Imagine you’re approaching this stretch of road at about 40kph—actually quite easy to do, as you’ve just come off a steeper downhill section, so it’s not unusual for anyone to be coasting along at a fair clip here. Notice any particular hazards at this point?

Could you spot the hazard here at 40kph?

Let’s go in a bit closer:

If you hit this, where will you land?

Yep, that’s a base of one of those flexi-poles that I didn’t much like when they were installed last year. A number of these poles have been bent and a couple have snapped off, leaving the near-invisible base as a collision hazard for cyclists. And if a cyclist gets tipped off after crashing with that, where are they going to land…?

That this has been broken for weeks (and possibly months) without repair reflects poorly on the City of Melbourne’s willingness and/or ability to maintain dedicated cycling facilities. Not good when these lanes carry 17% of total vehicles in the morning peak on Albert St.

Upgrated

In fairness, it’s not all downside. Both of you might remember this dangerous drain cover:

An unforgiving grate

Astonishingly, that wheel-jamming hazard was simply left there unmodified as part of the initial installation. Well, over a year later, it’s had an upgrade:

A grate upgraded

That’s an improvement, but really that should have been fixed in the first place.

Any good at all?

Having sworn off Albert St in favour of Victoria St, I have found myself back there a bit more often, in spite of my ongoing concerns including:

• increased likelihood of clashes with entering traffic on the eastbound/downhill lane,
• turning lane conflicts—being dumped into a turning lane is still dangerous by design,
• the increased difficulty in merging into the main traffic flow to make a right-hand turn, and
• those damn poles are still a collision hazard (even when they aren’t broken).

I’ve also noticed a tendency for cars to stop in (and block) the bike lane during clearway times, something that drivers wouldn’t have dreamt of doing before the bike lanes were there.

But if I’m back on Albert St, does that mean I’m a convert? No way: I remain a committed bike lane agnostic. Maybe Albert St is better with curbside lanes than without, but for me it is just the least worst option on that part of my commute route.

Here are a few of my concerns:

The location

Firstly, the south (in-bound) side of Albert St is probably a reasonably OK candidate for a separated lane, at least alongside the parks and St Pat’s where there are few entry points for vehicles—a long uninterrupted run is a better location for a separated lane.

Albert St showing the new separated bike lane

However, this isn’t the case on the north (out-bound) side where there are many minor entry points (laneways and driveways). The textured green paint helps to cue drivers to stop and look, but it’s not a guarantee that they will. Incidentally, this is on a downhill incline where riders of all abilities will tend to pick up speed.

That aside, like the installation in the upper end of Swanston St, I’m utterly baffled as to why this particular stretch of road needed a separated bike lane at all. Prior to this installation, I always found this to be a pretty safe street—two traffic lanes kept the cars moving, leaving an empty parking lane almost exclusively for bikes during clearway times. And the traffic is not so heavy at other times that I ever felt threatened mixing it up in the main traffic flow.

As if to highlight the questionable need for the Albert St bike lane, I wonder why this lane stops at Gisborne St? The road layout between Gisborne St and Nicholson St is unchanged, but if the bike lane design is so good, why doesn’t it continue all the way to Nicholson St?

Spot the difference: Albert St between Gisborne St and Nicholson St

Conflicts guaranteed

I intensely dislike the way that riders are dumped from behind a line of parked cars into a turning lane. This guarantees conflict by design, and I’ve already seen a few close calls in the turning lanes. Of course, this is seen in other Copenhagen-style lanes—including those in Copenhagen (see this Copenhagen bike lane become a turning lane at about 25 sec):

Just because that’s the way they do it in Copenhagen doesn’t make it right or safe. Interestingly, BV’s own ‘promotional’ video for the new lanes (recorded in June—no lane paint, no poles) mysteriously skips a part of the lane where this conflict occurs, even without the line of parked cars (note jump cut at 39 sec mark as the riders approach the Lansdowne St intersection):

On the flip side, I have seen cars parked beyond the clearway times, and one-lane out from the curb is not where drivers expect to see parked cars. Forget the lines, surface paint and poles—you can’t see that stuff in the dark, and it just looks like cars are parked in the middle of the road. That must be dead scary for drivers coming over the rise near St Pat’s. I’ve seen a few close calls down that hill already—actual collisions seem likely.

And finally, at the risk of sounding churlish, you can’t get away from the possible conflicts with drivers crossing back and forth to the parking ticket machines. Sure it sounds trivial, but it’s a completely avoidable conflict that didn’t exist before these lanes went it. We need to ride carefully, but if someone is struck by a bike in these lanes it will at least partly be because unnecessary pedestrian-bicycle conflict has been designed-in to them.

