[SDCBC] bike lane hazards

[trevorspoke at cox.net]

John Eldonw wrote:

"How about the big road construction sign which greeted me this morning by blocking the entire bike lane on Coast Highway 101 immediately south of Carmel Valley Road, enroute to Torrey Pines Reserve? Fortunately the sign is in plain view and the light early Sunday morning traffic allowed me to avoid it quite easily and safely, but the sign still creates an unnecessary hazard."

John has touched on probably one of the most sensitive topics to me. Road Construction begins 100 feet ahead signs are clearly intended to be read by motorists, for they are planted in the bike lane.

Unnecessary is a separate question about the hazard, however. You couldn't put them on the sidewalk, for as we all know nobody would see them there (they are too far out of the roadway), and they would create hazard for high-speed non-vehicular traffic (skaters, segway operators, runners). Putting them in the median usually isn't practical.

I have been thinking about this problem, and my solution is to project the sign onto the roadway from overhead, where the placement of the hanger (if one is not already convenient) can be well out of the roadway, and the sign itself can be placed more usefully in front of affected traffic lanes without itself being an obstruction. Low-tech solution could be just to hang a sign overhead, but there are bigger plans for what you could do if you always had traffic engineering projection systems. Imagine virtual stripes, for example; or virtual bicyclists.

Favorite ironic signs:
Steel plates ahead (think what will happen if cyclist runs into that sign)
Shoulder work (same thing)

-- Trevor

p.s. One of my theories on inattentive driving is that the activity is boring, why not find something productive to do with your time as long as it doesn't even require all your attention. Entertainment in transportation (paying attention all the time required) is something we all know, and love. I think adding such systems to the roadway for motorist benefit would be good for everybody. The alternative is to give everyone a chauffeur, and train and pay those guys like professionals.