Swept up in the moment.....

Ever wonder why the bike lanes are so full of debris?  I mean Reno actually has a pretty active schedule for their street sweepers and I see them out and about.  So why is it that the bike lanes never seem to get any better? 

Well let's consider the layout of our newer streets (meaning the streets with bike lanes).  Many have a parking lane (9 ft wide) on the far right, then a 3ft bike lane, and then the primary traffic lane (11-13 ft).  For a total of ~24 feet of "lane" in a single travel direction.  The normal street sweeper is approximately 10 ft wide.  So, even if they make two passes in a single travel direction, the first sweep (pardon the pun) is curbside to keep the gutters clean and the second pass is in the primary travel lane.

The result is each pass leaves the middle of the bike lane just outside the brushes and on top of not being swept, it builds a nice little buffer of additional debris flung up by the brushes themselves.  The whole scenario looks a little like this....(sorry crappy cell phone pic into the sun)....

So this is the "first" pass, now envision the second pass in the location the white car is in....notice the gap in sweeping is the bike lane. 

This will be presented at the BPAC (Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee) this week to see if we can get a modified sweeping plan in place!