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On my commute every day I have the option of dieing on Rt. 7
or riding the sidewalk for about 1/2 a mile and arriving at work
alive. My job really sux so sometimes I have to think about it
but so far I have opted for the latter.
The people walking I pass I smile to and we exchange pleasantries.
Everyone is happy with the friendly acknowledgement and
say 'Hi' and 'Good Morning' to me too when I ride by them.
I wish other cyclists were as happy and freindly as the peds.
How can people be this happy about being put in such terrible,
mortal danger by someone who is is flagrantly disregarding
the rules designed to keep society safe from such ne'er-do-wells ?
:eek: :eek:
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I do the same thing in one spot on my commute. Overpass with no room for a bike and a concrete wall on the right. I ride the sidewalk past that part everyday, of course no one is ever walking on that sidewalk either. I think if you are courteous to pedestrians it should be okay in certain situations.
You've gotta do whatever it takes to ensure your own safety. From what I've noticed, the places with sidewalks that I would not want to ride on, like downtown areas where I would be a hazard to pedestrians,) are going to have a road I can pretty safely ride on. The places out more in the country where everyone wants to go 55 and squeek past your handlebars generally have pretty deserted sidewalks, ('cuz everyone's driving.) I am for the most part a VC cyclist, but part of my responsibility to myself is to research routes to ensure my own safety. A legal right to the road does not keep drivers from doing utterly stupid and irresponsible things, and there are days when I am convinced it is only a matter of time until I am hit and/or killed. So I try to route myself, sometimes taking a longer, safer one. At my funeral, no one is going to talk about what a passionate VC advocate I was, ya dig?
Actually, you know my biggest problem with drivers is, if given a choice between slowing down when seeing a potential road hazard, or shooting on through and hoping for the best, 9 out of 10 times it seems they will choose the latter. I guess this is why they send so many people to "Defensive Driving" school, but this is probably the cause of most accidents.
Currently there's some major road work on my street. I have a choice: do some impossibly long detour route when I'm already late for work, or take the sidewalk. On the way home, when the detour signs are gone, I still take the sidewalk because I do not like to ride on steel plates and through 4-inch deep trenches in the asphalt. The peds don't seem to mind. I go slow, pull over for them.
I don't see anything wrong with occassionally riding on the sidewalk out of necessity. When I do, I blend in, I go at a walking pace and I don't enterfere with anyone.
The same riding style I use on the road, I try to take a route where I can keep up with cars most of the time and blend in.
Currently there's some major road work on my street. I have a choice: do some impossibly long detour route when I'm already late for work, or take the sidewalk. On the way home, when the detour signs are gone, I still take the sidewalk because I do not like to ride on steel plates and through 4-inch deep trenches in the asphalt. The peds don't seem to mind. I go slow, pull over for them.
I do the same on part of my recreational ride, where the town's business district has cars parked along the curb, and constant traffic makes riding in the door zone the only alternative. So I ride slowly and on the side which the rest of the traffic is coming from, to hopefully not catch drivers unaware. And I defer to walkers, often detouring back into the road to avoid startling them. I scope out driveways to see if cars are entering /exiting. If a walkway abuts the street I use caution.
Maybe it's one of the things in life that isn't inherently right or wrong. Circumstances change, and require us to respond in a flexible but reasoning fashion.
"It ain't what you do, it's the way how you do it".
I dislike sidewalks. However, I dislike the potential harm associated with not using them in certain areas more.
That and they make a nice path to detour around stopped traffic.
Yesterday, I used a sidewalk to detour around a traffic jam. There are benefits to riding a bicycle. Avoiding traffic jams is one of them IMHO.
I'm with ya. My commute doesn't include a sidewalk, but I do ride the "wrong way" for about 1/10 of a mile on a quiet street. It beats the alternative. All bikers in this area (Kittery Maine) essentially use the same route from Adams Dr. to the traffic circle.
I cross the major road outside my apt complex most mornings at the crosswalk. There is an elementary school down the road so they have crossing guards out there in the morning...I feel kinda silly doing it, but I tend to cross slow or walk my bike across there, rather than fighting traffic. Once across, I join up with traffic at the first parking lot entrance. It's ~100 yards total on the sidewalk/multi use path. The rest of my trip is in the street.
