I completely disagree.

Quit the video after about 2 minutes of its nauseating drivel about cars and bike as "natural enemies" and the narrator's sanctimonious tone about traffic being a contest of bicycling goodness verses evil car driving road ragers. Any message about sharrows, positive or negative, is lost in such rhetorical noise. The images were just as simple minded as the verbal noise.

Sorry you didn't like it; it was meant to be funny.

Because…..

If the OP doesn't have to give his reasons for posting the video and opinion's of how they feel toward it, I shouldn't have to give mine! <grin>

The OP is trolling. However the mod's and admin's here at BF seem to be okay with this sort of trolling since the OP likely has no ill intent.

I don't agree with the video, because I love riding in traffic; I have zero desire to ride on protected bike lanes. However, I did see some humor in the video, I don't see how it could have been trolling.









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In it's simplest form, trolling is fishing for conversation. I can only imagine that someone posting a link or video with no other opinion stated by them is fishing for conversation from others.

If one sided conversation with no input from the OP wasn't desired by the OP, perhaps he should have asked that his thread be immediately closed by the mod's or just not have posted at all.

It's allowed here because it isn't seen as malicious intent. However many times it does eventually cause malicious or political or other bickering.... just as is now going on.

"Meant to be."

By that definition, nearly everything posted on a forum is trolling. This is the real definition of trolling:



Yes, a lot of content gets posted and it causes incredible arguments among members. However, the original poster, of innocent content, shouldn't be held responsible, because a few emotionally unbalanced individuals started bickering over it.

As far as everything else, when I come across a thread/post I don't agree with, I just move on...I don't understand the problem with this post. If there were any action by the mods, I could maybe see it being moved to another forum, but that's a stretch...



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No, because in any normal post the OP either has a question about something or makes a statement of fact or opinion. The OP gave us none of his/her opinion or stated any facts or ask any question.

The OP merely posted a video. And gave no guidance as to what they felt about it or wanted to hear about it. And just left it up to the masses to speculate on. Posts, IMO, should have a purpose implied to them by the OP.

You didn't move on from this. <grin> Shame on me for trying to make fun of that! It is a very valid statement. I do actually abide by that at times. Believe it or not.

I do respect you though. At least you are willing write your thoughts and opinions. Unlike the OP.

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I agree that sharrows are useless,they work about as much as 'share the road' signs. While I prefer riding in traffic,not everyone is a Real Cyclist like you,and there are plenty of folks who wouldn't ride if there weren't bike lanes and sidewalks,and the video,however snarky,makes a good point of this. If you'd watched the whole thing,he even quoted studies.

Personally,I'd prefer if instead of bike lanes and sharrows,cities would do proper traffic enforcement. Fines,loss of driving privileges,and maybe some jail sentences would actually correct bad behavior. Too any cities pretty much just let traffic deal with itself with the police only getting involved after there's a crash.

Another example of the "it's not the perfect cycling facility we wish for, so we'll mock it relentlessly to score points with our like-minded in-group."

At least bad humor is better than bad studies, such as the one several years ago that attempted to indict shared lane markings based on zip-code-level crash data.

Shared lane markings are a treatment that can be used if circumstances don't allow for other options and the travel speeds are appropriate. Install them in the wrong place or inappropriately, and results are not likely to be good in terms of utilization.

(long rant on topic of "infrastructure doesn't appear by magic" deleted)

Disclosure: I was chair of the NCUTCD technical committee on bicycle facilities during the time SLMs were added to the MUTCD and bicycle design guides, and was involved in the development of the marking from James Mackay's "bike in a house" in Denver to national adoption in its current form.

Feels weird to say "Thank you for your service" (in a non-military context), but I do.

A local small town recently implemented sharrows. At the same time, traffic calming was also instituted by eliminating shoulders and creating bump outs for pedestrian crossings which surround parking areas, so there is no place for a cyclist to go, other than in the traffic lane. The real rub, is the posted speed limit is 30 MPH which is primarily a corridor for heavy trucks and pickups. The result is, either a cyclist hauls-@$$ (for me that is about 24-25 MPH) still slowing traffic, or you get off the sharrow and wind through residential areas to avoid it. Depending on how strong I feel on a certain day….

