On August 17th of last year, 41-year-old Joe Bennett was riding his bike south on N. Vancouver Ave when he was involved in a collision with a Lexus SUV driven by 37-year-old Faith Galderisi. Prior to the collision, Ms. Galderisi was stopped at Vancouver, facing westbound on N. Graham. According to police, she thought the intersection was clear and pulled across Vancouver but “didn’t see the bicyclist” coming south to her right.
“On field visits, PBOT traffic engineers observed people on bikes disregarding pedestrians’ right of away.”
— Dan Anderson, PBOT
Bennett “had no time to stop” says the police report, and he flew over the hood of Galderisi’s SUV, injuring his left elbow, wrists, lower back and knees.
The police cited Galderisi for “Failure to Obey a Traffic Control Device.”
This intersection, which is right in front of Legacy Emanuel Hospital, has seen several similar collisions. PBOT has recorded four of them since 2008. Concerned about people bicycling and about their patients crossing the street, Legacy asked PBOT to do something about it. When City engineers conducted field observations, they noticed the collision potential — and they also “observed people on bikes disregarding pedestrians’ right of way,” says City spokesman Dan Anderson.
Anderson says PBOT engineers put together a diagram to illustrate the problem…
Yesterday, PBOT unveiled new pavement markings aimed at reducing conflicts and making the intersection safer for everyone.
The markings consist of words in the bike lane that read “Stop Here for Peds” and a new block of green color through the Graham intersection. According to PBOT, total cost was $2,200.
Have you noticed the markings? (They’re sort of hard to miss!)
Love it. I also want way more cyclists busted for right-of-way violations – as an important bicycle advocacy measure. Real fines or diversion class.
Are you kidding, that will really get more people out of there cars. Nothing says advocacy like punishment. you can’t possibly be a cyclist. I get waved threw at just about every 4 way stop I come too. What is your right of way complaint about
Keep pointing fingers….
I ain’t owned a car since ’95. Right-of-way laws make sense to me. When walkers, riders, and drivers following them, safety and mutual respect results. Not following them can cause fear which quickly leads to anger. Not following them as a cyclist promotes the scofflaw/entitled reputation of cyclists. People whose right-of-way is disregarded/disrespected are often voters.
“Waving through” is a case where a road user voluntarily gives up their right-of-way. I’m not really talking about those situations.
Make sense?
Oops-grammar yuckiness- should be…People whose rights-of-way are disregarded/disrespected…
Bottom line – want respect on the road? Act respectful. I see lots of disrespectful cyclist behavior. I think this would be different if more citations were made. I think this would lead to greater respect for cyclists by…voters.
Gotcha! Thanks for clearing that up. Not the grammar thing I don’t care about that. I read into your comment incorrectly.
Cheers
Cool. Thanks for the dialog.
Yesterday I politely told another cyclist who ran through a red light I was stopped at that he was “making all of us look bad” and he flipped me off. I think we need to do a little more self-policing too.
While I agree with the sentiment, I was about 100 feet away from the event you are referring to and everyone was uncomfortably staring at you (Myself included) for screaming and making a bigger deal about it than it seemed to be to everyone else walking around. When someone is being screamed at repeatedly, they are more likely to be combative to any real behavioral change.
I hope you’re not replying to me because from your description, you were obviously not around when I commented to the red light runner that I saw.
When I see another cyclist calling out I often purposely break traffic laws to make a point. A bike scofflaw is a minor nuisance but an inattentive driver propelling tons of metal is a public menace.
Nice attitude!
So you admit you are a dick. Nice!
someone should purposely punch you…just to make a point. After all, it’s less harm than someone driving a car around.
whats it to you if i choose to break a minor traffic law? does this really merit assault? i think your response proves that the “calling out” bike scofflaws is about rage, not safety or respect.
grow up.
No, It’s about making clear to other cyclists that we don’t approve of the behavior and that you are hurting the public’s perception of cyclist’s as a group. Most of the resistance to city-wide biking programs is based on a belief that cyclist’s don’t obey traffic laws.
slave mentality (responding to ryan, but we are out of nests)
Most people don’t react positively to being told what to do by a stranger. At the risk of violating that principle myself, another approach for a bicycle ambassador might be to glance at nearbye motorists to see if they watched the bad actor, and if they did then make some disapproving gesture like rolling your eyes at the scofflaw, or shrugging your shoulders and shaking your head, or giving the “coo-coo” gesture with a nod at the perp. In other words, let the driver know that you, a bicyclist, don’t approve of that sort of action by other bicyclists. Sign off with a smile.
no offense, but wtf is a “coo-coo” gesture?
