I've been hearing about the new green lanes around town and frankly, I'm not impressed at all. If you want to know why it's because I've ridden on better green bicycle lanes in Austin. (Image 36-1) Let me remind people that a green square box isn't a bicycle lane (Image 36-2) for it to be a green lane, well, the lane should be painted entirely green. So far the places that have gotten the "Green Box Treatment," are W Commerce St From Elemendorf Lake to out pass General McMullen and N Flores between Euclid, and Fredericksburg Rd. And I'm pleased to report they also have the green dash lines now.
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N Flores St has always been on the list of the Bicycle Master Plan
to get a bicycle lane. For the most part, they did a decent job and
they only put in the dash green lanes in only after I brought up the
issue at the February BMAC meeting. Now I understand that green paint is
expensive, but I wouldn't be bitching if they didn't put down the dash
lines of green paint in the first place.
Traffic now moves
slower now and for the most part, nobody is parking in the parking lane
which allows us cyclist to keep right further away from moving traffic.
(As a matterof fact, I recommend that people ride inthe parking lane in Iowa St Bike Lane, a Double Edge Sword.)
But when it came to the intersections of Fredricksburg RD, they
decided to keep the same old thing, two lanes of car traffic. (Image 36-4) Their
excuse is that there's sufficient vehicle traffic to warrant the two
lanes instead of just having a single car lane with a bicycle lane on the right hand side. I watch traffic here and it would have been safer for all if they never kept the two turn lanes. Also not putting in that 4ft bicycle lane would have been a better choice and instead started the bicycle lane closer to the right turn lane from southbound Fredricksburg Rd. I wish this city would stop thinking that 4ft bike lane are acceptable when it should be a minimum of 5ft.
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The same excuse is used
to justify the number of turn lanes that are on northbound N Flores at W Euclid.(Image 36-5)
Not only is there a right turn lane, but there is also a left turn lane
as if their is enough traffic volume to justify this left turn lane on
to Euclid which just happens to be a regular neighborhood street without double yellow lines. The other problem is that going southbound, it forces people
on bicycles to dangerously merge with traffic, (Image 36-6) defeating the purpose for
having the bicycle lane in the first place. If they really wanted to do it properly, they
would have nixed the northbound left turn lane and just had the two
lanes going north having the right hand lane just being a right turn lane except bicycles. The Same for the southbound lanes, instead of having these two lanes, how about having one lane merging across W Euclid with the same old two lanes down N Flores southbound.
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But if you really want to know why they did this stupid design here, (Image 36-5, 36-6)
because cars are more important then people on bicycles. Actions speak
louder than words to me and what these actions are telling me that the
movement of cars is more important than people. It tells me that San
Antonio's actual position on bicycles is that bicycles are for
recreation, not transportation for if the City of San Antonio was really
for a better carbon free future, they would have designed it without
the ridiculous turn lanes left and right, north and south. And lets leave the useless Sharrows out of this conversation.
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W Commerce St on the other hand is an okay job. This is definitely a place where bicycle lanes are needed and belong. They're wide enough west of Elmendorf Lake but I do have some issues at W Commerce St and Gen. McMullen. Yes it's a big place and the traffic volume deems it necessary to have right and left turn lane, but I felt pretty uncomfortable on that bike lane waiting for the green light. Also it's just too narrow just waiting there and maybe in the future, the city of San Antonio can actually put in a Protected bicycle lane like the ones they have in the Netherlands and Austin, TX for there's plenty of right of way available to put one in on both sides.
Also if you happen to be riding westbound on W Commerce St and you come to the intersection where Old Hwy 90 West splits off south and W Commerce St continues, Please put out your left hand and signal to all the motorist that your making a left turn regardless whether your going on Old Hwy 90 West or strait on down W Commerce. The people driving cars are not going to be able to reading your mind and if they just happen to be going strait, they'll run into you. Like in the green bicycle lane in Austin,(Image 36-1) the city of San Antonio did a good job here. I can only hope that they extended it further along both W Commerce and Old Hwy 90 West past San Joaquin (Image 36-9) and fix the problems between the one way sections of W Commerce and the bridge that crosses Elmendorf Lake.
