On 5/16/2019 9:28 PM, sms wrote:
On 5/16/2019 1:10 AM, jbeattie wrote:

Without getting into the prudence of an adult MHL, I could see a MHL
causing significant drops in certain populations.

Perhaps, but that's not what happened in Australia. In fact numbers went
up right after the MHL, just not as fast as the population increase.
When that fact was noted, the AHZs insisted that the reason that cycling
numbers went up slower than the population growth was because of the
MHL--even when the data didn't support their premise they simply created
a rationalization to excuse the actual data. Of course that was of
little importance since when the actual data doesn't support their
position they just fabricate data to suit them.

Almost all of that is false, and probably deliberately false.

Tomorrow we kick off construction of some protected bike lanes near a
high school. These are real protected bike lanes, not some widely placed
pop-up bollards. While I would be thrilled to get the increase in
cycling that they saw in Columbus Ohio (75%)
http://www.dot.state.oh.us/engineering/OTEC/2017Presentations/72/Moorhead_72.pdf
I'd be happy with just 15%. The fact that we're doing real protected
bike lanes will hopefully mean that we see less of an increase in
non-fatal crashes than Columbus saw.

Columbus's Summit Street "protected" bike lanes _were_ "real protected
bike lanes." At least, they conformed to the most modern opinions on how
such nonsense should be designed. As the photos in the link showed, the
cyclists were "protected" by parked cars, by bollards and by pedestrian
islands. There were green painted turn boxes and other fancy tricks.

Of course, the cyclists were not "protected" at intersections, which is
where the crashes happened. As noted repeatedly, these facilities offer
"protection" against being hit from behind, a relatively rare crash
type. But they add extra complexity and surprise at intersections, which
is where most car-bike crashes occur. That's the reason that a 75%
increase in bike traffic was accompanied by a more than 700% increase in
car-bike crashes.

Before the installation: An average of 1.5 car-bike crashes per year.
After the installation: over 12 car-bike crashes per year.


--
- Frank Krygowski