The Human Car

It's been a while since this group has had something to chew on and I found this:

https://cycledallas.blogspot.com/2009...-you-like.html

Where they make a comparison that illegally painting a bike lane (on a road where bikes already belong) is like putting up your own 90mph speed limit sign.

That seems like an unfair comparison to me, I think it's more like putting up your own "25 saves lives" sign on a 25mph road as nothing is being encouraged that could not be legally done before.

So the question is what is the bigger transgression; bikeway advocates encouraging gorilla bike lanes or the VC exaggerating the harm of bike lanes?

cooker

If a lane is wide enough for a bike lane, it doesn't need to be striped.

ChipSeal

Well, one of them is an illegal act of vandalism, attempting to force their desires on others. (Using the color of law with counterfeit traffic control devices, no less!) The other is an expressed opinion designed to persuade others to their point of view. (An activity that is protected by constitutional law.) Other than that I don't have any categorical issues with your question.

JRA

Six to one, half dozen to the other.

A pox on both their houses!

Keri said...
Paint your own marginalization.

As if we needed any more proof that pro-bike lane ideologues can be just as good at shooting themselves in the foot as Forester-inspired facilities haters are.

Ideology seem to go hand in hand with stupidity (not that that is a new or surprising observation).

genec

There is an interesting article in the July Bicycling magazine about D.I.Y bike lanes and the results of such an endeavor. Yeah there was room to share the road before the BL... The city even determined that a BL should be there... but just never got around to it. The end result is that drivers leave cyclists room simply because the motorists now acknowledge the black paint that was used to erase the illegal BL.

Drivers respond to lines... it is that simple.

Bekologist

vehikular cyklists must not be familiar with the actions of 'civil disobedience'.

The Human Car

+1000

Bekologist

a couple of paragraphs - not the entire article either - that the original blogger left out of his criticism, Barry....

embolding mine

Have you been to Los Angeles, Barry?

And have you heard the story - tell me if you've heard this - about the civil disobedience that led to woonerfs in the Netherlands in the 1970s. They were, quite literally, streets that were torn up and turned into 'living yards' overnight by citizens upset over the traffic in their neighborhoods after some children were injured... the bulldozers that were sent to repair the "Damages" were resisted by citizens to RECLAIM THE STREETS from the autocentricity.

Woonerven have since caught on in many countries in Europe.

this type of civil disobedience that led to reclaiming the streets overseas is seen in america as well, just not so much involving cars and stuff....

Overseas, woonerven and tempo 30 zones, fascinating prioritizing of public spaces for different uses than Los Angeles pavement.

Bekologist

i think the biggest transgression is the failure to accommodate bicycling on freeway speed roads in Los Angeles and elsewhere in the country. hysteria against bicycling accommodation on public rights of way gets second place.

guerilla bike lanes, not so much a problem.

The Human Car

One thing that really impresses me here is a lot of our 35mph arterials in Baltimore are fairly well traveled by a diverse range of cyclists. But as you move out around the state the State Highway (SHA) roads with 35mph speed limits have a different "feel." For one there is the general acceptance of going 15mph over the speed limit so you have 50mph arterials on what should be 35mph. It is almost as if cars were doing a mass civil disobedience to protest against other users of the road. Which brings up an article I wrote: https://www.baltimorespokes.org/artic...90403080138909

On the VC side of things, having to find or just the desire to find more pleasant alternate routes then what the cars travel is a from of marginalization. On the bikeway advocate side of things, there seems to be a general acceptance of any width bike lane is a good thing, another form of marginalization.What is needed is a good civil disobedience campaign, which nether side has.

With the VC camp the whole "Take the lane" because we are allowed to. and the counter arguments, are not, are to... is not getting us anywhere.

I've been to Los Angeles in the late 1970's.

Bekologist

Barry, you think cyclists' desire to have a pleasant route is marginalizing? cyclists not wanting to mix it up with 50mph traffic and agressive motor vehicle traffic is marginalizing????

then yes, it is motor vehicle traffic that is marginalizing bicycle traffic. how to fix? slow the speeds, provide alternate routes, provide quality bike infrastructure.

