Lane Diets proposed.

Hey! I have a great idea! Let's try to convince more people to use bicycles by showing them that the local government considers cycling to be so dangerous as to need its own skinny corridors to the side of regular travel lanes!

We can make it illegal to use regular lanes if said bike lanes are anywhere in the vicinity (unless one is willing to recognize that the fine print is implied in 601KAR 14:020 (9)), so that other road users and law enforcement officers will have more reason to harass any cyclist not using "the approved space" while we're at it.

Then make helmets mandatory, because we all know that helmets prevent crashes!!

Shaking my head.

Oh, to be fair, I am not against all features of the road diet concept. I heartily agree that reducing motorist crashes is a good thing. I recognize and appreciate the idea that pulling motorized traffic away from a sidewalk makes using that sidewalk much more appealing. A road diet as proposed along Grinstead Drive can create room for a sidewalk on the south side of the pavement, where there is currently an absence of sidewalks, and I like the idea of making our community more walkable.

However, there is exactly zero need for a bike lane on either side of Grinstead through there. None. Given that a cyclist faces harassment for NOT using a bike lane, installation of bike lanes on this piece of Grinstead would take away from my trip quality. Grinstead would become another unpleasant segment, like Westport Road from St Matthews to Lyndon, with its unneeded bike lanes (that don't convince many--I regularly see people pedaling on the sidewalks).

I'd be more accepting of the idea if the plan was to mark that extra pavement as shoulders rather than bike lanes, and install Shared Lane Markings in the travel lanes (along with MUTCD R4-11 signage). Cyclists are allowed to use the shoulders at their own discretion. Cyclists who practice control and release may use the shoulder as a short-term release mechanism if road users collect behind the cyclist and use of the left turn lane as a passing lane isn't practicable. Sadly, some of the harassment would remain--some motorists cannot or will not discern the difference between a marked shoulder and a bike lane. Why isn't a city that wants to call itself "Bike friendly" (as opposed to "bicyclist-friendly") working on the harassment issue?