Orlando, FL bike safety animations
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Orlando, FL bike safety animations
In case you haven't seen these:
https://commuteorlando.com/wordpress/animations/
I especially liked the topmost animation titled "Controlling your lane can change your life".
The site seems to want to educate both cyclists and motorists.
https://commuteorlando.com/wordpress/animations/
I especially liked the topmost animation titled "Controlling your lane can change your life".
The site seems to want to educate both cyclists and motorists.
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In case you haven't seen these:
https://commuteorlando.com/wordpress/animations/
I especially liked the topmost animation titled "Controlling your lane can change your life".
The site seems to want to educate both cyclists and motorists.
https://commuteorlando.com/wordpress/animations/
I especially liked the topmost animation titled "Controlling your lane can change your life".
The site seems to want to educate both cyclists and motorists.
Just for grins... how do you "control a lane" in the presence of a multi-ton vehicle bearing down on you? What if the motorist wants to "control the lane?"
There are plenty of documented cases of motorists pushing and shoving cyclists with their vehicles. Let me know how that control thing works out for you when you meet a motorist that also wants to "control the lane."
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What it shows is a good example of the standard lousy infrastructure for bikes in the USA. About 1% of the population would be willing or able to do what the biker is doing on the take the lane video. This is a sure way to keep the number of bike users at pathetically low rates. Education and trying to push bike users onto bad infrastructure that doesn't take into consideration the differences between bikes and motor vehicles doesn't work. Decades of this kind of nonsense has shown it's a recipe for failure if the goal is to get more people using bikes.
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What it shows is a good example of the standard lousy infrastructure for bikes in the USA. About 1% of the population would be willing or able to do what the biker is doing on the take the lane video. This is a sure way to keep the number of bike users at pathetically low rates. Education and trying to push bike users onto bad infrastructure that doesn't take into consideration the differences between bikes and motor vehicles doesn't work. Decades of this kind of nonsense has shown it's a recipe for failure if the goal is to get more people using bikes.
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If you look farther into the site they go on with criticize bike lanes and it looks like anything else that deals with bike infrastructure. I wonder how many folks are biking in Orlando FL. I'm going to make a guess and say it's very small.
Perhaps the AAA is funding the site to help discourage bike use.
Last edited by Stubby; 07-19-11 at 02:31 PM.
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I was mistaken..... not the first time. They are not funded by the AAA. At least I don't have any direct evidence of that. They're a group pushing for vehicular cycling
https://commuteorlando.com/wordpress/...r-possibility/
This is the standard manifesto for failure. This could have been written by John Forester. Perhaps it was.
https://commuteorlando.com/wordpress/...r-possibility/
This is the standard manifesto for failure. This could have been written by John Forester. Perhaps it was.
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For 1% of the population........ go for it, and best of luck. You're going to need it.
If you look farther into the site they go on with criticize bike lanes and it looks like anything else that deals with bike infrastructure. I wonder how many folks are biking in Orlando FL. I'm going to make a guess and say it's very small.
Perhaps the AAA is funding the site to help discourage bike use.
If you look farther into the site they go on with criticize bike lanes and it looks like anything else that deals with bike infrastructure. I wonder how many folks are biking in Orlando FL. I'm going to make a guess and say it's very small.
Perhaps the AAA is funding the site to help discourage bike use.
I'm not a VC "purist" or evangelist, but I think it has its place. Some roads it's absolutely necessary to ride in a vehicular fashion for safety. On others, bike lanes make the experience more pleasant, though I would argue not necessarily safer. I'm not against all bike lanes, but I do think that having no bike lanes is often better on streets that are otherwise perfectly pleasant to ride on (low speed, low traffic). No bike lanes are also often better than poorly designed and maintained bike lanes that are common many places. OTOH, bike lanes are nice on some high speed arterials, or on bridges, for example.
I do not believe a lack of bike lanes is the real reason so few Americans bicycle for transportation.
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The reason folks don't commute by bike in the USA is the infrastructure sucks in most places for bike users. It was designed for moving motor vehicles at high speed with little regard for bike users. The only way we are ever going to get a good percentage of people commuting on bikes is to create an infrastructure where people feel comfortable using a bike. That means separated and protected bike infrastructure with intelligent intersections. The better in infrastructure the more folks use bikes. It's not rocket science.