Point your index finger at your head and wiggle it in a circle around your temple. Perhaps it should fade away in the annals of childhood history.
I usually say something like, “it’s ok to stop at red lights!”
Are you one of the people I see blow through the red light a block north of here almost daily (while I and usually several other cyclists are stopped as the law requires)? If so I’d love to see you get a $200+ citation for failure to obey.
yes thats me, sigma.
:rolls eyes:
To complement that, I’d like to see some enforcement on the need for pedestrians to use the provided sidewalk, such as found along roadways, instead of jogging down the bike lane, and to the edge of the roadway, in other cases and along the Springwater and Westside corridors.
Paul, I too find that frustrating when I encounter a pedestrian in the bike lane, but it should be pointed out that jogging on asphalt is much gentler on feet than concrete. If you ever have to run on one or the other for more than a few minutes you can feel the difference. Plus, depending on the street the sidewalks can be hazardous as a jogger depending on how close and large trees have grown next to them. So again while as a cyclist I find the pedestrian in the street to be mildly annoying, I try to keep in mind that it typically isn’t enough of a problem that I think citations or law enforcement should be involved (particularly when considering the needs of joggers and how sidewalks really don’t facilitate that activity well).
sorry, but what exactly is so difficult about moving to the left a few feet and letting the pedestrian/jogger come on through? we seem to be operating under a scarcity mentality here.
If you attend a diversion class, in a power point presentation, you will see a photo of Meiying Lui and her son Jin just after they were struck and killed by SUV on SE Foster.
I saw them when they were painting them early this week and the completed signs when I road in this morning. I like them. I’ve seen far more bikes then cars fail to yield to pedestrians at that crosswalk, including bikes that continued through when a car or cyclist stopped in front of them for a pedestrian. It is a safety issue and just plain old common courtesy. Hopefully this reminder will help.
Getting creamed by an SUV should be a pretty good deterrent to cyclists breaking the law and not yielding to pedestrians in the crosswalk. Sounds like Karma to me.
i think your understanding of karma needs clarification
In the photo, is that Contador stopping for the P.E.D.s?
If Bennett “had no time to stop” I think it’s safe to assume she was “driving too fast to operate her vehicle safely.”
The markings look good though – I just wish PBOT (and other cities in the Metro area) would install the “Stop for Peds” language everywhere motor vehicles have failed to stop for pedestrians.
Galderisi pulled directly in front of Bennet leaving him no time to stop before hitting her suv…
so obviously she was going too fast since she should have been stopped… hehe…
Will, I’m pretty sure you got the names mixed up here. Bennett was on the bike, not in the car.
And how do you propose Mr Bennett get anywhere efficiently if he slows to a near stop at every instance where a driver could possibly, possib!y, break the law and drive in front of him. Recall that he had the right of way, and the driver pulled out in front of him. We’d all be riding 5 miles an hour if we slowed to a speed that would allow us to avoid every single person who might fail to yield. Mr Bennett was surely operating his vehicle safely, but Ms Galderisi crashed into him.
“We’d all be riding 5 miles an hour” … you might be on to something…
Does anyone know the average inner-city riding speed in the Netherlands? maybe 8-10 mph?
and yet the very same is expected from drivers.
One could argue he was biking to fast for conditions…or failed to avoid an accident.
interesting that they put the “stop here for peds” words top to bottom instead of bottom to top as they usually do with approaching pavement markings… you’d especially think they would want the word “stop” to be the first one you encounter…
That is interesting. I must say that this style agrees with my brain better than the conventional “bottom to top” style. I always find myself reading the conventional style backwards. Something about bicycle speed maybe.
“Something about bicycle speed maybe.”
I’m thinking the same thing… we have more time to read it properly in its entirety…
I wonder what the traffic engineer discussions were like. The (theoretically) slower speed of a bicycle may not need the backwards-flow of auto lane markings.
This is my small nitpick too. It’s not consistent with other lane markings that are installed to read while rolling, so when I rolled up to it last week I saw PEDS HERE FOR STOP. Regardless, a welcome addition to Vancouver Ave’s pedestrian network. Wish they would look into this sort of markings for the vehicular travel lanes in other troublesome spots.
