Originally Posted by
turbo1889
I think your agenda is to get as much cycle infrastructure as possible right now including some that others such as myself would consider "shoddy at best" in order to increase ridership as much as possible and thus ultimately get cycling accepted towards an ultimate goal of all good infrastructure everywhere, preferably an expansive separate path network that goes everywhere roads go.
I personally don't see that strategy working and a whole lot of injuries and death among especially inexperienced cyclists due to them trusting dangerous infrastructure to protect them when it often does not and worst sometimes puts them in unexpected and sudden danger (usually at intersection crossings which I think a lot of path advocates fail to fully appreciate the conflicts created) and I also see it resulting in a whole lot of both actually legislated and enforced by perception even if not actually legislated mandatory cycle specific infrastructure use. All this mainly the result of shoddy infrastructure going first into low speed urban streets where it is least needed and can be the most dangerous because of all the intersection conflicts and parked car door zone conflicts and also the most highly desired by motorists to get cyclists out of their way.
But I do understand the appeal of that strategy.
But then its possible I've misread you but I have read a lot of your posts and that is the jist of what I've got. If need please correct any misconceptions I might have and your free of course to also attack the problems I see with it as well.
That's almost it, Turbo. I think you shaped it a bit to bolster your own arguments but that's fine. If anything I might say, "cycle infrastructure
when possible" as opposed to " as much cycle infrastructure
as possible" or I might say, "cycle infrastructure when and where appropriate"- and that is often the disagreement as to whether it is appropriate.
But it was something B. Carfree said in his post that spurred me perhaps to more clearly define where I stand on these issues. (please forgive the lengthy post)
Originally Posted by B.Carfree
I suspect it doesn't really matter who's right.]
Since it's A&S in BF's, where we tend to like agendas and lines in the sand so we can stand on one side or the other and lob our digital word bombs at one another. Here is my line in the sand and bit of history to it:
For years I could have cared less about bike lanes and bike paths. In fact, I deliberately ignored them. No one could force me to ride on the broken pavement of the paths that ran along Memorial Drive, Soldiers Field Road or Storrow Drive. I even once, on tour, rode the South East expressway out of Boston on a 200 mile day of riding from Maine to Providence, RI. Give me a road and I would ride it. I worked in the best shop in the area as a mechanic and sales person, raced with the best of the local riders (and often won). When we did our training rides we not only " took the lane" we
owned the lane for as long as we wanted. I rode every where and every day. And, most importantly, I still do.
But something changed.
I lived in Cambridge, MA at the time, the Mecca of political correctness, a place where freedom was espoused but rules and forms were the norm and trumped freedom if necessary. Cars are everywhere in Cambridge but everyone hates them. A place filled with politics and paradox.it was the early 1980's and a fellow racer was dating a woman who rode a bike every where, not like us though, a bike with a basket and fenders and a cushy seat and she rode it everywhere really slowly. But she was political and socially conscious and she wanted more people on bikes and she and some other like minded cyclists started an advocacy group called Boston Area Bicycle Coalition. Well, knowing I liked politics and bikes my friend thought I should go to one of the meetings. At first the meetings were fine all kinds of pie in the sky ideas about more bikes and a better world. But then the hard core bike riders started to come, guys like me. And they could care less about that stuff. They wanted their right to the road. They felt that was threatened. We don't need no stinkin' bike path. And bike lanes?!- You're kidding right? Eventually those guys dominated, won out and the other voices were silenced.
And who was right? Does it matter?
Fast forward several years and some of the socially conscious, make a better world people finally got the City of Cambridge to build a bike path along side the Fresh Pond Pkwy. This group of parents, ordinary well meaning Cambridge types worked diligently against tremendous opposition by several of the bike riding experts and against opposition from the city and finally won and got this path put in that circumvented a particularly gnarly stretch of road.
I was on the fence about it but happened to know some of those people who advocated for it and liked them. I went to the ribbon cutting ceremony. There were families and people on bikes and balloons and children and among the crowd two fully kitted "bike experts" passing out fliers condemning the path and making dire pronouncements of how many people would die and be seriously injured due to the path. Their real agenda? They were terrified it would lead to mandated use of the path because that stretch of road was currently legal to ride on.
At that point I knew what side of the line in the sand I was on. Was I just a person on bike trying to make a better world for as many people on bikes as possible or was I a self righteous, know it all biker wanting to make the world better for myself? For all my riding I'm just a guy on a bike NOT a
bike expert. so take everything I say with a big grain of road salt. (for those of you in more temperate climes this might be hard to find).
Who was right?
More than ten years later that bike path is still there, is used every day by hundreds of cyclists with no deaths or serious injuries.
Sometimes the "Copenhagenistas" are right and sometimes the "bike experts" are right but philosophically I'll stand on the side of those who want facilities that serve all ages and all types of riders not just the hard core like me.