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The only thing they really seem to oppose is mindless application of bike lanes where they aren't appropriate, and I agree with them on that. Way too many bike lanes get put in on streets that don't need them (because they are already low speed/low traffic volume) while the places that could benefit from them (huge, high-speed arterials) don't get them. There are sometimes some comments there that go a little further in the VC direction than I would, but they're generally quite thoughtful and insightful and not nearly as rigid as someone like Forrester.
The reason folks don't commute by bike in the USA is the infrastructure sucks in most places for bike users. It was designed for moving motor vehicles at high speed with little regard for bike users. The only way we are ever going to get a good percentage of people commuting on bikes is to create an infrastructure where people feel comfortable using a bike. That means separated and protected bike infrastructure with intelligent intersections. The better in infrastructure the more folks use bikes. It's not rocket science.
Protected infrastructure can be nice in some cases, but it's not necessary for people to ride their bikes safely and comfortably. And outside of a few places, it's not really a practical possibility for it to become widespread in the US, either. Making space for that kind of infrastructure usually involves additional right-of-way or taking space away from cars or parking, and local governments are often loathe to even consider doing any of those things until there is a critical mass behind bicycling in the area. So again, I think the real impediment is the car-centric culture of the United States, more than anything else. If cars end up becoming very expensive to operate due to gas prices or whatever, I think then we'll see real movement in the numbers of people biking. Until then, the nice bike lanes will remain very lightly used like the ones near me.
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Having read Commute Orlando for quite a while, I do not believe that that is an accurate characterization of the site. It's true that they are generally of a VC bent, and it's true that they do oppose putting bike lanes everywhere (though I don't think they're 100% opposed to all bike lanes). It's totally false that they are against all types of bike infrastructure. They're very much for things like commuter trails, connector paths, bike racks, multimodal mass transit, and so on. All of those things are bike infrastructure, too, and I've seen Keri and the others on that site post supportive comments about all those things multiple times. Their main focus is on cyclist education rather than putting paint on the road, and while you may disagree with that approach, it doesn't mean that they are "hardcore vehicular".
The only thing they really seem to oppose is mindless application of bike lanes where they aren't appropriate, and I agree with them on that. Way too many bike lanes get put in on streets that don't need them (because they are already low speed/low traffic volume) while the places that could benefit from them (huge, high-speed arterials) don't get them. There are sometimes some comments there that go a little further in the VC direction than I would, but they're generally quite thoughtful and insightful and not nearly as rigid as someone like Forrester.
I don't agree that that is the main reason folks don't commute by bike in the USA. I believe that it is one reason out of many, but it's not really the biggest one. Actually, I think you have the cause and effect reversed: we have bad or nonexistent bike infrastructure *because* not many people ride bikes, rather than the other way around. Our governments don't build good bike infrastructure because there isn't a strong constituency behind bicycling. This is a bit of a chicken and egg thing, but I think the main reason people don't ride bikes in the USA is cultural. Our culture is very car-centered, and so everything else people do revolves around that. People here just don't think of the bike as a practical form of transportation, because the car has filled that role throughout their lives. Instead, they think of bikes as children's toys or sports equipment, and don't even consider the idea of trying to commute by bike or the idea of trying utility cycling. So I think that the real reason people don't ride bikes outside of parks and so forth is because they are so attached to their cars. This attachment to cars feeds into a mentality that makes them fearful about riding a bike on the road, even when that extreme fear isn't really warranted. It isn't so scary to ride on a slow speed limit, low traffic road with no bike lanes, but most people who don't ride bikes don't know that because they don't even try it.
Protected infrastructure can be nice in some cases, but it's not necessary for people to ride their bikes safely and comfortably. And outside of a few places, it's not really a practical possibility for it to become widespread in the US, either. Making space for that kind of infrastructure usually involves additional right-of-way or taking space away from cars or parking, and local governments are often loathe to even consider doing any of those things until there is a critical mass behind bicycling in the area. So again, I think the real impediment is the car-centric culture of the United States, more than anything else. If cars end up becoming very expensive to operate due to gas prices or whatever, I think then we'll see real movement in the numbers of people biking. Until then, the nice bike lanes will remain very lightly used like the ones near me.
