When Bike Lanes Go Bad
The person who reads this blog knows I am no fan of bike lanes. With the release of the 2009 Cincinnati Bike Route Guide and it's routing of cyclists away from the Northside business district (because why would a cyclist want to go somewhere to do business ?) and up Crawford Avenue (because there is so much to do on Crawford Avenue), I wasn't surprised to see the city not only painting but carving bike lanes into the road. I guess this is to let people know these lanes are permanent. Too bad because I think they will tend to confuse not only the already confused motorists but these cockamamie lanes will even confuse the cyclists. I am sure they were planned by motorist engineers.
In this first pic, we see a fairly normal looking bike lane. It is very narrow but it widens a bit up ahead. (Which is kinda weird)

At least it was over on the right side of the lane. Further on the bike lane goes out into the middle of the road.

Maybe this part was designed by an east side cyclist.....
Still, in other places, the bike lane lurches from side to side...


Curves are handled oddly. In one curve the bike lane goes extremely wide.

Yet in another bend it cuts the corner pretty hard.

One part of the lane goes off crawford completely & seems to want to head over onto Bercliff.

At Spring lawn cyclusts are offered the options of careening into a stop sign or heading up the middle of the east bound lane.

It looks like somebody may have opted for the stop sign already.
there appear to be special markings for recumbent cyclists which I don't understand.

Then again I don't understand why a person would ride such a low profiled vehicle in a busy city street. maybe that's why recumbents are routed up a dead end.

While this might just be the tragic result of hop head surveyors on acid, I think we can get along fine without bike lanes. I doubt a painted line would have had any influence on the asshole that pulled up next to me the other day & whose passenger tried shoving me over, anyway.