Hi all! New member just starting out bike commuting, most of my commute would be a nice bike trail EXCEPT for this one intersection. Coming back from work, I would be making a left turn from Downer Pl onto River St, and the combination of protected bike lane and right side of the street when heading west is breaking my brain.
How do I cross safely? The bike lane is protected on the sides with a small brick wall making it so I can't leave the bike lane before the intersection to make a left turn. Am I overthinking this?
Thanks for any help and advice!
by Diligent-Dentist-639
16 Comments
What in the world is that?
No clue mate, well I guess you simply have to wait for the cars to be gone so you can cross.
Who the hell designed that..
ride straight though like you are continuing down the street, but then turn onto the bike lane. correctly set up, You should be able to on the green light and crossing right lane should have a no-turn-on-red sign. This is tricky though.
Play it safe, if you cant make eye contact with someone, assume they dont see you and are going to try turning into your path.
Just do exactly like your blue arrow.
Looking at [the street view](https://imgur.com/jExG5VF), the green bike lane extends across the zebra crossing, so you should be able to cross fairly easily. Wait at the light for River, pull forward to behind the zebra crossing and wait until it’s clear, then go over the zebra crossing and head left, looking for oncoming traffic turning right.
Worst case scenario, dismount your bike, walk over the pedestrian crossing, hit the Walk button, wait for the cross walk sign, cross the street, then get back on the bike on the other side.
Whoever designed this intersection clearly has never bike a day in their life. Ideally you do a two-stage turn, pulling over to the right (to let other cyclists pass) and waiting for the signal to turn green on River before proceeding.
The risk, though, is that they haven’t prohibited right turn on red. So pulling over to the right could put you at risk of getting side-swiped by a vehicle turning right from Downer onto River. So I would just pull over to the sidewalk until the light turns green on River and cross then.
A smarter DOT would have banned right on red at this intersection to avoid conflicts with turning cars and bikes and would have installed leading bike signals so bikes can clear the intersection before cars start moving.
Looks like a bike box https://youtube.com/shorts/zC–xnf0o-o?si=E4NdYnLmI0Cxafjv
Travel on Downer PL in the bike lane toward River Street.
At River, go to the sidewalk to the right, cross with the zebra stripes across Downer.
Once across Downer, get to the River Street protected lane.
I do not care what the law says and who has the right of way, I am working hard to stay alive.
It does look like this is a 4 way stop. So if everybody plays nice you may not die.
Can’t seem to figure this out. These are two one-way streets? And the bike lane on River St goes against the flow of car traffic? Whereas the lane on Downer Place goes with the flow of car traffic? Although it has an arrow on it pointing in the opposite direction 🤔
So this is an intersection of two streets that each have a protected 2-way bikeway on one side of them. Arrows look like cyclists closest to motor traffic are going in the opposite direction as the motor traffic – I wouldn’t really like to travel these streets in that direction.
If I were approaching from the east and turning left, I’d basically do a box left turn except that I’d only have to cross the bikeway before waiting in the “box”, not the entire street.
No matter which way you’re going I imagine that you have to keep an eye out for turning motorists who failed to keep an eye out for you.
Pull onto the sidewalk on the right and wait for the pedestrian or bike light, then cross over on the crosswalk and hop back on the bike lane.
two ways:
either “dutch” it by stopping at the near side of the intersection and crossing liked a pedestrian with the cross-walk or…
merge with traffic into the turning lane and cross like a car.
Close your eyes and send it. You should be able to get through a couple times without any issue.
You’re over thinking it. There’s a pedestrian cross walk. So if people refuse to stop for the bike cross hop on to the side walk press the button and walk across if your city is crazy about bikes and side walks.
I would cross river st on the protected bike lane to get to the far side of river st. Then making sure there is no traffic crossing River st on Downer Pl, I would complete my left turn crossing Downer Pl onto River St.
Dodge the cars
any intersection where you are unsure it’s usually best to dismount and cross on foot as a pedestrian.
Once you figure out the traffic and particular characteristics of the intersection then you might find a safe way to ride though.