Bike lane at Willow & Highland: is this legal?

[serious-noir.livejournal.com]

I've never quite understood the auto rules for the bike lane at the intersection of Willow & Highand (one of life's little mysteries).

I was driving there yesterday approaching the light and preparing to turn right (east) on to Highland. I was in the left-most lane (to the left of the bike lane in the image). Cars were passing me on the right in the far right lane and making the right turn. Needless to say, something felt off.

Usually the right-most lane has parked cars but it was street cleaning day so it was empty.

Was I in the wrong lane to make a right turn or were the drivers passing me on the right being jerks?

Comments

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

(sorry if this appears twice... LJ seems to be eating my comments at the moment.)

When I'm at an intersection in my car, I can clear the turn faster than the bikers can. If they're all in front of me, it's mostly an obstacle. If I'm in front of them, I'm out of their way in a few seconds, and they can take whatever time they need to make the turn safely. The only time I've seen this not be the case is when a bicyclist whizzes thru the intersection (turning or not) while the light is still red. [My understanding of bike lanes also makes me think that there isn't an official bike lane through an intersection...at least I haven't seen them marked explicitly.]

I generally give bikers a wide berth and try very hard to be ahead of them, because when they're travelling in the same direction as me and behind/beside me, their size and position on the road make them largely invisible, so I'm even more twitchy about them than normal.

(PS - I'm walking away from this thread lest this turn into Yet Another Iteration of the Driver-vs-Biker discussion I've seen several times on this community.)

[42itous.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think the faster vehicle should go first. And you're doing all the right things, giving bikers plenty of room and not letting them sit in your blind spot if you can help it. When paths cross or there are other ambiguities in right-of-way, communication (turn signals, etc.) and predictability go a very long way toward safe road-sharing.