Comments on: Should you ride on the sharrows in St. Louis?

By: Martin Pion

Martin Pion — Sun, 15 May 2011 00:01:39 +0000

I’ve just spotted this thread and so my comment is dated but it’s still relevant.
I used to think sharrows (now officially called “Shared Lane Markings” by MUTCD) were a good compromise between on-road cyclists who don’t want any cycling-specific paint on the road and bike lane advocates, but no more.
I’ve seen sharrows added in Ferguson, North St. Louis County, for the first time and surprisingly even the one well out in the lane suffers from door-zone-itis.
CONCLUSION: Paint is simply no substitute for learning how to use a bicycle as a vehicle operator, with equal access to the public right-of-way, i.e. the road.

By: Cyndi

Cyndi — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 22:37:22 +0000

I’ve wondered if those markings make drivers think that is where cyclists should be riding. As in, “get over in that space that has been provided and marked for you and let me get around!”

I don’t, of course

By: Karen

Karen — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 02:03:01 +0000

Hmm. Here’s what it says on the Bike St. Louis website: “Signage on the routes is both MUTCD standard signage as well as custom designed signage by Kiku Obata that marks the route and provides point of interest directions and distances.” I will ask to confirm, but that might indeed be the case that Bike St. Louis “sharrows” are not the real deal. Still, what would the harm be in placing them where they would not put anyone in harm’s way?

By: John Brooking

John Brooking — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 01:25:57 +0000

Regarding space from the door, you should *definitely* allow extra space to avoid being startled into swerving.

By: John Brooking

John Brooking — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 01:23:06 +0000

I’m still up in the air on sharrows. They still suffer from what all bicycle paint infrastructure suffers from, which is that it is placed and striped by non-cyclists, who know nothing about riding a bike in traffic, blindly following simplistic measurements from standards documents without really knowing why. And then there’s the gap between what the designer designs and what the painters paint. I swear painters never question anything. There’s no sense of common sense.

By: Keri

Keri — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 00:29:04 +0000

The Bike St Louis arrow isn't a sharrow. Do you know if their intention was a route marking or a lane position marking? The politics of sharrows is pretty disgusting. It costs nothing to place a sharrow farther left. You need no extra right of way, no extra pavement, no extra paint to place a sharrow OUTSIDE the area where a cyclist can get killed. Think about the psychology (maybe pathology is a better word) of placing it in the door zone when it costs NOTHING to place it outside the door zone.