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Images: 36-1: Picture of the Green painted bicycle lane crossing Guadalupe just north of W 45th St viewing North
36-2: Picture of the Green bicycle lanes without the green dashes across Poplar viewing South
36-3: Picture of the Green Bicycle lanes N Flores St after my complaint to BMAC at W Cypress St viewing North
36-4: N Flores St at Fredricsburg Rd viewing south
36-5: N Flores St at W Euclid Viewing North
36-6: N Flores St at W Euclid viewing South
36-7: W Commerce St At Gen. McMullen viewing East
36-8: W Commerce St At Gen McMullen viewing East right before the right turn lane cutoff.
36-9: Old Hwy 90 West At San Joaquin viewing Southwest.\
P.S. It is also noted that The Alamo Bike Shop is the first of such shops to have a bicycle lane right out in front.
It has been my experience that motorist do respect the green lanes more
than just the white paint although the ones in Austin that I have rode
in are at least 6ft wide. The problem with these lanes will not be
solved by putting some green paint down, what needs to be done, is that
these lanes need to wider. Around 24th St, they're not even wide enough
to be bike lanes at all. For safe reliable bike lanes, they need to be
6ft wide, maybe 5, but these are barely 4ft which don't allow you
enough room to get out of the way when a car passes. The reason why
people are getting hurt using these lanes is simply because they're
simply not wide enough which doesn't even provide room to maneuver out of the
way of hazards that you might encounter while riding in these lanes. Cars pass you with in 2ft as you ride in this lane, so
I'm sorry to say, if you want to fix these lanes, you'll have to remove
that center turn lane and put that space to the bike lane with green
paint, then the bicycle lane will work properly.
I'll give Shirley Gonzales credit for trying for she is basically the only one towards an alternative transportation future, unlike Ron Nirenberg or Diego Bernal, who claim they are but are all full of talk and lack of actions just like regular politicians. So I say this with the rest of San Antonio Bicycling Community, thank you very much Shirley Gonzales for your hard work and may you please stay in office forever, at least one side of town will be bicycle friendly after you leave office. Although if you can, please try to change some laws, maybe some of these mistakes could be avoided in the first place. Also the city needs to adopt NATCO standards and get rid of the law Sec. 19-66. Conformity with state manual, which forces us to use AASHTO standards, the reason why we have unsafe bicycle lanes in the first place all around San Antonio. Keep San Antonio Lame.
Now when I first heard about the green bicycle lanes, I thought It was going to happen on the one way sections of W Commerce and Buena Vista, but for the foreseeable future, they're going to stay the same. (Image 28-3) Now the following cross sections that I've posted (Images 28-3, 28-5, 28-7) are facing east. I did all these measurements at the corner of W Commerce and Nueces nearby the Bazan Library. Now the Sidewalk length isn't the same the entire stretch of W Commerce and Buena Vista, the roadway surface is.
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In
some of news stories I've heard, they mention Jose Carlos Macy death, but
if anyone who's familiar with the circumstances of his death, will
realize that is wasn't because of a stray motorist not paying attention,
it was because two people were racing their cars down W Commerce, and second the tragedy was at the HEB by Zarzamora, not NW 24th St near OLLU. Now I wrote
about the tragedy that took place back in May, but I got something wrong
about the size of the drive lanes which are not 14ft wide, but are
actually 12ft wide. (Image 28-3) Just by looking at the width of these lanes makes
you think they're very wide and the way they manufacture cars today, it way to easy
to exceed the speed limit.
