“Great” Suddenly Ending Bike Lanes: Collect Them All!
I’m putting together an online scrapbook.
Not being much of a “scrapbooker,” I only hazily seem to understand their purpose. Something along the lines of bringing together photos and other visuals commemorating fond memories into a single bound object.
This is not that kind of scrapbook.
Instead, below is a start toward a Burque collection of “great” places around town at which bicycle lanes suddenly end, often approaching busy intersections. Perhaps you have your own “fond” memories of coming across the places below on your bike. Or maybe you have others (there are so many) you’d like to share on this public scrapbook of horror.
There’s a not-so-ulterior motive in putting together such a scrapbook, namely seeking to change ABQ roadway engineering policy so that situations such as those identified below go away, over time, and NEVER happen again. More about that in coming days.
Now let’s crack open the scrapbook (I’m thinking we’ll have crocheted bicycles on the cover with little plastic diamonds in the spokes) and “fondly” think back to our times at:
Candelaria approaching Carlisle Eastbound: The tell-tale sign that is changing pavement, indicating that more recent paving/striping occurred, but only until just before the intersection. 2nd St. southbound approaching Paseo del Norte. Because this is what you do when you have absolutely, positively no idea how to make… this safer…Good ‘ol Paseo del Norte. Note the black birds on the wires, perhaps waiting to feed on the carnage below…Gibson approaching I-25 westbound. The good news is that your cycling downhill. The bad news is that adjacent motorists are going downhill at least twice as fast as you in two-ton hunks of metal. Good luck!The slow bike lane death that is San Pedro at/near Claremont, approaching Menaul southbound. In a fashion, the “bike lane” on San Pedro doesn’t exactly end at Claremont, slowly dying like a hospice patient on a morphine drip until it nothing but a line on the gutter pan. Pennsylvania approaching Menaul southbound. Menaul Boulevard is much like an executioner to bike lanes (and many other things as well). Here we have the added irony of a Bike Lane sign precisely where it ends. This is perhaps a joke by someone removing “ends” from the sign, or maybe it’s a more sinister joke in that “ends” was never intended to be on the sign.Ouray/Bob McKinnon Pkwy approaching Unser. We close today with another morpine drip, this time on the west side. Proving bad intersection engineering isn’t limited by part of town or era of paving/striping work, it is debacles like this that best illustrate the need to change roadway engineering policy regarding these intersections, stat.
Okay, there’s a start to our memory-filled scrapbook. Got any additions?
Not sure who they were trying to kid, with the 2 blocks of bike-infrastructure weirdness on an actual freeway but because I often ride it (sometimes against traffic), I do appreciate the brief respite from the feeling of imminent death.
Wish there was a better way to negotiate I-25 around here.
[…] so far only scratched the scab-like surface of bad bike infrastructure in our look at suddenly ending bike lanes (SEBLs or “seabulls,” which could be “manatees” but we don’t want to […]
Better Burque 
[…] BB’s long look at suddenly disappearing and substandard bike lanes around Albuquerque, the street really deserving the Oscar, Grammy, […]
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Not sure who they were trying to kid, with the 2 blocks of bike-infrastructure weirdness on an actual freeway but because I often ride it (sometimes against traffic), I do appreciate the brief respite from the feeling of imminent death.
Wish there was a better way to negotiate I-25 around here.
LikeLike
[…] so far only scratched the scab-like surface of bad bike infrastructure in our look at suddenly ending bike lanes (SEBLs or “seabulls,” which could be “manatees” but we don’t want to […]
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