New bike lane on Old Georgetown Rd in Bethesda

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm agnostic on the need for bike lanes on OGR. But this change could have been executed better. The left turn from westbound Tuckerman onto southbound OGR is an accident waiting to happen. The right most lane no longer exists so there are now two turn lanes trying to turn into the same lane to be able to take the ramp onto 270N. It's very confusing.

There are definitely improvements that could be made to reduce confusion, and I hope they will be made. The project isn't complete yet, though. People will also become less confused as they become used to it.

What's the solution though? Do we turn it into one turning lane? That would cause more gridlock. Regardless of how this is addressed, there will still be major gridlock. This is a major artery to access major interstates. Why would they ever encourage bike traffic on such a road is beyond me.

Which is worse, traffic back-ups or traffic deaths?

Deaths happen either way, so let’s avoid the gridlock

Fewer deaths happen when people take responsibility for their own safety and avoid doing dangerous things.
What a ghoulish thing to say. Fewer deaths happen when roads are safer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Fewer deaths happen when people take responsibility for their own safety and avoid doing dangerous things.

That attitude is why the US has a much higher rate of road deaths than comparably wealthy countries. It's a choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm agnostic on the need for bike lanes on OGR. But this change could have been executed better. The left turn from westbound Tuckerman onto southbound OGR is an accident waiting to happen. The right most lane no longer exists so there are now two turn lanes trying to turn into the same lane to be able to take the ramp onto 270N. It's very confusing.

There are definitely improvements that could be made to reduce confusion, and I hope they will be made. The project isn't complete yet, though. People will also become less confused as they become used to it.

What's the solution though? Do we turn it into one turning lane? That would cause more gridlock. Regardless of how this is addressed, there will still be major gridlock. This is a major artery to access major interstates. Why would they ever encourage bike traffic on such a road is beyond me.

Which is worse, traffic back-ups or traffic deaths?

Deaths happen either way, so let’s avoid the gridlock

It’s been established that they are not safer and actually create more opportunities for crashes.

What a ghoulish thing to say. Fewer deaths happen when roads are safer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Fewer deaths happen when people take responsibility for their own safety and avoid doing dangerous things.

That attitude is why the US has a much higher rate of road deaths than comparably wealthy countries. It's a choice.

Yes, whether to do the safe thing is always a choice.

These lanes simply don’t work and the reduction of road capacity going into DT Bethesda is going to hurt its viability as a commercial center.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm agnostic on the need for bike lanes on OGR. But this change could have been executed better. The left turn from westbound Tuckerman onto southbound OGR is an accident waiting to happen. The right most lane no longer exists so there are now two turn lanes trying to turn into the same lane to be able to take the ramp onto 270N. It's very confusing.

There are definitely improvements that could be made to reduce confusion, and I hope they will be made. The project isn't complete yet, though. People will also become less confused as they become used to it.

What's the solution though? Do we turn it into one turning lane? That would cause more gridlock. Regardless of how this is addressed, there will still be major gridlock. This is a major artery to access major interstates. Why would they ever encourage bike traffic on such a road is beyond me.

Which is worse, traffic back-ups or traffic deaths?

Deaths happen either way, so let’s avoid the gridlock

What a ghoulish thing to say. Fewer deaths happen when roads are safer.

But the roads are actually less safe now. Daily gridlock impacts people’s mental health and quality time. Delete tree lanes!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm agnostic on the need for bike lanes on OGR. But this change could have been executed better. The left turn from westbound Tuckerman onto southbound OGR is an accident waiting to happen. The right most lane no longer exists so there are now two turn lanes trying to turn into the same lane to be able to take the ramp onto 270N. It's very confusing.

There are definitely improvements that could be made to reduce confusion, and I hope they will be made. The project isn't complete yet, though. People will also become less confused as they become used to it.

What's the solution though? Do we turn it into one turning lane? That would cause more gridlock. Regardless of how this is addressed, there will still be major gridlock. This is a major artery to access major interstates. Why would they ever encourage bike traffic on such a road is beyond me.

Which is worse, traffic back-ups or traffic deaths?

Deaths happen either way, so let’s avoid the gridlock

What a ghoulish thing to say. Fewer deaths happen when roads are safer.

But the roads are actually less safe now. Daily gridlock impacts people’s mental health and quality time. Delete tree lanes!!

No, they're not. If you don't like sitting in traffic, which who does, consider non-driving methods for getting around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Fewer deaths happen when people take responsibility for their own safety and avoid doing dangerous things.

That attitude is why the US has a much higher rate of road deaths than comparably wealthy countries. It's a choice.

Yes, whether to do the safe thing is always a choice.

These lanes simply don’t work and the reduction of road capacity going into DT Bethesda is going to hurt its viability as a commercial center.

Which is why I'm glad the state finally chose to do something to reduce the dangers of OGR and prevent further deaths.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Fewer deaths happen when people take responsibility for their own safety and avoid doing dangerous things.

