Sharrows Good says Garcetti

From Los Angeles Times:

Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti has introduced a motion calling for the city to explore using “sharrows” on roadways to improve relations between cyclists and vehicles.

What are those? They’re markings on the pavement that show the best place for cyclists to ride on roads. And they’re increasingly popping up in other cities — Denver; Portland, Ore., Paris; New York and San Francisco, to name some. Here’s an excerpt from Garcetti’s motion:

“Traffic curb lanes on signed / shared bikeways are often too narrow to be safely shared side-by-side by cyclists and passing motorists. On these routes, cyclists wishing to stay out of the way of drivers often ride too close to parked cars and risk being struck by [a] suddenly opened car door. To avoid this, experienced cyclists ride farther to the left and position themselves closer to the center of narrow lanes.”

What does a sharrow look like?  From richardmasoner’s Flickr:

Tags: Eric Garcetti, LA Times, Los Angeles City Council, Los Angeles Times, sharrows