Real barriers don't fold

We looked at the bike lanes where people reported parked cars on Bike Bureau and noticed striking differences between separated bike lanes (green) and those “protected” (purple) with bollards and/or buffers.

A flexible plastic bollard snapped off and lying flat in the road

Separated

A car physically can’t be there.

“Protected”

A buffer space or boingy bollards between the road and the bike lane.

Painted

Nothing at all between traffic and the bikes.

Reported

A person found a vehicle parked in the lane and reported it.

Bike lane map along Cambridge Street by Beacon Hill and the West End
Cambridge St West End
Bike lane map on Massachusetts Avenue near Central Square, Cambridge
Mass Ave Central Sq
Bike lane map on Boylston Street in the Fenway, Boston
Boylston St The Fenway
Bike lane map along Western Avenue and Soldiers Field Road in Lower Allston
Western Ave Lower Allston
Bike lane map near Kendall Square and Binney Street in Cambridge, lanes colored by protection level
Kendall Cambridge
Bike lane map on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain, Boston
Centre St Jamaica Plain

Tap any panel to open that neighborhood on the live map.

Reports from Bike Bureau · lane data from OpenStreetMap

A parked car is evidence of a greater danger

Every orange dot marks a spot where a vehicle was parked blocking a bike lane. The green areas are separated bike lanes and the purple areas are “protected” bike lanes. If a car was physically able to enter the lane and park then the car can also barrel into someone biking in that lane. A separated lane solves both at once: no one can park in the lane and no one can be run over in the lane, the car simply cannot be there. That’s the only kind of protection that doesn’t depend on the person driving. Real barriers don’t fold.

References

  1. Loud Bicycle. “Bike Bureau: Report Bike Lane Obstructions.”
  2. Loud Bicycle. “Bike Bureau Public Map.”
  3. OpenStreetMap contributors. OpenStreetMap. Basemap and bike-lane data.

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