Re the wide neighbourhood street optically narrowed by the painting of parking lanes, I take your key point as "if the neighbors don’t figure out they need to use that parking to get the speed control, the speed drop is not going to last." We have a similar street that I bike on frequently. There is a wide parking lane on each side, but since nearly every house has a double-wide driveway and large garage, there are seldom any parked cars. Drivers seemed to quickly learn to ignore that parking lane stripe and resume their previous high speeds.
On balance, though, I'm still glad the parking lane stripe is there. As a cyclist I can usually regard the empty parking lane as a wide though unprotected biking lane. The cars are going by fast, but they seldom veer more than a few inches into the lane I'm using.
That's a good point, but I would be concerned about you getting side-swiped at a much higher speed. Block end bulb-outs framing the parking would probably do the trick. If they have to thread the needle at least once a block, it could make a bigger difference in their speed. Of course, if you're regularly using it, that may make the biggest difference of all. Get friends to join you and claim the street back.
Re the wide neighbourhood street optically narrowed by the painting of parking lanes, I take your key point as "if the neighbors don’t figure out they need to use that parking to get the speed control, the speed drop is not going to last." We have a similar street that I bike on frequently. There is a wide parking lane on each side, but since nearly every house has a double-wide driveway and large garage, there are seldom any parked cars. Drivers seemed to quickly learn to ignore that parking lane stripe and resume their previous high speeds.
On balance, though, I'm still glad the parking lane stripe is there. As a cyclist I can usually regard the empty parking lane as a wide though unprotected biking lane. The cars are going by fast, but they seldom veer more than a few inches into the lane I'm using.
That's a good point, but I would be concerned about you getting side-swiped at a much higher speed. Block end bulb-outs framing the parking would probably do the trick. If they have to thread the needle at least once a block, it could make a bigger difference in their speed. Of course, if you're regularly using it, that may make the biggest difference of all. Get friends to join you and claim the street back.