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Letters: Stay off the bike lanes

Often, the sidewalk goes unused. Why?
Bike lanes

Editor:

So letter writers are telling cyclists to stay off the sidewalks (Optimist, letters, June 17).

Good idea. A very good idea. But there’s a hitch: as a cyclist I’m forced out of bike lanes by citizens walking two-abreast in them with or without their family pets and with or without their children while ‘professional’ dog walkers use them as if their packs of canine charges are incarnations of those ineffectual bicycles symbols that city crews paint in them. Often, the sidewalk goes unused. Why?

English Bluff is a good example. It has bike lanes on both sides. Let the sun shine and what happens? The walkers and their retinues take to the bike lanes and woe betide the cyclist who reminds them that there’s a sidewalk.

When city painters refreshed bicycle symbols along English Bluff's bike lanes recently, I was sorely tempted to give realism to their work by adding images of joggers, walkers, and dogs—a sarcastic touch that would be lost on those who can't distinguish a bike lane from a sidewalk.

Greg J. Edwards