Tuesday, August 16, 2011

New or rare traffic signs


Yes, that is really a "no cycling" sign. I was waiting on the traffic lights and I didn't notice it until the light turned green. I crossed the street and took the photo from the other side, thus the angle is bad and the other traffic sign telling cyclists which way to go blocks it. The blue signs guiding cyclists to the right are also rare.



It is obvious why it is needed. They're doing repairs on the facade of the building, and the scaffold is over the sidewalk (which is a MUP). One could get through it on a bike, but it's too narrow to pass anyone on a bike. And if someone lost balance on the bike and hit the scaffolding,  the whole thing might fall down. There's been at least two cases this year where a scaffolding has collapsed due to wind. Or is it incompetence of the builders who don't know how to build scaffolding? Anyway, It's easier for the cyclists go to go the other way rather than try to squeeze through.

What's this "road work" sign doing on a bikeway? Usually they don't put up such signs, as we can see the barriers or ropes around the work pits easily. In this case, there's a long downhill and cyclists might be coming fast, and they're doing some cable digging on the left just behind the corner. So I consider this sign well placed.


Zebra lines have been cut to mark bikeway crossing.
The cyclists (over 11 years olds) are not allowed on footpaths. So, they're not allowed on zebra crossings either. A cyclist should walk the bike across. A lot of people whined about cyclists breaking the law by cycling on the zebras. But many of the sidewalks and paths are in fact multi-user paths, and the bikeway continues on the zebra. Cyclists can legally cycle on the zebra crossings for those paths.

The problem was the law said they didn't have to paint the bikeway crossings on the street, they could use regular zebra paintings. This made it difficult for other road users to know there was a bikeway crossing too. The law changed recently, and now they have to mark the bikeways, either by lines or by leaving a gap in the zebras. It has no effect on yielding rules for cyclists, it's just a change in the markings to make things more clear.

The road painters have until 2020 or something like that to change the markings. Mostly they're going to renew the zebras in the new style when the old markings get too worn out, but I've heard they've sanded off the paint in some places to get the new markings.

No comments:

Post a Comment