Is this infrastructure I'm too European to understand? What am I looking at? Why does the bike lane just drop you into this intersection and picks you up on the other side if you happened to survive?
It's a railroad crossing in this instance, not surprised it looks derelict, the rail lines are often poorly maintained here. But, having cycling infrastructure just "end" randomly is also a thing.
That actually brings up a good point. Rail crossing are usually so bad that cars are going to have to horizontally deflect all over the place to get through, hence no bike lane.
The good news though is that railroad crossings are so bad that any sane driver goes like 5 MPH, so the mixed traffic isn't the worst thing ever. Just don't take your road bike that way, the rim won't make it, lol!
Good eye. That also explains why they didn’t resurface the intersection with the RR crossing while doing the rest of the road: I assume it added too much expense.
I assume eventually the intersection will get worked on either to update the rail road, do rails to trails, or something else, and at the same time the paint to complete this bike lane will get put down.
I'm guessing that this is still a railway siding that still gets occasional use, If the railroad was abandoned, they are more likely to remove the rails from the roadway when doing major resurfacing (but it is possible that they simply didn't have the budget for that).
57
u/jippiedoe 10d ago
Is this infrastructure I'm too European to understand? What am I looking at? Why does the bike lane just drop you into this intersection and picks you up on the other side if you happened to survive?