Personally, I don't ride in this bicycle lane because every time I'm crossing a major stroad like Zarzamora or Colorado, I almost get in a accident by drivers making left turns in front of me traditionally called "right hooks" which you can see the example of what almost happens to me when I ride in the left hand bike lane in the video above. Also, it is ingrain into our society that slower traffic stays right, so somebody driving a car is more likely to expect a slow moving cyclist on the right hand side. Another thing, is the fact that these lanes don't provide much room and on any given day, you'll see someone parked in it. (Image 28-4)
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Now if we're really interested in solving the problems with W Commerce and Buena Vista which is a current place where people reporting of car races, then the solution isn't painting the lane green but reducing the drive lanes to 11ft wide and putting the bicycle lane on the other side of the stroad. Lets keep this bicycle lane on the left hand side, but instead of going with the direction of traffic, it goes against the direction of traffic. Make this lane 6ft wide and use the two feet that we get by reducing the drive lanes by putting in a concrete median. By doing this, anybody who has a grand ideal of using Buena Vista or W Commerce as a race way, they're in for a big surprise for when they're racing, they'll end up hitting the curb and damaging their car and hopefully, not the people who happen to be riding home on a bicycle. (Image 28-5)
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One of the reasons that the bicycle lane got put on the left hand side
was because Via complained about not having a place for their buses to
stop.(Image 28-6) Well, for all those who are worried about where are the buses
going to stop, well here's the solution (Image 28-7) and it's nothing new for those
who are frequent readers of this blog will know that the solution is a bus stop island just like the one in Austin on Guadalupe, just like the
ones in the Netherlands
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But don't count on this solution being built any time soon or in the foreseeable future. You will never see this on the west side because our political leaders care nothing for the loss of life except for the person proposing the green lanes, Shirley Gonzales. Also Via is looking at this particular Corridor for it's future light rail system which because the cars are simply more important, it will use up space for a protected bicycle lane, instead of the cars. It is a sad fact of reality that San Antonio doesn't want a safer street, but a dangerous stroad. The day that San Antonio sees W Commerce And Buena Vista just like the cross sections I posted is the day that pigs fly. Keep San Antonio Lame.
Speaking about recreation trails, there's an important petition going
on right now to give people a choice in getting round town outside loop
410. It is a petition to allow use of the Howard Peak Linear Creekways
after dark. As a person who constantly broke this law to get safely
home after the buses stopped running, I can attest that the worse thing I
came in contact with wasn't an ax murder, but a big ass spider with the
entire web blocking the trail right underneath the Houston St Bridge by
the AT&T Center. I doubt that our city leaders will give into this
because they're more serious about making sure cars have big dangerous
numerous lanes instead of bike lanes, like Diego
Bernal who spoke that a 1,000 miles of bike lanes where coming but when
they repaved the stroads in his district, they failed to put them in or Ron Nirenberg who wants to plan for them and then leave the plan collecting dust.
I'm still going to sign it and I'm going to be publishing this petition
after every story until we get a new city council in May. I wish I
wasn't right but I know for a fact that our mayor and city council will
ignore this petition while people like me just go out an brake the law
because I rather get a ticket, then show up on the morning news about another cyclist got hit or killed on the many stroads San Antonio.
Images: 27-1: main image for
petition.https://www.change.org/p/mayor-ivy-r-taylor-repeal-code-of-ordinances-22-28-e-so-as-to-allow-use-and-access-of-leon-and-salado-creek-greenway-facilities-beyond-daylight-hours-in-accordance-with-22-28-a?utm_campaign=friend_inviter_chat&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=share_petition&utm_term=permissions_dialog_false&share_id=JvxsaOGtXK 27-2:
The Spider Web I encountered around 3:30 AM back in July at the foot of
the Houston St Bridge on Salado Creek Linear Creekway.
28-1: W Commerce St of the bike lane next to the Valero to an entrance to OLLU looking west. 28-2: A Via Bus stopped at the bus stop at the corner of 24th St and W Commerce showing how the buses have to invade the lane to make a stop. 28-3: A cross section of W Commerce at Nueces looking east on how it looks currently. 28-4: A picture of a car parked off the street and a car partially parked in the bike lane at Cibolo St on W Commerce looking West. 28-5: A Cross Section of W Commerce at Nueces looking East if the bike lanes were put on either side while reducing the driving lanes. 28-6: A Via Bus stopped at the bus stop across the stroad from the Bazan Library looking East. 28-7: A Cross Section of W Commerce at Nueces looking East if they had built a bus stop island.
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