As a cyclist that uses my bikes for recreation and transportation, keeping cars out of the bike lanes is really my top concern. This is really cool, but it's honestly a pristine bike lane is a very low priority compared to getting protected bike lanes. I've never really seen debris in the road/bike lane as being a problem, at least around here.
The tradeoff is -- where the cars drive, there's very little debris, because the tires scatter it off to where they don't drive. So I ride in the outside wheel path.
Road shoulders are the worst place to ride, because that's where the crap accumulates that gives you flats.
Yeah, I've ridden on country roads with huge wide shoulders, and stayed right next to where the cars are due to the debris. Clearing bike paths/shoulders of debris would make a real difference in safety while bicycling.
Stopping cars from parking all over bike lanes is definitely important. However, broken glass on bike lanes is common as debris tends to migrate or be swept to the side of the road which is usually where the bike lanes are. Also, wet, decomposing leaves can be a major slip hazard for cyclists.
Snow and ice are another reason to sweep bike lanes and it's interesting that in some active-travel friendly countries in the EU, they prioritise clearing the bike lanes first - presumably the theory is that bike lanes can transport a far greater number of people and cars don't usually have a problem with falling over when the road is slippery.
There is a definitive solution to debris on bike lanes though: puncture-resistant tires. Sure, they are not cheap, at around 100€ for both (which is as much as a whole cheap bike), but they do not puncture. In years of having puncture-resistant tires, I have not had a flat tires, and I commute by bike daily in a busy city. Now I don't even bother avoiding glass even if I see it in advance.
Snow, ice and wet leaves are definitely concerns though. If there is a hint of snow/ice, I will not ride my bike, as bike lanes aren't plowed/salted and I don't have snow tires (not enough days of freezing temperature here to make it worth it). It's the only weather reason to not take my bike actually.
I think you're approaching the issue from the wrong direction.
Broken glass is not a desirable feature of any part of the road, bike lanes or pavements (sidewalks). Puncture proof tyres won't help if someone loses their balance and gets a face full of broken glass.
The answer is to remove broken glass and other detritus. This is surely just a basic function of society.
Whilst I agree with it not being the way to deal with debris, tubeless tyres have great ride quality and can shrug off most punctures. Their only downsides are excessive cost, expertise needed to install/change them and occasionally getting squirted with sealant if a hole doesn't seal immediately.
Tubeless tires and the kind of stiff, slippery, puncture resistant tires GP is talking about (Gatorskins or Marathons) are somewhat orthogonal. Tubeless certainly helps! I ride tubeless Conti GP5000s (which have fantastic ride quality) personally, but they would not work well if I was constantly riding in glass. (I also regularly go thousands of miles without flatting, but that is in large part because I don’t have to ride through broken glass.)
I doubt any pneumatic tyre would be suitable for constantly riding over broken glass. Solid tyres, however would last a while until they got completely shredded, but the ride quality of solid tyres is dismal. The problem is that the shock of a bump isn't distributed around the tyre as it would be with air, but instead stays in one place. That then requires a stiffer material to be used so that you don't put too many dings in your rim which makes the ride quality (and speed) worse. Riding on solid tyres really sucks the fun out of cycling.
I will let you enjoy the hand-sewn joy and keep commuting on my kevlar-belted Contis, I think. Having to replace a tube (I don't even both to patch any more) in near-freezing rain is very low on my list of favorite activities.
As a cyclist that sounds great, but don't the plows for the roadway then push snow back onto the bike lanes? That would happen with the designs I'm familiar with but maybe they have a different layout or something.
I believe that people seeing official city employees riding bicycles and cleaning bike lanes would go a long way in getting people to see bicyclists as legitimate road users.
What would really help is getting cyclists to obey the rules of the road. Where I love, by far the vast majority:
-Don't signal
-Run red lights
-Don't stop for pedestrians
Where I live, half of drivers are looking down at their cell phones. Barely anyone comes to a complete stop for stop signs or even right turns on red at intersections. No one stops for pedestrians at unmarked crosswalks (legally a requirement here). The majority of drivers exceed posted speed limits some of the time.
What I'm saying is: tons of people commit varying severity traffic infractions all the time. If you think this is something exclusive to cyclists, that is more likely your own confirmation bias. There are a lot more drivers, and a 2-ton vehicle does a lot more damage to other road users than a cyclist, so the ultimate risk/damage to society is virtually entirely from drivers.
One way to address these complaints is by providing proper infrastructure. Quite frankly, when on the road you have to behave like a motorist. Sometimes your observations are a matter of perception. Consider a light turning amber, a cyclists still has to go even though the light is timed for motor vehicles and will be red by the time they exit the intersection, because the car behind you will will go because the light is timed for motorists and will not turn red by the time they exit the intersection. Sometimes it is a matter of safety, because there is a good chance the car behind you will enter the intersection as the light is turning red. As for people entering the intersection after the light turns red, I see this far more often with motor vehicles. By far more often, I mean I have seen cyclists do it as many times in a decade as I have seen motorists do it in a day.
While signalling would likely be helped by education, it is also worth noting that it can be difficult for cyclists to do it at speed on a busy road. Remember, they are on the road because the infrastructure does not exist and they are at speed because they have to keep pace with motor vehicles (within reason). Again, proper infrastructure would help. That includes bike lanes that are free of debris and where the surface is properly maintained. Ironically, hand signals are only systematically taught in driver education (some cyclists don't have a drivers license), few motorists seem to know what they are, and not using the vehicle's turn signal is common among motorists.
