danarnold

It is with some pride that whenever I ride know I am putting the lie to this false belief system.

genec

Really ever talk to motorists that don't know you are a cyclist?
Try it some time.

And take note, that in spite of those wonderful laws, dead cyclists have no rights.

I am making those statements with the experience of having crossed the western states both across the bottom and along the left edge, on a bicycle.

Motorists don't give a damn what the laws say, (if they even know the laws) they don't want you out there.

randya

Just take back the roads from the motorists. Of course, the police won't like it...but I'm proud of my contribution to that video..as a participant; the cop passes me at 0:45. We ride the highway every Sunday night at about 11:00 PM, I've been doing it for years, totally legal, too.

genec

Looks like fun.

Noticed that the stop sign runner was not in one bit of danger... not a single car in sight except the police car... which is far behind.

You rebel.

Funny thing is we have a great downhill street here in my town that goes right in front of the zoo...

Bekologist

Randya,

that's not taking back the streets, these bicyclists are taking back the streets.

chipcom 

hmm, I don't recall ever giving away the streets, so I feel no need to take back what I never lost.

Bekologist

good point.

butsurely you see there's an american cultural perceived lack of legitimacy of bicyclists using public roads in this country despite laws and bicyclists exercising our rights.

but fear not, there's a way to increase legitimacy of bikes on road in communities, that even extends to streets without facilities. addition of on on street network of bike infrastructure.

depsite johns or danarnolds inaccurate skew, the FHWA says it best:

the FHWA understands 'best practice' road design for american bicyclists.

chipcom 

I think it is less a legitimacy issue and more an entitlement issue. Motorists believe they rule the roads and are entitled to their needs having priority over other users. Truckers would disagree...but have more mass to to lend credibility to their claim, cyclists, not so much.

Think about it...if M1 tanks were considered 'toys', I don't think drivers would give them crap, do you?

randya

riding the I-405 in PDX on the day the war started (3/20/03) was the beginning of the end for CM in Portland

Bekologist

Yeah, but at still Portland's got Zoobombers and Bunnies on a Bike rides and ample other bicyclist street clogging antics!

kind of like an everyday CM anyway as far as motorists perceived legitimacy of bike traffic in portland though, eh?

boy, here the police officially look at CM as what it is, a rolling bicycle traffic jam, and let it ride. when the peloton makes an illegal manuever, sometimes the police roll up to tell them to leave the limited access roadways but its been pretty uneventful.

we're kind of sidelining the topic at hand.

what did you think of the sharrows+side path infrastructure i posted in the last page? seems progressive road engineers could come up with quality cycletracks with intersection treatments and sharrows to emphasize bicyclists right to the road.

Oregon DOES need to change the mandatory use language to optional use language, who's your state level legislator like Blumenthaler?

randya

Jules Kopel Bailey, but he got burned when he sponsored the Idaho stop legislation last session, I think.

Not quite sure from those pics how that sharrows thing works, care to explain further?

High Roller

Indeed, the profound gullibility of the facilities advocates is truly astounding. They have swallowed the motoring establishment’s fear-based propaganda hook, line, and sinker that engineering to keep cyclists out of the way is preferable to encouraging basic defensive cycling competence. They cheer at the sidelines while these so-called B and C cyclists are herded like lambs to slaughter, all the while denigrating vehicular cycling proponents as defenders of the automobile-dominated status quo. The ultimate in hypocrisy.

Bekologist

ahh, the tired, bankrupt 'lambs to the sluaghter' canard. worthless rhetoric, 'high roller'.



the sharrows are placed adjacent to the separated sidepath to emphasize riders right to the road along that cooridor.

to combat motorists perceived 'off the road' sidepath notions, by sidepaths next to roads bicyclists are not prohibited from, emphasize bike traffic on the adjacent road.

This acheives the federal roadway design objectives of ensuring roads are facilitated for use by A graders then enhancing a transportation corridor for the vast majority of the cyclists in america.

same could be applied to ANY urban 'cycletrack'. i believe there is more of this dual 'sharrow plus sidepath' roadway architecture around Seattle.

the rainy season has started up again so don't know how much more pleasure photography rides I'll be doing this winter but i'll keep my eyes peeled and show you some more examples.

randya

thanks for the explanation.

do we need to drag out the Portland graphs again that show how ridership has increased along with facilities, and how more cyclists on the roads, facilities or not, leads to lower crash rates?

Bekologist

an excerpt from 'why doesnt' dallas have bikelanes'

from interesting read

genec

It doesn't matter, strict Fosterite VC cyclists are trained to ignore any and all observations that may denigrate their leader.

danarnold

It truly amazes me that there are college graduates out there who do not understand the difference between correlation, and cause and effect. This is actually basic high school stuff.

Whatever you spent on your education, it was time and money wasted.

Bekologist

And I can't believe there are people so blinded by ideology they cannot see reality for what it is!

open your eyes and get the rudiments straight.

