I don't understand why if bicyclists have nearly 3 feet of a bike lane to travel in, why they must ride on the line of the bike lane? Last week while walking down El Camino I was almost hit twice by bicyclists riding on the side walk, both without helmets and riding in the opposite direction of traffic travel. From my observation bicyclists are the most traffic law breaking travelers on the road, riding through stop signs, red lights. Once I see them riding in a manner that shows they are concerned for their own safety, I'll begin to care as well.

The widest of bike lanes, and sharrows all over the street, will not make bicyclists safe as long as they run red lights and stop signs. In one two week period I had 5 bicyclists run the red light in front of me with a green light my direction. I dare say they probably ran the other red lights and stop signs they came to as well. Location 1 at California and Renstorff, 3 at California and Escuela, 1 at Evelyn and Calderon.

"The widest of bike lanes, and sharrows all over the street, will not make bicyclists safe as long as they run red lights and stop signs."

Perhaps not, but they'll make cyclists who do obey traffic laws safer. We have infrastructure designed to make car drivers safer even though the majority of them speed on the highway, so it's not rational to punish all cyclists with unsafe conditions because some of them break the law.

Since most of you are categorizing all cyclists in one classification, I will Generally speak too. Many of you complaining don't ride, or you rode with the same lack of proper cycling etiquette, and therefore never taught your children how to ride properly, so they grew up riding like their peers, with little awareness of proper cycling habits. It takes a lot of retraining to teach a community how to ride properly. It's up to us knowing cyclist to set the right example when in the view of the community, and to teach the next generation proper and courteous cycling skills. Even my children, 7 and 10, ride on the road, use hand signals, stop, call out when passing pedestrians or slower cyclist. Often we live in a bubble. Many other communities, especially in Europe have thousands of more cyclist on the road than here in MV. and the overall community, personal health and environment is much better for it. 1/3 of all Americans are overweight. One of the primary factors besides the Western Diet, is lack of exercise.

Share the road idea is so wrong for a bike rider. Since cars crash into each other every day how do you think a bike will fair vs a car? Defensive riding just like motorcycles will keep you alive. I have seen bikes go the wrong way on the road, great for head on collisions. Bikes ride over to a left turn lane among cars going 35, stay on the right and use the cross walks you cant keep up. A bike riding down El Camino during rush hour, the bike was blind to anyone following a SUV or truck as everyone tried to pass. Until the city builds actual safe bike lanes the numbers will not drop. Castro was to be a safe pedestrian bike route but it is totally unsafe with uneven roads poor parking design (cars stick out into traffic) street gutters run with the bike and the death circles at the intersection. Did anyone on the design team ride a bike?

"I don't understand why if bicyclists have nearly 3 feet of a bike lane to travel in, why they must ride on the line of the bike lane?"


Simple enough. From my own experiences I have done just that on Central Expressway in Mountain View due to all the gravel, rocks and debris kicked into the bike lane by motor vehicles passing by at 45-60 mph. No problem with car tires, but potentially lethal to bicycle rubber. Some of those road bikes have tires with the pressure in pounds AND the cost in dollars in the triple digit range.

Some lanes are very rough too, sometimes with ripples or bumps from heavy maintenance vehicles. The white paint of the line can be a smooth relief to riders under those conditions.

Also, the portion of said expressway between Shoreline and Rengstorff has some nasty cracks, bumps and poor crack-patching jobs within it.


--> In a nutshell, street bicycles don't do well on poor surfaces. If you see riders on the white line, then there's probably an issue with the lane itself. Fix it, clean it and smooth it, and they will stay in the middle.

If you don't believe me, next time you see a rider on the line, grab a road bike and ride the same section. You'll see.