However for cyclists new to that rural town/area, that don’t know the back-streets, riding the sharrow can be dicey since many that use that roadway have a less than sympathetic view of cyclists.

I believe that application was wrong with a 30 MPH speed limit. If the limit had been reduced to 20, then if a cyclist is doing 15, there would probably be more tolerance. This is not to say I am opposed to sharrows in general. Just opposed to an improper implementation, without creating signage for alternate bike routes don’t place one in such a vulnerable position.

Wouldn't it be better if the streets were designed to discourage bad behavior in the first place? An ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure and all. Obviously you can't stop everyone from doing stupid things behind the wheel, but I'd be happy with stopping most of them.

There's the problem; cities use them inappropriately all the time, as rsbob demonstrated. Mine put sharrows on a busy street with a 25mph speed limit, but the design says 35, and drivers do; and of course they're in the door zone. I don't know if cities don't understand them or if they do and just choose to use them instead of actual infrastructure; either way, the outcome is the same -- people are maimed and killed.

It would,but we're long past that in most cities. They've already been built,and there really isn't room to fix things.

Perfect example: look up Dupont Circle in DC. Horrible design. A traffic circle within a traffic circle,with traffic lights thrown in. Fixing that would require a complete redo where they'd have to shut it down to do the work and that would mess up traffic for the entire area. And making it a proper traffic circle would require either underground tunnels or ped bridges to get to the park in the middle. Eliminating the park would fix the traffic probs,but the locals would NOT stand for that.

Do you have any idea how bad Amsterdam was in the '70s? Total car sewer, made the U.S. look good. Then they decided they didn't want a car sewer and changed it; they're still changing it 50 years later. We can change our cities if we want to, but we just look at the whole problem and throw up our hands, claiming it's too hard, and too expensive, and would take too long, and we can't do it. Sharrows are a physical expression of that attitude.

What about the other streets in D.C.? Can any of them be fixed? You can't point to one bad problem and claim that's why nothing can be improved; that's defeatist and and a waste of time.

Can you provide an objective source for this observation that Amsterdam was ever a "car sewer"? The city has taken some actions to improve cycling conditions since but my understanding is that in the early 70's Amsterdam had a far greater percentage of bicycle riders for daily transportation than any city in the U.S. had then or does now, and that no city in the U.S. (that is not dominated by a college campus) is even close to the 1970's Amsterdam "car sewer" for bicycle use in daily transportation.

Look at a map of DC,it's a hot mess. I gave you one example,there are many. And something you don't understand is how DC works. DDOT can't touch Dupont Circle without talking to the feds because that happens to be under control of the National Park Service,not DC. Back in the '90's,Pennsylvania Ave was shut down in front of the White House for security reasons. That messed up traffic for awhile until things settled down. They just kinda did it. Everything down around the National Mall is fed. There was all kinds of stuff involved with creating the downtown dedicated cycle tracks. Between govt and historic buildings,you can't just go around knocking things down to change the traffic grid.

This ^^ for this cycle commuter in Chicago for the last 22 years. I don't think I have *ever* seen police action, either for bad motorist or bad cyclist behavior.

How do you not know this? Sorry, I thought everyone who likes bikes but lives in terrible American cities was familiar with their story. From what I understand, before WWII Amsterdam was a cycling city, but after it was flattened during the war they built back in the American style. They even paved over their canals to build freeways and arterials throughout the city. When the citizens rioted over the increasing number of children dying in the streets, the government, under pressure, agreed and began reversing course.

Here's an article with lots of apparently low res photos.

EDIT: I'm a bit slow today; were you trolling me?

Amsterdam was flattened during the war and rebuilt in the American style after WW2? Are you thinking of Rotterdam perhaps?Paved over the canals to build freeways and arterials throughout the city?

Don’t know why you bother to quote me since I can’t see your responses. Maybe it’s for the good of fellow mankind.