Camden is introducing sharrows on several of our streets. The purpose of a sharrow – road markings showing a bicycle with two chevrons – is to remind residents to share the road when driving or cycling in Camden. Sharrows will first be painted on Mechanic Street.

Benefits of sharrows

For cyclists, sharrows:

• Encourage drivers to leave space for cyclists where lanes are wide enough to share but where there is not enough space for a full reserved bike lane
• Assist with positioning in a shared lane with on-street parallel parking in order to reduce the chance of a driver opening their door and hitting a cyclist
• Advise cyclists when to "take the lane" where travel lanes are too narrow for riding side by side within the same lane
• Reduce the incidences of wrong-way cycling.

For drivers, sharrows:

• Alert road users of the space cyclists are likely to occupy in the lane
• Encourage safe passing of cyclists by motorists
• Remind them to share the road with supplemental road signs.

Sharrows do not in any way require a cyclist to take a particular route or obligate where cyclists should position themselves in a lane. Cyclists have the right to ride in any lane and motorists should treat cyclists as they would any other vehicle.