If the car can’t see the bike coming, can the bike see the pedestrian at the end of the crosswalk? The cars stopped should be a clue though.
If the bike lane is a lane, don’t you only have to stop once the pedestrian is in an adjacent lane? (The every corner is a crosswalk video?) It seems very possible to get hit by a car there while not violating anyone’s right of way.
If there is a vehicle stopped at an intersection in Oregon, all vehicles approaching that intersection are also legally required to stop and yield as well.
We must assume that they are stopped for peds.
I believe so. That’s my understanding of the pedestrian right of way laws in Oregon, Psyfalcon.
If a car is stopped at a crosswalk, you MUST stop, per Oregon law. This is commonly violated by both motorists and cyclists.
Using PBOT’s own video, the third lane does not need to stop. Is the video, and Portland’s own public outreach wrong?
At 0:50 and 2:33 or so.
Forgot the link.
http://www.portlandonline.com/mayor/?a=248292&c=49521
Again, I have taken the teachings of PBOT as to be legally informed and understand that to be how vehicles (cyclists included) must observe pedestrian right-of-way laws (i.e. you stop and remain stopped while they’re in your lane and the adjacent lane which may include parking “lanes” and not just travel lanes depending on the street).
I’ve almost been hit by cyclists a number of times on williams and vancouver when out walking my dog. It is a good issue to raise to the cycling community at large. If as cyclists we are vehicles we need to follow the same rules.
jered, cyclists almost always justify their shortcomings by pointing them out in others. Most feel themselves to be a protected class and deserve cookies for their chosen mode of transport.
There is a lot of hypocrisy in how they expect drivers to act, but then have completely different expectations for themselves when it comes to pedestrians.
This is one of the reasons why few people outside the cycling community take them seriously.
I live on a bike route…I see dozens of cyclists roll the stop sign daily.
These are worthless generalizations.
that’s funny, since they seem to describe a fairly rampant theme amongst the comments section of bike portland
That is a sentiment shared by most regardless their mode of transportation. I’ve read stories about motorist perceptions surveys with the conclusion being most drivers are overconfident in their abilities and who regularly call out other drivers for reckless actions, but don’t seem themselves as reckless if they do they exact same thing.
What, we can get free cookies?
a neighboring state has shown that allowing bikes to yield at stop signs is safe and efficient.
next!
Slightly off topic, but the markings in the drawing made me wonder: when they’re evaluating lines of sight and how views are blocked, is there ever any discussion about how the huge numbers of SUVs and “mini”vans is contributing to the problem? I drive a regular old sedan, and my views of surrounding traffic are always blocked by what I call street-legal monster trucks. At night, their eye level headlights are also a problem.
As a cyclist, I have particular concern because I know that drivers can’t see around those big vehicles that everybody seems to drive.
Just wondering…
I love stopping for peds. But I also love when they stop and look both ways…especially when it’s dark and I only see the darkness of their bodies against the backlit backdrop once I clear the parked cars.
Dan Anderson is the master of spin. I contact him about dangerous moving and parked cars and he sends email on ORS of pedestrain duties. Sigh.
Four bikes got nailed here. That’s the main problem.
Here is why bikes may not stop for pedestrians at this spot…..
If you are headed North on a bike it can be very hard to see pedestrians headed West. Cars put on their right turn signal and then stop. I’m aware that stop could also mean a pedestrian is crossing.
Dan and PBOT should make pavement markings so that cars stop much further back.
Dan, could you tally up the dollars and death caused by bikes hitting pedestrians? Then do the same for cars. I hope your spin and budget is proportional to that.
Joe,
I considered deleting your comment because I do not appreciate your insulting tone toward Mr. Anderson. You are free to be critical of him if you have a sincere beef; but please do so in a sensitive and factually based manner.
Thanks.
I had no intention to use an insulting tone. If you pinpoint the words I’ll try to craft them better. I offer you and Dan my apology. My point remains.
I know Dan rides a bike. He’s a nice guy paid a nice salary and benefits to send messages drafted by his managers. That’s what PR staff do. He is hired to take tough questions about the significant safety risks in town.
My math question is pretty simple, respectful and it stands. Add up the number of deaths and injuries by pedestrians who are hit by bikes in Portland. Compare that to cars. Share that data. Make the PR airtime proportional.
