What Can Be Done About Right-Turn Only Lanes If All You Have is a Bucket of Paint?
The Dutch have been dealing with the right-turn only lane problem by re-designing their intersections. But what if that is not a practical option? What if, in practice, all you have at your disposal to make intersections with right-turn only lanes safer for bicyclists is a bucket of paint?
Delaware is grappling with this question. And recently a Bike Delaware-sponsored Bike Lane Working Group identified two options, the second of which would be a Federal Highway Administration – approved experiment on a combined “pocket” bike lane / right-turn lane. Currently, there is one such approved experiment in the U.S. It is being undertaken by the city of Columbia, Missouri:
Columbia’s combination bike lane / right-turn lane is part of a larger experiment that they are undertaking on colored pavement.
Can Delaware do an experiment that uses green colored pavement, too? If we can’t, what should we do instead?
3 Responses
why are right-turn lanes necessary at all? seems like a solution in search of a problem.
Peter, well said in many instances. But we're dealing with the built environment. The electorate would impeach anyone who goes against "speed at all cost" and continued expansion of car LOS. Right turn-only lanes are a key expression of these two. So, while we would love to "demote" right turn lanes to multi-purpose (as suggested by Peter Furth), or keep them as shoulders or bike lanes leading right up to the intersection, it's not a reasonable expectation this will happen. At the least, the pocket lane concept puts a band-aid on this inherently dangerous design, with a proven record of increased safety and comfort for bicyclists.
"Auxiliary" lanes (both left and right) are spaces provided for vehicle deceleration. Traffic engineers have solid data that, when cars are traveling at high-speed, these deceleration lanes reduce crashes. (The data indicates that at the speeds that characterize arterial roads, a car traveling as little as 10 mph less than other cars may be 100 times more likely to be involved in a crash than a car traveling at the same speed as the rest of the traffic.)
On a high-speed road, right-turn only lanes improve safety for motorists.