Seems not all Portland, OR cyclists blindly subscribe to the government line on bike lane door zones. Some safety-conscious cyclists have made the point rather clearly and shared it with their fellow cyclists exactly where and when they need to see it (what social marketers call an “interrupt”).
I think the graphic could be a bit more clear by adding a dashed line to the left; adding “CYCLISTS KEEP OUT” would be even better (though that gets to be an unwieldy stencil).
Fortunately this bike lane is wide enough that one can keep out of the door zone without leaving the lane. The same cannot be said for the ones in Baldwin Park. One would need to stencil the full width of those.
This photo reminds me of a story (perhaps apocryphal) of the cyclists who hijacked a striping machine in some major eastern city and striped bike lanes in the middle of the night. While many readers of this blog would disagree with that strategy from either legal and/or vehicular cycling principles, it speaks to a method of encouraging governments to address an issue.
In Bedford, England the government actually did something comparable.
Our bicycle lane system in Springfield has a few stretches of this dangerous nonsense. I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on a stencil like that. I would gladly engage in a little civil disobedience to re-mark those lanes.
Here’s my idea of painting encouragement
@Keri: I like it.
Keri: do you know where that photo was taken? And why they did that? (I’m assuming that’s not Photoshopped.)
Mighk,
My guess is somewhere near Chapel Hill, NC. Wayne sent it to me a year or so ago. I don’t have any details other than the paint was removed after a few days. I’ll ask if there’s more of a story behind it.
I think it was photoshopped.
I carry a can of road-marking paint in my panniers for just such occasions.
Any Yehuda Moon fans? There was a great series of cartoons done where Yehuda striped some lanes … and local govt., while not pleased, acknowledged that getting it done came in cheaper and faster than any govt. process could have accomplished ….
http://www.yehudamoon.com/index.php?date=2008-04-07
Mighk asked about the photo. It was taken by Wayne on E. Franklin Street in Chapel Hill NC (looking west). The painters are unknown.
It definitely wasn’t photoshopped. He sent me 3 more photos from different angles.
More painting encouragement (most certainly Photoshopped):
(I’m commenting now because I just happened upon this article in a Google search and linked to it, with the picture, on a thread on my local group where we are discussing some DZBL’s that Portland Maine just painted.
)
Dang, my guess about how to embed images didn’t work. How about this?
[img]http://photos2.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/5/0/b/e/event_1040670.jpeg[/img]
Nope. Okay then, I’m afraid you’ll just have to follow the link:
http://photos2.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/5/0/b/e/event_1040670.jpeg