff, listen to your BPACs! Sharrows should instruct bicyclists where to safely position themselves in standard travel lanes, not encourage them to hug the curb and invite cars to unsafely pass them.

 

Bike Rack SUCCESS! Hobee’s in Mountain View

We tried something special at Hobees last weekend. It wasn’t on the menu, it was in the parking lot: a new bike rack. It was installed in an awkward location, so we couldn’t use it properly without blocking the sidewalk. And we had to move a bench to make room for our two bikes. But I’m not looking this gift horse in the mouth.

The rickety rack it replaced was so bad that it was featured in my first ever Bike Rack FAIL last year. On that trip, I politely asked the restaurant manager if there were plans to replace the rack since it was falling apart. Her smile fell into a look somewhere between irritation and resignation. She said she had asked the shopping center owner for a new rack before, but she’d ask again. She offered little hope and I had none.

But here was a new rack, most likely installed due to requests like mine. I don’t enjoy asking, but having a sturdy rack to lock up our prized bikes was worth the awkward conversation with the manager.

Have you ever requested a rack before? What was the manager’s reaction? Did it work?

The full bike rack at Zibbibo, a high-end restaurant in Palo Alto, shows that it has customers that arrive by bike.

On Cowper Street, there was so much demand the city replaced a car parking spot with a bike corral.

This super-sized bike corral is on Valencia Street in San Francisco. Abundant bike parking is good for retail.

Location: Hobee’s Mountain View, Central Expressway at Rengstoff Avenue, Mountain View, California, USA.

 

Bike Lane FAIL: Door Prize in Mountain View

Remember those funky arcade games where you slid in tokens to win prizes by rolling a ball up a ramp or squirting a water pistol into a clown’s mouth? My favorite was Whac-A-Mole where you had to guess which hole the little rodent would pop out of and quickly hit it with a mallet. Guessing which door in a line of parked cars will pop open and quickly dodging it so you don’t get hit? That’s not nearly as much fun.

Location: Rengstoff Avenue near Montecito Avenue, Mountain View, California, USA.

Transportation planners, don’t build bike lanes like this! Narrow bike lanes next to cars are traps for new riders and savvy cyclists who ride outside the bike lane to stay out of the door zone make motorists really angry.

 

Bike Lane SUCCESS! Newly Grateful in San José

Last week, after I posted the photo of the dangerous rain grate on Bike Lane FAIL, I tweeted to the folks in charge: “@SJ_Bikeshare The rain grate on SB Coleman at Airport Blvd is very dangerous old style. Would you please replace it? http://wp.me/p1sDc4-3l6″. I expected a response, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

Lo and behold, I got a tweet in return yesterday: “Hey @ladyfleur, guess what…. New bike friendly drainage grate! http://pic.twitter.com/en6wUOKm”. After work I rode down to check it out myself. Works great. Thank you, Jesse Quiron, John Brazil and the San Jose DOT for the blazing fast response fixing this road hazard!

Location: Coleman Avenue at Airport Blvd, San Jose, California, USA. Special thanks to the folks at the City of San José Department of Transportation Bicycle and Pedestrian Program for resolving this problem so quickly.

 

Bike Lane FAIL: Grateful to Not Be Dead in San José

There’s a reason things go out of fashion. Often they just don’t work, and in some cases they’re downright painful. This dangerous style of rain grate thankfully went of of fashion in most cities in the late 1970s along with bell bottoms, tie-dye and scraggly long hair. Too bad this bike trap is still seen on the streets of San Jose.

If you don’t know better, the rain grate might not seem like a problem.

But even with my relatively wide city tires, it’s a wheel trap.

The grates further down road are safer. Why did they use an old style one?

Location: Coleman Avenue at Airport Blvd, San Jose, California, USA. Special thanks to Mark Sauerwald for alerting me to this bike lane’s dangerous rain grate.

 

Bike Lane FAIL: Cowper Street in Palo Alto

If it’s a bike lane, then why are cars parked in it? If it’s legal to park (per the signs on the lamp posts) then why is it marked as a bike lane? Even the long-term bike folks in Palo Alto can’t fully explain the history of these decades-old bike lanes. Either the parked cars or the bike lane have to go. Sadly, I know which one will.

Location: Cowper Street near Loma Verde Avenue in Palo Alto, California, USA

 

Bike Lane FAIL: Door Zone Sharrows in San Jose

The bike route to the hospital is striped with good intentions. Bike lanes that suddenly disappear mid-block. The bike path that blindly crosses a busy road. Sharrows that guide you perfectly into the door zone. Like an ugly sweater from your Aunt Edna, you know they’re trying to please you. But it’s something you really can’t use.

Location: North 7th Street just north of Taylor Street in San Jose, California

What are Sharrows? “Shared Roadway Bicycle Markings are intended to help bicyclists position themselves away from parked cars to avoid being struck by suddenly opened car doors, and to alert other road users to expect bicyclists to occupy travel lanes.” That’s the exact opposite of what these sharrows are doing.

 

Bike Rack Fail at Hobee’s

After hard rides yesterday, Dick and I decided to sleep in and go out for breakfast. Hobee’s has awesome omelets and it’s only about a mile away, so we hopped on our errand bikes and pedaled over.

The downside: a pathetic bike rack. Not only is it an old school wheel bender, it’s not bolted down, it’s crammed in the corner of the walkway, and it’s literally falling apart. When we arrived, there was one bike parked next to it, but not even attached. The rider simply locked its rear wheel to the frame. With my rear rack I couldn’t get my wheel into the slot, so Dick and I parked against one side.

When we returned, another bike was parked at the rack, which failed him too. I’m guessing that the fact that the wide MTB tires didn’t fit in the slots led him to park it this way.

But I can’t explain why he locked his front wheel rather than his frame to the rack.

It’s really sad that this strip mall doesn’t appreciate its customers who arrive by bike enough to provide proper bike parking. In addition to these four bikes, there were two more bikes locked together to a street sign. That’s at least four car parking spots that we didn’t use, and given the minute size of their lot, a real value to the business owner.

To add irony to it all, the lot was full of oversized SUVs, like the Suburban you see in the background, which was running with no one inside when we left. I have no idea what that was about. But I do know that the people waiting for a table outside would rather not be breathing its exhaust.

Have you ever asked a business to upgrade or install a bike rack?