The city, PBOT spokespeople, Amanda Fritz and many others paid by my tax dollars use many dialogs about bikes ( bike shares ) to re-direct the attention to a minority of bikes who fail to yield to pedestrians. It’s a pattern worthy of an article on a blog, to say the least.
Sincerely, Joe
Jonathan…What about your approval of this comment:
(Dan) was an ass … He is still an ass today. He was an embarrassment …. No Class Ass.
I guess you find it insulting when I point out how city staff spin messages. The main topic was 4 bikes being hit, and Dan Anderson spun the topic into a few bikes who don’t yield to pedestrians. I happen to have facts that show Dan does this often. It happens to be his job, so it should not offend anyone if the pattern is noted.
Thanks for alerting me to that comment Joe. I did not know about it until now and I’m looking for it in order to delete it. I rely on readers to help me catch mean comments that make it through.
Profanity is ok if not posted by Joe
http://bikeportland.org/2012/02/13/the-monday-roundup-160-67080#more-67080
but beware if Jonathan does not agree with your comment.
Joe.
Please give up your conspiracy theory that I play favorites with comment moderation. That’s a ridiculous assertion IMO.
It’s all about context.
Dan rides a bike too, FYI
I won’t deny that people in general seem not to stop whatever they’re riding or driving for other people in a crosswalk. That said, I’ve biked (and occasionally driven) Williams/Vancouver thousands of times and on a bike, about 75% of the crosswalk is in your blind spot when cars are present. You often simply don’t know if a car just stopped to turn left or if it stopped for a pedestrian. Hard/quick stops in the bike lane are hugely unsafe for yourself and other bicyclists. (I also stop for a pedestrian when I see them but about 1 in 4 times a bicyclist narrowly breezes past me.)
One block north, at Vancouver & Stanton, things get even fuzzier. A TriMet stop is right there (and there’s also a light). So are people planning on waiting for the light? Are they waiting for a bus?
Anyway, I hope the improvement helps. Not to sound all gloomy and existential, but our lives still literally depend on the thousands of daily reactions of millions of fallible humans. Our modern transportation system is inherently weird, folks.
How did this cost $2200???
Putting in thermoplastic costs money doncha know? Seriously that stuff ain’t cheap, and it costs money to cut and install it on the street, labor and fuel for those huge blow torches they warm up the asphalt with.
What I have observed is this. When you start south down Vancouver you can get going fast if you start at Alberta or Going. The lights will line up perfect so that they will be green before you get to them. Then you don’t have to wait for lights, and you keep pumping. Once you pass the hospital lights you are now coming up on Graham and are staring back downhill. What I’m trying to say is with the lights working for you sometimes you are riding too fast to stop. Sometimes people are trying to get to work and don’t have time for slow people to stare at you while they contemplate walking across the street. Most people who chastise others about stop signs aren’t even wearing a helmet.
if the illustration is supposed to show the situation as it happened, i think a cyclist would be at fault for passing vehicles stopped at a crosswalk.
You are correct. But very often the cars stop at that crosswalk when there is no pedestrian. That means legally the bike stops when a car stops to avoid a right hook. Then both the car and bike create a backup as they try to wave and communicate. Does the car make the right turn first, or does the bike stop and pass first?
you are describing yet another artifact of the far to right and mandatory sidepath laws
Lots of finger pointin goin on this thread… Remember when you point your finger there’s 3 pointin back at you.
I do agree with the comments made about Veh size & how they block EVERYONES view. Traffic engineers most likely haven’t changed their formulas to compensate for the higher numbers of larger sized passenger vehicles.
I’m glad to see these markings. I ride down Vancouver every day for work, usually around the time that many of the construction workers are crossing at this intersection to get to their job site. I can’t count the number of times I have almost been hit from behind by another cyclist while I’m stopped for pedestrians or seen someone on a bike blow through the crosswalk while pedestrians are in it. I almost feel like apologizing to the pedestrian for the behavior of the other cyclists, but I don’t want to reinforce the perception that we’re a monolithic cycling community that is responsible for self-policing.
I sometimes say “a-hole” loudly enough for the pedestrian to hear me so that they know I disapprove of the actions of the other person on the bike. Often I will catch up to the other cyclist by the Rose Quarter and, depending on the situation, point out that there was someone in the crosswalk when they blew through it. I’ll mention that we expect car drivers to stop for us when we have the right of way and that we should follow the same standard. I don’t think it’s very effective but if it makes one or two people think about their actions and change their behavior it’s worth it.
commiserating with the pedestrian is one thing, so the pedestrian understands that not every cyclist is “like that.” but i don’t much care for people going out of their way to police others’ behavior. very often you don’t know what all considerations factored into someone else’s judgment.