The only thing they really seem to oppose is mindless application of bike lanes where they aren't appropriate, and I agree with them on that. Way too many bike lanes get put in on streets that don't need them (because they are already low speed/low traffic volume) while the places that could benefit from them (huge, high-speed arterials) don't get them. There are sometimes some comments there that go a little further in the VC direction than I would, but they're generally quite thoughtful and insightful and not nearly as rigid as someone like Forrester.
I don't agree that that is the main reason folks don't commute by bike in the USA. I believe that it is one reason out of many, but it's not really the biggest one. Actually, I think you have the cause and effect reversed: we have bad or nonexistent bike infrastructure *because* not many people ride bikes, rather than the other way around. Our governments don't build good bike infrastructure because there isn't a strong constituency behind bicycling. This is a bit of a chicken and egg thing, but I think the main reason people don't ride bikes in the USA is cultural. Our culture is very car-centered, and so everything else people do revolves around that. People here just don't think of the bike as a practical form of transportation, because the car has filled that role throughout their lives. Instead, they think of bikes as children's toys or sports equipment, and don't even consider the idea of trying to commute by bike or the idea of trying utility cycling. So I think that the real reason people don't ride bikes outside of parks and so forth is because they are so attached to their cars. This attachment to cars feeds into a mentality that makes them fearful about riding a bike on the road, even when that extreme fear isn't really warranted. It isn't so scary to ride on a slow speed limit, low traffic road with no bike lanes, but most people who don't ride bikes don't know that because they don't even try it.
Protected infrastructure can be nice in some cases, but it's not necessary for people to ride their bikes safely and comfortably. And outside of a few places, it's not really a practical possibility for it to become widespread in the US, either. Making space for that kind of infrastructure usually involves additional right-of-way or taking space away from cars or parking, and local governments are often loathe to even consider doing any of those things until there is a critical mass behind bicycling in the area. So again, I think the real impediment is the car-centric culture of the United States, more than anything else. If cars end up becoming very expensive to operate due to gas prices or whatever, I think then we'll see real movement in the numbers of people biking. Until then, the nice bike lanes will remain very lightly used like the ones near me.
Second, I disagree with your cause and effect paragraph... bikes existed before cars, bikes were embraced before cars. Our culture only embraced the automobile after the bike, and infrastructure (and transit) were modified to embrace the automobile. The biggest changes came after WW2, with perhaps the biggest change being the National Highway Act of 1956 which changed cities and our whole landscape to embrace the automobile.
Sure, the car existed before WW2, but it was part of a whole transportation mix which also consisted of horse and buggy, bicycle, local trolleys, buses and trains, after WW2 the automobile displaced most of the transit mix and the attitude of the country changed with that displacement.... true car-culture was born.
Remember, the Wright brothers were bicycle mechanics first, then they learned to fly. There was a strong bicycle culture in this country at one time.
I think if we put a bit less focus on the automobile exclusively, we might just discover the bicycle again. And maybe even bring back a diverse mix of transit... such as street cars and trolleys... and heck, maybe people will learn to walk again. But everything can't look "like a highway" for that to happen.
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Riiiight...
Just for grins... how do you "control a lane" in the presence of a multi-ton vehicle bearing down on you? What if the motorist wants to "control the lane?"
There are plenty of documented cases of motorists pushing and shoving cyclists with their vehicles. Let me know how that control thing works out for you when you meet a motorist that also wants to "control the lane."
Just for grins... how do you "control a lane" in the presence of a multi-ton vehicle bearing down on you? What if the motorist wants to "control the lane?"
There are plenty of documented cases of motorists pushing and shoving cyclists with their vehicles. Let me know how that control thing works out for you when you meet a motorist that also wants to "control the lane."
I know that you're being somewhat humorous with your response, but just yesterday I was controlling the lane with a city bus behind me and never felt that I was in any danger or anything from the bus behind me. And it worked out fine.
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Thanks for the correction. I should have double-checked.
