I was taking the bus home yesterday and watched in disbelief as a cyclist sat at a red light for which there is no cross-traffic whatsoever. I don't mean there wasn't any traffic at the moment, I mean there was literally no cross street. It is a red signal meant only to allow safe pedestrian crossing through Lloyd Center Mall. There were no pedestrians either that late in the evening. If this is what "cyclist training" would inculcate, I want no part of it. I've commuted daily in Portland, OR for 15 years and would not need both hands to count the number of times I've seen Salmon.
It is extremely rare. Two things irk the VC crowd. Cyclists that "hug the curb" and "cyclists that run red lights". I guess we can add "cyclists that ride the wrong way". You don't need training classes for cyclists to get rid of that. I'm not paying to have some "expert cyclist" tell me to "take the lane". I know when to take the lane and when not to. Cyclists are NOT being killed because of anything they did wrong. Thousands of cyclists are injured because of stuff they did wrong, but usually those that are killed were operating per accepted conventions. Better infrastructure period. Not just for cyclists. Better infrastructure overall in the U.S. would go a long way to making everything that moves on a road or street safer. Bike boxes? If I was running things in Portland there would be no need for bike boxes because there would not be ANY non-essential vehicle traffic east of Sunset or West of Gateway! It makes zero sense to have millions of cars and trucks blasting through urban corridors all day long, with just one driver, on streets designed for 1/5 the density.
Even though I think bike boxes are an answer to a question no one really asked, I do not understand why the o.p. is in such a wad over them. They aren't that new. I saw a couple as far back as when I first moved here. They were much smaller than the ones that have been put in recently but everyone seems to be taking things in their stride. Why is someone clean over to the other side of the country getting so wound over some bike boxes in Portland, OR? Drivers here see all manner of things cyclist related. They've come to expect it. So have cyclists. I can't see that it much affects traffic but if it does ... GOOD. Traffic is no one's friend. Traffic and the proliferation of traffic through more efficient vehicle flow is encouraging the use of more vehicles. By the time most of you realize what an utterly disastrous plan of action that is it will be too late. It probably already is too late. But that is no reason to double down on stupid. At least in what time remains, people can cycle and walk around in relative safety if traffic is constrained by speed and access restrictions.