I've noticed that a number of the waterfront bike lane candlesticks have been knocked over. If I had to guess, it's 5-10% of them. After seeing this happen, I read over at Bike Portland that a similar thing is happening to a bike lane where candlesticks were only just installed.
What does this say about the quality of driver on the road when devices designed to constrain drivers and protect vulnerable road users are knocked over or destroyed with regularity?
The photos below are from 29th and Liberty where after we asked the city to do something about the crosswalk there they installed yield signs that were subsequently destroyed in short order.
How are they being knocked down? People cannot stay in their lanes? Or simple malice, someone intentionally driving over them?
Personally I like the candlestick idea. They seem to be working (or worked in the past) fairly well in other areas, like outbound Forbes at Lawn/Ophelia. I'd like to see more of these. Separating traffic from bikes in the Wabash Tunnel comes to mind.
anyone notice a couple of the second avenue/irvine street jersey barriers slightly out-of-straightness a few weeks back? takes quite a love tap to do that.
I would be willing to bet that it is mostly people unable to stay in the lane or drivers who do not understand the importance of staying in a lane.
If you're driving from the Rankin side you can see the very first one where the lane starts was smashed and flattened. You can see where some are simply scratched from cars hitting them.
I wish they would do the vehicles a lot of damage when hit.
Oo, nothing malicious but how about...dye capsules. Hee, hee!
+1 dye capsules
Nothing real permanent, just a thick but water-based stain that will stay put through about five car washes, enough to "l'arn 'em a lesson" about staying in lane.
Yes, nothing permanent, just something to say to the world "duh, I don't know how to friggen' drive".
No, If you can't drive on the road, your car should get messed up permanently. I think if people don't want dents or scratches on their precious vehicles, they shouldn't do dangerous, stupid things. There needs to be consequences, not a slap on the wrist.
Every place I've seen those things installed at a crosswalk (usu. after a ped is struck) they are destroyed within a week. The one they had for a while at Liberty and Mathilda got knocked down pretty much every day.
I know younger kids like to hit them.
I had a dude swerve to pass me (on my bike) and run one of those crossing things over. There were plenty of sparks.
I see 18 wheelers hit the a lot.
The little town of Irwin I live in put these at ped crossing points in town, but after three months moved them to ON the sidewalks or on the edge of the road (right where I bike). I called to boro, and they said it was because people kept hitting them on a daily basis.
But it can work. There are always a couple of these on Perry Hwy in West View and the hamlet of Perrysville. Despite a steady flow of buses to/from Ross Garage, and a plethora of other vehicles, I've never seen one crunched.
I did see one get driven over, while sitting in Perry Perk. Apparently it's a design issue. It was on a spring, so simply popped back up, post-Buick.
Just saw this on Twitter, from PDX-land: http://twitter.com/#!/BikePortland/status/152079806094258176/photo/1
and here I thought someone was festive and put actual candlesticks out to welcome cyclists and pedestrians, or perhaps a menorah.
Friend of mine accidentally drove over one of those black rubber bases in his work van, it did enough damage to the alignment/frame that it was considered totaled (it still drove and only had ~40k miles on it, but it had a distinct shimmy and no longer liked highway speeds). In his defence, it was lying solo in the tire track of a highway lane, apparently having fallen off the back of a truck or something (he reported it to Pendot).
When motorists can't avoid large, stationary, permanent, reflective, predictable things, that is a symptom of a larger problem that requires fixing - that fix should not include accomidating the incompetant by removing the "obstacle". That mentality is the same that confuses "public roads" with "car and truck highways".
They make flashy plastic jersey barrier things that can be filled with water or sand. Maybe they would do the trick.
Maybe some of them spaced out would work better as a deterrent while still providing safety to drivers that stray into things.
