Bike lane barriers were a good idea, but poorly planned

The people of Bloomington deserve better than poorly-planned infrastructure "improvements" that make traffic worse.

Printed in the Herald-Times, April 14, 2024

To the Editor:

The new bicycle lane barriers on East Third Street on the IU campus were a good idea, in theory. People had been illegally pulling into the bike lane, blocking the lane and partially blocking vehicular traffic. The problem is that the barriers did not stop people from blocking traffic: Motorists are still stopping to drop people off and pick people up.

It is apparent that this was done without proper planning. There should have been more effort to educate motorists about why this behavior is unacceptable, perhaps in partnership with the university since most people doing this are students. To the extent that resources can be spared, the Bloomington Police Department and Indiana University Police should be aggressively ticketing people who illegally block traffic.

Even worse, city planning confirmed to me in an e-mail that the barriers were installed without a plan for clearing snow from the bike path in the winter. Snowplows will not be able to clear the path without destroying the barriers. Why was this done without having a snow removal plan in place? Snow after Spring Break is unusual but can happen. We had a significant snowfall in April 2021.

Finally, if you illegally block traffic, stop it. A busy street is not your personal drop-off zone, and it is selfish to blockade traffic and impede the movement of other motorists to save yourself a couple minutes. The fact that this had to be addressed by city government at all is another indication of how our society has degraded. Basic common courtesy should not need to be enforced by law.