That attitude is why the US has a much higher rate of road deaths than comparably wealthy countries. It's a choice.

Yes, whether to do the safe thing is always a choice.

These lanes simply don’t work and the reduction of road capacity going into DT Bethesda is going to hurt its viability as a commercial center.

Which is why I'm glad the state finally chose to do something to reduce the dangers of OGR and prevent further deaths.

And if people continue to do dangerous things, there will be more fatalities. The flexposts make the intersection at Kingswood more dangerous for walkers because they reduce visibility.

[Anonymous]

I think that these types of changes to transportation that impact so many people should be up to a vote on how people would like to utilize tax payer funded roads. Off of this road are 2 merges onto interstate highways, a new school, multiple driveways into SFH, Pike and Rose, NIH and a major thoroughfare to downtown Bethesda with delivery and semi trucks and as a previous poster stated, a hospital. With 2 lanes now gone, 33% of OGR is unusable for cars. We now have 33% of a major road underutilized the majority of the time. Inefficiency at its best. Are there pull-offs for Amazon, UPS and USPS that serve the houses on OGR or will they now block the middle lane to do deliveries?

The fact that this is supposed to encourage more bike riding is ridiculous. Its a dangerous road to ride a bike on, now made more dangerous under the guise of "safe" lanes. Is Rockville Pike next? Can the SHA provide us all roads that will be future bike lanes since they seem to have unilateral decision making on this happen?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm agnostic on the need for bike lanes on OGR. But this change could have been executed better. The left turn from westbound Tuckerman onto southbound OGR is an accident waiting to happen. The right most lane no longer exists so there are now two turn lanes trying to turn into the same lane to be able to take the ramp onto 270N. It's very confusing.

There are definitely improvements that could be made to reduce confusion, and I hope they will be made. The project isn't complete yet, though. People will also become less confused as they become used to it.

What's the solution though? Do we turn it into one turning lane? That would cause more gridlock. Regardless of how this is addressed, there will still be major gridlock. This is a major artery to access major interstates. Why would they ever encourage bike traffic on such a road is beyond me.

Which is worse, traffic back-ups or traffic deaths?

Deaths happen either way, so let’s avoid the gridlock

What a ghoulish thing to say. Fewer deaths happen when roads are safer.

This has not made the roads safer. It has made several intersections more dangerous, including the ramps to 495 and 270.

[Anonymous]

I wish this thread could be extrapolated into why we need to outlaw guns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, will all of the Lance Armstrong wannabes use the bike lanes? I have a feeling they would still prefer to be in traffic.

The bike lanes are not for the "Lance Armstrong wannabes," they're for people who just want to get where they're going, on a bike or on foot, without risking their lives.

Unfortunately in this particular case it seems that the solution might be even less safe for everyone involved because of its poor implementation.

Less safe than 2 dead teenage bicyclists, 1 dead pedestrian going to a bus stop, and multiple critically injured bicyclists in 3 years? "I almost got into a fender bender the other day!"? "It took me 15 minutes instead of 8!"? Those are inconvenience problems, not safety problems.

Stop being such a disingenuous liar. The pedestrian was hit by a Ride On bus at Battery Lane because the buses have poor visibility. You either don’t know where the bike lanes are and don’t care or you don’t know and just like to constantly lie about it.

What the heck, PP. Who are you and why do you keep insisting that everyone is lying?
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/i-miss-her-sister-mourns-woman-hit-and-killed-while-crossing-bethesda-road/167507/

^^^"Dona Cicy H. Amarasekara, 74, had left her job as a nanny Thursday night and was walking across northbound Old Georgetown Road at Kingswood Road when a Jeep Cherokee hit her."

Dona City H Amarasekara left her job and illegally entered the roadway at Kingswood Road. She was then hit by the driver of a Jeep. I’m not sure why bike lanes would have prevented this fatality. A controlled intersection at Kingswood would have been a better response.

The bike lanes would not have prevented her death, because she unexpectedly entered the roadway. The same thing with the recent cyclist fatality. If a cyclist decides to unexpectedly leave the sidewalk/bike lane and enter the roadway the bike lane equally would not save them either. Also, previously the poor boy who fell off his bike, I’m not sure how the bike lane saves him if instead of falling from the sidewalk he he just falls from the bike lane into a traffic lane.

It is not possible to derisk these scenarios without considering the unfortunate actions of the pedestrians/cyclists leading up to them. And the bike lanes do nothing to derisk those situations because they only affect vehicles- who did nothing wrong - and do not control for cyclist/pedestrian errors/mistakes.

It is unclear to me why we are making everyone else accountable to accommodate unfortunate mistakes by 3 people, when people are going to continue to make mistakes. The best course of action is not to make the rest of the world accommodate worst case scenarios dependent on unfortunate actions, but to provide alternative and safer solutions for the people who are making the mistakes to reduce potential for poor decision making.

