Are you happier without bike facilities?

[joejack951]

What I find really strange is recommending 14 feet (pg 17) for shared use without the possibility of car doors opening up.

We have a few residential areas in the metro area where there is optional street parking besides driveway parking and it is rare to find a car in the street. Along sections like this I can see the minimal width being adequate. The problem is conveying to an engineer why an occasional parked car is not really a problem but a whole bunch of parked cars are a problem (you try scanning 2 cars a second for occupants and see how well you do.)

Just to be clear, the section I commented on was referring to sharing space with parked car (presumably next to 10-12 foot wide traffic lane (for a total width of 22-24 feet).

I don't often ride in areas with many parked cars but monitoring same direction, oncoming, cross traffic, and road conditions ahead of me is generally as much as I want to take on all at once. Trying to scan parked cars for occupants while at normal speed (and early enough to leave time to merge) is probably beyond my capacity.

[dynodonn]

Just to be clear, the section I commented on was referring to sharing space with parked car (presumably next to 10-12 foot wide traffic lane (for a total width of 22-24 feet).

I don't often ride in areas with many parked cars but monitoring same direction, oncoming, cross traffic, and road conditions ahead of me is generally as much as I want to take on all at once. Trying to scan parked cars for occupants while at normal speed (and early enough to leave time to merge) is probably beyond my capacity.


Definitely not the time to practice your Zen meditation, that's for sure.

[The Human Car]

Yeah, would love to see some of these engineers ride a bike through their creations. :D

You build it, you ride it (at 20+mph) ;)

The 20+mph is the tricky bit to get across as most of the pro-grunge facility engineers have no problem riding these things at their max velocity of 6mph. :(

[The Human Car]

Trying to scan parked cars for occupants while at normal speed (and early enough to leave time to merge) is probably beyond my capacity.

I wrote to the State's Director of Bike/ped accesses complaining about a door zone bike that fails to meet AASHTO and he sent me back info on how scan parked cars. And I responded back that you can't use ANY of those techniques (that he sent me, (probably dated 1960)) on cars with black tinted windows or head rests. And he responded that I should just look at the vehicles side mirror to see if there is an occupant or not. If you look at the calculations for a cyclists traveling 20mph and allowing for a 2 second reaction time yields you have a 1/2 a second to look at the 5th up car's rear view mirror and determine if it is occupied or not, the problem gets worse at 30mph and the state's own documentation mentions that 20-30mph is not an uncommon speed for cyclists. (I can do 30+ down most of Baltimore's hills.)

(I knew what section you were referring too, I just wanted to throw another width number out there.)

[genec]

You build it, you ride it (at 20+mph) ;)

The 20+mph is the tricky bit to get across as most of the pro-grunge facility engineers have no problem riding these things at their max velocity of 6mph. :(

Yeah, gee whiz, at just over walking speed, a lot of these things work fine... however, even my wife, who bikes about once a month these days, can do at least 10MPH.

Perhaps these "pro-grunge facility engineers" should be issued a moped that can do 18-20MPH.

[noisebeam]

I wrote to the State's Director of Bike/ped accesses complaining about a door zone bike that fails to meet AASHTO and he sent me back info on how scan parked cars.

This is what local city bike coordinator says about DZBL on 25mph street:

"We have tracked accident data on [Specific 25mph street with DZBL] and there has not been a significant issue of “dooring”. What seems to happen is that because of all the activity on the street (bikes, pedestrians, bus traffic, parking cars etc..) all travelers have to pay closer attention. "

Al

[The Human Car]

Perhaps these "pro-grunge facility engineers" should be issued a moped that can do 18-20MPH.

Actually I was thinking along the lines of a specialized tandem where the pilot sits in the rear and the pro-grunge facility engineer sits in the front (Baw-ha-ha-haaa ;))

What I really don't get is if a curb lane is the best these guys can do, then fine leave it as a curb lane. It's when they start shrinking the bike lane icon down to be a foot 1/2 wide so it will fit you would think some bells would go off so they would think about narrowing the travel lanes to make a curb lane wider and a usable bike lane rather then making a usable curb lane into a unusable bike lane.

