It has been less than 10 days since the unveiling of Beirut’s first bike lane and it is already proving to be impractical, not only because drivers are unsurprisingly ignoring it, but also for the simple fact that it was set up on the left side of the road whereas bikers are obliged by traffic laws to ride on the right side of the road and on the bike lane where it exists. The result is an experience as the one you can see in the below video.
We can barely fit cars in our street, let alone creating bike lanes, so in order to make that happen the municipality must first work on rehabilitating the roads, and in if it’s impossible then I think they better focus on improving something else and take proper credit for it.
video via Mohamad Cheblak
As a cyclist myself, the bike lane they have lined up is completely wrong. The minimum width of a bike lane should be 1.5 meters legally speaking, because if a car is closer to a bicycle by 1 meter, then that car owner will get fined (at least in Europe and USA) up to $400 because he’s a danger to the cyclist.