Rules of the turn across bike lane

For many users of Ottawa’s bicycle lanes, the rule seems clear: the cyclist heading through an intersection has precedence over the vehicle driver alongside who wants to turn across the bike lane.

For proof, they point to the signs that line some routes instructing turning drivers to give way to bicycles.

Cycling advocates call a turn by a vehicle across a bicycle’s path a “right hook,” or surprise punch, and in online discussions suggest riding assertively to discourage such moves. “Take the right of way” is a frequent call.

Yet to Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation and even to a traffic engineer who helped design the yield-to-the-right signs, it’s not that simple.

Under provincial law, a cyclist is expected to behave like any other wheeled road user: obey signals, wait your turn at intersections, give way to pedestrians, never try to pass a right-turning vehicle on the right.

Ontario’s Highway Traffic Act requires “all vehicles, including cyclists, (to) yield the right of way to traffic lawfully using the intersection before proceeding forward,” says Transportation Ministry spokesman Bob Nichols.

The rules become more complex, however, when cities add separate lanes and other features for cyclists.

Here, “lawful use” depends on the design of the bicycle features and whatever rules are set by municipal bylaw.

Nichols offers the example of a street with a dashed line that allows a motorist to move into a bike lane in preparation for turning.

“If a motor vehicle is within the intersection waiting to turn right, blocking the cyclist’s path from the bicycle lane to the other side of the intersection, the cyclist should wait until the way is clear before proceeding through the intersection.”

But what about Ottawa’s segregated “cycle tracks?” Here, drivers are prevented by curbs or other barriers from entering the bicycle lane before turning and are required by the posted signs to yield to the two-wheel traffic.

Does that mean simply give way to bikes in, or about to enter, the intersection?

Or must the driver also give way to those farther back that, depending on their speed, would presumably have to slow or stop if the driver made the turn? To the cycling advocates, the latter applies.

Michael Skene says that was never the intended message.

A principal with the Watt Consulting Group and former transportation manager in bicyclefriendly Victoria, B.C., Skene oversaw a 2012 update of the Transportation Association of Canada’s guidelines for bikeway design. Widely used by municipalities, the guidelines include the yield-to-the-right signs.

“Cyclists have an obligation as well to look after their own personal safety, and not just assume” they will have an open path, he says.

The City of Ottawa’s posted guidelines for streets for cycle tracks puts the onus on each to look out for the other.

Drivers are instructed to be “hyper vigilant” for cyclists and pedestrians crossing the intersection. Cyclists, in turn, should enter intersections cautiously and “travel at a reasonable speed that allows you to stop if necessary.”

In apparent acknowledgment, however, of the confusion that exists over the rule, city crews this week repainted vehicle and bicycle stop lines at nine Laurier Avenue intersections across downtown to ensure that drivers stop five metres behind cyclists and have a clear view of the bike lane.

According to a written statement quoting traffic services manager Phil Landry, the line adjustments were recommended by the city’s working group on cycle safety.