Re: Antipersonnel infrastructure

On 6/8/2024 3:26 PM, AMuzi wrote:

Latest boondoggle on North Clark Street Chicago:
 https://chi.streetsblog.org/2024/06/06/raised-expectations-some-curb-protected-bike-lanes-often-flood-could-switching-to-raised-lanes-solve-the-problem
 My daughter sent snapshots much like the above (and a long harangue) taken on the way to work this morning.
 City of Chicago has a compulsion to waste money making cyclists miserable and raising risk for cyclists.

 From that article: "while I write regularly about sustainable transportation infrastructure, water management practices are not in my wheelhouse..."
And that illustrates a very common problem. People who demand special "innovative" bike facilities have little or no appreciation for the inherent complexities. Water drainage might be the least of the problems - although it gets to be real fun when it freezes. Collision hazards, wheel diversion hazards, visibility problems, intersection confusion, crossing conflicts, mixing bikes with pedestrians and more are present with almost all such "protection" schemes, but in the fairy tale world of "complete streets" none of those problems are usually recognized.
Look at the "Rendering of an upcoming raised bike lane" about halfway down that page. Wouldn't it be fun dodging the signposts, the phone-gazing pedestrians, the roller bladers and skaters, the people popping out from building doors or blind corners of buildings, kids and dogs scampering about?
Why, you'd be perfectly safe riding there, because of Ye Magicke Grene Painte!
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- Frank Krygowski