Comments

1
Maybe someone should swipe one of those bollards and shove it under Sheridan's parked car so he can't drive - then the joke would be on him!
2
Maybe a bunch of enterprising cyclists could get some industrial-strength epoxy, or whatever they use to glue reflector dots on roadways, and fix it for them.

Using concrete parking stops (6" wide) to hold them in place is not very sensible—they'll end up just about on top of the inner white stripe and get struck end-on occasionally by inattentive cyclists.
3
Couldn't be bollard to come up with a better joke, apparently.
4
When they're sticking that far out into the lane when I go past, I stop and drag it out of the way. It's too risky to others to just leave them like that. They're heavy, but my skinny ass has been able to move them with just a little oomph.
5
There will be more upsetting things to read about on Slog today.
6
Why are you soooooooo bothered by minor things like this? You have to go around things sometimes, oh nooo!

Oh right, you don't wear a helmet so you're extra scared of minor hazards.
7
The bollards don't work for anyone. Not for bikers, because they are so easily moved into the bike lane. Not for drivers, because they are difficult to see while parallel parking (the dent on my passenger side door attests to this). And not even for the non-driving and non-biking public, because they look (and are) plastic and temporary. How about a curb?
8
@7: Riding there yesterday, I saw two people sitting on a bollard, smoking a cigarette. I guess it works for them.
9
Wonder why they keep getting bumped into the bike path? They're not very visible while parking.

There's a reason state and national standards require these things to be permanently reflectorized for night-time visibility and painted bright colors for daytime visibility.

I appreciate the desire to be artistic with the design, but safety standards do exist for a reason.
10
They're fucking ugly. Replace them with real bollards.
11
Using concrete curbs on the bike lane side wouldn't just be unwise, @2, it would intrude into the mandatory shy distance beyond the edge of the bike path, unless they shift the smurf turds all the way to the traffic side of the buffer, which would get them hit even more often.

The Broadway path is already fairly narrow for a 2-way sidepath, only the very low volume of cyclists makes it reasonably safe. If it ever becomes a popular route, southbound riders will be veering into the buffer zone to avoid head-on collisions when a faster northbound rider passes a slower northbound rider.

They really ought to upgrade these barriers to meet the city's adopted safety standards.
12
This "facility" is a failure on every level. It is dangerous for cyclists - when you are shunted off to the side, motorists don't look for you; when you are riding against traffic, you've now put yourself in the category of cyclists most likely to get hit. Protected bike lanes are something that feel safer to inexperienced riders, but after you gain more experience on the road, you know that you are best off riding where motorists can see you. Generally, motorists are not homicidal maniacs, and they'll avoid hitting a bicycle - but they have to be able to see you first.

If our goal is to get cyclists from north to south as safely as possible through this corridor, take out the protected bike lane. Improve the pavement on paralleling quiet streets. Right now SDOT leaves neighborhood streets that parallel Broadway as potholed-and-patched wrecks as passive speed bumps. Put down nice, fresh pavement on these streets, and then make other changes (making them not through streets for cars for example), and direct bicycle traffic on to them. Take out the protected bike lane. Everyone will be happier and safer. Cyclists will have nice, quiet, smooth streets to ride on with little conflicts with cars. Motorists won't have to look in a direction that they otherwise would never look, and don't have to fear conflicts with bikes. And these damn hazardous bollards would be GONE.
13
I thought these things were designed to be easy to move? Has that requirement been dropped?
14
Or instead of inflatable bag full of sand, the city could use actual bollards. Or any one of the thousand solutions that do not involve easily moved bags full of sand.

Looks like a giant smurf took a dump on the road anyway, get rid of them.
15
@12: I pretty much doubt everything SDOT does, but calling this cycletrack a "failure" is premature. It's a work-in-progress. Currently, light rail construction interferes with it, and traffic flow on Broadway will change when the streetcar starts running.

Even when it's finished, I don't think it's meant to be a high-speed bike route through Capitol Hill. For that, take 12th Avenue.
17
@12 - If your goal is to move people on bikes through the area safely, Broadway isn't the place to do it any more. The streetcar tracks saw to that.

The Broadway sidepath is a tolerable alternative to riding over the tracks for the last few blocks to a destination on Broadway itself, but if you're trying to get through the area, 12th is faster and safer on a bike than Broadway.
19
Slow news day...
20
@18, and a bad crash, even with a helmet, can lead to death so some morons (who write stories at local alt weeklies) would rather not wear a helmet at all.

Please wait...

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