On Monday, September 1, 2014 9:07:57 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 9/1/2014 8:05 PM, jbeattie wrote:





By the way, the census information for calculating mode share is based on one question:



How did this person usually get to work LAST

WEEK? If this person usually used more than one

method of transportation during the trip, mark (X)

the box of the one used for most of the distance.



The questionnaire is completed in April -- not a great commuting month in Portland

since it is so wet. I don't know what the sample size is.



I'm not sure of your point, Jay. Would you suggest they ask the

question in December? Yes, I imagine bike mode share is higher in (say)

June or July, but it's certainly lower in the dreary winter. April

seems about midway.



And it's theoretically possible to ask more detailed questions every

month, or every week. But someone has to pay for that.



I've stated my observations on PDX. I think there is no time that 6% of

the vehicles in motion - or stopped on the gridlocked streets and

highways - are bicycles. Polling only city residents gives optimistic

answers, applicable only to those who have chosen the trendy Portland

inner-city lifestyle. IOW, suburban commuters don't count in the

surveys, but they dominate on the ground.



I do know that my commute from Southwest has gotten busier -- a lot busier.

I took a hilly-ish route from downtown last week during rush hour (earlier

than I usually leave for home), and it was full of cyclists. I drag raced

this one kid just because I can't help myself. I'm seeing a lot more

cyclists

in my part of the town, which is more challenging than the close-in east

side

from whence most cyclists commute.



Your observations may be accurate, and increases in bike mode share - if

any - may be the beginning of a sea change. OTOH, they may just be the

tides of fashion, as permanent as love beads or leisure suits.


I can't wait for the tide to recede because I'm sick of the bicycle traffic.. This ain't no Amsterdam, but it's still a f****** conga line of bicycles on some mornings.

You'll love this morning's conflict: I'm in the traffic lane, and there's a bike lane next to me that is about to end. I'm passing the conga line of cyclists. When the lane ends, the riders in the bike lane just cut to the left and practically in to me. Then I jam on my brakes because some pedestrian has dipped his toe in to traffic, and all the cars stopped (mid block, not at a light -- we have all these mid-block cross walks for no apparent reason). Some cyclist behind me tells me to watch out. I figure that I'm in the lane; the bike lane is ending, and cyclists have to merge like any other traffic, and I'm traffic.

Who knows, though -- because we have to look at the rules applicable to over-taking vehicles (me), which I'm too lazy to read this morning.

One problem with our bike lane law is that you have to be in the bike lane unless your passing another bike or some other exception applies, which doesn't including riding the speed of traffic. You should not have to be in the bike lane -- or pretend like you're "passing" (bobbing in and out of the bike lane) -- when you're going the speed of traffic.

-- Jay Beattie.