bikelane flamebait and going right

On Oct 14, 9:23*pm, Ron Wallenfang wrote:
... I'm no fan of bike lanes.

When I started my trip last August from Vancouver to Milwaukee, I
observed an interesting way to accommodate bikes. *The Adanac bikeway
in Vancouver used a regular street, and restricted auto traffic via
periodic signs forbidding autos to drive straight ahead, restricting
through traffic and leaving most of the street available to bikes most
of the time. * I didn't experience it long enough to have an opinion
about it but it was at least fascinating.

I think that design comes under "bike boulevard" instead of "bike
lane." I've experienced it only very rarely. I think it would be
better for cycling than a bike lane; but it imposes even stricter
limitations on motorists, so I imagine it would be more difficult to
get installed.

- Frank Krygowski

On Oct 14, 4:10*pm, Peter Cole wrote:
recycled wrote:

If the road is currently difficult for
cycling because of inadequate width to share, removing the parking and
replacing with a lane might be an improvement.

Of course, removing the parking and not installing a bike lane would
be even better. The bike lane adds no width.

A bad bike lane -- poorly laid out, not
kept clean, too narrow or with double parking can be much worse than the
unimproved version of the street.

It would be good if a few hundred people told that to the president
Andy Clarke of the League of American Bicyclists. I was formally
warned to stop saying such things on one of their discussion forums.
Clarke is all about paint & paths.

BTW, Alta Design is apparently roaming the country promoting striped
bike lanes, barrier separated bike lanes, and bike paths as hard as
they can to city councils, etc. Then they're offering themselves as
experts in doing the design work. And it looks like LAB is strongly
behind that effort.

- Frank Krygowski

On Oct 14, 8:19*pm, Phil W Lee phil(at)lee-family(dot)me(dot)uk
wrote:
Bob considered Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:18:45 -0700 (PDT)
the perfect time to write:

On Oct 14, 3:10*pm, Peter Cole wrote:

If the road is currently difficult for
cycling because of inadequate width to share, removing the parking and
replacing with a lane might be an improvement.

The operative word here is "share". Removing a convenience to one
group completely to increase another group's convenience- and that's
exactly what taking away existing parking spaces in the above
situation would be doing- isn't "sharing". It is one group claiming
primacy over another.

No, it would be motorists being prepared to sacrifice parking space in
order to get those pesky cyclists out of "their" road.

Both options give primacy to the motorist, one by making way for them
to travel faster, the other by allowing them to park in the way of
other traffic.

I'd ask two questions about your position. First, do you have any
evidence that when bike lanes are present motor traffic speeds
increase? Second, if designated parking lanes are nothing more than an
unfair infringement on traffic do you encourage motorists to drive in
a parking lane if said lane is devoid of parked cars?
Again, it is about *all* traffic sharing the roads and those motorists
are "traffic" too.

Regards,
Bob Hunt

On Oct 12, 8:07*pm, Frank Krygowski wrote:
deleted
I'll take the on-street parking. *And I'll stay way out of the door
zone.

The only advantage I see to bike lanes is that lots of people seem to
think they can't ride a bike unless there are bike lanes. *As much as
I'd like to promote cycling, that advantage doesn't outweigh the
disadvantages.

If bike lanes absolutely were to be put in, I'd fight like hell to
make sure their use would never be mandatory, and that everybody
(traffic planners, motorists, cops, judges, juries) knew that very,
very well.

- Frank Krygowski

1: No bike lanes. Paint bicycle sharrows on all street that get any
paint. (Q: where there are no sidewalks, would it make sense to do
pedestrian sharrows, i.e. a painted foot with toes? Paint these in
the door zone or near the edge.)
2: Wide lanes or street parking: depends on how full this and adjacent
streets are. If 7%5 full or more I would stick with parking. If lots
of parking on side streets make it no parking. Perhaps even put in a
center turn lane or center buffer (yellow striped off area) to push
cars to the side to discourage passing on the right.

Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Oct 14, 4:10 pm, Peter Cole wrote:
recycled wrote:

If the road is currently difficult for
cycling because of inadequate width to share, removing the parking and
replacing with a lane might be an improvement.

Of course, removing the parking and not installing a bike lane would
be even better. The bike lane adds no width.

For you, but many people prefer lanes.


A bad bike lane -- poorly laid out, not
kept clean, too narrow or with double parking can be much worse than the
unimproved version of the street.

It would be good if a few hundred people told that to the president
Andy Clarke of the League of American Bicyclists. I was formally
warned to stop saying such things on one of their discussion forums.
Clarke is all about paint & paths.

There can be good lanes and paths.


BTW, Alta Design is apparently roaming the country promoting striped
bike lanes, barrier separated bike lanes, and bike paths as hard as
they can to city councils, etc. Then they're offering themselves as
experts in doing the design work. And it looks like LAB is strongly
behind that effort.

I have no opinion about that company. I do believe that bike facilities,
including but not restricted to, lanes and paths, are necessary to get
more people cycling.

Bob wrote:
On Oct 14, 3:10 pm, Peter Cole wrote:

If the road is currently difficult for
cycling because of inadequate width to share, removing the parking and
replacing with a lane might be an improvement.

The operative word here is "share". Removing a convenience to one
group completely to increase another group's convenience- and that's
exactly what taking away existing parking spaces in the above
situation would be doing- isn't "sharing". It is one group claiming
primacy over another.

Regards,
Bob Hunt


I don't know what the trade-offs are in this case, but given that there
aren't infinite resources (money, space), providing facilities for
bicycles will inevitably be somewhat at the expense of motorists. In
some places (rare in the US, but increasingly common elsewhere)
motorists are explicitly discouraged, but that's mostly a local
decision, & I don't live there.

On Oct 15, 2:27*pm, Peter Cole wrote:
Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Oct 14, 4:10 pm, Peter Cole wrote:
recycled wrote:

If the road is currently difficult for
cycling because of inadequate width to share, removing the parking and
replacing with a lane might be an improvement.

Of course, removing the parking and not installing a bike lane would
be even better. *The bike lane adds no width.

For you, but many people prefer lanes.

Of course they do! Usually, because "bike lanes finally give them a
place to ride." They are "safe" because they'll "prevent drivers from
running into them from behind." We all know we "can't ride on the
streets around here, because they don't have bike lanes."

And it doesn't seem to matter that none of those are true. Worse, it
doesn't seem to matter if someone "protected" in a bike lane gets run
over by a right turning or left turning motorist, or doored by a
parked motorist, _because_ he was in a bike lane.

Well, I should take that back. It matters, but what's wrong is not
the false protection of the bike lane. What's wrong is that the bike
lane isn't painted green! When they're green, they're _really_
protective!


A bad bike lane -- poorly laid out, not
kept clean, too narrow or with double parking can be much worse than the
unimproved version of the street.

It would be good if a few hundred people told that to the president
Andy Clarke of the League of American Bicyclists. *I was formally
warned to stop saying such things on one of their discussion forums.
Clarke is all about paint & paths.

There can be good lanes and paths.

For some value of "can be."

Seriously, I can accept that there may be a very few instances where
bike lanes have significant value, beyond the luring-of-novices
benefit. I just don't know what they are; they're certainly rare. And
I think that the luring of novices is better done with sharrows.

I think bike paths are fine for recreation, if properly done; but I'm
against the common practice of financing them as transportation
facilities. IME, only a tiny percentage are useful for any sort of
transportation. Others should be funded by park funds.

I do believe that bike facilities,
including but not restricted to, lanes and paths, are necessary to get
more people cycling.

That's the attitude of the current LAB emperor, and of people like
John Pucher of Rutgers, and companies like Alta Design that make their
living by promoting and designing paths. They put much energy into
furthering the misconception that cycling without lanes and paths is
dangerous, and then in promoting lanes and paths as the "solution."
But that attitude is not correct.

