Sharrows are just markings telling bicyclists it is okay to “take the lane”, and telling motorists they have let bicyclists take the lane. In my experience, this can actually work okay on very narrow city streets with very slow traffic. The reason is that speeds here are low. So even if a bicyclist gets hit, that person is unlikely to die. I bike in this way, by taking the lane on relatively low-traffic, relatively slow streets. Surprisingly, the vast majority of drivers will wait patiently or change lanes and pass if they can do that safely. A small handful of psychopathic assholes will lay on the horn, scream, throw things, or spit. I would not let my children ride this way, but I feel safe enough doing it when I really need to. Those same psychopathic assholes are the ones who will kill a child crossing the street legally on foot, so not being on a bike is not going to save you from them.

Now having said all that, I agree sharrows are bad. Speed kills. Twenty is plenty, and anything over 20 mph is simply not safe for the bicyclist to be out there at all. Under 20, the hope is that the bicyclist will suffer only non-lethal broken bones and organ damage. Even in slower traffic, nine out of ten bicyclists don’t understand or don’t feel comfortable taking the lane, so they ride on the edge. Almost all drivers, for some reason, will speed up to pass a bicyclist riding on the edge. There is no room for error in this situation. Anything unexpected like an open car door, the car swerving slightly, or a pedestrian/dog/scooter enthusiast, and the bicyclist is likely to get hit hard and likely killed. If the vehicle is something bigger than a car, as it often is, the bicyclist has even less chance.

So what we need is safe, modern, competent road and street design. That’s it. Safe designs exist. We just have to design them, build them, and maintain them.

But if I were feeling cynical I would say yeah, but this is America, and we can’t have nice things here.