Vehicular Cycling (VC) - treehugger has a poll about bike lanes up, VC losing badly....

if this is a repost, then feel free to ignore. I always am interested on how non-biking sites take on cycling issues.

Personally, I think the poll was phrased very badly and seemed to take on too many issues in one poll (VC, beginner cyclists, types of bike lanes, etc.)

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/03/survey-on-separated-bike-lanes.php

Some good responses in there. Much more friendly than your typical city paper website poll and comments.

Personally, I think the poll was phrased very badly

So badly that one can not draw any meaningful info. A waste of time.

option one is about paths - yes/no
option two is about door zones - yes/no
option three is about separate bike lanes - yes/no
option four is other

Al

I can live with the first option: "Forget paths. "we can accomplish the same thing just by squashing this ridiculous notion that cyclists are somehow “second class” road users."

But it's revealing that they seem to equate supporting paths with the notion that cyclists are second class users.

Someone posting as Iconley said this:



Looks like folks prefer the ornamental, and false promise, of separated bike lanes. There's a large body of research and data that shows that bike/car collisions are more frequent and injuries more severe from separated bicycle facilities.
At some point, bicycles and pedestrians have to interface with cars. If cars do not expect bicyclists to be present, if bicycles are perceived as intruders on the cars' domain, and the roads are not designed to host cyclists, there will be many and horrific injuries.
Channelizing and segregating vehicle traffic inevitably speeds it up, increasing accident severity, and making it far harder for people to cross traffic safely, and leads to the deterioration of neighborhoods. You have given your streets up to the auto.
It is also a waste of space and a difficult design problem to segregate transportation modes in this fashion. And if cyclists get their own lanes, should rollerbladers also? There's no end to how finely you can try to separate the various modes.
Far better is to provide properly designed roads, where traffic will anticipate and accommodate cyclists in the general flow of traffic, where pedestrians can expect to cross the street safely at any time. This will result in fewer accidents and injuries. It is also cheaper and simpler, and leaves more right of way for other public amenities like trees and plantings, street furniture, places for shops to spill out on the street and informal socialization and public life to happen, creating actual spaces and neighborhood identity.

Well stated.

Great poll. Quick, concise, to the point.
And, as to be expected, the people who dont need
to petty semantisize, engage in bizarre hypothetical rationalizing
and arent prone to extreme religious zealotism have chosen separate
facilities. Again.

Great poll. Quick, concise, to the point.
And, as to be expected, the people who dont need
to petty semantisize, engage in bizarre hypothetical rationalizing
and arent prone to extreme religious zealotism have chosen separate
facilities. Again.

Bosh!

I would have to say the questions in that poll are a bit loaded / biased.

Great poll. Quick, concise, to the point.
And, as to be expected, the people who dont need
to petty semantisize, engage in bizarre hypothetical rationalizing
and arent prone to extreme religious zealotism have chosen separate
facilities. Again.
Tripe!

And the meaning of this poll is what, exactly? That a some people who ride slowly on the sidewalk in their own neighborhood, if they ride at all, have access to the internet?

And the meaning of this poll is what, exactly? That a some people who ride slowly on the sidewalk in their own neighborhood, if they ride at all, have access to the internet?

or the majority of the blog's readers are drivers that don't want to be bothered with cyclists.

Bosh!

You've met my sister?

Tripe!

No thanks, I just ate, but feel free to have some yourself.

That poll is even stupider than a HH one, and that's saying something.

...Someone posting as Iconley said this:


...There's a large body of research and data that shows that bike/car collisions are more frequent and injuries more severe from separated bicycle facilities.



False.

Balderdash!


That poll is even stupider than a HH one, and that's saying something.

That poll is even stupider than a HH one, and that's saying something.

Balderdash!

You really think HH's polls are just as stupid or even stupider? Maybe you are right.

arsebiscuits!