Research shows there’s no substitute for protected bike lanes, and sharrows may make roads more dangerous for cyclists.
Once a positive step for bike infrastructure, sharrows — “those little bike-shaped icons painted onto roads that are supposed to indicate where cyclists should ride” — are falling out of favor and could actually endanger people on bikes.
According to an article in Momentum, “Studies have shown that sharrows don’t actually provide any real safety benefits for cyclists. In fact, they may even make things worse by encouraging drivers to pass cyclists too closely.”
Dave Snyder, senior director of People For Bikes and a formerly passionate advocate for sharrows, has admitted that they haven’t worked. “Today, we know so much more about what it takes to make our streets safer for bicycling. We need separate bike paths; we need protected bike lanes on busy roads; and where the lanes are shared, we need actual speeds reduced to 20 mph or slower.”
The article concludes that there’s no substitute for safe, physically protected bike lanes. “The best bicycle infrastructure for safe cycling is dedicated bike lanes that provide physical separation between cyclists and vehicles.
FULL STORY: Sharrows used to make sense in theory, but are now mostly useless and possibly dangerous
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Eagle County Government
Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Nashville Planning Department
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
The Pocatello Development Authority
The Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Pocatello
Journal of the American Planning Association