As for not stopping for pedestrians, that is common with both motorists and cyclists yet it creates more problems for cyclists. Simply put, when there is less than a one in ten chance that the car behind you will stop for a pedestrian it is very risky for cyclists to stop for pedestrians. Again, this is because a lack of proper infrastructure means that cars and cyclists are mixing.
An often forgotten aspect of cycling is that it takes significant energy to slow/stop and then speed up again. Traffic lights are often designed purely to stop motor traffic from colliding and very rarely take the needs of cyclists into account. A cycle lane that cedes priority at every side road is going to be next to useless for competent bike commuters and similarly, multiple sets of traffic lights will often be ignored by cyclists if they know the junction and can see that it is safe for them to proceed. Indeed, some places allow cyclists to treat red lights as "proceed with caution if safe to do so".
The most important thing to realise is that cyclists pose very little danger to others and will often come off worse in a simple collision with a pedestrian, whereas people in cars are shielded from collisions whilst also posing a much greater danger to others.
I do try and think it's important to be a good representative of bicyclists when I am on my bike. Most drivers seem to respect that and pay me back in kind.
Where I live, drivers routinely exceed the speed limits by 10-20 km. This is so routine that if you don’t drive faster than the speed limit, you will invariably get honked at.
These drivers then have the audacity to suggest that cyclists are the problematic rule breakers on the road.
It would really help if drivers and cyclists were held to remotely the same standards. Drivers commit all sorts of traffic infractions that could easily kill a cyclist, and then have the nerve to scream at cyclists and “buzz” them just because.
Agree that cars in bike lanes is a problem but keeping stuff that punctures my tires during commute is a very high priority for me. Especially in spring and fall so much sharp debris accumulates that it's a major headache for me.
Protecting bike lanes is a hugely impactful problem that is also far more expensive to solve. That doesn't mean we should be dismissive of a solution to a less impactful (but still important!) problem. Think how many orders of magnitude less money it would take for a municipality to buy and loan out some bike sweepers than to fully redesign its bike lanes.
As a skateboarder, the debris is an issue. On suburban roads that don’t get swept often, it all builds up on the side of the road and you start to rattle riding over it.
Here (Grenoble, France), we have a bike highway (it’s a suburb-workplace interconnection), and it becomes a bit sketchy when the crushed leaves start glazing in the fall.
As a cyclist who commutes daily. A protected cycle lane covered in broken glass or debris is of litte use to me - I'll just cycle on the main carriageway
Broken bottles are a real problem but good quality tires saves you a lot of flats. Not saying you can drive carelessly on any debris but a 30€ vs 10€ tire will be day and night. The Schwalbe Marathon Plus are the best known reference in this field. In my experience ”durable” tires from others brands are sometimes great and sometimes crap.
Also a regular bike checkup should includes tires checkup to remove the debris stuck in the rubber. Those can “move” and get you flat in the future.
I bike in Mexico. I usually get a flat patched with the bike mechanic for $1 USD and they do it in less than 5 minutes. They check the tire throughly to find the source of the puncture. More often than not they pull out a piece of metal debris from the tire (like small pieces of wire or nails). If the roads are cleaned, it will be a person with a broom doing it, which is why metal debris stays on the shoulder of the road instead of being suctioned by a mechanical cleaner.
Would good tires still save me from these punctures?
Gatorskins, as mentioned below are fantastic for most things, but in my experience they are not fully resistant to the damage you mention.
I've seen similar bike patching mechanics on sidewalk stations in Beijing, and I feel like they would have a similar primary customer. The degree of construction and infrastructure work there means that there are always metal bits in the road. Nails, roofing scraps, welding rod ends, filler wire trimmings that get washed off construction sites in the rain and blown to the roadside by traffic are highly effective at puncturing bicycle commuters' tires. But they also make small holes that are a quick fix. Soapy water will show where the leak is, and pliers, a donor tube, and vulcanizing compound and you're in business again.
Gatorskins are harder, less supple, so they don't pick up the smaller bits of glass and metal that will work in over time. They are resistant to pinch flats by having thicker, stiffer sidewalls, so the bigger bits of metal or rock aren't so scary ( they won't be any more fun, you will feel them more ). But a nail is a nail and if you hit it head on it will go in.
If a puncture isn't bad enough to require immediate road side repair then I'd say yeah, good tires should help a lot.
Thicker tubes can help, too. I use some really beefy tubes. They're way heavier but it's worth it to me. I went from a few flats a month to no flats a year, back when I commuted by bike in Austin.
I used to have those tires (before the bike they were on was stolen). A few years running daily in a busy city and I never had a puncture. You can go on broken glass and not have a puncture. I did exactly that a few times.
Current ones are some Continental with 5mm reinforcement IIRC. I came home one time with a piece of broken glass stuck in the tire. It was just stuck, pointy end in the tire but did not puncture it, so I just removed it and laughed.
Marathon Plus are great, but they're not the most supple of tyres.
Tubeless is a great solution for preventing punctures (especially sharp thorns left on roads after trimming of hedges and bushes), but it can be a faff to set up until you know what you're doing and the tyres are more expensive. You also "need" compatible rims to run tubeless unless you fancy a ghetto setup.