Smooth moves prevented

Being able to smoothly merge into the right-hand lane in advance of making a right-turn used to be one of the pleasures of using Albert St. This option is now largely cut-off, as a rider is pretty much obliged to take the bike lane and becomes trapped behind a wall of parked cars or (during clearway times) must slalom through the row of flexi-poles and across the rumble-strip to access the main traffic lanes.

Bike lane behind a wall of cars

The alternative is to dart across two traffic lanes where the bike lane ends close to the intersection (the quick and dangerous option) or to make a hook-turn (i.e. right turn from the left) after the change of lights (the safer but considerably slower option).

Hacks

There’s nothing wrong with a good hack—some creative thinking happens when a hack is required. And then there are crappy, ugly hacks—those flexi-poles qualify as one of the latter kind.

I can’t see them on the original plan (or are they those unlabelled dots?) and it seems that they have been installed as a lazy afterthought. I’m sure they help to keep the cars aligned into the parking lane, but I don’t fancy a high-speed (or even moderate-speed) impact with one of them.

Gutter-ball

There are real downsides in forcing bikes right into the gutter lane:

• it’s where all the crap from the road tends to accumulate—to date there’s not much evidence that the Council is doing much about sweeping the lanes, and I doubt that the new poles will make it any easier to keep the lanes clean;
• there’s the lovely heritage bluestone guttering itself, which reduces the effective lane width (OK, not by much);
• but the king-hit is hazards like this (which can also be seen in BV’s video above at 27 sec):

Hazards of riding beside the gutter

How can they paint green textured paint around this and just leave it like that? Sure, I’ve seen worse but it’s not what you expect in something masquerading as a bike lane.

A better option?

By way of contrast, here’s the bike lane in nearby Clarendon St:

Bike lane in Clarendon St

I’m no road engineer but I presume (assuming we need a dedicated bike lane in Abert St at all) that there was a good reason why this model couldn’t have been used. Note the wide traffic lane, wide bike lane (wide enough to minimise exposure to the door zone), and parking space that is not shared with the bike lane.

Of course, there is less traffic flow on Clarendon St but that bike lane feels like a better and safer place to ride.

Clarification

In any case, I notice that the whole schemozzle is up for review and council may reverse its decision to install these lanes—of course, after you’ve installed them is the right time to “attempt to clarify the purpose of the bikes lanes”, isn’t it?

Looks like money well spent, as the whole thing descends into farce.

That said, while many others share my concerns, I’m sure heaps of people are finding the new bike lanes absolutely delightful.

Rainy evening on Swanston Street

Après le Tour, waste

Mont Ventoux: 500,000 people, 20 tons of garbage, €20,000 clean-up bill=very, very ugly. [twitterer]

Le Tour 1940

The 1940 Tour de France—oh, har-de-har. [thanks SuperGran]

Recommended reading

This week’s recommended reading: The Culture of Speed vs the Culture of Trust.

Also picked up by city cycling.

Parking

The Logistics of Bicycle Commuting:

Depending on the bike you select for your commute, you may be comfortable locking it up outside at a standard bike rack (if there are any available), or you might want to take more precaution by finding a bike locker, bike parking facility, safe niche somewhere at your workplace to leave it for the day, or you might decide to utilize a more creative solution for parking.

Meanwhile Jan Chipchase speculates on the nature of late 21st Century Valet Parking:

Parking is a atoms-in-the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time kinda problem – how best to location shift the bicycle from [where you are now] to [where the bicycle needs to be to be sufficiently out of the way] whilst it is not needed to [where you are now] when you are ready to ride again?

What was I thinking?

August 2006 was nothing if not productive, including entries such as:

• Recommended reading on road safety

• The Hummer of Love (don’t miss some amusing comments there)

• Beware this human road hazard

• The bike as economic unit

Objectification

Bicycle Shaped Object:

This blog is an attempt to provide a realistic insight – good and bad – into what cheap bikes (aka “Bicycle Shaped Objects”) mean for customers, for cycling, for business and the environment.

What’s life like on the Asda el cheapo bike and similar?

In the beginning

Most common noob mistakes.

[And don't talk to me about stupid mistakes!]

Celebrity cyclists say

Me and my bike: Five famous enthusiasts tell us their cycling stories.

Bike Pr0n

Cycling Photography by VeloDramatic—yummy.

DIY

• Self-balancing electic unicycle—much cooler than a Segway!

• Bicycle Generator and USB Device Charger: “A bicycle-mounted system for generating electricity, storing it, and charging several USB devices, mainly an iPhone and a GPS tracking unit.”

All go car free

Seven car-free cities [twitterer]

It’s hard to believe that before the early 20th century, almost every city in the world was “car-free.” Zoom ahead 100 years later, and you have to do some real digging to escape the army of cars now clogging the planet’s roads and highways.