Pertaining to Williams, I think visibility of crosswalks is a major issue along the pedestrian-heavy segments of Williams. Not only is there the construction fencing after Fremont (Construction fencing being a visibility challenge for cyclists at Going/MLK as well), cars are allowed to park so close to the crosswalk that you have to slow down significantly no matter what, sit up as tall as you can with one hand on the handlebars and try and scan to see if there might be a pedestrian behind whatever vehicle happens to be parked there, particularly the taller ones. When there is a pedestrian, however, I always stop and hold up the cycle lane while telling the car lanes to stop for the pedestrian. Cars simply will not stop if they are in a flow of other cars that justifies their continued movement. The primary reason I have seen cyclists not yield in these situations is they were tired of waiting 30+ seconds for cars to stop and figured the whole effort was useless. In some situations, I have even moved into the vehicle lane to force the vehicles to stop, which they just get angry about and zoom around me, narrowly missing the pedestrian who has attempted crossing due to the efforts.
At the Vancouver crosswalk in question, I also stop for every pedestrian there and it usually takes about six cars failing to stop before even one lane decides to stop (While I have been sitting there the whole time, which someone in an earlier comment said requires other vehicles to stop). Most of the people I interact with in those situations, after they thank me for stopping, crack jokes or make references to how hard it is to get cars to stop. I agree that cyclists not stopping for pedestrians is a problem, and it’s important for us to alert other vehicles on the roadway when someone else has right-of-way. However, claiming the problem is with cyclists and not with vehicles is letting car drivers absolve themselves of responsibility, especially when they can just claim “At least I’m not a scofflaw cyclist.” We see this with stop signs and we see this with right-of-way. If PBOT would set up some cameras or someone to do an actual scientific observation (Not just some field worker noticing something a couple times), then we can actually have some hard facts on how cyclists and drivers obey and break the laws of the road.
And to be clear, I am in favor of the new markings, I just wish it addressed the reality that both modes of vehicular travel frequently fail to stop for pedestrians.
I’m also highly in favor of the markings. 2k is cheap, and creates jobs and shows a best practice that draws tourists. I just wish a bit more safety was given for bikes and peds by having the cars stop a larger distance from the peds.
I see PBOT is having the same issues Washington County is with the directions words go down on the pavement. Washington County has pavement markings on the Westside Regional Corridor saying “XING NO” to compliment this “PEDS FOR HERE STOP” marking…
Ok, everybody take a breath, while we take a ride in the Way back machine. In the seventies there used to be wide white crosswalk markings here, and also flashing yellow lights and illuminated ped sign. Of course That Was forty plus years ago, things have abviously gotten much better now. Just a side note on the dollar amount, can anyone tell me just how much a human life is worth, or more philosophically how many apples are in an apple seed? Thank you Jonathan!
I am still not clear on what the green pavement “means”. In SE it means that there is a bike box, but here it means something else. How are drivers supposed to understand what varying street markings mean when there is not any consistency in a single city?
The green pavement is a way to let drivers know that there is through traffic that has right of way on the other side of vehicles that may be stopped for making a right turn and yielding to the traffic in the bike lane.
Paint on pavement seems to mean that the engineers could not find an affordable way to make it safe, so they made it green instead. Expect conflict. Keep your eyes open. Even more than usual.
getting rid of the striped bike lane and putting in sharrows would be pretty affordable
Like the markings.
Seems what would be highly valuable is an education campaign about pedestrian right of way. When I’m rolling my bike without a bike lane on a busy street, I am *extremely* nervous stopping for a pedestrian clearly intending to cross the street.
I know they have right of way.
I want to stop for them.
But the pedestrian is appropriately hesitant.
Motorists have a 20% or less stop rate in these situations it appears.
If I do stop and am to the right a bit and don’t block/cork the road then the pedestrian might start walking, only to get hit by the motorist.
If I do stop and the motorist isn’t attentive, we’re all going to get tagged.
There’s a lot of nuanced calculations for me when deciding whether to stop. My goal is entirely based upon safety and respect. Last time I did stop, a motorist accelerated around me aggressively. The pedestrian thanked me for trying to do the right thing.
