1nterceptor

"Blame it on Strava. The mobile app – and the cyclists who use it to brag about achieving top speeds on trails – weighed heavily in Los Altos Hills city councilmembers’ unanimous decision Jan. 27 to entertain an ordinance prohibiting bicycles from Byrne Preserve."

LAH council mulls Byrne Preserve bicycle ban

genec

OK, that's fair... banning cyclists because a few speed and bike recklessly.

Sure, no problem. Now follow that same example and ban all motorists from the roads because most drivers exceed the speed limits from time to time, and yes a few do so at very high speed and brag about it.

So yeah... if you are going to ban all cyclists for the actions of a few, then please do so for motorists too.

corrado33

There's a reason why trails around here have schedules. Horses are certain days, bikes are other days. Hikers are almost anytime unless it's a bike specific trail.

Every group I've ever ridden with has slowed down to walking pace when passing horses. Often times we'll stop and ask if we can pass safely. A spooked horse is not something I'd like to be around. Their kicks can kill.

Leebo

Hence the term, stravatard.

CliffordK

Looks like a MTB trail. I've heard complaints of some cyclists going too fast without respect for other trail users.

There are a couple of urban MUPS that I do sprint on, but only ones that are generally straight with good visibility, and I take into account other trail users. Raw Strava numbers won't tell the whole story.

It would seem like there would be a function to block Strava segments from being created in certain areas. So designate a safety corridor, and knock out all Strava segments (within reason).

I can't say, however, that knocking out Strava would make riders slow, cautious, and courteous.

genec

Again, so should all cyclists be banned for the poor actions of a few? And if so, then why isn't this sort of discipline being enacted elsewhere, such as on our roads... where motorists regularly exceed posted speeds.

B. Carfree

You know the answer. There's bikelash, but no corresponding term for any backlash against cars (yet).

Actually, I do hear rumblings from some folks in a position to eventually make it happen about starting to take actions against motorists in general on certain roads where they are becoming too deadly even for our blood-thirsty culture. For instance, the Oregon legislature gave Portland permission to install some automated speed cameras to give citations out at their most deadly intersections. Sure, they have to put up signs to warn the little darlings and they can't cite for less than 11 mph over the posted speed limit, but the fact that the legislature authorized any automation as a response to high crash corridors is a huge reversal of policy.

Yan 

"Strava-broadcasted boasts of trail speeds topping 20 mph and concerns about safety ultimately influenced their approval of a motion introducing the ordinance."

20 mph is fast now? That is a completely pedestrian speed. Fast humans can run in the upper 20s and dogs can run in the mid 40s. These city councilors remind me Rob Ford.

RandomEncounter

MUPs where I live have 15 mph speed limits. There's one that has a 10 mph limit, enacted after a bike-pedestrian collision that killed the elderly woman walking.

Yan 

Did someone tell them that some people can run marathons at 12mph? Oh wait, it's America, the land where people walk an average of 300ft a day.

RandomEncounter

The MUPs here are heavily trafficked by all sorts of people on bikes, feet, wheelchairs, etc. Sure, people can ride faster than 15mph, but the paths are mostly used by families with kids, joggers, people taking a stroll, people walking their dogs, and people out for a casual ride. Good luck riding 20 mph; you're just going to be miserable dodging everyone and constantly adjusting speed, and you'll be making your fellow trail users scared and displaying poor etiquette. Even 15 is pushing it in parts, and you're better off using the parallel roads. It's just not the place to be riding that fast if you have regard for others, at least during peak times when there are a lot of people about.

canklecat

Meh, speed alone means nothing apart from context. Was any other trail user endangered? If so, that's a problem -- including if the rider and speed compromised the ability to anticipate slower trail users. If not, the speed is only one factor to be considered.

I wouldn't want to see a speed limit strictly enforced on our MUP. But I would like to see the wannabe racers show more courtesy toward other users. Some of 'em are riding at approach and overtaking speeds that allow no margin for error. The riders themselves aren't necessarily reckless or out of control. But they're making unwarranted assumptions about the slower riders and pedestrians sharing the paths.

There are very few blind spots on the local MUP, so I wouldn't care how fast a cyclist rides where he/she can see hundreds of feet or yards ahead. As long as they slow to an appropriate speed when approaching oncoming users, or when overtaking others, we won't need strictly enforced speed limits.

I'd like to say it'll be moot after someone is seriously injured or killed, but our public safety record in Texas shows we have a very high threshold for outrage before anything is done. Usually we need to kill at least three sympathetic vulnerable people -- someone in a wheelchair, a child or an elderly person -- before any changes are made to improve traffic safety. Even then, those three people need to have an active and sympathetic base of supporters -- family, friends, church groups, etc. -- to generate enough interest to motivate any changes. If the person in the wheelchair is a forgotten loner, or the child doesn't fit the Nancy Grace sympathetic outrage profile, or the elderly person wasn't a beloved great-grandma/grandpa survivor of (insert historically significant event here), it usually takes about 6-10 human sacrifices before we care enough to change anything.

