The Chainlink

Did anyone on here ride this stretch of middle Randolph yesterday afternoon? I acknowledge that traffic was pretty abnormally awful during the afternoon rush due to the Bears game, but wow... 

This buffered bike lane was installed in July 2018. Unfortunately, most all of the flexible posts have since been run down and are missing, and when the right turn lane onto SB LSD starts to queue up, motorists think the bike lane is a right turn lane, so they all move over right up to the curb. There are still flexible posts right at the end near the SB LSD on ramp, so usually motorists see these, realize they're in a bike lane, and start moving back over into the car lane. Yesterday, with all the Bears traffic, motorists seemed a bit more aggressive and were just running over the posts and using the bike lane as a second right turn lane, even though most cars couldn't really fit. 

I saw a pickup truck driving with two wheels on the sidewalk so he could squeeze through. (Also I thought pickup trucks weren't allowed on LSD?) A few motorists realized their mistake and were trying to merge back into the vehicle lane, but people weren't letting them over. 

Also, there is a red/green right turn arrow for cars and a separate bike signal that (normally) allows peds/bikes to cross while motorists have the red arrow. Yesterday, motorists who were in the bike lane saw the green bike signal and started turning onto SB LSD while peds were trying to cross, and there were lots of angry horns if they didn't. 

It was total chaos. The cars were all packed in super tight, so it was hard to squeeze between them. I saw other cyclists riding on the sidewalk (which was also busy with pedestrians) or froggering with oncoming traffic on the left. 

Anyway, just wondering if anyone else saw this. This bike lane desperately needs concrete curb protection.  I hope no one got hurt. 

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I hear you Mike.  That bike lane is really in the wrong place for a bike lane in my opinion.  The area is chaos quite frequently.  What looks good in a CDOT conference room or computer screen isn't necessarily the best in traffic.  

The bike lane should be routed over Upper Randolph with a ramp down to Middle Randolph and LSD running behind the tennis courts.  This would provide LFT access to/from both the Bike Station and Millennium Park.

I discovered a trick to avoid that mayhem. Ride on Upper Randolph to Field St (one block east of Columbus), make a left, at the park make a right  then left, and  then on the middle of the block there's a building called "The Lancaster" (201 N. Westshore) where you can make a right (looks like it leads to a garage, but it's also a road (N. Harbor Service Rd.)  that leads you to the LSD underpass through a parking lot to the LFT.

https://goo.gl/maps/wni4snSqJnWK2f8HA

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