Bike Lanes

Boy, did John Schubert get it wrong in his recent editorial column in Adventure Cyclist Magazine. He argued, in essence, that bike lanes are dangerous because they put bicyclists in motorists' blind spots at intersections. He advocates pulling out into traffic at intersections to avoid being turned into. (In itself not a bad idea.)

But the underlying implication of his article was that bike lanes are bad for biking and bike commuting. I suppose his point was that ultimately bikes are legitimate vehicular traffic, too, with all the rights vested in vehicular traffic by the highway gods.

Hey! Give me one of them dangerous bike lanes ANY DAY! Bikes are not cars and they have no place in the traffic lanes of, say, Grand River Avenue (the only road I can ride on to get to work). Don't get me wrong: I do have a right to ride on Grand River Avenue (curbs, four lanes, heavy traffic moving 50 mph), but I'd be insane to exercise it.

Without bike lanes, I ride on the sidewalk. How safe does John Schubert think that is? Yikes. Talk about being invisible to turning cars. With bike lanes, I ride on the side of Grand River Avenue, no one honks, no one gives me the finger. At intersections, I'M CAREFUL. And that's the simple solution to John Schubert's perceived hazard. Be careful at intersections. Use a mirror and look to see if a car is about to cut you off. Don't trust green lights. Etc.

But please, give me bike lanes!

Wait. Hold the phone. Here's a wrinkle. In winter, when I'm riding on snow and ice, I like being on sidewalks, away from cars. That way, when I fall, it's not under the wheels of an SUV. (My worst fall this winter saw me go down on ice and then slide on my stomach in the direction of Dodge Durango's undercarriage. Luckily, the Durango was still creeping at a light, and I wasn't going fast when I fell.)

Before I started commuting all winter, I thought bike lanes were the solution because they get plowed with the rest of the road, whereas sidewalks only get sort of plowed and shoveled. But now I realize that it's much better to ride through several inches of snow, or glare ice, or icy ruts on a sidewalk, away from traffic, than to ride next to traffic on a plowed but still slippery road. So I probably wouldn't use bike lanes in winter anyway. But they're nice in spring summer fall.