Miele Man

In a sm all city near me there's a multi-use-path made on a converted electric railway. There is a spot where there's a 90 degree turn that is a blind corner. I was riding southbound on this trail and had stopped just before the corner to look at some geese in the river beside the trail. i had moved my bicycle and myself to the extreme right (my right) side of thetrail. Then this dude on an MTB came flying around that blind corner and was moving at quite a high rate of speed. If the had been a wlaker or heaven forbid a child in a stroller on that trail then that bicyclist would have plowed right into them with no way to slow before impact. Far too many times I've seen bicyclist riding at very high speeds on rail-trails that have either blind corners or very poor sight lines. This is one reason why most trails in our are not NOT PAVED. the municipalities are afraid that bicyclists will use pave trails as their own personal speedways. Watching inconsiderate bicyclist speed past walkers and other trail useers it's no wonder that some people want bicyclists banned from them.

Cheers

genec

While I don't doubt that high speed senseless cyclists can cause severe injuries... there is a flip side to some bike paths... they ARE just BIKE PATHS. NOT MUPs.

In San Diego there are some bike paths that are dedicated as bike paths, with adjacent foot paths near by. However, senseless pedestrians often choose to not only walk on the bike path, but also do so in a manner that blocks the path for cyclists... and then the peds become all "agitated" that some cyclist wants to ride quickly past.

The paths I am speaking of are well signed, yet pedestrians choose to ignore those signs and put themselves in harms way.

dynodonn 

Cyclists tend to be an easy target in an autocentric society, if this trail is similar to trails in my area, my guess is that many of the trail users drove a motor vehicle to it in order to access it.

genec

Sure, no doubt. But the councilman is being a bit heavy handed and would no more want that same treatment himself...

dynodonn 

“I’m done with this as far as I’m concerned,” Councilman John Radford said. “The speed numbers that were talked about tonight are just incredibly unacceptable".


I'm curious in know if this councilman has received any speeding tickets during his life time, and if so, how far over the posted limit and if any were in a residential zone.

The speeds that are in question, could be subject to a large dose of harassment from motorists, (the councilman himself?) and maybe some law enforcement agencies, for being too slow on a good number of US public streets.

CliffordK

My guess in the Byrne Preserve, there were numerous complaints about excessive speeds. Perhaps even accidents, which then triggered the STRAVA search. Did they even try to implement speed limits?

I consider our local MUP system as important for bicycle safety, so I'm hoping it won't ever be taken away as the result could be far more dangerous than anything on the MUP today.

I will admit that I'm a MUP sprinter. I've identified 5 segments (3 stretches) that I consider safe enough for sprinting including one section of trail that is 20' wide. And I will abort (or have already aborted) any run which I deem as being unsafe to continue. Dang people standing in the middle of the path watching Bald Eagles.

I haven't done a detailed evaluation of other segments, but there are quite a few sections of the trail that I have absolutely no interest in going fast. Yet, many of them are probably ok if ridden responsibly.

So you can look at the one 20' wide straight section of path with rides peaking at around 30 MPH and say that is too fast. But that only tells part of the story, and doesn't represent the rides on narrow curvy sections of the trail.

Also, only looking at peak speeds doesn't represent the average speed on the course. Strava tends to hide the hundreds, or thousands of not-so-fast rides.

If Strava is a problem, one can flag certain segments as dangerous. It would seem as if a municipality could even block out certain areas from being included in Strava. Not just hide segments, but completely remove all MUP segments and prevent new ones from being made.

Jseis 

Ok by me. Strava idiots.

I-Like-To-Bike

Strava idiots are just a subset of racer boy idiots who behave like jackasses around pedestrians and others not playing their need for speed game.

CliffordK

Not all of them.

But, we all were young once.

I learned my lesson years ago when some Jr High or HS counsellor chose to host a race on an open section of local bike path / MUP. I hope they haven't repeated that mistake since then.

italktocats

the banhammer; the solution to any problem you dont want to solve

people who dislike strava are obese and just argry they cant keep up

Jseis 

I started using Strava a year or so ago. For data, I much prefer Cyclemeter. So I started segment explorering. Our MUP's all have KOMs. I gave up using the MUPs figuring I was going to clock some Millenial biking-dog jogger on a blind curve (there's a few) and not some corner cutting addled Straver. What was wierder is the steep subdivision streets have KOMs, the long bridges have KOMs (and KOMs to their highest point), the short (~.5 miles) straight stretches between arterials have KOMs. The tunnel doesn't have one for some reason and it really needs one as it's worth your life to dwadle through it.

CliffordK

What they don't have as any real order to the Strava segments. Some are like cross the bridge and turn left around the corner. I do periodically run into a hillside or road that I wonder why a segment wasn't created... yet. Maybe I should hammer up them just in case someone makes a new segment in the future.

We have about a 10 block section of downtown that someone added a segment to (or I might have if it hadn't been already done). The lights are timed between 20 & 25 MPH, so one has to really hammer it to keep up with the traffic. Unfortunately I keep getting jammed up by traffic too. I think I hit it once when the streets were closed before the Christmas Parade... I might try that again. Or, perhaps try to get out there at 6:00 AM one Sunday morning.

Drew Eckhardt 

The Mountain View City Council imposed a 15 MPH speed limit (matching many riders natural speed) in the same meeting they decided to allow electric bikes on the same trails (which I've never seen go that slow).