According to City Hall, Orlando will be getting its first official Sharrow Route soon.
“Sharrows” are markings that identify given lanes that are to be shared between automobile and bicycle traffic.
The 1.5 mile route will connect the Orlando Urban Trail in Ivanhoe Village to the Cady Way Trail in Coytown by Lake Druid and the new mountain bike park which opened this past Halloween.
Installation of 49 performed thermoplastic markings along the above route began in November.
The project is estimated to cost roughly $11,000.
I really hate seeing cops riding on sidewalks.
“For the purposes of this subsection, a “substandard-width lane” is a lane that is too narrow for a bicycle and another vehicle to travel safely side by side within the lane.” In Florida, a lane has to be at least 14 feet wide to be considered wide enough for a bicycle and car to travel side-by-side. In all other cases, the person on the bike may take the full lane. Almost all lanes in Orlando are less than 14 feet wide, so almost every road allows people on bikes to take the full lane, which is the safest way to ride when there is not separate infrastructure for bikes.
Bicyclists do not have the right to use the full lane except under certain conditions. See Section 5(a):
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0300-0399/0316/Sections/0316.2065.html
http://www.cityoforlando.net/transportation-planning/wp-content/uploads/sites/30/2014/03/BikeSafetyCard_Final.pdf
Ah yes! Little icons printed on the road. That’ll keep me and my children safe. There’s no way a texting driver will hit me so long as those icons are on the road. Thank you, Orlando.
On a side note, it looks like I’ll still be riding the sidewalks for the foreseeable future. Heck, even our city’s cops ride the sidewalks. You’d be ape sh*t crazy to fill safe biking on Orlando roads.
Nice! I use this route often
I love improvements for people on bikes in Orlando but I’m not a big fan of sharrows. They don’t provide any protection for people on bikes and they give drivers the false idea that people on bikes can only use the full lane when they’re on a sharrow. The side streets on this route I think are fine without the sharrow markings, and Fern Creek already has a bike lane (although an upgrade to curb protection would be nice one day). We should really consider working to design a complete network of top-notch infrastructure to accommodate pedestrians and people on bikes throughout the entire city of Orlando and surrounding neighborhoods. People on bikes want to be able to go everywhere people in cars go. So why are we only building a few routes?
Another piece in the biking as transportation puzzle
There is actually a Sharrow route in Lake Nona.