Paint Ain’t

What does it mean when painted bike lanes fade? Scott Shaffer at Streets.MN has some thoughts:

It’s not just the bare pavement that’s the problem. It’s the etiology of the faded paint that destroys the bike lane. (Etiology means the study of causes. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, essentially.) A bike facility with faded paint can still function. The paint has faded on park trails and the Midtown Greenway, but these bike facilities still work great. What I’m talking about it when the paint is worn away by a torrent of car tires, which not only removes the paint, but more importantly it weakens the belief that the pavement is dedicated to bicyclists. The street is saying, “Cars drive here. This is not a dedicated space for bikes. Ceci n’est pas une bike lane.” A bike lane isn’t just a physical thing — it’s a social construct. Like money, it only matters because we all act like it does. Bike lanes serve their purpose if and only if street-users agree that these striped strips of pavement are dedicated for people on bicycles. Not for parking, not for snow storage, not for walking, not for corner-cutting cars, but for bikes. The fading of the paint, and the cause of the fading, erodes this foundation. It erases confidence in the bike lane, not just the paint.

The paint on Prospect Park West is in need of a touch-up, but the service it provides to cyclists hasn’t been diminished in the slightest. On the other hand, I can think of many examples on my regular commute where my “confidence in the bike lane” has eroded along with the paint: Smith Street, Chrystie Street, and parts of Dean and Bergen Street, for example. In the case of Chrystie Street, merely replacing the paint on such a fast-moving street will never be satisfactory; anyone who’s ridden it regularly for the last few years know that it will only be a matter of time before it’s gone again. As Shaffer says, “Simply replacing the paint won’t replenish the confidence.” Only some level of physical separation, whether its plastic delineators, jersey barriers, a simple curb, grade separation, or row of parked cars, tells drivers that some space, including space for people on bikes, is sacred.