[genec]

Actually I was thinking along the lines of a specialized tandem where the pilot sits in the rear and the pro-grunge facility engineer sits in the front (Baw-ha-ha-haaa ;))

What I really don't get is if a curb lane is the best these guys can do, then fine leave it as a curb lane. It's when they start shrinking the bike lane icon down to be a foot 1/2 wide so it will fit you would think some bells would go off so they would think about narrowing the travel lanes to make a curb lane wider and a usable bike lane rather then making a usable curb lane into a unusable bike lane.

Yup, you'd think some bells would go off... but apparently these folks are drivers first, and think like drivers... "just get them bikes outta the way... " :rolleyes:

[noisebeam]

Like this intersection heading East to West. There is a 4' wide BL at the approach. It ends and feeds into a RTOL. Then after the intersection there is no BL, but a 2.5' wide shoulder. 300' later it widens back to a 4' BL. I find going thru here to be very tedious - take the thru lane, then always get honked after the intersection since I don't move into the narrow shoulder, I only move into BL 300' later

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Tempe,+AZ+elliot+priest&jsv=107&ie=UTF8&ll=33.334551,-111.946191&spn=0.001439,0.001937&t=k&z=19

[The Human Car]

Like this intersection heading East to West.
That's whack, you don't need all that space for a left hand turn lane they can easily take a couple feet off of that for a bike lane and then there is the 12' south most lane when all the others are 10', there's another couple of feet. That whole roadway is just one huge bad paint job, priorities are just all wrong and there really is no excuse for it.

[noisebeam]

That's whack, you don't need all that space for a left hand turn lane they can easily take a couple feet off of that for a bike lane and then there is the 12' south most lane when all the others are 10', there's another couple of feet. That whole roadway is just one huge bad paint job, priorities are just all wrong and there really is no excuse for it.

Excuse: It meets AASTHO BL guidelines.

I really hate this intersection when riding with others. Solo I vc it. But with groups the 'group/paceline' heading east to west will use the RTOL, cross the intersection, then squeeze between cars in the 2.5' shoulder - (note that because the lanes on each side on intersection don't line up drivers will right bias here if they don't adjust lateral position thru intersection, so it can be very tight - look at the tire wear marks, the right tire is often over that fog line.) I most often fall to the back of the group and do it alone (and always catch the group later with the draft of cars helping) If I lead and line up with cars, no one ever follows me.

Al

[The Human Car]

Excuse: It meets AASTHO BL guidelines.

Grunge is having enough right of way to comfortably accommodate bikes and cars and then steeling the ROW from bikes for really no reason other then that's just the way they did it. Grunge is lack of consistency ... "Scotty beam me 300 yards ahead."

A 2.5 curb lane is not an AASHTO bike lane and there is room to put a AASHTO bike lane in there (should be 5' wide with a curb no?)

My 2 cents anyway.

[invisiblehand]

Excuse: It meets AASTHO BL guidelines.

Does it really?

[joejack951]

Does it really?

How could it not? A 2.5 foot shoulder isn't a bike lane so there are no guidelines. Too bad that there are no distinguishing charateristics between a bike lane and shoulder, except for the occassional stick figure.

[Bekologist]

confusing bike lanes with shoulders is a typical anti accomodationalist skew.

i have little or no problem negotiating discon-tinous bike lanes of the type noisebeam describes.....arterial intersections with slightly narrowed exit shoulders that morph into a bike lane 30 feet after an intersection......think intersections with pocket slip lanes..... surely not the best design, but why does noisebeam avoid riding in them for 300 feet after the intersections?????


I wonder, strongly wonder, how riders other than noisebeam 'intrepret' Mesa, AZ's bike lanes and treatments?

And who is this You, is it the solo you or the royal you, the collective? I argue we are all collectively better off as bicyclists when living in a community with generally well implemented bike facilities.

Communities ACROSS THE WORLD that build in extensive infrastructure for bikes have the proven results of increased ridership, increased visibility and cognizance of bikes by motorists, and a reduction in the indexed bicyclist accident rate.

[invisiblehand]

How could it not? A 2.5 foot shoulder isn't a bike lane so there are no guidelines. Too bad that there are no distinguishing charateristics between a bike lane and shoulder, except for the occassional stick figure.

But the statement is misleading since the absence of a shoulder guideline does not mean that it meets bike lane guidelines. Or am I misinterpreting your original statement?