Right, I agree that people would "discover" the bike again if there wasn't so much focus on cars. And I agree that inadequate bike infrastructure is part of that. However, it's not like we had protected bike lanes in this country back when we did have a real bike culture. The big difference was that there weren't cars speeding around everywhere at high speeds. So if we can change that, we wouldn't need a massively expensive and impractical separate road system for bikes. I think the way to do that is to make a clear distinction between highways and human-centered neighborhoods. It should be possible to get from point A to point B without getting funneled onto a high speed arterial where the fancy bike lanes are necessary. In the neighborhood zones, speed limits should be low and heavily enforced.
I agree that infrastructure is part of the problem and the solution, but not the whole problem or the whole solution. Culture has to change, development patterns have to change, attitudes have to change, and people need to look beyond their dashboards. There are many more differences between countries that have high bike use and low bike use than just infrastructure. One big one is that almost all of them tax gasoline much more heavily than we do, which drove many other changes in their societies. Until the US is ready to do that, I suspect the car centric attitudes will remain.
Second, I disagree with your cause and effect paragraph... bikes existed before cars, bikes were embraced before cars. Our culture only embraced the automobile after the bike, and infrastructure (and transit) were modified to embrace the automobile. The biggest changes came after WW2, with perhaps the biggest change being the National Highway Act of 1956 which changed cities and our whole landscape to embrace the automobile.
Sure, the car existed before WW2, but it was part of a whole transportation mix which also consisted of horse and buggy, bicycle, local trolleys, buses and trains, after WW2 the automobile displaced most of the transit mix and the attitude of the country changed with that displacement.... true car-culture was born.
Remember, the Wright brothers were bicycle mechanics first, then they learned to fly. There was a strong bicycle culture in this country at one time.
I think if we put a bit less focus on the automobile exclusively, we might just discover the bicycle again. And maybe even bring back a diverse mix of transit... such as street cars and trolleys... and heck, maybe people will learn to walk again. But everything can't look "like a highway" for that to happen.
Sure, the car existed before WW2, but it was part of a whole transportation mix which also consisted of horse and buggy, bicycle, local trolleys, buses and trains, after WW2 the automobile displaced most of the transit mix and the attitude of the country changed with that displacement.... true car-culture was born.
Remember, the Wright brothers were bicycle mechanics first, then they learned to fly. There was a strong bicycle culture in this country at one time.
I think if we put a bit less focus on the automobile exclusively, we might just discover the bicycle again. And maybe even bring back a diverse mix of transit... such as street cars and trolleys... and heck, maybe people will learn to walk again. But everything can't look "like a highway" for that to happen.
I agree that infrastructure is part of the problem and the solution, but not the whole problem or the whole solution. Culture has to change, development patterns have to change, attitudes have to change, and people need to look beyond their dashboards. There are many more differences between countries that have high bike use and low bike use than just infrastructure. One big one is that almost all of them tax gasoline much more heavily than we do, which drove many other changes in their societies. Until the US is ready to do that, I suspect the car centric attitudes will remain.
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For 1% of the population........ go for it, and best of luck. You're going to need it.
If you look farther into the site they go on with criticize bike lanes and it looks like anything else that deals with bike infrastructure. I wonder how many folks are biking in Orlando FL. I'm going to make a guess and say it's very small.
Perhaps the AAA is funding the site to help discourage bike use.
If you look farther into the site they go on with criticize bike lanes and it looks like anything else that deals with bike infrastructure. I wonder how many folks are biking in Orlando FL. I'm going to make a guess and say it's very small.
Perhaps the AAA is funding the site to help discourage bike use.
The best way to design bicycling infrastructure is from the ground up. When they're designing the road, or when they are doing major work to the road they need to redesign it from the ground up to include bicycle infrastructure. "Shoehorning" bicycle infrastructure in after the fact without doing any kind of redesigning isn't the answer.
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If the bike lanes in Orlando are "designed" anything like the ones down here in St. Pete, I don't blame them for "dissing" the bike lanes. As most bike lanes are poorly designed and are shoehorned onto roads as an afterthought to "appease" the cycling community.
