genec

No, he rides, and he most likely rides more than me. He is a stronger rider and does long group rides on weekends. I have met him on rides, at advocacy meetings, and even at lunch, where we just happened to meet at the same food court. He only works a few miles from my office.

I suspect that he trys to keep his message clear and eliminates any tangets or chaff of the real world from his ideal beliefs. He is an idealist in that way and tends to work to convince himself of his view of the world.

He is right in that I tend to notice the dark side of things. I have ridden some 10s of thousands of miles and really have had few problems... but what I have had to deal with, sticks with me.

My last 10 years or so have been mainly commuting miles... with very few weekend rides. So in effect, I have been subjected to nothing but the worst in motorists (sort of like cops developing a suspicious attitude about everyone because they mostly deal with the criminal element).

About 4 years ago I changed jobs, and due to long hours (which I now know were unrewarded) I stopped commuting. I took up lunch time riding about two years ago and while I have gotten back into some riding shape, the noon rides are not as rewarding as the old back country long weekend rides. (seems more like a hamster on a wheel... following the same routine over and over).

What I have noticed over the years however is a general decline in common courtesy on the roads... exemplifed in little things such as the lack of turn signal use. Another clear example is the marketing of the Hummer... in our society, that selfish marketing campaign would never have occured, say, in the '80s.

As a cyclist in traffic, I find I have to exert myself more... an issue that some cyclists may not be comfortable with. With that situation, I can see why some potential cyclists would be turned off by cycling in traffic.

Perhaps I should not be so negative, but then I feel I am adding real life balance to some of the more idealized views presented here from time to time. I also suspect I need a new bike... just to get that great old feeling from cycling.

Brian Ratliff

Believe me, Gene, a new bike solves everything up to and including world hunger. Get a fixed gear like the Rayleigh Rush Hour. Can't say they are more efficient or better in traffic, but they are different and fun and you can do things on a fixed you that you can't do on a freewheeled bike, like skidding and trackstanding. And if you are into that type of thing, fixed gear bikes are scary quiet as well.

Oh, and your wife will like the fact that they are pretty cheap as road bikes go.

noisebeam

I just got a Jamis Sputnik. Also a nice FG ride, althought I haven't ridden it in 1wk since I am waiting for new cranks (promised last Thurs, then Fri, then Mon, then Wed, hoping for a call today). Such a hard wait.
Al

genec

Fixies don't make a lot of sense with the hills we have around here. But yeah... that new bike idea just seems like the right ticket.

I rode a fixie eons ago in a different part of town where the hills were not so bad. (North Park/City Heights)... I do recall my first uh, stopping experiences.

But speaking of new bikes... I remember my first new Nishiki... man that thing felt like I was riding on glass... it was so smooth. Sure beat the heck out of my old high school SS Schwinn.

Brian Ratliff

Hills, shmills. Just grow bigger legs.

Oh yea, probably should use brakes on the fixie too.

patc

That is pretty much my experience - with one lane or several, a wide outside/curb lane does not leave room for cyclists. Most cars are roughly centered (though many tend to stay right or left), therefore slowing down bike traffic. Secondly many cars pass just as closely as they would in a normal lane. There may be room to share the lane, but drivers seem oblivious to that.

Out of curiosity, I have been asking various people leading questions, such as "what do you think of the new section of Hunt Club". So far in my extremely unscientific survey, drivers notice very narrow lanes ("Yeah, I'm always worried a bus will go by and smash my side mirror there".) but never comment on lanes being wider than normal.

I-Like-To-Bike

And Steve's smirky reference to Nazi influence is even more offensive.

rando

ah, yes-- reminds me of HH's racial segregation comparison/reference long ago when I first started coming here...

Bekologist

gene, don't fool yourself. no rider that commutes regularily would have such a skewed, made-up view of riding in traffic. A weekend group rider, i can see that.

sggoodri

There are large crowds of cyclists on our urban/suburban roadways here in Cary during cycling events, such as the annual town-sponsored Cary Cycling Celebration. There are at least half a dozen rides per year that attract between 200 and 1000 riders. Smaller crowds use the area roads a few times a week as part of organized club rides, including slow-paced beginner rides. These roads are open to motor traffic during these rides. Except at mass starts of the largest rides, the clusters of cyclists don't use more than a single lane of traffic. Most of the arterials have more than one lane of traffic in each direction, so motorists simply use the passing lane to pass cyclists. Some of the older but busy state roads that have not been widened experience temporary back-ups when groups of cyclists use those roads. Regardless of the type of road facility, we have not seen any increased danger of car-bike collision resulting from higher concentrations of cyclists on the road. If anything, the car-bike collision likelihood is less, due to greater visibility of the cyclists, although bike-bike collision rates are probably higher in dense bicycle traffic.