[invisiblehand]

confusing bike lanes with shoulders is a typical anti accomodationalist skew.

i have little or no problem negotiating discon-tinous bike lanes of the type noisebeam describes.....arterial intersections with slightly narrowed exit shoulders that morph into a bike lane 30 feet after an intersection......think intersections with pocket slip lanes..... surely not the best design, but why does noisebeam avoid riding in them for 300 feet after the intersections?????

I am surprised that you wrote this given that you feel that 14 feet isn't enough for a fast cyclist to share a lane.

My criteria for safe lane sharing is more critical than a lot of you if riding like a road sneak in standard nonsharable lanes as motorists swarm around you is part of a vehicular cycling repetoire!

I want none of that! I want MORE space in what is considered a 'shareable' lane. 14 feet is not enough as a fast bicyclist, no thanks, I'll be riding 6-7 feet into standard & minimum WOLs lane on typical urban/suburban streets and taking most all of that, thank you very much! 18 feet, maybe I'll share with faster traffic.

Seems like Al is riding in a similar fashion on the west side of the intersection.

I wonder, strongly wonder, how riders other than noisebeam 'intrepret' Mesa, AZ's bike lanes and treatments?

And who is this You, is it the solo you or the royal you, the collective? I argue we are all collectively better off as bicyclists when living in a community with generally well implemented bike facilities.

Communities ACROSS THE WORLD that build in extensive infrastructure for bikes have the proven results of increased ridership, increased visibility and cognizance of bikes by motorists, and a reduction in the indexed bicyclist accident rate.

Remember your comments about how JF would avoid your questions?

What is your standard for "proven"? What does your statement mean if "proven" is poorly defined?

[The Human Car]

I think the discussion has become when is something better then nothing a good thing and when is it a bad thing. I think Al makes a good point that a "something" less then AASHTO between AASHTO accommodations is not a good thing.

And underlying some of this discussion is how "stuck" are we with what they give us? I've noticed if I wanted more paint to clear up an ambiguity it has been easer to do then trying to get them to grind off some paint. Would painting a bulbout with hash striping in Al's situation be helpful in pushing cars over to give cyclists a bit more room? (Assuming that removing the strip would be a harder thing to do.) FWIW Baltimore has been using sharrows over narrow curb lanes in situations like this and I think they have been working real well.

[Bekologist]

i'm sorry, invisiblehand, are you also confusing riding a wide lane, or johns' 'raod sneak' methods, with riding along a road with a bike lane? Different scenarios.

negotiation of a 30 foot section of narrowish shoulder before it widens out into a 5' or 6' buffered bike lane after a pocket slip intersection is loads different than discussions of forestor's "LANE SNEAK" methods of lane sharing standard lanes.... please, no conflation.


additionally, invisiblehand, countries that show cyclist modal rates of 20-30 percent, lowered accident rates and greater participation across all age & socioeconomic spectrums show - even without the "proof" you seem to need and demand - irrefutably that bicyclists are 'better off' WITH bike facilities. its readily apparant. overwhelmingly so.

[invisiblehand]

i'm sorry, invisiblehand, are you also confusing riding a wide lane, or johns' 'raod sneak' methods, with riding along a road with a bike lane? Different scenarios.

negotiation of a 30 foot section of narrowish shoulder before it widens out into a 5' or 6' buffered bike lane after a pocket slip intersection is loads different than discussions of forestor's "LANE SNEAK" methods of lane sharing standard lanes.... please, no conflation.


additionally, invisiblehand, countries that show cyclist modal rates of 20-30 percent, lowered accident rates and greater participation across all age & socioeconomic spectrums show - even without the "proof" you seem to need and demand - irrefutably that bicyclists are 'better off' WITH bike facilities. its readily apparant. overwhelmingly so.

Al writes that there is 100 yards of 2.5' shoulder after the intersection. You wrote that the shoulder was fine for you. I'll let everyone decide for themselves whether your statements are consistent.

Again, look at the historic arguments for women, blacks, and so on being less intelligent than white males. Your passage above is a carbon copy. Regardless, the passage is just another distraction. Just as you accused JF, you have yet to answer my straightforward questions.