'acceptance of any width bike lane as a good thing' is NOT a fair categorization of facilities advocacy & not even relevant to the topic.

The Human Car

That is the question for the VC, how to fix or what to promote for the cause. I really don't think what's best for cars (only) is always the best thing for cyclists.

Some of my thinking of late has to do with transportation corridors, that concept only seems to capture cars and commuter rail and nothing else. Even most bus routes around here meander around locally, as do the good alternate on-road bike routes. It seems that there are lot of pieces floating around but not a comprehensive regional bike network.

Granted but at the same time there is a willingness to dump a fair amount of $$$/mile for trails and anything that costs more then paint for on-road bike consideration is totally balked at. Trails are very mixed in their ability to accommodate transportation well, yet are paid for largely by money that is "primarily for transportation purposes and not recreation."

So it seems to me with the VC crowd comfort takes a backseat to transportation and with the bikeway advocates transportation takes a backseat to comfort.

Bekologist

the FIRST step, barry, is for vehikular cyklists to recognize the validity of class preferred transportation infrastructure. The VC need to stop stonewalling and ******ing rider share in this country with their shrill, dogged obstructionism.

Like in this specific case, from the blog you referenced in the OP - a Vehikular cyklist blog harping on guerilla lane striping in LA.

Cyclists should be able to unite, endorse, solidly back and recognize the validity of bike specific infrastructure on high speed arterial bridges across the Los Angeles River versus tossing around divisive, glib, inaccurate criticisms of populist bike activism.

Every rational cyclist should be able to endorse better bridge access for bicyclists, especially along high volume, high speed roadways.


Criticisms of activism for better bicyclist bridge access across the Los Angeles river.
Thanks, Barry, for highlighting the innacurate rhetoric of the vehikular cyklists movement.

I-Like-To-Bike

Any reference to your statement about the "recreational" vice transportation funding sources for bike trails?

Also what is the basis of your opinion about the VC crowd's concern for transportation? IMO their chief concern is wholly about themselves and their own cycling activities to the exclusion of anyone else who does not join the clique. That and the their irrational and hysterical fears of the government somehow interfering with the "efficiency" i.e. speed, of their bicycling activities of mostly club and sporting rides.

The Human Car

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/...d/bp-broch.htm


Which VC crowd are we talking about? The One? The Sacred Nine? Or a group much larger? If you want to make a case that VC is about recreation and not transportation we still have an irony:

Bikeway advocates using transportation funding for recreational facilities.
VC advocates using transportation infrastructure for recreational activities.

Bekologist

barry, before you hyperbowl (new verb) this right out of rational discussion,

WHAT do funding sources for bike/ped projects have to do with guerilla bike activism for better bridge access in LA, and its attendant vehikular cyklist criticisms?

are you trying to say that LA needs to apply for more funds to fix the poor bicyclist bridge access across the Los Angeles River?

why the false framing of an argument? how does your 'concern' about funding tie in with the OP?

let's try to focus on the original post, the topic at hand:

Poor bridge access for bicyclists across the Los Angeles River. Better bridge access has been planned but never delivered by the city. Concerned cycling activists are painting guerilla bikelanes to emphasize bike travel and safety across these high speed arterial bridges. Vehikular cyklings' inner circle of bliviots movement (see 'chainguard' group at Yahoo groups for representative sampling) are poking derision at the efforts of the activists.

discuss.

The Human Car

Bek, while some States may share similar issues in regards to bicycling advocacy, every state is different and I can only speak of my experience here in Maryland, if my comments rings true in some States then maybe my comments might be of help, if a particular State is different then sorry my experience will probably not be helpful. That is the nature of every State being different.

So in Maryland there is a great concern that all our funding is being "eaten away" by fund only trails policy and procedures. This is slowly changing but still we want to see a greater diverse mix of bicycle accommodations and considerations then what we are currently getting. This may be applicable to LA if they are funding trails but not the bridge accommodations.

Right now in Maryland it is eraser to fund a $100M trail then a $100K on-road improvement, this is not right. Would it be acceptable in Maryland to postpone one trail project and put in a 1,000 on-road projects, you bet.

