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Behold, the DIY Bike Lane
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Behold, the DIY Bike Lane
Filed Under: Bikes
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| Photo | Brian Howard's Android |
There's one across from Johnny Brenda's in Fishtown. It looks exactly like that one up top, too. Someone beeped at me while I was biking in it, and I have to admit, I momentarily thought, "What? I'm in a bike lane!"
On a related topic, the newly-painted Pine Street bike lane seems to be creating confusion for bicyclists and motorists. Bikers seem to be mistaking the narrow lane in the middle of the street for the bike lane. While this lane is perfectly bike-sized, it is in fact a buffer between the car lane on the left and equally wide bike lane on the right (designated with a painted biker). Motorists seem oblivious (or maliciously oblivious in the case of the cabbie who drove behind me with his horn on high) to the new bike lane.
I laughed at one of these on Brandywine between 18th and 19th in Fairmount. Looked just like the one pictured.
oh yes. they are at least from passyunk to 9th on morris. and i have friends that corroborate their presence in northern liberties as well. long live diy bike lane humor.
This picture is a more of a symbol that represents the lack of walkability in Philadelphia. Besides some designated areas such as Fairmount Park and the Drives, the rest of the city is unfriendly to the bike. Seeing as much of the city uses this form of transportation, one would think that more of an effort would be made to cultivate the biking and walking trend that has developed throughout the last decade. Obviously someone or a small group have bypassed the red tape of City government and taken matters into their own hands. More power to them.
I received an e-mail from Neighborhood Bike Works' Andy Dyson on this topic (and I hope he doesn't mind me quoting him here):I'm naturally intrigued by this happening in Philly, though I'd like to say IT WASN'T ME. I have mixed feelings about the whole thing... could make people take less notice of the real bike lanes, and then there's the issue of the efficacy of bike lanes to begin with.Dyson also passed along this link from Bicycling magazine about the DIY bike lane phenomenon bearing the provocative hed/sub: "Paint Your Lane: Do-it-yourself bike lanes are illegal, perhaps dangerous, potentially damaging to the cause of legitimate bike advocates everywhere —and really, really effective." In it, Dan Koeppel writes:But at first light on this July 19th, the only vehicles here on Fletcher Drive are three bikes, and those have been stashed in the brush. The cyclists who left them there are setting out traffic cones on the road. When the right-hand lane has been blocked off, the cyclists walk back to the shoulder to retrieve the object that, over the past few weeks, they have come to refer to as The Machine. The $99 Rust-Oleum 2395000 looks like a tiny, four-wheeled wagon with low ground clearance and a handle that angles backward and up from the bed. The cargo area, so low it sits between the wheels rather than above them, is equipped with a mount for spray-paint cans; in the unused space, you can store five or six extra cans upright, ready to swap in when one runs dry. The 2395000 is most commonly used to create parking-lot stripes.
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