bikelane flamebait and going right

Peter Cole wrote:
Tom Sherman °_° wrote:
Peter Cole wrote:

Many experienced cyclists prefer segregated facilities. That's why
they're popular, it's not only novice cyclists. Your attitude is both
wrong and condescending.

Why, have the lets themselves be buffaloed by the propaganda into
accepting being ghettoized?

What propaganda? Bike lanes aren't advertised during the Super Bowl.

The people who convinced politicians to spend the money have not tried
to also sway public opinion?

When someone I am riding with convinces me to use a bicycle lane, I
can wait to get off of it and back in the street where I belong.

Cowering behind a white stripe is lett[ing] the *******s win.

In your mind, but in many communities, some cyclists have fought long
and hard to acquire bicycle lanes.

Because they were misinformed? Or where these anti-car advocates
thinking they were doing cyclists a favor?

--
Tom Sherman - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.

Simon Lewis wrote:
Tom Sherman °_° writes:

Peter Cole wrote:
Tom Sherman °_° wrote:
Peter Cole wrote:
Tom Sherman °_° wrote:
Peter Cole wrote:
[...]I don't know what the VC goal is.[...]
To get from A to B, using the roads of the CYCLIST'S choice. Not
being limited to the cyclist inferiority ghetto of lanes and paths.

Mandatory use of lanes and sidepaths is a separate issue. Real choice
is having multiple options, facilities and plain roads. Let people
use what they wish. When people have the choice, guess what they prefer?
Newbies prefer segregated facilities because that is what they have
been told is better. More experienced cyclists generally learn to
understand the superiority of vehicular cycling and the downside of
being confined (or having motorists believe cyclists should be
confined) to a lesser facility.

Many experienced cyclists prefer segregated facilities. That's why
they're popular, it's not only novice cyclists. Your attitude is both
wrong and condescending.
Why, have the lets themselves be buffaloed by the propaganda into
accepting being ghettoized?

When someone I am riding with convinces me to use a bicycle lane, I can
wait to get off of it and back in the street where I belong.

Cowering behind a white stripe is lett[ing] the *******s win.

Thank you for confirming you are merely an aggressive,

Not aggressive, but an assertive cyclist.

car hating loony.

So why do I like to drive the winding highways of the Driftless Area in
the early, traffic free morning in my Honda Civic, carving into the
curves, letting the brave little VTEC engine sing its high rpm song as
it pulls up the hills, heel and toeing down-shifts while trail braking
into the corners, clipping the apex and adjusting my exit line with the
throttle?

None of your arguments against bike lanes have made the slightest
bit of sense, or convinced anyone. This last post of yours confirms what
I suspected all along. You're just posturing and venting.

I sense self-projection here.

relax and TRY
to see things from the viewpoint of others. Parents of little children
who cycle to school for example.

Why would I want to endanger those children by putting then at risk in a
bicycle lane?

--
Tom Sherman - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.

Simon Lewis wrote:
Phil W Lee phil(at)lee-family(dot)me(dot)uk writes:

Peter Cole considered Mon, 26 Oct 2009
08:21:48 -0400 the perfect time to write:

Tom Sherman °_° wrote:
Peter Cole wrote:
Tom Sherman °_° wrote:
Peter Cole wrote:
Tom Sherman °_° wrote:
Frank Krygowski wrote:
[...]
As I've said, vehicular cycling is not a recruitment program. It's a
collection of techniques that allow one to ride a bicycle safely and
efficiently to anywhere they reasonably want to go. It works
extremely well for that purpose.[...]
Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner.

Right answer, wrong question.
There needs to be a better way to get people to ride bicycles other
than creating substandard facilities that punish more experienced
cyclists.

In the absence of mandatory sidepath laws, there's nothing to force
cyclists to use segregated facilities. Even where there are such laws,
alternate routes generally exist. Yours is a trumped up argument.
If you like motorists screaming and swerving at you while pointing at
the separate and unequal farcility, no, there is no coercion to use the
bicycle ghetto.

If there are no lanes on the street, there's nothing to point at. Even
where lanes are heavily used, most streets don't have them. Cyclists
typically go out of their way to use them, you don't have to. Use them
if you like, don't use them if you don't. I fail to see what's so difficult.
The difficulty is with the driver attitude which will attempt to
intimidate any road using cyclist into using any facility, no matter
how inadequate or inappropriate.
And of course with the police attitude which does so little to prevent
these assaults that it amounts to condoning them.