I just saw a presentation on bike use in Japan. Osaka has a 50% bike mode split, and everyone rides on the sidewalk. A lot of them holding umbrellas in one hand to protect themselves from either the sun or rain. Utility cyclists. No helmets. No special clothes. Kids and groceries on the bike. Cars on the sidewalks as well, at low speeds. It apparently works for all involved. Car ownership is quite low considering Japan's economic power. Sport and recreational cyclists make up only a very small fraction of bicycle users in Japan. IMO, this needs to be seriously considered if US advocates ever want to see bicycling viewed as more than the fringe activity most Americans consider it.
I just saw a presentation on bike use in Japan. Osaka has a 50% bike mode split, and everyone rides on the sidewalk. A lot of them holding umbrellas in one hand to protect themselves from either the sun or rain. Utility cyclists. No helmets. No special clothes. Kids and groceries on the bike. Cars on the sidewalks as well, at low speeds. It apparently works for all involved. Car ownership is quite low considering Japan's economic power. Sport and recreational cyclists make up only a very small fraction of bicycle users in Japan. IMO, this needs to be seriously considered if US advocates ever want to see bicycling viewed as more than the fringe activity most Americans consider it.
Ya know the interesting thing is that whole utility bike thing works in places where there is not much auto traffic, or the auto traffic is moving at speeds such that it is just as "organic" as the peds and cyclists.
Trying to be a utility biker on 45MPH+ boulevards just is not as much fun.
Our MUP's are 10 feet wide. It is not at all unusual to see motorists using them as frontage roads. :mad:
One vote for best thread title in A&S :lol:
Ya know the interesting thing is that whole utility bike thing works in places where there is not much auto traffic, or the auto traffic is moving at speeds such that it is just as "organic" as the peds and cyclists.
Trying to be a utility biker on 45MPH+ boulevards just is not as much fun.
Maybe that's one reason so many utility cyclists prefer to ride on the sidewalk.
'Utility biking' works well on 45+ MPH boulevards when there are wide, well thought out multimodal accomodations integrated with the roadways, Genec.
I say, ride on the sidewalks if that's where you think you've got to be. I can't make any other comment except sidewalks are generally more hazardous for bicyclists.
Every day on my commute, I ride wrong way on a one way street (for about 10 feet), in an alley, through two parking lots and on 20 feet of sidewalk. I do all this to avoid going three blocks out of my way and crossing a major five lane highway.
Why do we need 45 mph arterials, anyway? They could be redesigned to have multimodal accommodations; if 50% of the people were cycling, there'd be a lot less cars, a lot more bikes, 25 mph for cars would make more sense.
OTOH, Europe has some good 'facilities', but you still have to mix w/ traffic and people drive way fast (France and Spain where I was anyway), but my experience was that they just had more respect for people on bicycles than in the US, and knew how to yield and 'negotiate' conflicts better.
I can't make any other comment except sidewalks are generally more hazardous for bicyclists.
On what do you base that statement? Personal opinion or experience? Or do you have some evidence?
Or is it just the standard "sidewalk riding is dangerous" accepted 'wisdom'?
Many people want to believe that sidewalk riding is inherently dangerous but there doesn't seem to be much (if any) evidence (as discussed in the "Sidewalk bicycling" stickie).
I rode to grade school on the sidewalk decades ago. Even back then we knew to watch out for driveways, not to ride too fast and to always yield to pedestrians. I never had an accident riding on the sidewalk. Riding safely on the sidewalk isn't brain surgery. Personally, I think the idea that sidewalk riding is inherently dangerous is bull - basically just the anti-sidewalk riding crowd blowing smoke. There are more hazards on a multi-use path than on a sidewalk. Anybody can learn to ride safely on the sidewalk. Most sidewalk riding accidents involve young riders who are unskilled, reckless or unaware of the dangers.
I hardly ever ride on the sidewalk these days but I reserve the right to. The reason I don't normally ride on the sidewalk is not that it's unsafe but that it's generally inefficient. It's usually faster to ride on the road. I'm strongly opposed to any law that makes sidewalk riding illegal. Such laws are as anti-bike as laws that make riding in the street illegal. Either way, it's people who don't know jack telling other people that they can't do something. It concerns me that some so-called cycling advocates don't complain much when anti-sidewalk riding laws are passed. It concerns me even more that some so-called advocates seem to encourage the passage of such laws.
If someone has some evidence that sidewalk riding is inherently dangerous, I'd be interested to know what the evidence is. I've looked for evidence and I can't find it.
