There was recently an exchange in the NYT letters between John Allen from the LAB and some dude from Transportation Alternatives. Allen argued that sidepaths were dangerous, but TA loves them.
Accoring to the article that sparked the exchange, back in the Koch era, NY had sidepaths, but cyclists frequently didn't use them. Koch put up signs saying "use them or lose them." I think NY cyclists made the right choice by choosing to "lose them."
Will TA continue to fight for the right of cyclists to use the road if segregated bike lanes are put in place? Don't hold your breath. You can bet that if these lanes are put in place, the NYPD will aggressively ticket cyclists who dare ride on the road and that TA won't care.
The silliness of TA's proposal is by one of the first speakers in the video. He says, "A true bicycle network is one that can be safely used by a child." So, he's going to make NY city streets safe for children by creating separated paths? What do the children do at intersections?
At the 6:30 point, a speaker says that it would make "a lot of sense" for cyclists to share the sidewalk with pedestrians. That's TA for you. TA is not a cyclist advocacy group, it is an anti-car group (it seeks "alternatives" to driving). Now, there's nothing wrong with wanting fewer people to drive, but that
s a different goal than making cycling safer and more efficient.
The video does a lot to attack the striped bike lane. Many of the criticisms are valid (like motorists don't know how to navigate around them at intersections). But didn't TA used to advocate for striped lanes? And if motorists have trouble dealing with striped lanes at intersections, the problem will only get worse for physically segregated lanes. If TA gets what it wants here, I'll bet in ten years we'll be seeing videos from them about the horrors of segregated lanes. Maybe then they will just propose the all-bikes-on-sidewalk rule that seems most consistent with their philosphy.
Finally, the poor speakers are also horrified at the prosepect of interacting with traffic. Oh, the humanity!
Originally Posted by sbhikes
Real people want them, they use them, they want more of them. Those who use them span a wider demographic than those who ride like HH and don't think we need any facilities.
Then why were the previous physically segregated lanes removed because so many cyclists wouldn't use them? We have a similar thing happen in Columbus in the OSU area. They TA-style physically separated lanes. They were such a disaster (snow removal, trash/glass, etc.) that they were removed.