Triggered

Bike-friendly transportation infrastructure can take many forms. The preferred method is to keep cyclists and cars as separated as possible. In areas where this isn't possible, adaptations are necessary.

Since I've moved to Columbus, I've been seeing these little bicyclist icons painted in the travel lanes near intersections on so-called "bike-friendly" roads. At first, I just thought that was a way of letting people know this was a preferred bike route, similar to sharrows that you'll see in a lot of areas. It turns out they mean something completely different entirely:

Those signs should be posted at all such intersections, but they're not. Anyway, the little icons are actually guidelines for cyclists to trigger a traffic signal, using the same actuation method as cars do:

Maybe you've seen this before. I certainly haven't seen it anywhere in my travels throughout the greater Philadelphia region (but they do exist in Portland, which I visited long before I was using a bike on a daily basis). It's a pretty simple concept. Stop in the designated area to activate the signal. Some trigger areas are larger than others:

Of course, during rush hour when signals are timed based on traffic patterns rather than real time activity, this all goes out the window, but it's still pretty handy to know.