I wish ped and bike safety on other corridors in the city were taken as seriously as this one… Someone died crossing the street near me a few years ago and the street is still incredibly dangerous to cross, with absolutely no improvements made. Thanks PBOT!
And drivers there never violate the right of way of pedestrians? I find this insulting until PBOT puts similar markings in the other lanes. Wait until someone gets hit by a car & sues PBOT for not giving them equal protection from motor vehicles.
Kirk Ohly – good point about the green paint having two dissimilar meaning. I wonder how many absent minded bikers will be tempted to roll up to stop in the green stop box that isn’t a stop box! I guess it’s more apparent on the scene, but looking at the photo I was wondering what the deal was. I’m from Salem and I ride my bike up to Portland often in the summer. I’ve seen and used (and love) the green stop boxes, but are there also green bike lanes? It seems like a horrible idea to have the same green for two very different situations. Solid blue or green stripes for the “right of way” might be smarter.
Green lanes are locations of high motorist/bicyclist conflict and not specifically a bike box. This usage is consistent with it’s correct meaning.
OMG…we can improve safety for as little as $2,200 at an intersection! Why do we wait so long to do this? There are lots of spots of Barber that need improvement and there is no reason to wait for an accident. These areas need immediate attention.
1. Pinch Points – Places like the Bridges near mile post 4 or Barber and 19th that suddenly force bikes and cars to suddenly share lanes in posted 35 or 45mph speed zones.
2. Right Hook ares – Places like Barber and Hamilton going north or Barber and Capital Hill going south.
3. Under designed lane change areas – Places like Barber and SW Naito going nourth or trying to take a left on Terwillinger going south. I haven’t the slightest idea how to advise someone to cycle through the area at Barber and SW Naito safely, any ideas?
4. Cross walks that leave cars and pedestrians playing a dangerous game of chick. This would cross walks at SW Barber/SW Natio and SW Barber/SW Lane.
Why wait?
I almost got hit by a car behind me on bicycle when I stopped for peds at a marked crosswalk in downtown. It swerved around me.
I’m really glad to hear that they’re finally sorting out this intersection– I was once involved in a collision (luckily, with me hitting the side of a crossing car rather than the other way around) at exactly this intersection a couple of years ago.
I like this order of wording better. Most folks see and read the whole phrase at once. I’ve always thought the “conventional” road writing order was silly- as if you’re reading one word at a time as they appear from beneath the car in front of you.
My favorite in a dip in the walkway in front of Oakland, Cal.’s airport terminal. Painted on the walkway is “Step___Your___Watch”.
Actually the problem here is that this stretch of Vancouver has two motor vehicle lanes, increasing speeds and making crossing more difficult. Visiability would be much better with just one lane of dangerous traffic for peds to worry about.
Bicyclists can help pedestrians by stopping, as required, and then a holding out the left arm to stop motor vehicles. I do that from time to time on NE Multnomah; seems to work and is appreciated.
practically every time I stop for someone in a crosswalk when I am driving and see a bike coming up behind me, the bike never stops, even if the pedestrian is in plain view. Often times the pedestrian has to stop and yeild to the bike. It doesn’t matter what the law is, the cyclist believes the law doesn’t apply to him.
As a frequent user of this cooridor, I applaud the new markings. This is definitely an area where safety is a huge concern.
I run to work on days I don’t bike and I must say that I get into more altercations with bikes than cars, especially in this area.
It is my hope that New Seaons, if it is built, will spur some serious engineering changes starting at Fremont, all the way through Russell.
“Four bikes got nailed here. That’s the main problem.”
Why is it that every time there is a post about cyclists being struck (and often injured) by a MOTORIST there is a litany of angry comments about bike scofflaws breaking minor traffic laws? IMO, only when motorists stop rolling signs, running yellows, speeding, and failing to yield will these “scofflaw” rants have a leg to stand on (e.g. *NEVER*).
this is on my daily commute
i think the new signage is valuable. i’ve been hit from behind by a cyclist not expecting me to stop for a crosswalk. i’ve had cyclists ride around me here. and i’ve ridden through not knowing a pedestrian had started into the crosswalk (tho not past a stopped bike). i do my best to observe the crosswalks, and this helps reinforce that extra care is needed.
yes, it’s mildly insulting that it addresses bikes only, but quite frankly, it’s highly appropriate as the photo diagram illustrates