Biking Traffic Lights

[jpo]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/02/bicycle-traffic-signals/1739299/

Looks like these are sprouting up in some of the more liberal metropolitan areas, including Denver, right down the road from MMM himself. Anyone seen one in real life yet?

[zug]

Yeah, they're all over Davis, California.

I hate them. Davis is a college town and it just reinforces the idea to the new college students that bicycles are somehow different than cars and that they don't have to follow the same traffic laws as normal vehicles.

Davis has very heavy bike traffic and they're constantly running stopsigns and redlights, crossing from the road to the sidewalk back to the road to avoid traffic, and plenty of other really dangerous activities.

[capital]

There are a few in New York City.

Bicycles are different from cars, in any case. Traffic lights were invented in the 1920s to deal with the unprecedented danger that automobiles created in cities, and it makes sense to follow them where bicyclists are in the extreme minority, but as biking becomes more popular in many cities, we should change our transportation system to make efficient bicycle travel easier, rather than expecting bicyclists to follow rules not designed for them.

There are certainly plenty of idiotic and dangerous bicyclists, and they annoy me to no end, but expecting bicyclists to behave like little cars isn't the solution.

[Nudelkopf]

There are some in my city, Brisbane (Australia). I think it's mainly because there are some roads/bridges that are for buses & bikes.

Actually, Brisbane has quite a number of bike paths, so when the bike paths cross major roads, it makes sense that they get their own lights as well.

[onemorebike]

They are fantastic! We've got one in Denver (with more to come). They are used primarily at intersections where the bicycles getting out in front of the cars is safer than having them go at the same time. There are some pretty significant differences between bicycles and cars - while riding one like a car has been proven to be the safest way to do so on U.S. roads, I think there may be many advantages to rethinking that in the long term to prioritize the passage of bicycles to encourage easy and frequent use.

As for Davis, my buddy recently took the job of the bicycle and pedestrian planner there (hailing from Ft. Collins, CO) so I hope things are going smashingly. :)