A Tip for Life in Bike Lane: Keep Wits About You

Dear Street Smart:

I’ve been riding my bike more and more recently. It bothers me when cars park in the marked bike lane. When is it, if ever, all right to park or drive in a marked bike lane? It seems dangerous for me to have to veer outside the lane.

Phyllis Tucker

San Juan Capistrano

Life in the bike lane isn’t always so pleasant. If there isn’t some Beemer veering willy-nilly across the painted white line, there’s a Coupe de Ville crammed against the curb, its rear bumper waiting to gobble up any errant cyclist who happens by.

While the rules of the bike lane can vary from city to city, most municipalities allow cars to pull into the paths about 200 feet before a corner to make a right turn. Moreover, cars generally can park in the paths as long as there are no signs posted prohibiting it. In some spots within the county, this can virtually eliminate the lanes, forcing cyclists out into the street along with the growling packs of cars.

A few tips from the experts: If you have to veer around a parked car, avoid darting into the traffic lane. Instead, try to anticipate the move and begin gradually moving out so any cars can see you well in advance and avoid you accordingly. Also, be careful to swing wide enough around the parked car so you’ll avoid the door if a motorist swings it open.

At times, of course, motorists won’t take kindly to a cyclist using the traffic lane to avoid a parked car. They’ll honk. They’ll scream. They’ll cuss. But the fact of the matter is, cyclists have as much right to the traffic lane if they’re steering around an obstacle.

Unfortunately, conflicts between cyclists and motorists can sometimes escalate into something just short of war. Some stories have become legend.

One recent day, a cyclist in South County was tooling along a remote road when a car began veering into the lane repeatedly. The cyclist yelled at the driver, who in turn rolled down his passenger-side window and shouted obscenities at the cyclist.

The cyclist returned fire by pulling out his water bottle and squirting the motorist and his female passenger. Outraged, the driver cut off the cyclist, jumped from the car and began pounding on the befuddled cyclist. The melee was broken up only when the cyclist’s riding partners caught up.

This, of course, was a relatively rare incident that escalated well beyond reason. But the point is clear: When cycling, keep your wits about you. A person on a bicycle is a lot more vulnerable than someone strapped into a ton of sheet metal.

Dear Street Smart:

Does Caltrans have any plans to build a grade separation that would allow drivers on the northbound San Diego Freeway to exit at Bristol Street in Costa Mesa without having to cross two lanes of high-speed traffic coming off the connector road leading from the Costa Mesa Freeway to the northbound San Diego Freeway?

Building such a grade separation will not merely remove a nuisance. When traffic backs up from the Bristol off-ramp (as it frequently does), a serious conflict is created between cars moving at full speed on the connector road and cars slowing (or completely stopping) for the Bristol off-ramp.

There also appears to be plenty of right of way for Caltrans to build the necessary bridge for the freeway connector road to pass over traffic moving into the Bristol exit’s lanes.

Greg Shank

Irvine

That stretch of roadway is indeed a problem for motorists eager to pull smoothly off the freeway at Bristol Street and hit the Nordie racks at South Coast Plaza.

The good news is that transportation officials are eyeing the strip for improvement. The bad news is that any solutions are probably still far off.

Costa Mesa authorities are planning to use developer fees to build a new, elevated connector road so Bristol Street-bound motorists won’t have to mix it up with folks trying to head north from the Costa Mesa Freeway onto the San Diego Freeway.

Just don’t look for it any time soon.

“We’re just now getting the ball rolling,” said Bill Morris, Costa Mesa public services director. “We are years away.”