MAK

This is ridiculous!!! And a judge agreed with their arguement. No wonder it's a joke that Bin Laden has offered to surrender on the condition that he's tried in a California court. I thought that San Fran was a hip and progressive city???

beeftech

I ride a bike, I am a terrorist.

deathhare

God help the rest of America if even SF goes backwards like this.

andre nickatina

Thank God I live in Portland.

Suttree

Now I really have seen it all.
When I lived in SF I did note that it is
rather smug about its political correctness
but his logic is totally flawed. Having
better bike infrastructure and separating
cars and bikes will make the traffic flow
for each smoother. WTF. Facts?
He has none. Someone please kick
him off the bridge, or maybe Coit Tower.

deathhare

He's old. He might die soon or some insane SF bike advocate will assassinate him.

Suttree

The latter is more likely than most people think.
Kool aid down there is good.

deathhare

It could happen and similar has.

andre nickatina

Maybe dude gets in a car accident and either denounces his former ways or just gets disabled to the point where no one wants to listen to him andhe loses all credibility.

cc700

so i definitely don't agree with the guy, but his logic is based on actuality. the more idling and the more deceleration, the more pollution. if you separate car streets and bike streets you can quit it but san fran isn't exactly a simple landscape for that kind of solution.

ZeroG

Wow.

cc700

what if you can tarckstand like a mastAr?

deathhare

You crack monkey...youre missing the point and so is the old guy in SF.
The idea ISN'T that more and more people are riding bikes and the same amount are still driving cars. The idea is to get more and more people on bikes and out of ****ing cars and then there is less traffic, less congestion over all, and less pollution.
This old **** probably never rode a bike since 1961 and is pissed that he might loose some right like ******* smokers whine about not being able to smoke in Denny's.

cc700

enough people will have to ride bikes and decrease the amount of car traffic to offset the cars that idle or speed up and slow down more, if that even happens. i'm just highlighting the science behind his skewed view so that people don't overlook it.

the point that you're missing is that you have to do it right, otherwise biking won't be as safe as it should be and emissions won't be decreased as much as they could be.

deathhare

Im not missing that point. That part is common sense. Everyone knows that ****. That's like saying promoting healthy eating will damage the funeral home business so we should encourage people to eat more garbage so theyll keep dying from heart disease.
Its a useless point.
Just promote more bike riding and good will come in the end.
Not everything is easy.

powerband

More bike lanes can't possibly slow down traffic that much more.

The bike lanes don't have to take up half the road. Just 3 feet in width is plenty to make riding a littler safer, encouraging more people to get on the bikes and leave their cars at home.

It is when cyclists ride WITHOUT the bike lanes that potentially slows down traffic, as cars have no dividing lanes and tend to be surprised by cyclists and must figure out how to get around the riders. Most people need to follow lines, need to be told what to do, etc. There will always be cyclists; bike lanes will bring more organization to traffic flow.

Thetank

Old people shouldn't be allowed to blog! It seems like a lot of the problems stem from close-minded thinking that usually comes from someone too old to connect with the current world. Either that or they're just A**holes!

dutret

No you missed the point.

His argument is based on the assumption that more bike infrastructure will not decrease motor vehicle use much. Even a 100fold increase in the number of bike commuting trips is only a tiny decrease in the number of car commuting trips.

It's a reasonable question to ask even I think bike infrastructure should be increased regardless of the answer.

Jabba Degrassi

In isolated cases, he kinda has a point.

For instance, in Toronto, some new bike lanes were recently installed in my girlfriend's old neighbourhood, a neighbourhood in the vice-like grips of Italian and Portugeuse car culture. On her old street, for instance, her parents are the only people left who still have a tree in their front yard, everyone else paved over their yards to make room for, you guessed it, more cars.

Now, with one fewer car lane, it's completely gridlocked. A total disaster.

Maybe the city thought they would encourage the car-crazy neighbourhood to ride their bikes more often if the infrastructure was there. I hope they're not that stupid. Maybe they purposely picked a neighbourhood where bike lanes would be a disaster to engender hostility towards bicycle advocacy to avoid having to create more bike lanes where we really need them. I hope they're not that evil.

I'm all for bike lanes, but we have to be smart about it.

This guy is still a total ass, though. I hope he dies soon.

deathhare

No I didnt miss that. As I said, that part is common sense and just stupid to consider if one really cares about air pollution (like this old ass pretends to).
Reminds me of the offshore oil drilling argument as a stupid answer to high gas prices.

dmg

Wasn't there supposed to be some earthquake that was supposed to drop SF into the sea? Is there anything we can do to help with that?

Suttree

sure, but where are your facts linking better bike infrastructure and more bike usage to more congestion
among automobile drivers? seems to me like good infrastructure and more bike usage means
fewer cars AND more congestion because bikes and cars won't be using the same pathway
at different speeds.

?

???

dutret

Shall I count the fallacies?

Suttree

Westlaw doesn't have the decision for the case--
unpublished at the superior court level. Maybe
removing car infrastructure would result in temporary
environmental impacts related to congestion--
which could be significant under Cal. law. I still
hold that in the long term incentivizing cycling
is better but these ******s probably effectively
killed the implementation by raising the spectre
of potential impacts. What a total misuse of the law
even if it meets the letter--not the intent.

deathhare

That's exactly how i feel.