How do you get bikes off sidewalks? | The Salt Lake Tribune

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Bicyclists on the sidewalk can be super annoying. And sometimes dangerous.

In an effort to keep my recent story on auto-bike collisions manageable and sort of concise, I focused primarily on streets. But sidewalk cycling also is a big deal; on sidewalks bicyclists can collide with pedestrians and in some places sidewalk riding is actually illegal.

A study from the New York Department of Transportation indicates that protected bike lanes offer one potential solution. The study looked at Columbus Avenue in New York City, where a protected bike lane was carved out of a formerly car-centric street.

The results are telling: sidewalk riding on the street dropped, falling by several percentage points at each intersection. The number of bikes on the street also increased but the number of accidents went down.

That's exactly the type of effect the experts in Sunday's story predicted and want for Salt Lake City.

— Jim Dalrymple II

Twitter: @jimmycdii