[joejack951]

But the statement is misleading since the absence of a shoulder guideline does not mean that it meets bike lane guidelines. Or am I misinterpreting your original statement?

The original statement was by Al. I assumed that what I wrote was what he meant because he was clear about the narrow section not being a bike lane.

[Bekologist]

weelll, excuse me, invisible hand. I've confused 30 feet with 300 feet in a very tangential point about al's riding in bike lanes in mesa.

talk about confused - Nowhere do I say I because I know how to'negotiate' 30 feet of narrow shoulder equates with me stating 100 yards of 'shoulder is fine with me' - why do you make that assumption?

thanks for failure to read clearly, and your thinly veiled discriminatory comments about my intelligence :rolleyes: when i dropped a zero off one of noisebeams' comments. why the cry of 'discrimination'???? what are you talking about?

do you have any comment about countries that have 20-30 percent modal share by bike and lower accident rates than america, partly due to social programs and engineering enhancements to bicycling?

[Bekologist]

how is bringing up more bicycling, better participation across age groups and socioeconomic spectrums in countries that use bike facilites to facilitate bicycling be confused as being discriminatory about anything???

[invisiblehand]

weelll, excuse me, invisible hand.

You are excused.

I've confused 30 feet with 300 feet in a very tangential point about al's riding in bike lanes in mesa.

Looks like you failed to read clearly then.

talk about confused - Nowhere do I say I because I know how to'negotiate' 30 feet of narrow shoulder equates with me stating 100 yards of 'shoulder is fine with me' - why do you make that assumption?

Either you would take the lane or stay in the 2.5' "gutter." A fair interpretation of your old post -- and the sequence that follows -- would be to take the lane. The shoulder must be fine with you ... otherwise, why would you call out Al on it? If it was your failure to read his post clearly that led to your rant, then you should apologize to him for it.

thanks for failure to read clearly, and your thinly veiled discriminatory comments about my intelligence :rolleyes: when i dropped a zero off one of noisebeams' comments. why the cry of 'discrimination'???? what are you talking about?

do you have any comment about countries that have 20-30 percent modal share by bike and lower accident rates than america, partly due to social programs and engineering enhancements to bicycling?

Why is my post discriminatory?

The example of the historical argument comparing race and gender is a demonstration that what you call obvious falls quite short of being proven. But then again, without a strong concept of what prove really means -- or at least what you mean by prove/proven which is what I asked you -- then it should be expected that one uses the word liberally. Of course, it also means that the statement has little meaning.

To be more clear, since you appear to have missed the point, I use the example of race/gender differences since the historical "proof" that men are smarter than women relies on evidence that is strikingly similar to your "proof" that facilities produce the European participation and safety results.

I have and will participate in threads regarding inferences about the European experience. But it appears that you are disinterested in a real conversation about them.

Anyway, it is a bit ironic that in many ways, your accusations regarding JF's behavior describe you well.

[Bekologist]

you really are grasping at emphereal straws, invisiblehand.

The world around you. take a look. cycling participation declined in Europe after WWII. explain the rebound in danish cycling and why it corresponds to their countries' emphasis on building infrastructure.

Look at Portland.

Again, what you claim fails your 'test' of "proof" is actually READILY APPARANT, in your face reality. your choosing to deny the effects of infrastructure sounds suspiciously like a "flat earther" problem, invisiblehand.

[invisiblehand]

you really are grasping at emphereal straws, invisiblehand.

hah! what timing ...

Do you mean ephemeral?

Anyway, I never wrote that there is no evidence that facilities do anything meaningful. I just asked you what you mean by "prove." I also pointed out that fitting models around a collection of descriptive statistics and making strong conclusions has its hazards. Of course, I think that you failed to prove anything nontrivial about facilities by many reasonable standards.

[joejack951]

you really are grasping at emphereal straws, invisiblehand.

The world around you. take a look. cycling participation declined in Europe after WWII. explain the rebound in danish cycling and why it corresponds to their countries' emphasis on building infrastructure.

Look at Portland.

Again, what you claim fails your 'test' of "proof" is actually READILY APPARANT, in your face reality. your choosing to deny the effects of infrastructure sounds suspiciously like a "flat earther" problem, invisiblehand.

