Rosedale resident Nick Medina spends time in Los Angeles and Sacramento, so he said he’s used to the new green bike lanes being painted on the streets of Bakersfield lately and considers them “kind of universal.”
But the same markings confound fellow Rosedale resident Lisa Mundy. She said it can be confusing seeing green lanes go straight through intersections.
“You never used to look in the middle of the … turning lane,” Mundy said.
High-visibility bike lanes have been painted onto asphalt in several areas around Bakersfield, first on A Street in 2019 and most recently on thoroughfares like Grand Lakes Avenue. The idea is to instill greater awareness of bicycle lanes and thereby improve traffic safety.
City government has posted online videos and social media notices highlighting the new traffic markings and other traffic infrastructure upgrades like enhanced crosswalks. But there are no directions posted on the street, and so for many the color-coded lane system has been a learn-on-the-go experience.
Southwest resident Steve Phelts, who was filling up the other day at a gas station not far from the new bike lanes on Grand Lakes, said he’s gotten used to the markings, having seen them on Stockdale Highway. He said he’s figured out how they work but that it was a little jolting at first.
“When you first see it, it’s a lot to take in,” Phelts said. “There’s marking all over the place.”
That sort of initial discomfort doesn’t seem so bad to Ward 4 City Councilman Bob Smith, an avid cyclist who sees Bakersfield as being in need of slower, more deliberate driving.
Smith compared the new bike lanes to roundabouts, in that both force motorists to pay more attention. He said he hasn’t heard any reports from the Bakersfield Police Department suggesting drivers are having trouble abiding by the bike lane rules.
On the contrary, he said constituents tell him they’re happy with the look of the lanes and the safety progress they represent for a city with more than its fair share of traffic fatalities and injuries.
Once or twice negotiating the new lanes is all it probably takes most drivers to get the hang of them, Smith said, adding, “I think they figure it out pretty quick.”
Since receiving a positive response to the A Street bike lanes four years ago, the city has expanded the paint jobs to Stockdale Highway between Renfro and Allen roads, Monterey Street at Beale Avenue and Niles Street at Beale. Separately, Caltrans added a high-visibility bike lane on 24th Street near Highway 99 and Buck Owens Boulevard.
City spokesman Joseph Conroy said the plan is to expand the use of painted high-visibility lanes around the city. He added the city has received no complaints or even questions about the markings.
They may be a little confusing at first, but rules on green bike lanes are spelled out in drivers manuals, noted Jay Bird, shop manager and head mechanic at Bike Bakersfield.
He said the guiding principle is that bicycles need to follow the same rules of the road as motorists, with vehicles to the left and bikes on the right within the same lane of travel.
Bird understands not everyone catches on immediately: He recalled riding his bike in a green lane in Modesto one time and getting smacked from behind by a vehicle driven by someone not paying enough attention. Still, he appreciates the green lanes’ high visibility.
“It seems a little confusing but it’s a bike lane nevertheless,” Bird said.
Transportation planner and cyclist Ahron Hakimi, executive director of the Kern Council of Governments, said the green lanes appear to be working well, even as he does see people walking in them sometimes.
To improve local traffic safety, Kern COG has received a state grant to educate the community about cycling safety, including wearing helmets and proper hand signals. The campaign has included television segments, Hakimi noted, though the information presented was not specific to the green bike lanes.
Hakimi said he wasn’t convinced that targeted messaging on the new high-visibility lanes would necessarily prove effective, but that if there’s an issue with confusion, he’s willing to look into it.
“We do think that education about sharing the roads with all users is important,” he said.