As a result of motorists' complaints about cycling clubs causing temporary delays for motorists on narrow two-lane state roads, some lawmakers have proposed banning bicycle traffic on many two-lane state roads. The NCDOT Bicycle and Pedestrian Division say they have spent considerable effort trying to defend and promote cyclists' right and need to use these state roads for transportation in order to prevent legislation against cyclists from progressing through the legislature.

The preferred solution to backups on narrow two lane roads is to increase the width of the road by adding another lane in each direction or to construct wider lanes, striped bike lanes or wide paved shoulders. I suspect that greater priority will be given to these engineering projects on busy roads as more motorists demand more convenient overtaking of cyclists.

Other than during organized group rides or really nice days for a bike ride, I don't expect cyclists to make up more than about 1% of the vehicle volume in Cary. I sometimes see three or four cyclists arrive coincidentally at a single intersection, but that's about as busy as I expect it to get.

Bekologist

there you go, steve. increasing ridership will cause communities to add wide lanes, bike lanes or wide shoulders. good on ya.

noisebeam

In my experience I find cycling vehicluarly to be far more important and useful when alone and during rush hour than during weekend club rides.
Interestingly round here it is the clubs (or individuals in them) that most strongly advocate for bike lanes - yet it is during club rides that the lanes are hardly used, not because folks are riding vehicularly (in the sense of dynamically chaning lane position) but because riding two abreast is legal in AZ and double 'pacelines' are the norm in the first 20% of a ride - so one rider is always well outside the bike lane and when the lead two riders peel off, three abreast occurs.

Al

Bekologist

head is NOT a daily bicycle commuter, Al. and the way his dismisses lighting and visibility equipment as part of a riders conspicuity equipment, doubt he rides at night or in poor visibility. HH sounds like a guy (having watched his posts in the past about his riding style and skills) that is a sometimes fairweather commuter, rides his trainer while watching tour de france videos, then goes out and hammers with some buddies on the weekends and chestbeats about his riding skills in bike forums.

NO dedicated bicycle commuter I know would have such a flippant attitude about either drivers or visibility equipment. you ride, you run into flack from drivers. you ride at night, you add vis equipment.

I almost got left hooked twice last night, by drivers talking on their cell phones, even while running high intensity lights and riding fully in the travel lane. one driver even yelled at me after our near collision (near in that he had to stop his car, and I circled around him to yell at him.....) these types of experiences helemt head has no perspective on, because he simply doesn't experience them, NOT becasue of his uber armchair VC skills.

but this thread is about increasing numbers of riders on the roads, and what communities will do about large numbers of riders on the roads.

predicating uber VC-ness is NOT part of social remedy for large numbers of riders on the roads. it doesn't even enter into the equasion, except that some riders will be more assertive in traffic due their experience.

sggoodri

Yes, this is the typical cause and effect. Cycling increases, motorists demand more convenient passing facilities, and then pavement is widened or, where that is not possible or adequate to meet motorists' demands, segregation constructs and new laws are created to limit the portion of the highway right of way that cyclists are allowed to use. Usually cycling increases along with an increase in population that also increases motoring, which greatly increases the number of car-bike overtaking events. If bicycle and motor vehicle counts are both proportional to the population, we can model this as follows:

# of bikes on a section of road = A*population

# of bikes a single motor vehicle overtakes on a section of road = Kspeeddelta * #bikes
= KspeedDelta*A*population

#motor vehicles on a section of road = B*population

#car/bike overtaking events = Kspeeddelta*A*population*B*Population
= Kspeeddelta*A*B*population^2

So the number of car-bike overtaking events increases with the square of the population (if we make a simplifying assumption that traffic does not discourage bicycling).

If we want to consider the number of car-bike overtaking events that may be affected by oncoming traffic on a narrow two-lane road, we multiply by yet another population factor, and we find out that this becomes proportional to the cube of the population.

Therefore, I predict as Cary grows in population (currently about 110,000 - has doubled every 10 years) the priority given to increasing the pavement space on narrow two-lane state roads will greatly increase, while at the same time political pressure will mount to ban cyclists from these narrow two-lane roads.

Bekologist

there you go again with the segregationist language. Steve, you've said so yourself that there is little room in Cary for seperate bike paths. so, no segregation, which implies by force and against ones' will.