I'm as free as a breeze
And I ride where I please
Saddle tramp, saddle tramp
The downtown city I live in has extended crosswalk parts and I ride 'em and to a hop on the backside kerb. Saves time, distance and sometimes there is no choice.
Buses have made me bunnyhop into planted medians. Cool that I ride a mtb.
It's just normal mtb fun\skill to me.
Sorry, lets use Toms term ATB. Kerbs included...planters, stairs.
To respond to JRA,
There's usually a LOT more obstacles on a sidewalk, if you are looking for some simple quantification to the argument sidewalks are more hazardous. Also, every intersection becomes a wierd velopedestrian limbo in many jurisdictions that leave you culpable or even law breaking if you ride thru the crosswalk....
Also generally slower, etc. But i don't condemn sidewalk riding, just generally discourage it unless the cyclist feels its where they have to be for expediency or safety reasons. This morning I rode around the block instead of on the sidewalk along a wrong way one way, but also rode on some sidewalks thru a city park on the way to the grocery store after work.
You ride slower on the sidewalk, the hazards are different than riding in the street, you learn to recognize them and respond appropriately. Any 6 year old can do it.
I will ride the sidewalk to avoid gridlock in the street, even in the downtown 'banned zone'; IMO it's safer than squeezing by the cars in the street. Sometimes it's just convenient for a short distance; but WTF, it shouldn't be banned or taboo.
Many major streets in Barcelona had sidewalks designated, and plenty wide enough, for cyclists, and it worked fine. But you had to adjust to the ped traffic and watch out at intersections, most of which had separate cyclist traffic signals. If you grow up doing it this way, it becomes second nature, whether you're a cyclist or a ped.
IMO, most of the American cyclists who object are the 'kit' guys, in lycra, with the fancy bikes, riding fast; this type of cyclist is much less prevalent in Europe or Japan. The VC guys will argue that travel distances are longer in the US and therefore it makes more sense to ride in the road as a car, but I dunno...if I can/could ride through a park or along a greenbelt or down a bike / ped only street, I'd much rather do that than compete with the cars in the street (which I do most of the time) anyday...
^^^^^ I pass 2 commuters on my way in every morning.
One is always on the sidewalk. An older man going to work in
the Reel factory on an old girls coaster braker and a 'serious'
MTB commuter. I always choose the street if I can but realisticly
in this kulture of Aggression the lowly bicycler suffers the most it
seems....we have nowhere to go. :cry: In this case I go WHAM style,
and choose LIFE :roflmao: that being the sidewalk .
Along my 5 mile commute there are about 3 miles one way and 1 the other where there are very wide (~6 feet) sidewalks set back from the street ~6 feet. I have seen a grand total of 3 peds ever using them, so I use them as bike trails. The rest of my commute there are no sidewalks or bike lanes so I VC.
IMO, most of the American cyclists who object are the 'kit' guys, in lycra, with the fancy bikes, riding fast; this type of cyclist is much less prevalent in Europe or Japan. The VC guys will argue that travel distances are longer in the US and therefore it makes more sense to ride in the road as a car, but I dunno...
My opinion is similar; the "VC guys" claims about the demands/requirements imposed by travel distances in the US are for the most part guesses about the commuting distances that most cyclists or non cyclists would consider practical. Guesses from a relative handful of "experienced high mileage road cyclists™ who may, or may not, cycle commute at all. Other VC guy claims about the demands of greater commuting travel distances for US cyclists are apparantly derived from extrapolalations from their weekend club cycling logs; or are fabricated from dogmatic whole cloth.
You ride a bicycle wherever a bicycle can be ridden (rode? rodden? rid?). The only folks that make an issue of where you ride are the extremist do-gooders who have an overwhelming urge to control the actions of us mere mortals.
Many accidents do happen on the sidewalk--that's pretty much accepted. Those usually entail people backing out of driveways and obsticals, also some cases of vehicles turing to a driveway or street who dont seem to see you. This happened right behind me in Boston a couple of years ago. I was walking near Harvard Square and I heard a ga-bang. I looked back and a bread truck had cut off a s/w biker, while the truck was turning into a driveway. It was a tree-lined street so the bread truck definately had limited sitght.
But if there are no driveways or obsticals on the s/w and the road is full of speeding cars, I ride the s/w. I really don't know why the vc'ers get so irate about this, (dont want to hear the VC justifications again). That is just dogmatic extremism.
Most accidents happen on earth...
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