Bike lanes are good for business

[hindesky]

https://www.businessinsider.com/bike-lanes-good-for-business-studies-better-streets-2024-3

[editor]

3 hours ago, hindesky said:

https://www.businessinsider.com/bike-lanes-good-for-business-studies-better-streets-2024-3

Anecdotally, I have switched from shopping at the hardware store on Westheimer to the hardware store on 11th Street ever since the bike lanes went in.  

I prefer the calmer, safer 11th Street to the chaos of Westheimer.  As a bonus, it's nice to not have to worry about making a left turn out of the parking lot onto a four-lane speedway anymore.

[Ross]

13 hours ago, editor said:

Anecdotally, I have switched from shopping at the hardware store on Westheimer to the hardware store on 11th Street ever since the bike lanes went in.  

I prefer the calmer, safer 11th Street to the chaos of Westheimer.  As a bonus, it's nice to not have to worry about making a left turn out of the parking lot onto a four-lane speedway anymore.

It is not possible that you are using 11th due to the bike lanes. According to Nextdoor, the 11th Street bike lanes are a total disaster, and are destroying the lives of car drivers daily by increasing travel times by 15 seconds and making it impossible to drive 55mph while taking the kids to school🤣 I had one person tell me that people who want to walk or bike should use Heights or the Nicholson trail, even those go North and South, and do not go to every place someone might want to walk to.

C&D Hardware on 11th is a good store that has pretty much everything you could ever want.

[editor]

17 hours ago, Ross said:

It is not possible that you are using 11th due to the bike lanes. According to Nextdoor, the 11th Street bike lanes are a total disaster, and are destroying the lives of car drivers daily by increasing travel times by 15 seconds and making it impossible to drive 55mph while taking the kids to school🤣 I had one person tell me that people who want to walk or bike should use Heights or the Nicholson trail, even those go North and South, and do not go to every place someone might want to walk to.

C&D Hardware on 11th is a good store that has pretty much everything you could ever want.

Thinking about it further, I think the only reason I discovered C&D is because I was traveling more slowly on 11th Street, instead of blowing past it without noticing, as I had the previous few years.

That said, the 11th Street bike lane project isn't perfect.  Someone should have come up with a way for people to make left turns at the Heights Boulevard intersection.  I think that's one of the biggest factors sending unwanted traffic roaming through the neighborhood.

[hbg.50]

9 minutes ago, editor said:

Someone should have come up with a way for people to make left turns at the Heights Boulevard intersection.

People still do it anyway.  I lay on my horn when cars do that.   Makes me so mad.   Some people feel so entitled that the law doesn't apply to them...like the people that walk their dogs without a leash... "special" people... 

[editor]

1 hour ago, steve1363 said:

People still do it anyway.  I lay on my horn when cars do that.   Makes me so mad.   Some people feel so entitled that the law doesn't apply to them...like the people that walk their dogs without a leash... "special" people... 

I do the same.  But I think at least part of it is that people are used to turning there, and it's been my observation that No Left Turn signs across Houston are often not very prominent in size or placement.

Here's Westheimer at Avalon Place, where a few days ago I sat behind someone trying to make an illegal left turn.  (I didn't honk this time because someone was between us.)

If someone is making a left turn from the left lane, they're not looking for the No Left Turn sign all the way over on the right sidewalk.  The geometry of the curbs should be some indication that this isn't a good place to turn, but there should be more to it than that.  Whatever good citizen placed those cones on the sidewalk when the Apple Maps car went by knows it's a problem, but those cones were long gone by the time I was there last week.

It's just part of the Houston ethos: "Ah, that's good enough."  No, it's not.

There should be a No Left Turn sign on the little concrete island along with a Do Not Enter sign facing southwest.

And if that doesn't work, we should get all Washington, D.C. with it:

 

[Ross]

34 minutes ago, editor said:

I do the same.  But I think at least part of it is that people are used to turning there, and it's been my observation that No Left Turn signs across Houston are often not very prominent in size or placement.

Here's Westheimer at Avalon Place, where a few days ago I sat behind someone trying to make an illegal left turn.  (I didn't honk this time because someone was between us.)

If someone is making a left turn from the left lane, they're not looking for the No Left Turn sign all the way over on the right sidewalk.  The geometry of the curbs should be some indication that this isn't a good place to turn, but there should be more to it than that.  Whatever good citizen placed those cones on the sidewalk when the Apple Maps car went by knows it's a problem, but those cones were long gone by the time I was there last week.

It's just part of the Houston ethos: "Ah, that's good enough."  No, it's not.

There should be a No Left Turn sign on the little concrete island along with a Do Not Enter sign facing southwest.

And if that doesn't work, we should get all Washington, D.C. with it:

 

That's a great way to make the no left turn more visible. They need these at Shepherd and Westheimer.

[samagon]

On 3/10/2024 at 10:46 AM, editor said:

Thinking about it further, I think the only reason I discovered C&D is because I was traveling more slowly on 11th Street, instead of blowing past it without noticing, as I had the previous few years.

That said, the 11th Street bike lane project isn't perfect.  Someone should have come up with a way for people to make left turns at the Heights Boulevard intersection.  I think that's one of the biggest factors sending unwanted traffic roaming through the neighborhood.

I don't understand needing to go through neighborhood streets though. I can easily go up to the next intersection, do a u-turn, and then go right on 11th

there should be a solution for a left turn though.

I have to wonder if there might be enough room for a roundabout? well, I'm sure with this mayor that won't happen, but maybe for the next mayor they can at least go measure the dimensions to see if it would fit TXDoT recommended specs.

Edited March 18 by samagon

[editor]

21 hours ago, samagon said:

I have to wonder if there might be enough room for a roundabout?

That's an interesting idea.  I've seen mini-roundabouts in tighter locations than that in other cities, so maybe it's possible.  

But since there's so much pedestrian traffic, there would need to be some lights or other means of causing traffic breaks for non-motorized traffic.

[Triton]

On 3/18/2024 at 9:23 AM, samagon said:

I don't understand needing to go through neighborhood streets though. I can easily go up to the next intersection, do a u-turn, and then go right on 11th

there should be a solution for a left turn though.

Totally agree here and it's odd because I remember seeing a presentation several years back where they had a left turn lane further down that allowed you to u-turn back. Strange that they never implemented it.