History
These markings are used in the USA, Australia and other countries. In US usage, the wide shape of the arrow, combined with the bike symbol, gave rise to unofficial names such as "bike in a house" or "sharrow". In the UK roughly the same function is served by a bicycle symbol without arrows. However this tends to be used more as an indication of a formal cycle route rather than as an encouragment to share the road.
The original "bike in a house" or "man jumping barrels at home" marking was developed by James Mackay and included in the 1993 Denver Bicycle Master Plan. While Mackay had considered a "connect the dots" pavement markings approach for bicycle route definition and lane positioning reinforcement for bicyclists earlier when he was the Bicycle Facilities Engineer for the North Carolina Department of Transportation, the City of Denver's unwillingness to commit to bike lane markings meant that shared lane markings were the only pavement marking treatment for bicyclists that the City would implement. The hollow arrow surrounding the bicyclist was intended to reinforce the correct direction of travel for bicyclists (who were frequently observed riding the wrong-way, against traffic, in Denver).
In 2004, the city of San Francisco, California began experimenting with the shared lane marking, and developed a revised symbol consisting of a bicycle symbol with two chevron markings above the bicycle.
Read more about this topic: Shared Lane Marking
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