Safe Bike Lanes

I’ve just returned from Rio de Janeiro, where they do bike lanes right. Instead of putting an unprotected and exposed bike lane on each side of the street, they put both bike lanes on only one side of the street--between the parked cars and the sidewalk. The bike lanes are separated from the parked cars by a small mini-median, about four inches high and four inches wide. This way, bicyclists are nowhere near fast-moving cars, nor do they have to worry about parked drivers opening their doors, delivery trucks blocking the bike lanes, etc. To accomplish this requires taking away just four inches of street width.

Unfortunately, the city of West Hollywood didn’t have the foresight to do this in its major renovation of Santa Monica Boulevard. Hopefully, other municipalities will consider this safe and inexpensive design.

James Fuhrman

West Hollywood