The Importance Of Bike Lanes

Bike lanes have been around for an innumerable amount of years. In 1880, there was a so called “bike boom” when cycling really took off. Bike lanes help save the environment by giving bikers a safe place to ride, but the problem is that bikers do not stay in their designated lanes. The lanes are being put in areas and roadways that create more of a hazardous environment than a safe one for both bikers and car drivers, and many bikers seem to think that they are exempt from following traffic signals. In Traverse CIty’s tourist season, which is only a few short months out of the year, the town can look like the Tour De France, with the amount of bikers. During the rest of the year though, the bike lanes are not used that often and the lanes because …show more content…
It gives cyclists a safer place to ride. Otherwise, they would be riding amongst cars, on the sidewalk, or even just the space they can find between cars and the sidewalk. Bikers though, are not using the designated lanes given to them, bikers think that they can ignore traffic signs and signals, and bike lanes are starting to take up too much space where it is more important to have lanes for cars. Bicycle lanes serve the needs of all types of cyclists in urban and suburban areas, providing them with their own travel lane on the street surface. The minimum width of a bike lane should be 1.5 meters (5 feet) against a curb or adjacent to a parking lane (Bicycle and Pedestrian Research). There are bike lanes on many different types of steets and are very popular in downtown areas. Bicycle lanes are always located on both sides of the road on two-way streets (Bicycle and Pedestrian Research). A bike lane is located adjacent to motor vehicle travel lanes or parking lanes, and flows in the same direction as motor vehicle traffic (Planning and Design). In 2012, Tom Wilwol was riding his bike in a designated bike lane that was placed between two lanes of traffic. He was waiting for the light to change at the intersection when his bike was hit with a car from behind (Sharpe). That accident was definitely not Wilwol’s fault, he was just using the bike lane given to …show more content…
On October 8, 2014, I was driving through my neighborhood on the way to school. It was around seven thirty a.m. and still somewhat dark. I was coming to the intersection of Maple Street and Sixth Street. I had the right of way, seeing as there was no stop sign on my side of the intersection. Going the speed limit of twenty five, my car was just approaching the intersection when out of nowhere, a woman on her bike rides straight through the stop sign and directly in front of my car. I was able to slam on the brakes and avoid hitting her directly. The car just hit the back half of her bike. She was not hurt and the car was not damaged. She claimed she was coming home from her shift at the hospital and she was very tired. Car drivers are not let off the hook when they are tired and get in an accident and neither are bikers. If people are going to choose to ride their bikes, they need to take the responsibility of paying attention to their