Thursday, April 01, 2004

Rumble Strips in a Bike Lane

The new Germantown Ave bridge in Philadelphia is beautiful, you could put a photo of it next to the definition of a Complete Street and shows that DOT's can do excellent work when they include strong public involvement. For those of you familiar with Philly, its in a location with heavy bike traffic next to Chestnut Hill College and near the north end of the 8 mile Forbidden Drive in Fairmount Park. There are bike lanes, and wide protected sidewalks and a crosswalk that leads to the bus stop.

However a close up view of the bike lane showed a very serious design flaw, there are rumble strips inside the bike lanes as they approach the bridge.

While the bicycling community may debate on the benefits and flaws on bike lanes there is a strong consensus that rumble strips are hazardous to bicyclists health

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