I'm all for alternatives to transport, specially bicycling, but I truly believe bike lines alone aren't sufficient if they're not accompanied by their corresponding infrastructure & proper planning, so bicycling commuters are "safer' & mostly "follow traffic flows" & "rules". Gee- I had the typical accident while bicycling in Cambridge, because an Idiot/A$$Hole opened his car door wide open in front of me, as a result of the damn bike line being placed next to parking spots
these type of incidents can be easily prevented by "proper design" & not by simply tracing a path on the tarmac...
Sorry to hear about your accident. Lots of people should be doing lots of things to see to it that that doesn't happen. Nothing alone is likely to be sufficient.
I am very much in favor of the GJ Path, and notch it as a big win, even though it is guaranteed to induce demand on less safe parts of the network.
Off-street paths even where they seem duplicative (like the GJ Path) are very helpful on many levels:
- as the safest (fully-separate) alternative to some less-safe way,
- as new routing (a bike grid should work best just like the street grid does),
- and as new capacity that will meet current demand and induce more
(building bike's modal share...it is good politically).
As for on-street lanes, biker education and behavior are part of the whole solution too. Motorists should look, but we can help them get in the habit of looking by:
- giving them something to catch their eye more often: day-glo colors & a headlight.
- saying "Thank you for looking" whenever we notice that they notice (particularly when you see their door edge open and then hesitate...their behavior is very very valuable to us all). I do this as much as I possibly can on Mass Ave in Cambridge--I appreciate it, and they'll probably find themselves in the same door zone on Mass Ave or nearby hundreds of times a year.
The law already
requires a white headlight for night operation. Fewer folks would get doored if they rode with that same white light on-and-flashing by day. It isn't going to spare us being doored by the boorish, but its going to write a happier ending wherever there are attentive motorists.
Recent studies have also shown that cyclists should basically ride as far to the left in their bike lane as they can. That we don't is partly the misleading paint, but also partly that nobody told us.
The cheapest and fastest solution is simply getting this word out there (this forum plays a role). No matter how wide the lane is or how it is marked, you get safer and safer as you move left, because you're avoiding more and more of the bell curve of door length and car position.