Bicycle advocates have been pushing for new expanded lanes and dedicated bicycle lanes for decades, claiming that bicycle lanes that are parallel to the flow of traffic but are separated from traffic, improve safety. The City of New Orleans, like many cities, has been adding bicycle lanes over the last few years but now has reversed its policy.

Over 75 miles of planned bicycle lanes will no longer be installed and the already installed bicycle lanes in New Orleans neighborhoods are being removed. After significant community push back, the city council of West Bank New Orleans voted unanimously to remove the lanes.

Among many of the problems associated with separate, or protected bicycle lanes, is the false sense of security they give a cyclist. A Forbes report last year, quoting a book published through MIT by John Forester, “Effective Cycling”, estimates that accidents on bike lanes are 2.6 times more likely than normal roads. This sounds counter intuitive until you consider intersections are where the majority of accidents occur. In fact, Forester estimates you are more than 90% more likely to have an accident on a bicycle while turning at an intersection than anywhere else.

Another author, Jan Heine, has an older, but still compelling argument showing other reasons protected bicycle lanes along the side of general traffic can be a problem. She argues that drivers who would normally be looking for cyclists in the road don’t see the bicycles in the separated area and will turn in front of the cyclist, often with fatal consequences. Jan states, “Any barrier that separates the cyclist visually from other traffic effectively hides the cyclist. This is counterproductive to safety.”

Now it seems, New Orleans has come to the same conclusion and realized that the lanes have not only created a safety hazard but have restricted the flow of general traffic and reduced parking and street access. The investment was not worth the return.

Closer to home, Bellevue is engaged in an extensive bicycle lane program across its downtown area. Many of the lanes share the roadway and don’t have the same problems as the New Orleans lanes, but in other locations, such as 108^th Street and Main Street in downtown Bellevue, similar issues exist, particularly around the intersections.

The average volume of bicycle riders per hour has dropped over the last few years, according to data published on the City of Bellevue website, which has helped reduce the potential for collisions, but the underlying problem remains. The bicycle data is collected from counters located in 15 key areas, including Main Street, which incidentally, enjoys an average of 2 bicycles per hour on the corridor. Overall, 0.25% of the trips taken in Bellevue, are taken by bicycles.

In California, a court in Los Angeles ruled that the city violated ADA rules when installing its bicycle lanes. Plaintiff Ron Sarfaty found his side-loading wheelchair lift would no longer reach directly onto the sidewalk, and he was forced to wheel a significant distance in bicycle traffic to get to a curb ramp. In its rush to install bicycle lanes, the city failed to consider other road users in its planning and now will have to re-engineer the lanes.

Bicycle lane advocates push for expanded lanes, often at the expense of other road users. City planners and leaders rush to appease the vocal, and politically organized bicycle advocacy groups, plan poorly and create new mobility problems in their communities.

Bicycle lanes aren’t a bad idea, but they do need to be planned properly, appropriately funded and should be not be built at the expense of other legitimate road uses.

City planners should study the problems New Orleans and other cities have had with protected bicycle lanes. The lanes, if not designed well, install a false sense of security and come with a hefty price tag along with the loss of parking, ADA access and increased congestion for general purpose traffic.