A better phrasing would be "Because of people's fears, bike lanes and
paths increase the number of cyclists." They are not strictly
necessary, since other mechanisms (like last year's gas prices,
changes in fashion, changes in attitudes, etc.) also work. So would,
I think, reducing people's fears to realistic levels.

The biggest ever increases in cycling in the US happened in the 1890s
and in the 1970s, IIRC. Neither boom resulted from lanes and paths;
therefore, they can't be called "necessary."

- Frank Krygowski

On Oct 15, 1:32*pm, Peter Cole wrote:
Bob wrote:
On Oct 14, 3:10 pm, Peter Cole wrote:

If the road is currently difficult for
cycling because of inadequate width to share, removing the parking and
replacing with a lane might be an improvement.

The operative word here is "share". Removing a convenience to one
group completely to increase another group's convenience- and that's
exactly what taking away existing parking spaces in the above
situation would be doing- isn't "sharing". It is one group claiming
primacy over another.

Regards,
Bob Hunt

I don't know what the trade-offs are in this case, but given that there
aren't infinite resources (money, space), providing facilities for
bicycles will inevitably be somewhat at the expense of motorists. In
some places (rare in the US, but increasingly common elsewhere)
motorists are explicitly discouraged, but that's mostly a local
decision, & I don't live there.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Of course you are correct that it is a matter of tradeoffs. That's why
in my original post in this thread I differentiated between a
situation where there is already on-street parking and one in which
there currently is none. The real sticking point for me in this and
similar threads is the idea that things always must be 100% one way or
100% a diametrically opposite way. To my mind, such an "all or
nothing" approach guarantees just one thing- somebody is going to be
unfairly shortchanged. Given that there are a lot more people using a
car as their basic transportation than use a bike, guess who is going
to be shortchanged?
It's a shame that the situation as described by the OP rules out what
I think would be the best compromise- no street parking and no bike
lane. That would make cycling easier without the backlash of such
things as, "Yeah, I lose my parking spot so some jerk that lost his
license because of a DUI and has to ride a bicycle has more room to
wobble his probably drunk ass all over the road."

Regards,
Bob Hunt

Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Oct 15, 2:27 pm, Peter Cole wrote:

I do believe that bike facilities,
including but not restricted to, lanes and paths, are necessary to get
more people cycling.

That's the attitude of the current LAB emperor, and of people like
John Pucher of Rutgers, and companies like Alta Design that make their
living by promoting and designing paths. They put much energy into
furthering the misconception that cycling without lanes and paths is
dangerous, and then in promoting lanes and paths as the "solution."
But that attitude is not correct.

It's interesting to compare the US with Germany, which has made a
considerable investment in segregated bike facilities. The German auto
fatalities/mile are almost as high as the US, but the US has 2x the
pedestrian, and almost 5x the cyclist, fatalities/mile.

Segregated facilities aren't the only factor, but given attitudes in the
US, might be the only politically acceptable thing we can copy from Germany.

A better phrasing would be "Because of people's fears, bike lanes and
paths increase the number of cyclists." They are not strictly
necessary, since other mechanisms (like last year's gas prices,
changes in fashion, changes in attitudes, etc.) also work. So would,
I think, reducing people's fears to realistic levels.

Unfortunately, segregated facilities seem to be the only effective way
of reducing fears. It may be because those fears have some substance.


The biggest ever increases in cycling in the US happened in the 1890s
and in the 1970s, IIRC. Neither boom resulted from lanes and paths;
therefore, they can't be called "necessary."

Several European countries have managed to foster robust growth in
cycling while facing similar demographics and economics as the US, which
has seen a decline since most of the boomers stopped riding. Pucher
describes "carrots" and "sticks" and admits "sticks" are political
non-starters in the US. The biggest "carrot" I know of is segregated
facilities. Personally, I'd go for traffic calming, but outside of a few
progressive communities, I don't think that's going to happen here.

"In 2004, for example, Berlin (3.4 million inhabitants) had 860 km of
completely separate bike paths, 60 km of bike lanes on streets, 50 km of
bike lanes on sidewalks, 100 km of mixed-use pedestrian-bike paths and
70 km of combined bus-bike lanes on streets (City of Berlin, 2007)."