You're said repeatedly Cary has no room for these off road path networks. so, leave those out of the equasion, will you?

Steve, what will happen if the population of Cary begin to ride 15 percent of their trips by bike? on existing roads, where there is no room for seperate bike paths, no room to add sidewalk bike lanes, and the advocacy community continues to fight to maintain bicyclists rights to use the roads, as already seems to be the case there?

Do the bicyclists, increasing in numbers and across even wider swaths of the public than now, decrease in political influence?

What happens when even greater numbers of your population begins to bike, maybe even some of the good old boys?

The G.O.B.'s, previously stuck in traffic in their pickup trucks with the confederate flag flying limply from the whip antennas, pigstickers at the ready, now riding bikes because of the ease of conveyance around a metropolitian area like Cary, NC?

is sharing car lanes practical once 15 percent of the good old boys begin riding around Cary? Are you predicating bike numbers remain the same? because thats' not what this thread is about. OR, do you want to see decreasing ridership in your community?

Wogster

The original post dealt with an increase in the percentage of people cycling, everyone seems to have forgotten that. As the percentage of people cycling increases, the percentage of people driving decreases. That makes it harder to ban cyclists from a road, not easier, because no politician wants to throw away a large and growing block of voters. When elections are won and lost by less then 2% margins, would any politician want to throw away a block of voters larger then that in size?

However there are two numbers we need to concern ourselves with, the percentage of people cycling rather then driving, and the percentage of trips being made by bicycle rather then by car. Politicians are concerned with the first number, because if a politician is pro-car, and you are a cyclist, you are less unlikely to vote for that politician, all other factors being equal.

Most elections, are decided on margins of less then 1%, which means, as far as politicians are concerned, the tipping point is around 2%, in that no politician want's to throw away votes, of a group larger then the margin they are winning by. Also, a large portion of transportational cyclists, are also environmentalists, and environmentalists, have proven to be very vocal, and have been getting a lot of press lately.

This thread is really more concerned with the second number, the percentage of trips, made by bicycle, rather then by car. This is also where we can expect the most growth, in that most cyclists, myself included, make some trips by car, and some by bicycle. This is also where traffic is generated, the more trips, the more traffic.

Here, the big issue is the looming spectre of peak oil, estimates are this will occur sometime between 2005 and 2035. Production of oil will plateau at the beginning, so it could take as many as 5 years, before we realise that we reached the peak, this is why the 2005 figure is still valid. Once the powers that be, realise we reached the peak, then expect oil prices to go up, as prices go up, the percentage of trips made by other means, cycling, transit, walking increase, the percentage of trips made by automobile decrease. Now while we are not really concerned with peds and transit, for the purposes of this thread, as their trips go up, they do affect the percentage of people driving. This ignores the fact that, when you can't just jump in the car to go somewhere, many trips will also not be taken at all.

sggoodri

No, I've said Cary and other communities can, and have, easily designated sidewalk areas behind the curb as bikeways.

I've said Cary has few places where they can build a proper greenway path in its own right of way, and that it's expensive to move curbs to build wide outside lanes and bike lanes on existing curb and gutter facilities. Converting sidewalks to "multi-use paths" designated as bike paths is cheap and easy to do, which is why the government loves doing it, despite being bad for cyclists in typical corridors with driveways and intersections.

If the percentage of trips made by bicycle increases above its current level of less than one percent, then the government will likely attempt to designate more of the existing sidewalks as bicycle facilities, as well as prioritize more pavement widening projects, particularly on narrow two-lane roads. However, as we have seen in Cary, an increase in cyclists does give the cyclists more political power to stop proposed or repeal existing laws designed to prohibit cyclists from using the ordinary travel lanes where segregated facilities exist. This seems to almost balance the increased number of poorly designed sidewalk bike paths and door-zone/debris-filled bike lanes.

A lot of G.O.B.'s here are mountain bikers, but a number have dared to try road cycling, even in road bike shorts. Hopefully the number of G.O.B.'s cycling recreationally will someday outnumber the G.O.B.s cycling because of DUI convictions or even - one can dream - outnumber the ones driving pickups without a license.

sggoodri

I believe that alternative energy sources will power automobile travel effectively enough that there will not be a large increase in bicycle use as a result of reduced automobile use in the near future.