Total bull**** on your part once again. I have never, ever been
intimidated by cars in city driving/cycling. I have had yobs spit/shout
as passing by in the country however. Having said that I'm sure it does
occasionally happen. As I said : **** happens and there are a lot of
arseholes around. On bikes too.

These claims of yours about drivers not being prosecuted for this
behaviour smacks of some sort of insane paranoia on your part. Did you
ever consider seeking professional help to rid you of your paranoia?

Maybe in Germany where you live, but the police generally ignore the
behavior in the US. In fact, I have been told to get off the street and
illegally ride on the sidewalk (pavement for right-pondians) by more
than one traffic cop.

--
Tom Sherman - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.

On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:21:27 -0500, Tom Sherman °_°
wrote:

If you like motorists screaming and swerving at you while pointing at
the separate and unequal farcility, no, there is no coercion to use the
bicycle ghetto.

Not to mention that the unsafe ghetto is often carved out of a safe
road, thereby rendering it unsafe.

I'm gonna miss Market Street.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net

On 27 Oct, 06:29, Tom Sherman °_°
wrote:
Simon Lewis wrote:

car hating loony.

So why do I like to drive the winding highways of the Driftless Area in
the early, traffic free morning in my Honda Civic, carving into the
curves, letting the brave little VTEC engine sing its high rpm song as
it pulls up the hills, heel and toeing down-shifts while trail braking
into the corners, clipping the apex and adjusting my exit line with the
throttle?

Cos you smashed up the TVR and can't fund the repairs just yet?

thirty-six aka someone aka Nick L Plate aka Trevor Jeffrey wrote:
On 27 Oct, 06:29, Tom Sherman °_°
wrote:
Simon Lewis wrote:

car hating loony.
So why do I like to drive the winding highways of the Driftless Area in
the early, traffic free morning in my Honda Civic, carving into the
curves, letting the brave little VTEC engine sing its high rpm song as
it pulls up the hills, heel and toeing down-shifts while trail braking
into the corners, clipping the apex and adjusting my exit line with the
throttle?

Cos you smashed up the TVR and can't fund the repairs just yet?

LOL!

--
Tom Sherman - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.

On Oct 27, 12:42*am, (Tom Keats) wrote:

In fact, effectively getting around Vancouver on a bicycle
involves knowing where are the bike routes, bike lanes, best
stretches of arterial streets, back access lanes/alleys
and parking lots to cut through. *But it's not a black art.
One just rides around, explores, becomes acquainted, and learns.
It's rather fun to do so, because our local riding environment
is always changing, as new facilities come to the fore.

Our metro area has no official bike routes, but those of us that use
our bikes for practical uses have found many more-pleasant streets
parallel to arterials. And I've found some interesting cut-throughs.
Most of them, I use only rarely, but sometimes it's fun to explore
them - like the dirt path the kids made, out the end of the dead-end
street that jogs right past the water tower and pops out onto the
other street, saving a block or two of riding.

I think that if we could interview all the kids in town, we'd soon
have a list of hundreds of those things. Kids are like ants*; they
get _everywhere_ eventually. Their knowledge would be handy for the
contribution to a bike map.

*(Not as much as they used to be, I fear, but they still know lots of
things we adults are too "conventional" to ever figure out.)

- Frank Krygowski

In article ,
Frank Krygowski writes:
On Oct 27, 12:42*am, (Tom Keats) wrote:

In fact, effectively getting around Vancouver on a bicycle
involves knowing where are the bike routes, bike lanes, best
stretches of arterial streets, back access lanes/alleys
and parking lots to cut through. *But it's not a black art.
One just rides around, explores, becomes acquainted, and learns.
It's rather fun to do so, because our local riding environment
is always changing, as new facilities come to the fore.
Our metro area has no official bike routes, but those of us that use
our bikes for practical uses have found many more-pleasant streets
parallel to arterials. And I've found some interesting cut-throughs.
Most of them, I use only rarely, but sometimes it's fun to explore
them - like the dirt path the kids made, out the end of the dead-end
street that jogs right past the water tower and pops out onto the
other street, saving a block or two of riding.
I think that if we could interview all the kids in town, we'd soon
have a list of hundreds of those things. Kids are like ants*; they
get _everywhere_ eventually. Their knowledge would be handy for the
contribution to a bike map.
*(Not as much as they used to be, I fear, but they still know lots of
things we adults are too "conventional" to ever figure out.)