I-Like-To-Bike

Note that your citation only refers to projects funded by Federal Aid.

I do believe that "irony" is the case. I don't particularly see the significance of such irony as much as come to the conclusion of "so what?"
Many users of transportation facilities use them for all sorts of needs to include driving as a recreational activitiy, or for driving to/from recreational activities.

In fact what is the significance of the source of funding of bicycle trails/facilities? A few of our VC comrades act as if a great fraud is being conducted by spending transportation dollars on bike facilities but have yet to cite any examples where anyone, anywhere has advaced that legal case beyond Internet ranting.

I-Like-To-Bike

The VehicularCyclists™ who venture forth from the circle jerk of the ChainGuard list to post on BF similar over-the-top anti- bike facilities rhetoric and fabricated risk reduction results (and potential) of their prefered techniques.

invisiblehand

The blog response is an over reaction, IMO. Clearly there is an underperforming municipal government that is somewhat derelict in their duties. The fake bike lane is a proportionate response/protest. That is, they didn't blow up a few buildings nor run down Wilshire rioting and burning cars calling for a road design that better accomodates cyclists.

I concur. But they don't always respond in a positive manner.

They have more than a different feel Barry. The environment can vary quite a bit -- I'm thinking of a few roads in Southern Maryland ridden with the Oxon Hill group. Consequently people consider the legal speed limit out of sync with their mental picture of a safe speed.

"VC" is being used way too broadly here. If VC means John Forestor and a handful of people on Chainguard that follows him verbatum then you exclude a lot of people label themselves VC or think that there are some good points in VC rhetoric as well as a good overall strategy for cycling.

Note that it is pretty clear that there are extremists -- uber-VC and bike-lane-lemmings -- that pump out their irrational and hysterical fears for their own purposes. But unless one wants a discussion where everyone cherry picks comments by the wackos I think its best to get past our own biases, wonder whether there are some reasonable arguments against our positions and consider alternatives/compromises that move advocacy forward.

Barry and I are geographically close but we are in different states. Here most bicycle funding originates from the annual transportation bill and these funds are allocated to both onroad and offroad projects. At least in the short run, one can view this as a fixed pie to be divided among projects. I recall that Arlington officials were looking for "ready-to-dig" bicycle projects elligible for the transportion infrastructure stimulus funds which ended up primarily being path maintenance.

I-Like-To-Bike

Invisible, I think in fact you are using the term VC too broadly. I doubt very many cyclists even know the term vehicular cyclist or would use the term to describe themselves or their cycling technique. Nor would many ever sit still for very long listening or reading the comments, books or training materials of the self proclaimed Vehicular Cyclists to bother cherry picking anything positive in that mess of rhetoric and over-the-top dogma.

The Human Car

You of all people should know the power of Federal subsidies vs paying for things locally. And you are right no legal case has been brought (yet) that I am aware of but for my part I could not find a lawyer who practices/knowledgeable in this field.

Though I will add that M-NCPPC was planning on charging bike commuters to use a trail paid for by Federal Transportation money so I brought up this little tidbit of law and the proposal died.

Bekologist

invisiblehand, lets see some common ground right here in this thread.

Should high speed, high volume bridgeways have preferred class bicycling infrastructure? How should large cities (or small) accommodate bicycle traffic across a natural barrier like the Los Angeles River where significant volumes of motor vehicle traffic gets carried by relatively few bridgeways?

Any rational cyclist should be able to endorse better bicyclist bridge accommodation along high speed, high volume roadways.

I-Like-To-Bike

I am well aware that any if not all communities would prefer to use Federally supplied funds rather than their own resources. The advantages and disadvantages of trails and other facilities for cyclists should be the subject/issue for bicycling advocates.

The "issue" of recreation vice transportation purpose funding irregularities raised by some of the notorious VC zealots is just one more piece of "stuff" they throw against the wall to see what will stick in their anti bike facility campaign.

invisiblehand

In reference to the people that actually post on this forum ... that is quite likely since there is a huge selection bias. But in my own little world, the few places I visit regularly (the cyclists I meet), and the people that simply read posts, probably not.