"The provision of separate cycling facilities is undoubtedly the
cornerstone of Dutch, Danish and German policies to make cycling safe
and attractive. They are designed to feel safe, comfortable and
convenient for both young and old, for women as well as men, and for all
levels of cycling ability. Separate facilities are not sufficient but
they are certainly necessary to ensure that cycling is possible for
a broad spectrum of the population (Garrard et al., 2008)."

There are important differences between the US & Europe, but they have
cycling success stories. Where are the success stories based on
"Effective Cycling"/"vehicular cycling" only?

On Oct 16, 10:06*am, Peter Cole wrote:


It's interesting to compare the US with Germany, which has made a
considerable investment in segregated bike facilities. The German auto
fatalities/mile are almost as high as the US, but the US has 2x the
pedestrian, and almost 5x the cyclist, fatalities/mile.

It's funny. When I read this far into your response, I said "Sounds
like this guy has been reading Pucher." I see below that I was
correct.

Unfortunately, segregated facilities seem to be the only effective way
of reducing fears. It may be because those fears have some substance.

Alternately, it may be because it's the only method that's been
seriously tried!

It seems obvious to me that the level of fear regarding bicycling is
completely disproportionate to the actual level of risk. I believe
this is due to enthusiastic, but mistaken, "bicycle safety" efforts
that focus on scaring people as a first step. Most people never get
to the second step, because they've been too scared to continue.

What if that were turned around? What if people were routinely told
that cycling is safer than walking, safer than swimming?

Personally, I'd go for traffic calming...

Me too. I see NYC is adding speed humps around school zones. About
time.

Pucher describes "carrots" and "sticks" and admits "sticks" are
political non-starters in the US.

Pucher's favorite technique is what I described above: Make U.S.
cycling sound extremely dangerous. He does it by repeatedly saying
that cyclists in the U.S. suffer far more fatalities per mile than
those in northern Europe. What he fails to emphasize is that by his
own data, U.S. cyclists ride over ten million miles between
fatalities; and that by his own data, U.S. cycling is several times
safer than walking, either per mile, per trip, or per hour. He has no
concept of the word "infinitesmal" nor of the concept "safe enough."
He is one of the most prominent fear mongers.

"The provision of separate cycling facilities is undoubtedly the
cornerstone of Dutch, Danish and German policies to make cycling safe
and attractive. They are designed to feel safe, comfortable and
convenient for both young and old, for women as well as men, and for all
levels of cycling ability.

It's true that separate facilities are designed to FEEL safe. It
doesn't seem that they're designed to add real safety, though.
Specifically, the addition of bike lanes (paint striped or barrier
separated) complicates movements at the intersections, which is where
most accidents occur. The cleanest study I know, in which researchers
in Copenhagen compared before-after data where such facilities were
added, found that lanes increased crashes something like 10% to 15%.
They were clearly _less_ safe. However, those who use them FEEL
safer.

ISTM it's unethical to install a facility that actually increases
danger for users, while luring them to use it. Can you imagine the
FDA's reaction to a drug that promised a reduction in cancer risk, but
actually increased that risk?

Where are the success stories based on "Effective Cycling"/"vehicular cycling" only?

We first have to give it a try. At present, teaching or promoting
vehicular cycling is a cottage industry, done by one volunteer at a
time.

I'd like to see a 21st century effort at promoting cycling,
particularly vehicular cycling, and our rights to the road. This is
the sort of thing I think the League of American Bicyclists should be
doing - everything from public service announcements to magazine ads
to internet ads to billboards to "product" placement in movies and TV
shows. Screw the "Always Wear Your Helmet or you'll Die!!!!"
warnings. Instead, show sexy, fashionable actresses riding and saying
"It keeps me slim and helps the environment," or something like that.

America has spent decades yelling that you'll get killed without your
funny hat and your paint stripe. We should start putting out honest,
correct information instead.

- Frank Krygowski