Landscape Architect Articles

Guest Commentary03-30-09 | News

Guest Commentary

Bicycle fatalities caused by right-turning cars instigated the Portland Office of Transportation to paint eight city intersections with green ?EUR??,,????'?????<

We have chosen an interesting commentary from Jason Schubert regarding our news item entitled, ?EUR??,,????'?????<

Re: ?EUR??,,????'?????<www.landscapearchitect.com/research/article/11390) about Portland?EUR??,,????'?????<

Commentary by John Schubert from Coopersburg, Penn. on 11/21/08:

John Schubert is a Bicycle accident reconstruction expert witness, Member, National Committe on Uniform Traffic Control Devices Bicycle Technical and Committee limeport.org.

We are seeing a distressing tendency to use paint to create, and then ?EUR??,,????'?????<

There has been a spate of fatal collisions between bicyclists and right-turning trucks in Portland, Seattle, Washington. D.C., and Amsterdam (they had four in one year). There has been a dogged refusal to look at the actual causes of these accidents, and Portland, unfortunately, has led the pack in this refusal. (A few months ago, I was on a radio talk show with Portland?EUR??,,????'?????<

These cities all have bike lanes that direct cyclists to the right side of right-turning motorists. Imagine if you found traffic control devices for motorists that had right-turning motorists turning across the path of motorists who were headed straight. You?EUR??,,????'?????<

Portland has special laws, which contravene the laws almost everywhere else, that state when there is a bike lane that leads to an intersection, the bicyclist should indeed ride straight in the bike lane, and motorists turning right should scan their mirrors while executing the turn, and be ready to jump on their brakes to give those bicyclists the right of way. This is a policy guaranteed to have a high failure rate. It diverts the motorists?EUR??,,????'?????<

Moreover, most of Portland?EUR??,,????'?????<

The bike boxes you cite can have a beneficial effect part of the time. But they only function when the traffic light is red, and when bicyclists use them in a particular way. They serve no function during a green light; they raise questions that they may create hazardous behavior when the light goes from red to green, and they will not prevent the right-hook collision if a bicyclist does not use them to move directly in front of motor vehicles at the intersection.

The bike boxes were installed in clear violation of the Federal Highway Administration?EUR??,,????'?????<

There is much the landscaping community can do to make conditions better for bicycling?EUR??,,????'?????<

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