What do you make of China, Bek? Every city I visited had seperated bike lanes on both sides of the road on major roads. Guess what's happening there in terms of the cycling population?

[politicalgeek]

In some cases I would love to see better facilities here. Bike Boxes at some of the major intersections, some roads converted into bike boulevards, marked bike lanes on some of our major roads that have no good alternate and lights better tuned to detecting bicycles. All in all, its not too bad. The new bikeways plan should be revealed shortly by the mayor and, to my knowledge, will address some of these issues.

[Bekologist]

hah! what timing ...

Do you mean ephemeral?

Anyway, I never wrote that there is no evidence that facilities do anything meaningful. I just asked you what you mean by "prove." I also pointed out that fitting models around a collection of descriptive statistics and making strong conclusions has its hazards. Of course, I think that you failed to prove anything nontrivial about facilities by many reasonable standards.

you didn't just ask me what I meant by prove, you equate my stance on facilties as being sexist and racist- and that is FAR OFF THE MARK, 'epistemelogist'.......


your argument is paltry.

there is nothing i have to prove, the evidence is in the world around you, invisiblehand. cities that are well accomodated for bicyclists thru facilities enhancements and social enducements have more bicyclists and safer populations of bicyclists. these bicyclists are spread across greater socioeconomic, age, and sex classes than american or british bicyclists and are safer.

this is all proven and apparant. what is it called.......reality?


Trying to restart a debate as to what's caused Portland's 6 percent modal share is really passe, invisiblehand. portland has more bicyclists and less accident per mile of bicycle travel now, and facilties have a LOT to do with it, brother.


it's game-set-match, dude- time for the antiaccomodationists to move beyond, abandon the 'causation doesn't equal correlation' because the facts are in, bro. its seen around the world:

bicycling in facilties rich communities trends to more bicyclists and safer bicyclists. seen time and time again around the world.

accusing me of a bigotry because of my recognizing the effects of infrastructure really is beyond the pale, invisiblehand. I expect far better treatment from an 'epestimologist'... :rolleyes:

[noisebeam]

confusing bike lanes with shoulders is a typical anti accomodationalist skew.

i have little or no problem negotiating discon-tinous bike lanes of the type noisebeam describes.....arterial intersections with slightly narrowed exit shoulders that morph into a bike lane 30 feet after an intersection......think intersections with pocket slip lanes..... surely not the best design, but why does noisebeam avoid riding in them for 300 feet after the intersections?????

I wonder, strongly wonder, how riders other than noisebeam 'intrepret' Mesa, AZ's bike lanes and treatments?

Did you even look at the aerial view provided and my read description? If you had and payed attention you wouldn't be making up a reality to fit your ranting. Also what does this have to do with Mesa?

I attached a jpg of the intersection with some annotations of mine. I show the transition from 2.5' shoulder to 4' BL and also a yellow line (over no real line) showing how the lanes don't line up on either side of the intersection. So many drivers are over the fog line after crossing the intersection.

Al

[LittleBigMan]

Well, I got my bag of popcorn.

:beer:

It's more fun to watch than to climb into the ring...

:D

[invisiblehand]

your argument is paltry.

what is my argument?

[Allister]

your argument is paltry.

what is my argument?

Something to do with chickens, apparently. Maybe they need special facilities to cross the road. ;)

[Brian]

Ok, everyone needs to back away from the keyboard, and take a deep breath. Bek, consider this your very public warning that you and everyone else needs to behave.

[Allister]

I didn't think the chicken gag was that bad. My apologies.

[The Human Car]

Don't ban chicken jokes!! :eek:

:D

[Bekologist]

thanks, brian- what did i do bad?

being accused of bigoted ideas about infrastructure is fair, but my response- the purported argument is weak, ie paltry - is not fair???

clear that up for me, and a few quotes of my misbehavior would be nice, i don't see my indiscretions despite your moderators' chiding.

I believe in decorum in here; i was being accused of harboring bigoted ideas because i don't reach for statistics- to please a 'part time epestimelogist' to prove things that are readily observable about bicycling in the world.

excuse me, some clarification is in order, please, brian.

[invisiblehand]

I didn't think the chicken gag was that bad. My apologies.

I think that the chicken reference would pass a forum referendum. :D