Put your back into it

Jetrike: “a front wheel drive (FWD) tilting delta trike design that features self-centering tilt geometry. Its tilting mechanism works independently from the steering. The idea is to use the riders weight to remain centered as the trike becomes stationary.”

Various motivations

Bike commuting by the numbers suggests a saving of nearly $5000 by selling the car and commuting by bike. That’s before forking over for a new bike. Oh yeah, and there’s other motivation as well:

What I always forget to mention when talking with people about commuting is this: there’s virtually nothing PG-rated I love to do more than ride a good bike.

Keepin’ it real

Why You Should be Riding Steel and not Carbon.

Plastic

Barbie as bike advocate [twitterer]

“For the ladies”

Hit The Road With Our Top 10 Fashionable Bikes Just For The Ladies [twitterer]

Contortionist

“The Contortionist bike is compact, bendy and oddly sexy, like an actual contortionist”. [twitterer]

Fold this

Click-Stand is the world’s only folding portable bicycle stand. Umm, yes—it is basically just a stick.

Shooting fish in a barrel

San Jose Mercury News reports that:

Bike to Work hosted its sixth annual Commuter Race on Tuesday…All the bikes beat the cars by a good 10-20 minutes during the treasure hunt-style race that began at the intersection of Front and Cooper streets, made stops at The Buttery on Soquel and Branciforte avenues and again at New Leaf Market on 41st Avenue before crossing the finish line at the tiki on the Capitola Esplanade.

Another “shock” result there. [via the cycling dude]

Cycling campaign

CNN tells of politcal campaigning in Afghanistan:

Every morning Sangin Mohammed Rahmani says goodbye to his wife, gets on his bicycle and sets out alone on a bumpy, unpaved Kabul road that he hopes will lead him to the presidency.

“This is going to be my vehicle to success,” he says, patting his bicycle, as he pushes it down a rutted, garbage-strewn street. “With my bicycle and my mobile phone, I can solve all the problems of the people.”

[twitterer]

Vacant expression

Human Powered Cycles is hiring:

Applicants must have a strong background and experience in the role of bicycle mechanic and the ability to work in a team. The position is primarily based in the workshop on servicing and repairs and setup of new/second hand bikes.

Applications close 12 August.

Fight like Susan

Fatty’s wife Susan died on 5 August. Thoughts and sympathy to her family and friends.

And I wouldn’t dare say that she lost.

While I was sitting there, I was able to observe an interesting and sad phenomenon that I wouldn’t have noticed just riding by. At that time of the morning a constant stream of cars pulled-in to the kerb-side parking spots along the street. At first I didn’t pay it much attention. I just assumed that the clock had ticked-over the end of the clearway and the parking spots were naturally filling.

Then I noticed that people weren’t jumping out of their cars and leaving. They were sitting in their cars or just milling about near the ticket machine. Slowly it dawned on me that these people were getting in early: parking before the clearway time had ended so they would get a space for their car and then hanging around until parking time opened so they could buy a parking docket. And all of the parking spaces were full before the ticket machine opened.

For some reason I found it really rather sad that these folks were either making themselves late or arriving unreasonably early for whatever their business was, just so that they could have the privilege of parking their cars conveniently.

Oh well, each to their own. I didn’t let it spoil my day. I was enjoying the sun too much.

La Prueba de la Bicicleta, as recently mentioned in the [little paper](http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24487031-23109,00.html “

Bike test: How safe is your city : Herald Sun”).

Wishlist

Taking a velomobile for a test drive. Want. Hmm, maybe a Greenspeed? Their new Glyde velomobile is nearly ready for release.

Latest entry in fugly bike contest

“Oh, ICK!” How about I take $8000 and smoke it? [thanks tom]

On air, online

I’ve just noticed that YarraBUG Radio has a web page now, including summaries of all their shows to date.

Bike library

Bernard Sudlow runs a bike library at The Manchester College:

There’s no charge to borrow a bike and no compulsory maintenance training, but we expect borrowers to take a certain level of responsibility. We’ve had a good response, but there are definitely less bikes in college when it’s raining, which it does a lot in Manchester!

Kung Fu Fighting

If BMX Bandits had included fight scenes like this one in The Lady is the Boss, Nicole Kidman wouldn’t be embarassed to have it on her CV. [thanks tom]

Swanston St, status quo

A series of photos by Rob shows that nothing’s changed on Swanston St, as if Carolyn Rawlins hadn’t died… Why am I not surprised?

All it took was a global meltdown

Buried in the Bailout: The Bicycle Commuter Act. Woo, deduct $20 per employee. Easy there—don’t let that new found wealth go to your head!