Opinion: Sharrows Are 'Make Believe Infrastructure'

In a post on Medium, Peter Flax argues that sharrows––the painted road markers indicating a lane shared by cars and bicycles formally known as Shared Lane Markings (SLMs)––are "the bane of American roads: confusing, useless––worse than useless, actually––and deployed in bad faith."

While sharrows may sound "okay on paper," writes Flax, the vague signage designed to remind drivers that cyclists can use the full lane does little to improve bicyclist safety. According to Flax, "some drivers get doubly confused by the presence of sharrows, and conclude erroneously that bike riders only have the right to take the lane where this signage and marking exist." He points to a 2018 study that concludes that sharrows may provide bike riders with a "false sense of security," leading to more crashes and injuries, and often pose more danger to cyclists than not having any bike markings at all.

Flax goes on to claim that, in many cases, sharrows serve as a convenient way for politicians to pay lip service to bike activists without making significant improvements or spending very much money, "deployed as a bad-faith alternative to actually making roads safer for bike riders." Other critics agree, while research consistently shows that protected or buffered bike lanes are the best way to protect bicyclists and encourage more people to integrate bikes into their daily lives.