Advocacy & Safety - Article on San Jose, CA city bike plan

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squirtdad
11-09-09, 05:32 PM
San Jose is working on a comprehensive plan. It is a pretty close to perfect city for bike riding, mostly flat and good weather.


http://sf.streetsblog.org/2009/11/09/will-san-joses-new-bicycle-plan-mark-shift-from-years-of-car-privilege/

sauerwald
11-10-09, 11:54 AM
I have recently moved to San Jose from Maine. I don't own a car, and the bicycle is my main mode of transportation. I can echo much of what squirtdad and the article says in terms of San Jose having an excellent basis as a cycling town - it is flat (the biggest 'hill' on my 9 mile commute to work is an overpass that goes over some railroad tracks.), the locals consider overcast to be bad weather, 50F to be frigid cold, and for the most part, the drivers are considerate of cyclists. There is a pretty good public transit system, which is bike friendly (bike racks in light rail cars and on buses).

I look forward to San Jose doing more for cyclists, but in my mind, there are a lot of things that could be done very inexpensively that would help San Jose in it's cycling friendliness. There is a 'network' of bike trails, which were obviously designed for recreation, not transportation. In practice they tend to be a lot of disconnected segments of bike trails, that go from nowhere to nowhere, and when they do cross something that is useful (such as a road) there is no signage from the trail to let you know what road you are crossing. Imagine if we had an interstate system where we removed all of the exit signs so that you had to know where you were going to get there!

One of my other frustrations is that there are a lot of lights, many of which are on automated controls which detect traffic - as long as the traffic is an automobile.
squirtdad
11-10-09, 12:15 PM
One of my other frustrations is that there are a lot of lights, many of which are on automated controls which detect traffic - as long as the traffic is an automobile.

you will be happy to know that as lights are updated, state law is requiring that lights detect bikes. There is a trial project going on to find the best technology.

I have good luck tripping signals with my steel framed bike....until the road is repaved and I can't see where the sensor wires are :)