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Should bikes be banned from major arterials or at least rapid-bus streets?

November 28th, 2011 · 159 Comments

This is an idea that Adriane Carr talked about during the election campaign, saying she had heard from bus drivers (or at least one bus driver) that it made it harder for them to keep to schedules and manoeuvre when they had to deal with bike-riders on major streets like Broadway.

I also saw this suggestion pop up in the city’s transportation-plan forums.

And I’m sure many of us have had the experience (I know I have, multiple times) of watching traffic jam up behind a cyclist who has decided to take up a lane on 12th or Hastings or Granville during rush hour, as people are too scared to swing around because of heavy traffic in the lane to their left and also too scared to try to squeeze past the cyclist in their own lane.

I can’t figure out why those cyclists do it. The one I saw yesterday on Broadway was a 50-something woman (wearing a straw hat) pedalling between a B-line rapid bus and me — something I’ve always heard all but the most testosterone-laden cyclists try to avoid.

And all she had to do was go one block over to 10th Avenue, where she could have been on far quieter and safer street that is so dominated by cyclists that cars now avoid it. But no, there she was, causing cars to swerve around her on a busy arterial. The question: Should she be banned? Or simply encouraged to move to a proper bike route?

 

 

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