Bollards help 15th St. Bike Lane!

As discussed preciously, the bike lane on 15th St. in Denver has had a rough opening. Mostly due to drivers deciding that it the bike lane is a perfect place to park. I had the luxury of getting caught this winter behind a FedEx truck with no driver, and an SUV who's driver yelled at me when I told him he was illegally parked.

 Well, finally "Stage 2" has been completed, and there are now vertical bollards between the bike lane and the car lanes.

photo from @DowntownDenver on the twitter machine

To be honest, it is a start, but to make 15th st bike way more safe and comfortable, there needs to be better separation. One way to work this would be to have a dedicated left turn lane for motorists, with a left turn signal, and a separate bike lane with a bike signal, thereby taking away the conflict between turning vehicles and strait through cyclists. An example of a great intersection design can be found on protectedintersection.com. As it stands now motorists have to merge into the cycle lane before they turn, and many still don't look for cyclists.

Since they installed the bollards there have been some interesting changes. One being that pedestrians are now waiting in the bike lane to cross the street. A great improvement though is that a few delivery drivers are parking outside of the cycle lane!

Pepsi truck blocking car traffic instead of the bike lane

I find this to be a huge improvement! Ideally the delivery drivers would use those "alley" things, or "loading zones" as places to park while making deliveries, but in my experience most are much too lazy to do so. Instead they have made it a habit around the city of parking in bike lanes (hey, they are mostly free of parked cars!).  If this trend holds, then cyclists might get a reprise from constantly moving back out into traffic to avoid taxis and delivery trucks. Furthermore if the police would ticket those same delivery trucks and taxis, it might be a lasting trend...We can always hope anyway.