The wheels of progress never stop turning at SDOT, who managed to get some green gravely material down in a couple of locations this week after months of anticipation. We’ve posted about the green lanes before, it’s great to see they’re making their way into the real world. I rode down to take a look this morning, and I can confirm it’s really, really green.
My ride this morning showed that the schematic’s spot on (including the fact that the bike lane ceases to exist for the first half of the next block on Stone Way). The new lane is designed to help cyclists transition from the right hand edge of the road, across a lane of traffic into the proper spot (the new green wedge) to start from if you’re proceeding forward. The wedge serves pretty well here, clearly indicating where you should be.
The approach to the wedge is still a bit paltry. It’s a simple green dashed line crossing the existing lane of traffic. I was really expecting a full green lane that indicates the bike lane crosses traffic here, but that’s not to be apparently. No arrows, or other markings that I saw to indicate this is bike territory (but I could have missed something).
Also, the lane change is quite close to the intersection. Unfortunately this is one of the longest lights in Seattle and traffic tends to get backed up. I couldn’t actually ride the new marked changes because it was already underneath a car. I can imagine markings big and bold enough that cars wouldn’t stop on them.
The green of the wedge is made up of what seems to be tiny, green rocks glued down to the roadway. Think green pop-rocks and you’ve got the size and texture right. Definitely not slippery, which has been a complaint about roadway markings from cyclists in the past. I’m sure it’s very durable, but the top layer wasn’t entirely secured and now there are little green pop-rocks migrating around the intersection.
I’m all for facilities improvements, and good on SDOT for getting this done. I’d much rather see bike boxes and full on blue green lanes that cross intersections. Maybe these will come in the next round of improvements.
I rode past both of the green spots this past week. I appreciate the attempt at making the world safer for us on two wheels; I just don’t entirely see the point in these two locations.
At the Greenlake Way location they used to have a bicycle painted on the pavement where the green sliver is now. I ride by that daily but always stay in the lane of traffic because, as you can see in the schematic, if you start across the intersection from the green sliver (heading down Stone Way) you would run into a pedestrian island on the other side, so you still have to merge back into the traffic lane. I’d rather skip that merge at a confusing spot and stay in the traffic lane the entire time.
Again it is easy to be pessimistic about DOT’s efforts, and I don’t want to be that guy who just poo-poos every idea; I’m just not so sure about the efficacy in this location. Hopefully these are the beginnings of much greater things to come.
That’s on my commute…it’s a start but horribly designed for that intersection. You’re right on the money regarding the shortcomings. What I don’t get is why they allow auto traffic to break up into 2 lanes just 50 feet before that green box, only to reduce everything back down to one auto traffic lane a few hundred feet on the other side of the intersection. That green box is a starting block to nowhere! And now that it’s there, motorists will expect us to use it.
The whole situation would be rectified if they had a hard-right-onto-50th lane, a soft-right-onto-Greenlake lane, a single bike lane and a single motorists lane going into Stone, and keep the left-turn-only where it is. Then no motorists would have to do the NASCAR-style positioning to merge into one lane on Stone between 50th and 45th. They often don’t see cyclists when they’re merging.
Tai