Dangerous Bicycle Scenario

[xuth.livejournal.com]

I just ran into (almost literally) a very dangerous bicycle scenario in Davis Square this evening.

I was parked at the (somerville provided) bike parking space between Dover and Day St on Holland/Elm St. I got onto Holland/Elm St and rode southeast through the square right in front of a car on Day St with a green light. The problem is that from my vantage point, I have no stop light or stop sign (they are all behind me where Holland crosses Dover) and from this vantage point, Day St intersecting with Elm St is a completely separate intersection from Holland St intersecting with Dover St. But the traffic signals treat it as one intersection. Without knowing all the details of this intersection (which I should, I just have never dealt with this scenario before), I have no reason to think that I should be concerned about traffic coming from Day St. There really needs to be an additional Holland street light at the corner of Day St.

Comments

Maybe not acting like a car driver, but acting like legal traffic

[turil.livejournal.com]

Bikes are legal road users and (good) traffic engineers do consider bicyclist behavior when designing roadways and signalized intersections. In this case, pulling off the roadway, and onto the sidewalk, to park is a completely normal and legitimate thing for traffic to do, so the city needs to decide what it should do to accomodate this particular traffic pattern.

Also, it's not just bicycle traffic that this scenario could happen to. A motorist that gets stuck in backed up traffic could be caught in that space, or someone stopping for emergency purposes (a flat tire, for example), or even someone dropping an elderly or handicapped passenger off at the building right there. There are many legitimate reasons why traffic would need to stop or slow down on that little block, so it makes sense to design the signals so that everyone knows who's got the right of way at any given time.

Re: Maybe not acting like a car driver, but acting like legal traffic

[xuth.livejournal.com]

Thank you turil, you're much more diplomatic than I.

Re: Maybe not acting like a car driver, but acting like legal traffic

[turil.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I am... Sometimes not so much!