Actually, the portion of the bike lane on Second Avenue between 14th Street and Houston is buffered.

I hope Transportation Alternative does a survey to see how cyclists feel about steets with “sharrows” like Grand Street. I feel safest on streets with sharrows because: 1) I don’t have to worry about being doored; and 2) I feel confident taking the whole lane. In fact, I think the Eighth Avenue bike lane would be significantly safer if the unbuffered sections were marked with sharrows and “Shared Lane” signs. The portions of the Eighth Avenue lane that are unbuffered are somewhat harrowing at times.

Re: Sharrows:

WHY are they usually painted close to the edge, rather than in the middle of the actual travel space? On the edge, they effectively become an un-buffered Class II lane, which are, you know, crap.

The sharrows are not necessarily preferable to the lanes, in my view, for the following reasons:

1) Most motorists don’t yet know what the sharrows mean.

2) Lanes are more visible than sharrows in heavy traffic. The cars are on top of the sharrows in heavy traffic, you can’t even tell you are on a sharrowed street.

3) Sharrows have further visibility problem in that they seem to wear off sooner. Even if parts of a lane wear off, your eye “conencts the dots” and discerns the lane.
4) For most begininers, they feel better having their own segregated space in a lane (even if the lane is invaded in practice) than have a presumption that they are just like a car mixing directly with motor vehicle traffic.

5) For kids, a lane serves a visual guide that helps them ride more predictably which is safer for everyone.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not anti-sharrow. I think they would be an appropriate treatment in certain situations–for example, on the East Side Greenway connector routes on First and Second Avenues in midtown. On those routes, the cars would ignore a traditional Class II anyway. Class II lanes there would give a false sense of security, possibly create danger with bicyclists shifting in and out of the lane constantly to avoid cars while trying to obey the law requiring them to use the Class II “when safe and available.”

But I would not want to replace non-buffered class II routes with sharrows. I would rather have every bicyclist that feels comfortable doing so taking the roadway as if it were sharrowed, with traditional Class II lanes in place for those who do not feel comfortable doing so.

It’s deceptive of you to write that “[b]uffered bike lanes are safer than conventional lanes.” It would be more appropriate to conclude that buffered bikes increase perception of safety in comparison to conventional lanes. The difference is significant.

Besides, wouldn’t surveying cyclists who are using the buffered lane indicate a self-selection bias of people already predisposed to such an arrangement? A better study would survey randomly chosen cyclists.

The survey is useless as a matter of guiding public policy.

Having the bike lanes as part of the roads is insane. It doesn’t work! Why don’t we do it like they do in Germany? Make the bike lanes part of the sidewalks.

Perhaps to clear up confusion, the post’s headline should be “Survey Finds That Buffered Bike Lanes Are Preferred.”

To really be a pain, since we don’t know if they are preferred among the general biking population:

“Survey Finds That Buffered Bike Lanes Are Preferred by People who Choose to Use Them”

TA is a great organization, but sometime I don’t get the point of some of their ‘studies’ or their ‘statistics’.

The survey seems newsworthy to me (at least for a blog) but the perception vs. reality issue is also important. I’ve heard it suggested that the buffer should go between the row of parked cars and the bicycle lane, not between the traffic lane and the bike lane. It is possible that this approach more closely reflects where the danger to bicyclists is coming from, at least during the 90% of the time the bicyclist is traveling mid-block rather than at the intersection. It might also discourage the double parking on the buffer one sees so often on 8th and Lafayette. However to the extent the Class II bike lanes are intended for beginners and others moving at slower speeds, there is likely a perception among this group that the greater danger comes from the traffic lane. I think the best use of Class II lanes is for beginners and other slower bicyclists, that the dooring hazard is reduced for this group in any event, and that putting the buffer between them and the traffic lane is the right approach even if it reflects perception more than reality.