The best way to design bicycling infrastructure is from the ground up. When they're designing the road, or when they are doing major work to the road they need to redesign it from the ground up to include bicycle infrastructure. "Shoehorning" bicycle infrastructure in after the fact without doing any kind of redesigning isn't the answer.
The best way to design bicycling infrastructure is from the ground up. When they're designing the road, or when they are doing major work to the road they need to redesign it from the ground up to include bicycle infrastructure. "Shoehorning" bicycle infrastructure in after the fact without doing any kind of redesigning isn't the answer.
But yes, bad bike lanes are often worse than no bad lanes.
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I've seen that site plenty, and I mostly agree with the general philosophy there. And I don't believe that VC is a recipe for failure so much as it's an adaptation strategy. We're never going to get safe bike lanes everywhere I want to go. So, I need to use VC techniques on occasion, mainly on roads that have no bike specific infrastructure and would otherwise be unrideable. Maybe that puts me in your 1%, but really, we kind of all are in the U.S.
I'm not a VC "purist" or evangelist, but I think it has its place. Some roads it's absolutely necessary to ride in a vehicular fashion for safety. On others, bike lanes make the experience more pleasant, though I would argue not necessarily safer. I'm not against all bike lanes, but I do think that having no bike lanes is often better on streets that are otherwise perfectly pleasant to ride on (low speed, low traffic). No bike lanes are also often better than poorly designed and maintained bike lanes that are common many places. OTOH, bike lanes are nice on some high speed arterials, or on bridges, for example.
I do not believe a lack of bike lanes is the real reason so few Americans bicycle for transportation.
I'm not a VC "purist" or evangelist, but I think it has its place. Some roads it's absolutely necessary to ride in a vehicular fashion for safety. On others, bike lanes make the experience more pleasant, though I would argue not necessarily safer. I'm not against all bike lanes, but I do think that having no bike lanes is often better on streets that are otherwise perfectly pleasant to ride on (low speed, low traffic). No bike lanes are also often better than poorly designed and maintained bike lanes that are common many places. OTOH, bike lanes are nice on some high speed arterials, or on bridges, for example.
I do not believe a lack of bike lanes is the real reason so few Americans bicycle for transportation.
As sadly way too many people (on both sides) think that a little bit of paint on the road is going to make the road "safe(r)" for us cyclists.
One of the big dangers with bike lanes is as noted in the article linked to in the OP is that the right most edge (where most people think that cyclists "belong") is usually in the worst condition of the entire road i.e. broken and/or missing pavement, or it is full of debris that a driver wouldn't want to drive through. But for some reason they expect us cyclists to ride through it.
It'd be nice if they'd leave at least a little bit of room between the bike lane and the right most edge of the road so that the debris can get blown totally blown off of the road, and that the damage remains in an area of the roadway that no one uses.
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So what happens when controlling cyclist meets controlling motorist... no one wants to discuss with that possibility... yet we see loads of responses in typical newspaper/webpage comment sections that show there is a segment of society that abhors cyclists.
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Thanks for the correction. I should have double-checked.
Right, I agree that people would "discover" the bike again if there wasn't so much focus on cars. And I agree that inadequate bike infrastructure is part of that. However, it's not like we had protected bike lanes in this country back when we did have a real bike culture. The big difference was that there weren't cars speeding around everywhere at high speeds. So if we can change that, we wouldn't need a massively expensive and impractical separate road system for bikes. I think the way to do that is to make a clear distinction between highways and human-centered neighborhoods. It should be possible to get from point A to point B without getting funneled onto a high speed arterial where the fancy bike lanes are necessary. In the neighborhood zones, speed limits should be low and heavily enforced.
I agree that infrastructure is part of the problem and the solution, but not the whole problem or the whole solution. Culture has to change, development patterns have to change, attitudes have to change, and people need to look beyond their dashboards. There are many more differences between countries that have high bike use and low bike use than just infrastructure. One big one is that almost all of them tax gasoline much more heavily than we do, which drove many other changes in their societies. Until the US is ready to do that, I suspect the car centric attitudes will remain.