The confluence is no coincidence between infrastructure, ridership, and safety. There are many positive effects from progressive bikeways planning in communities.

corellation means a mutual connection between two things, and by every measure by transportation experts across the country and the world - facilities builds ridership increases safety.

the strongly suggestive correlations are too omnipresent to be considered unrelated. the quippy 'correlation is not causation' is nothing more than sophmoric lab sham, a pithy statistical slogan void of any relevance to american roadway best practice design.


what is your opinion of the sharrows plus bike path infrastructure danarnold? a transportation cooridor long needing emphasis for bicyclists as the continuation of the Burke Gilman trail to the beach while also better emphasizing bicyclists right to the road adjacent to the MUP?

danarnold

I get it now. You really don't know. You really ARE that ignorant. You've got it exactly wrong. Correlation, even if you spelled it correctly, does not mean that.

There is a correlation between the sun coming up in the morning and eating breakfast, but the sun's rise does not cause me to eat breakfast.

It may indeed be so that some of the increase in ridership in an area was in part caused by increased infrastructure, but you have not demonstrated it. That's the whole point of the logical fallacy you engage in.

100% of the people who drink milk die. That is a correlation. But it does not imply causation.

Maybe this ignorance correlates with people who believe in bike infrastructure (based on the other nitwits you like to quote), but there must be at least one educated person out there who shares your agenda, yet understands the fallacy of your logic. I'll let him or her explain it to you.

In the meantime:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

'"Correlation does not imply causation" is a phrase used in science and statistics to emphasize that correlation between two variables does not automatically imply that one causes the other (though it does not remove the fact that correlation can still be a hint, whether powerful or otherwise[1][2]). The phrase's opposite, correlation proves causation, is a logical fallacy by which two events that occur together are claimed to have a cause-and-effect relationship. The fallacy is also known as *** hoc ergo propter hoc (Latin for "with this, therefore because of this") and false cause. By contrast, the fallacy post hoc ergo propter hoc requires that one event occur before the other and so may be considered a type of *** hoc.'

Bekologist

nitwits?

like I said, sophmoric lab sham. you can pleasure yourself in semantics all you want, there exists strongly correllatibe (like the misspelling?) relationships between roadway bike infrastructure, ridership, and safety.

the federal highway administration understands this. you do not.

got anything to rebut american roadway best practices as endorsed by the FHWA and the AASHTO manual, or are you just blowing smoke?

genec

Consider this, the bike infrastructure may or may not be encouraging former drivers to take up cycling, but apparently there is some sort of strange vector that is some how related to that bike infrastructure... where it appears, so do greater numbers of cyclists who shift the transportation mode share. Either the infrastructure attracts cyclists, or people take up cycling. How this actually occurs is "magic," but the fact that there is more cycling mode share where there is more infrastructure is undeniable. Either the infrastructure draws cyclists, or cyclists demand it. Either way, there IS a relationship.

Noli nothi permittere te terere.

sggoodri

Where in the lane do you recommend locating the sharrow in a 14' wide outside lane? Where in a 12' lane? We have a number of sidewalk MUPs showing up alongside urban and suburban arterials in NC with 14' and 12' lanes, posted 45mph. Some of these sidewalk mups are signed for bicycle use.

danarnold

I do not deny this. It certainly makes sense that where there is a substantial demand for it, bike infrastructure, in a democracy, should appear. It also makes sense that the infrastructure will have some positive effect on increasing ridership.

I would be interested in a good study on what really does cause more cycling.

As I've said before, economics, the cost of cars, gasoline, and most importantly the emergence of a bike ethos in a culture would probably be very powerful. Bike infrastructure may also be a lure.

My guess is that if the Fed was serious about encouraging cycling, particularly commuting, they would offer incentives to businesses that gave cycling commuters an extra half hour of comp time, a place to change clothes, or 'do' their hair, a place for office shoes or whatever it is that makes the difference to people to get them to actually cycle to work.

I've talked to people about this, encouraged them to cycle to work. One of the first things they say is that a bike lane would get them to cycle... then they reflect and I question more and what turns out in these non scientific discussions is that they are influenced by what their peers think and whether they will have the time and accommodation at their place of employment to transition from bike to job that the bike lane alone is not enough to get them to ride to work.

I absolutely agree that even tho I personally am no big fan of bike lanes, there are a lot of potential cyclists who tell me they'll never 'ride in the streets' to whom a bike lane or better yet from their perspective, a dedicated and totally separate bike path from their door to their place of employment, would make a difference in their decision to bike to work.

There are ways to test correlations to see if there is some cause and effect relationship in addition to the correlation. But we need to see the data and know how it was gathered.

danarnold

Sidewalk = multiple use path, aka 'MUP.'

Think about it. A MUP is a sidewalk. A sidewalk is a path allowing multiple uses.

But even dedicated bike only paths become de facto MUPs. And that is the way it will stay until cyclists outnumber pedestrians and all other users. Even then I predict there will be sufficient skate boarders, roller skaters, inline skaters, pedestrians and dog walkers to keep cyclists from riding fast on those paths more safely than they do in the streets.

randya

as a society we have subsidized motor vehicle use both directly and indirectly for so long there is no question that similar subsidies should be offered for bike use if we are really serious about altering the transportation mode split in any significant way.