HOW TO STOP SNOW FROM BEING BIKE LANE KRYPTONITE | People for Bikes

Calgary's two-way protected bike lane last week. Photos: Tom Thivener, unless noted.

For dozens of newly built protected bike lanes across North America, it's the season for one of their hardest tests: How are cities supposed to keep the damn things plowed?

Though most people who never use them will never know it, many protected bike lanes are designed to a particular width not just for safe riding, but because they need to fit a maintenance vehicle.

"We've put in a few projects that were narrower than a pickup truck, and those are the locations that just take forever to get plowed," Chicago transportation planner Mike Amsden said in an interview.

Obviously that's not ideal, Amsden said, but it's the situation.

[Keep reading at People for Bikes]