Long-distance motoring will become more expensive and less practical as oil becomes more expensive and alternative energy sources first begin to be tapped for car travel on a large scale. However, bicycling does not compete with motoring for long-distance travel. Electric, natural gas, hydrogen, and other alternative energy sources for cars are presently most cost-effective and most convenient for short trips of the sort that might compete with utility bicycling. If one wants to get to the store or work a few miles away without getting rained on, an electric car works just fine.

Helmet Head

+1

Wogster

The issue is that the automobile is the second most inefficient method of travel ever designed, the airplane is the only one more inefficient, although aircraft can travel in straight lines, so for some trips it's debatable. Both electric and hydrogen have problems, in that both are energy stores, rather then energy sources. Electric cars have issues, the first one is that they either need horribly expensive Li-ion batteries, or extremely heavy lead-acid batteries. With the current most popular American car being a 6,000lb SUV, it's going to need to go on a 5,000lb diet, before it becomes practical, to put 1,000lbs of battery in it.

Hydrogen also has issues, the hydrogen atom is very small, so most storage mediums we currently have, will leak hydrogen, unless it is kept in a liquid state, hydrogen boils at -252.87°C (−423.17 °F), as a tank of hydrogen sits, it will warm up, boil and leak through the container. This is why when you see a hydrogen tanker on the road, you see steam coming off it, the cold hydrogen is leaking away, causing water to condense near the tank.

Unless there is some amazing new technology out there, the automobiles days are numbered.

donnamb 

Sounds like it's time to invest some resources in letting the G.O.B's know that their bikes of whatever variety can help them keep "the sugar"* away.

*which is how my granny in Tennessee refers to type 2 diabetes

Helmet Head

First, how do you measure "efficiency" for method of transportation?
In particular, are you including door to door time-to-travel, where taking more time is less efficient?
How are you measuring the cost of transportation for each method in order to determine relative efficiency?

We've made tremendous advances in battery technology in the last 25 years. Who's to say what the next 25 years will bring?

GM's EV-1 did not work out, but take a look at the advances in just the 7 years since:

https://www.teslamotors.com/index.php?js_enabled=1
https://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/
https://www.zapworld.com/
[url]https://news.com.com/Zap+teams+with+Lotus+for+electric+sports+car/2100-11389_3-6154854.html[/url

Who's to say what we'll be looking at in 10, 25, and 50 years with respect to electric cars, much less 100 or 200 years from now.

And, given the hydrogen transport problem, the promise of hydrogen might ultimately be to use it to generate electricity to recharge batteries.

Every generation has its contingent of doomsayers. I suppose it's human nature. I'm just glad I didn't get enlisted in the doomsayer contingent of my generation. But it sure seems like an inordinate percentage of other cyclists have been sampling the Kool-Aid.

Brian Ratliff

I'd guess that energy efficiency is measured in kilocalories expended to move a unit of weight a certain distance in a certain time. The surveys I've heard is that cycling is one of the most efficient, while cars are extremely inefficient.

As much as the new technologies in energy storage hold promise, the next big problem will be how to increase the efficiency of transportation without limiting the economy. Bicycles have a large role to play in this.

sggoodri

I agree that alternative energy sources are not yet as practical or cost competitive with gasoline for the purpose of moving SUVs over hundreds of miles in a single day.

However, I do believe that alternative energy sources powering lightweight cars provide a solution that competes very well against the bicycle for the purpose of everyday suburban travel at distances of 3-50 miles. The faster travel speed, increased cargo and passenger capacity, and climate control will keep the automobile around for a very long time.

Bekologist

Steve, I thought you continually post how it would be difficult to add any more separate bike facilties around your fair city... bike lanes integrated with the road might work in your 'constrained' urban core of Cary, NC to give fair road room in the event the NC good old boys begin to see the light of riding bikes for transportation around your little hamlet.

at 15 percent riding for daily trips, what do you see Cary becomming? will bike advocates be up to demanding greater dedicated roadway space? or will you just try to crowd out the drivers?

what happens when the status quo continues and the oil companies raise the price of gas up to 4 or five, six, seven bucks a gallon? The great texas oilman T. Boone Pickens described the nature of futures oil trading as ever increasing commodity prices driven by corporate greed, versus the Keynesian, controlled supply and demand chain economic model.

so, you'd rather have more cars on the road versus cyclists then, eh steve? what are you really advocating for anyway? more cars crowding the roads so its less convienent for riders to ride, and sidepath bike lanes? Or, would you rather see more riders use the roads?

what happens when the cyclists begin to crowd the drivers? what will be the social remedy that you desire? sidepath bike lanes? OR, how about on road bike facilties.....