Originally Posted by
Bekologist
actually, my criticisms of your opinion about community planning and the UN-inevitability of sprawl are quite cogent.
I've quoted some of Portland's bike master plan 2030 draft as an example of community planning that rejects sprawl in favor of more liveable communities.
sprawl is not inevitable. usually, better bike ride share is a result!
It is one thing to write a plan that "rejects sprawl". It is another matter entirely to view the actual events that occur after writing such a hope into a plan. The plan to be adopted in 2010 is an update of the plan adopted in 1996, and, I presume, there is a sequence of plans before that. It is wise to consider the effects of these earlier plans, to see which parts of them have come to pass, and what unplanned events have occurred.
It has been stated many times in these discussions that the basic urban pattern has an enormous effect on the utility, and therefore the use, of both bicycle transportation and motor transportation. The proposed 2010 plan indeed refers to this effect and indicates a desire to remodel Portland to be more medieval, less useful for motoring and more useful for bicycling and walking. Bek obviously supports this plan.
The past effects of past plans with similar goals need to be considered when predicting the effect of the 2010 plan. Those who consider urban patterns have two different views about the success of the past Portland plans. Those who consider the purely local, and largely environmental, effects seem to consider Portland a success. Those who consider the larger effects seem to consider Portland a city that has planned its way into decay. Indeed, one calls Portland a failed city. In my opinion, there is some evidence for the former view, and a lot stronger evidence for the latter view.
Therefore, even Bek's argument that bikeways produce transportationally significant increases in bicycle transportation is not supported by the Portland draft 2010 bicycle plan. Such increases will occur only with significant assistance from anti-motoring programs.
Therefore, if we are to consider the best practices for cyclists, we need to consider them in relation to the real world, not in relation to some idealized world that exists in only two types of places, in medieval cities and in the minds of anti-motoring planners. This means cycling in accordance with the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles and designing the road to best accommodate that method.