Right, I agree that people would "discover" the bike again if there wasn't so much focus on cars. And I agree that inadequate bike infrastructure is part of that. However, it's not like we had protected bike lanes in this country back when we did have a real bike culture. The big difference was that there weren't cars speeding around everywhere at high speeds. So if we can change that, we wouldn't need a massively expensive and impractical separate road system for bikes. I think the way to do that is to make a clear distinction between highways and human-centered neighborhoods. It should be possible to get from point A to point B without getting funneled onto a high speed arterial where the fancy bike lanes are necessary. In the neighborhood zones, speed limits should be low and heavily enforced.
I agree that infrastructure is part of the problem and the solution, but not the whole problem or the whole solution. Culture has to change, development patterns have to change, attitudes have to change, and people need to look beyond their dashboards. There are many more differences between countries that have high bike use and low bike use than just infrastructure. One big one is that almost all of them tax gasoline much more heavily than we do, which drove many other changes in their societies. Until the US is ready to do that, I suspect the car centric attitudes will remain.
So moving forward we have two choices... either lower speeds on streets and invite the human scale back, or built appropriate and suitable infrastructure to equal what has been created for the car.
Note the human scale and cooperation exhibited in this 1906 San Francisco video.
Last edited by genec; 07-20-11 at 08:10 AM.
#20
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My safety comes first, if the motorist wants the lane that bad I'll bail out of the roadway at the first safest opportunity, then use what information I might have gathered on the aggressive motorist and report them to law enforcement who happen to have jurisdiction of that area.
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#21
You gonna eat that?
What it shows is a good example of the standard lousy infrastructure for bikes in the USA. About 1% of the population would be willing or able to do what the biker is doing on the take the lane video. This is a sure way to keep the number of bike users at pathetically low rates. Education and trying to push bike users onto bad infrastructure that doesn't take into consideration the differences between bikes and motor vehicles doesn't work. Decades of this kind of nonsense has shown it's a recipe for failure if the goal is to get more people using bikes.
#22
You gonna eat that?
While I don't agree with some of their positions on infrastructure, I admire the fact that they not only practice what they preach in terms of cycling methods, but they devote a lot of their time to sharing those methods for others who want to use them by preparing videos, animations and essays describing what works and why it works. They have also started a course called Cycling Savvy, given several sessions in Orlando, and are now taking it on the Road (they'll be here in DFW in September and I'm considering attending).
The fact of the matter is that there is no single solution that makes cycling accessible for everyone. For some, off-street, dedicated bike trails will be the only way they ride. For others, they are stuck in large cities with no appreciable bike infrastructure, and what is there is frequently flawed. There's nothing wrong with giving people tools to deal with operating safely on the roads as part of traffic.
A friend of mine likens the situation to a tool box. There are different tools to do various jobs. Increasing my skill in navigating traffic is a tool that pays dividends to me. Bike infrastructure benefits me too. Legislation is also a bonus. I'll take it all; they all help improve the quality of my cycling experience.
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My safety comes first, if the motorist wants the lane that bad I'll bail out of the roadway at the first safest opportunity, then use what information I might have gathered on the aggressive motorist and report them to law enforcement who happen to have jurisdiction of that area.
#24
You gonna eat that?
Why do you keep repeating that? It does nothing to advance your view. "Recipe for FAILURE!!!11!!!11!!" "1%!!!!" I find using VC tools is a recipe for success; what's wrong with trying to get the word out? There are other groups in Orlando that do advocate for bike infrastructure. Why is a single entity that only embraces cycling technique and doesn't count on infrastructure a "recipe for failure"? For those using the VC techniques, it helps them successfully move in traffic. What failure are you talking about, exactly?
#25
genec
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: West Coast
Posts: 27,079
Bikes: custom built, sannino, beachbike, giant trance x2
Mentioned: 86 Post(s)
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Why do you keep repeating that? It does nothing to advance your view. "Recipe for FAILURE!!!11!!!11!!" "1%!!!!" I find using VC tools is a recipe for success; what's wrong with trying to get the word out? There are other groups in Orlando that do advocate for bike infrastructure. Why is a single entity that only embraces cycling technique and doesn't count on infrastructure a "recipe for failure"? For those using the VC techniques, it helps them successfully move in traffic. What failure are you talking about, exactly?