‘Sharrows’ are a failed cycling experiment

Sharrows — those bicycle symbols on a green background that are painted on some downtown streets — are confusing and pointless. It’s time for them to go.

This much was made clear by the kerfuffle raised in the cycling community when Waterloo Regional Police put together videos on bicycle safety last week.

The videos are helpful. One was for motorists and one for cyclists. They offer tips like leaving a metre of space between you and the cyclist, if you’re driving. Wear a helmet and know the hand signals, if you’re cycling. That sort of thing.

You can find the videos on the police service’s Twitter feed, where they were posted June 6 and 8.

But they inadvertently exposed a problem.

In the video for cyclists, you’re advised to ride as far to the right of the road as possible, to make room for both you and a vehicle. The video shows a cyclist doing just that, with a car going alongside.

But the road they chose has a sharrow painted on it. The sharrow signifies that the road is too narrow for both a car and a bicycle, so the cyclist is entitled to take the whole lane and the other traffic is supposed to follow behind.

So who’s right?

From what I’ve seen, most cyclists and drivers disregard sharrows. Cyclists rarely take the whole lane. They stay to the right, which isn’t safe for them on a narrow road, or they ride on the sidewalk, which isn’t safe for pedestrians.

Sharrows are a creation of the

Ministry of Transportation, said Insp. Mike Haffner. They’re not mentioned in the Highway Traffic Act, which is what police enforce.

The act says slower-moving vehicles must move to the right to allow other traffic to pass.

Haffner said sharrows indicate an opportunity for cyclists, but whether to take it depends on how fast you’re moving.

If you are cycling at the same speed as traffic, which is possible in a busy downtown with narrow streets and lots of intersections, then sharrows remind you that you can take the lane as a cyclist.

But “if a cyclist travels at two kilometres an hour down the middle of King Street, is it appropriate?” Haffner said. “You would have traffic backed up all the way to Cambridge.”

Local cyclists have had bad experiences when they try to take the lane, with impatient drivers honking and passing.

And how are they supposed to know the speed of traffic if it’s behind them?

No wonder they’re frustrated. “I think sharrows are an awesome way for the city to pretend to do something about bike infrastructure without actually doing anything except sticking some plastic on the road,” said Ted Parkinson of Kitchener.

“We need separate bike lanes,” said Robin Mazumder, who serves on a cycling advisory committee to the city.

But there really isn’t room for separate bike lanes on King Street downtown, unless it’s made one-way. And that’s never going to happen.

The city and the police should talk about sharrows. They should agree on what they want them to mean. Once that’s decided, they should very clearly let everyone know.

Otherwise, let’s just admit defeat and get rid of them.