"Share the road" marking-signage improvements

MAKING WAY: San Francisco plans to stencil 2,500 'sharrow' symbols on its streets (left). Along with the new accommodation for bicyclists, the city has launched a public-awareness campaign, including signs on city buses (right). PHOTO BY DEIRDRE WEINBERG/SAN FRANCISCO DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION.

The idea of "sharrows," on street markings that denote bicycles and motor vehicles share the lane, where there isn't a marked bike lane, have been around for awhile. See "'Sharrows' aim to help cars and bikes share roads: Special lane markings alert drivers to slow down and guide cyclists to a safer spot," a 2005 story from the Christian Science Monitor. Sharrow markings are on the way to being approved as standardized road markings, although not everyone agrees that this is a step forward (see "Sharrows are a sham solution for bike lanes" from Crosscut).

Sharrow markings have been recently painted on Kansas Avenue east of Blair Road NW but I haven't had a chance to double back and take a photograph. (I won't today with the rain...)

But I still think we need a good sign that explains what the marking means.

Sign proposed in the Baltimore Bicycle Master Plan.

Massachusetts has a number of nonstandard "share the road" signs in Cape Cod. I think they are excellent and communicate far better than straight up words what "share the road" is supposed to mean.





Sign proposed by former Boston Bicycle Coordinator Paul Schimek but not implemented. This sign is intended to indicate that bicycles and motor vehicles share the same line of travel.

Personally, I like the two street signs better, because they use solid imagery to communicate that streets are places for people--on foot and/or on bicycle--not just for automobiles.


Sign idea concerning "dooring" where car doors opened into the bike lane obstruct bicyclists. From a proposal by NYC's Transportation Alternatives, and published in the Baltimore Bicycle Master Plan.