Bike lanes are ubiquitiously an urban thing, enmeshed in the
tangle of routes of all sorts, and often just as valid and
useful as a back alley, torn-down gas station or vacant
parking lot as a means of getting across town.

I suspect many of the folks here expressing their misgivings
about bike lanes are thinking in terms of the open road.

Of course bike lanes don't belong on the open road.

The thick of urban traffic is a different matter. This is
where you can't get much speed up because you'll be stopped
by traffic lights every block or two. Sometimes a rider
will opt for an arterial street portion of their route because
the grades are easier and the line to the destination is more
direct; other times he or she will opt for the parallel streets
because they're less inflicted with traffic lights, or because
they're quieter.

In practice, urban bike lanes are not railway tracks from
which riders may not deviate. Au contraire, they add to,
and expand a rider's repertoire of choices of route segments..

In a traditional rectangular street-grid city with fairly
dense population and traffic, bike lanes are not limiting.


cheers,
Tom

--
Nothing is safe from me.
I'm really at:
tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca

Tom Keats wrote:

In a traditional rectangular street-grid city with fairly
dense population and traffic, bike lanes are not limiting.

Visit Germany and you will learn that this statement is incorrect
("All generalizations are wrong" :-)

Many "Radwege" (separated bike lanes) will force you to make a
sharp, short right/left ("S") turn at each crossing, so the corner
can be "rounded" for the cars to make their turns. That prevents
you from going reasonably fast: you have to check for cars significantly
before the crossing because your attention will be needed to follow
the lane (where often one or two sign posts or a fence right next
to the lane make riding even more "interesting" and force you
to slow down even more than usual).

On Oct 28, 12:59*am, (Tom Keats) wrote:
In article ,
* * * * Frank Krygowski writes:



On Oct 27, 12:42*am, (Tom Keats) wrote:

In fact, effectively getting around Vancouver on a bicycle
involves knowing where are the bike routes, bike lanes, best
stretches of arterial streets, back access lanes/alleys
and parking lots to cut through. *But it's not a black art.
One just rides around, explores, becomes acquainted, and learns.
It's rather fun to do so, because our local riding environment
is always changing, as new facilities come to the fore.
Our metro area has no official bike routes, but those of us that use
our bikes for practical uses have found many more-pleasant streets
parallel to arterials. *And I've found some interesting cut-throughs.
Most of them, I use only rarely, but sometimes it's fun to explore
them - like the dirt path the kids made, out the end of the dead-end
street that jogs right past the water tower and pops out onto the
other street, saving a block or two of riding.
I think that if we could interview all the kids in town, we'd soon
have a list of hundreds of those things. *Kids are like ants*; they
get _everywhere_ eventually. *Their knowledge would be handy for the
contribution to a bike map.
*(Not as much as they used to be, I fear, but they still know lots of
things we adults are too "conventional" to ever figure out.)

Bike lanes are ubiquitiously an urban thing, enmeshed in the
tangle of routes of all sorts, and often just as valid and
useful as a back alley, torn-down gas station or vacant
parking lot as a means of getting across town.

I suspect many of the folks here expressing their misgivings
about bike lanes are thinking in terms of the open road.

Of course bike lanes don't belong on the open road.

The thick of urban traffic is a different matter. *This is
where you can't get much speed up because you'll be stopped
by traffic lights every block or two. *Sometimes a rider
will opt for an arterial street portion of their route because
the grades are easier and the line to the destination is more
direct; other times he or she will opt for the parallel streets
because they're less inflicted with traffic lights, or because
they're quieter.

In practice, urban bike lanes are not railway tracks from
which riders may not deviate. *Au contraire, they add to,
and expand a rider's repertoire of choices of route segments..

In a traditional rectangular street-grid city with fairly
dense population and traffic, bike lanes are not limiting.

I don't see that bike lanes add to a choice of route segments. If a
given street has enough pavement width to be striped with a bike lane
stripe, it must have had enough width to safely share with motor
vehicles before that stripe was painted. IOW, I can always make the
choice to ride there.

And as I've described upthread, it will have had less glass, gravel
and trash along its right side before the stripe was painted. That's
one of the reasons I've ridden streets without bike lanes when given
the choice.

Granted, there are people who actually think "I can't ride a bike on
that street because it doesn't have a bike lane." Bicycle "advocates"
have popularized that notion by repeatedly calling for bike lanes and
bike paths. It's the same old myth: that riding an ordinary bike on
an ordinary road in an ordinary way is extraordinarily dangerous.
It's false.

- Frank Krygowski