General Urban Waterloo Updates and Rumours

[ijmorlan]

Also, the bike box at the left turn is useless, so left turn on red definitely should be allowed. Bike boxes are intended to collect bicycle traffic halfway through making a left turn, and as such are not needed in left turn lanes.

What do you mean? Bike boxes make left turns easier for cyclists because they don't have to cross the traffic lanes.

Right, a bicycle in the right-side bike lane can proceed through the intersection as if they were going straight, then stop in the bike box on the other side. From there, wait for the light to turn and proceed in the left-turn direction directly into the right-side bike lane. In other words, they never use the bike box at the head of a left-turn lane.

To put that in context at Erb/Caroline, to turn left from Caroline SB onto Erb EB a bicycle would be in the bike lane on Caroline SB. Proceed across Erb, stop in the bike box in front of stopped EB Erb traffic. Then proceed EB on Erb into the bike lane on the south side of Erb. Of course neither the bike box nor the bike lane exists in these locations on Erb, but that is how one would use a bike box to make this left turn.

The bike box that actually exists at the intersection could hypothetically be used to turn left from Erb WB to Caroline SB, but since no WB traffic is permitted on Erb, that is moot. And for that purpose, the bike box has no need to exist in front of the left turn lane — only the straight-through lane.