To protect pedestrians from making bad mistakes, perhaps central dividers in the roadway or fencing along the sidewalk would discourage them from improperly entering traffic. For bicycles, providing alternate and safer routes away from vehicles is clearly the solution instead of creating a false sense of safety in close proximity to vehicles that could induce more unfortunate mistakes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Fewer deaths happen when people take responsibility for their own safety and avoid doing dangerous things.

That attitude is why the US has a much higher rate of road deaths than comparably wealthy countries. It's a choice.

The problem is that cyclists want unilateral ability to make situational risk based decisions for themselves, Idaho stops, but them completely eschew accountability for poor decision making. It is apparently everyone else’s responsibility when cyclists make bad situational, risk-based decisions. You cannot have it both ways.

The majority of pedestrian fatalities in the US happen mid-block and at night. The majority of bicycle fatalities occur in intersections and where there is data on the cause of those accidents, like in California, the vast majority are caused by cyclists failure to stop/yield.

The reality is that the US had higher pedestrian and cyclist fatalities because the pedestrians and cyclists routinely engage in risky behavior while in places where they have lower rates they don’t. Want the right to engage in risky behavior the you need to accept the consequences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's amazing to me how people use "death" as an excuse to push their agenda. If that is the case, then perhaps there need to be laws against people attempting to ride on major roads. There are plenty of alternatives for cyclists to avoid those extremely heavily traveled roads.

There actually are such laws. It is illegal for cyclists to ride on interstate highways in Maryland. It is also illegal for cyclists to ride in the roadway on the Clara Barton Parkway. Why it has been decided that it should not only be legal but also accommodated on state highways in high population density areas is beyond me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, will all of the Lance Armstrong wannabes use the bike lanes? I have a feeling they would still prefer to be in traffic.

The bike lanes are not for the "Lance Armstrong wannabes," they're for people who just want to get where they're going, on a bike or on foot, without risking their lives.

Unfortunately in this particular case it seems that the solution might be even less safe for everyone involved because of its poor implementation.

Less safe than 2 dead teenage bicyclists, 1 dead pedestrian going to a bus stop, and multiple critically injured bicyclists in 3 years? "I almost got into a fender bender the other day!"? "It took me 15 minutes instead of 8!"? Those are inconvenience problems, not safety problems.

Stop being such a disingenuous liar. The pedestrian was hit by a Ride On bus at Battery Lane because the buses have poor visibility. You either don’t know where the bike lanes are and don’t care or you don’t know and just like to constantly lie about it.

What the heck, PP. Who are you and why do you keep insisting that everyone is lying?
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/i-miss-her-sister-mourns-woman-hit-and-killed-while-crossing-bethesda-road/167507/

^^^"Dona Cicy H. Amarasekara, 74, had left her job as a nanny Thursday night and was walking across northbound Old Georgetown Road at Kingswood Road when a Jeep Cherokee hit her."

Dona City H Amarasekara left her job and illegally entered the roadway at Kingswood Road. She was then hit by the driver of a Jeep. I’m not sure why bike lanes would have prevented this fatality. A controlled intersection at Kingswood would have been a better response.

The bike lanes would not have prevented her death, because she unexpectedly entered the roadway. The same thing with the recent cyclist fatality. If a cyclist decides to unexpectedly leave the sidewalk/bike lane and enter the roadway the bike lane equally would not save them either. Also, previously the poor boy who fell off his bike, I’m not sure how the bike lane saves him if instead of falling from the sidewalk he he just falls from the bike lane into a traffic lane.

It is not possible to derisk these scenarios without considering the unfortunate actions of the pedestrians/cyclists leading up to them. And the bike lanes do nothing to derisk those situations because they only affect vehicles- who did nothing wrong - and do not control for cyclist/pedestrian errors/mistakes.

It is unclear to me why we are making everyone else accountable to accommodate unfortunate mistakes by 3 people, when people are going to continue to make mistakes. The best course of action is not to make the rest of the world accommodate worst case scenarios dependent on unfortunate actions, but to provide alternative and safer solutions for the people who are making the mistakes to reduce potential for poor decision making.

To protect pedestrians from making bad mistakes, perhaps central dividers in the roadway or fencing along the sidewalk would discourage them from improperly entering traffic. For bicycles, providing alternate and safer routes away from vehicles is clearly the solution instead of creating a false sense of safety in close proximity to vehicles that could induce more unfortunate mistakes.

It is possible to derisk these scenarios by providing safe infrastructure for people who are walking and bicycling. Which includes many things, such as: fewer lanes to cross, better lighting, slower driving speeds, protective barriers that actually damage cars if drivers hit them, and safe crossings at every bus stop. All of these things are feasible, unlike changing human nature, which is your plan. We need to make it easier and better for people to walk, roll, bike, and take the bus, not harder and worse.