Complete with Sweet Merge Lane
Have you had a chance to ride the two block extension of the Penn Avenue bike lane in Downtown? It ends in a great new “merge lane” that smoothly shepherds people riding their bike in the direction of Point State Park into a the traffic lane marked with sharrows proceeding in that direction .
Big thanks to the City – especially the Planning and Public Works departments – for designing and putting in this great lane. We’re fans of this configuration because it’s straightforward and really well marked.
So, what do you think of the new design? The City has tried something relatively new with this one, so leave a comment with your thoughts once you’ve had a chance to ride it.
Credit: Will Bernstein
Credit: Will Bernstein
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4 Comments
Merging from the left is not usually fun, but this seemed to work ok.
It might be good to add striping in the center lane (similar to crosswalk markings, or the green stripes in the bike lane outside garage entrances, perhaps?) to act as a visual cue to motorists to expect merging from the left.
I dislike it enormously. Bikes heading inbound should be able to continue straight across the street into the left lane of (what becomes) Liberty on the other side of Stanwix, and left turning bikes could easily and more safely turn if the bike lane went all the way to the intersection. Because of the way the intersection is shaped, cars go straight across into the right lane of Liberty, meaning the only conflicts will be caused by left turning cars, which, as at every other intersection with the bike lane, should have to yield to bikes. Where something like this would have been useful was at the previous terminus of the bike lane, where it dead-ended into oncoming traffic.
Having had my fair share of left-turning vehicles failing to yield to me as a pedestrian while crossing Stanwix at this intersection, I welcome the merge lane markings. It encourages riders to take the lane and therefore be more visible to motorists, regardless of whether the cyclist is continuing straight to PSP or turning left onto soutbound Stanwix. Drivers tend to gun this left turn, so the added visibility gained by merging with traffic is necessary to reduce the risk of a nasty left hook
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