An interesting read
05-29-13 | 04:32 PM
#1
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05-29-13 | 09:18 PM
#5
Randomhead
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From: Happy Valley, Pennsylvania
when I'm out riding in rural areas, I find that most motorists are headed to the convenience store to buy cigarettes and lottery tickets. If anyone is going to unilaterally stay off the roads, it should be them. Cyclists staying off the roads is a notion I reject, and if the author was here I probably would have to restrain myself from abusing him.
05-29-13 | 09:38 PM
#6
totally louche
Joined: Oct 2004
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From: A land that time forgot
Bikes: the ever shifting stable loaded with comfortable road bikes and city and winter bikes
oh, he sounds pretty reasonable except for his fear of traffic. But, that's normal, US traffic is horrendous. But, so's the title of his piece.
His finishing paragraph is pretty even handed, though.
I wonder if he wrote it for his local chamber of commerce website?
His finishing paragraph is pretty even handed, though.
Originally Posted by matt funnicello
Let’s expand our vision to include safer cycling in the Adirondack Park by creating dedicated bike paths, wider shoulders, and adding green lanes to our roadways. There is no downside to catering to those of us on two wheels. We come in peace and we are dedicated to enjoying the natural beauty of the Adirondacks. We also bring our wallets (they’re just smaller to fit into our jersey pouches or seat bags).
05-30-13 | 01:12 AM
#7
genec
Joined: Sep 2004
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From: West Coast
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The idea that my relatively slow-moving 225 pounds of bike and rider could ever effectively “share” insufficient space with a 4,000 pound vehicle is probably folly from the get-go regardless of how careful or courteous either party may be. I don’t know how you are when driving a car. I know how I am. I’m in my shell. I’m in the Batmobile. I’m already feeling isolated and empowered and restricted all at the same time.
My point is that it’s not really about “us” versus “them” when it comes to cars and bikes. Most of us who cycle also drive cars. We’re all “them” if we’re honest about it. So, while a cyclist may well be able to put themselves in a driver’s shoes, it’s far less likely that a driver can or will put themselves in a cyclist’s shoes. I highly doubt that we are going to fix this problem with public safety campaigns, good intent and pleas for good behavior. As I see it, asking a cyclist and a driver to share the road is like asking fish and cats to just get along. We truly don’t understand each other and one of us is fully capable of rendering the other dead in a very quick and one-sided manner. We might truly live best in totally separate elements.
My point is that it’s not really about “us” versus “them” when it comes to cars and bikes. Most of us who cycle also drive cars. We’re all “them” if we’re honest about it. So, while a cyclist may well be able to put themselves in a driver’s shoes, it’s far less likely that a driver can or will put themselves in a cyclist’s shoes. I highly doubt that we are going to fix this problem with public safety campaigns, good intent and pleas for good behavior. As I see it, asking a cyclist and a driver to share the road is like asking fish and cats to just get along. We truly don’t understand each other and one of us is fully capable of rendering the other dead in a very quick and one-sided manner. We might truly live best in totally separate elements.
As a frequent passenger in the cars of others', I also make an effort to ensure that the driver is aware of cyclists on the road and treat those cyclists well. Frankly, it takes so little effort for a motorist to "enable" a cyclist, that it is shameful that fellow humans cannot manage to be a touch more altrustic toward human powered vehicles that pollute less, require less foreign oils, and leave more open parking spaces available for those that chose to use motorized transport.
The amount of effort required to drive is scant by comparison to the effort to propel one's self at decent speed on a pedal bike, such that motorists should feel no burden in sharing the road; it is only selfishness that often causes the conflict that some motorists feel with regard to "sharing the road" with fellow humans who chose to use pedalbikes.
05-30-13 | 03:28 AM
#8
totally louche
Joined: Oct 2004
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From: A land that time forgot
Bikes: the ever shifting stable loaded with comfortable road bikes and city and winter bikes
i've found in bicycling advocacy that, to win over the motoring public, you have to think like the motorists. Prattling on and on about 'road rights' isn't the tactic to getting a broad base of support for safer bicycling conditions.
This author's going about it without an understanding of road rights and equality, which compromises his argument, but the general public really doesn't get that cyclists have the right to take the lane doing 10mph in front of traffic wanting to do 40.
And when you're trying to sell road improvements to motorists that benefit cycling, you don't start going all
or they tune you out.
Framing arguments for better conditions for cycling with those types of 'road rights' metrics makes people tune out the message, and even get antagonistic towards cyclists.
we're a collective of 'obscenely clothed, unhelmeted miscreants' , dontchyknow?
This author's going about it without an understanding of road rights and equality, which compromises his argument, but the general public really doesn't get that cyclists have the right to take the lane doing 10mph in front of traffic wanting to do 40.
And when you're trying to sell road improvements to motorists that benefit cycling, you don't start going all
or they tune you out.
Framing arguments for better conditions for cycling with those types of 'road rights' metrics makes people tune out the message, and even get antagonistic towards cyclists.
we're a collective of 'obscenely clothed, unhelmeted miscreants' , dontchyknow?
Last edited by Bekologist; 05-30-13 at 03:34 AM.
05-30-13 | 07:03 AM
#9
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From: Michigan
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Meh. He's got a lot of fear in him. I ride almost all of my miles on rural roads with zero shoulder and I don't have any problems at all.
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05-30-13 | 07:09 AM
#10
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From: Rochester, NY
Here's the important part: "I have been in only one crash and it was caused by unattended pedestrian children on a bike path and my own desperate desire to avoid them as they blocked said path entirely." I avoid urban streets and will put my bike on the back of my car to ride a few miles out of the city into rural areas where there is little or no shoulder on the roads, and have had really no issues at all. It's on the MUPs, where I also occassionally ride where the danger is; unleashed dogs and children running amok and causing havoc! 
05-30-13 | 08:44 AM
#11
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From: Sacramento
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An article written by someone that does not understand their right to the road & the concept of taking the lane; sounds like just another motorist who occasionally cycles for recreation.
05-30-13 | 09:13 AM
#14
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From: Far beyond the pale horizon.
* The "$65,000" per mile for the Warren bike route might be misleading. It's probably much, much higher than that for the separate bicycle parts and much, much less for the bike-lane-on-road parts.
* Most of the cost of building the GAP was provided by the rail road company who built the original railway the pat uses.
* Most of the cost of building the C&O path was provided by the canal company.
* How many former railways/canal routes are available to make into transportationally-useful bike paths?
* Glens Falls/Queensbury, NY are mostly suburban spawl (not exactly "rural").
* Most of the cost of building the GAP was provided by the rail road company who built the original railway the pat uses.
* Most of the cost of building the C&O path was provided by the canal company.
* How many former railways/canal routes are available to make into transportationally-useful bike paths?
* Glens Falls/Queensbury, NY are mostly suburban spawl (not exactly "rural").
05-30-13 | 12:35 PM
#15
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What if those cyclists were riding to the convenience store for cigarettes and lottery tickets? What's the purpose of the trip have to do with the means of conveyance?
05-30-13 | 01:14 PM
#16
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Are you really that dumb? Everyone knows that lottery tickets are a waste of money unless you win. I ride my bike to the store for cigarettes and beer.
05-30-13 | 02:07 PM
#17
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05-30-13 | 11:06 PM
#18
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From: Eugene, Oregon
* The "$65,000" per mile for the Warren bike route might be misleading. It's probably much, much higher than that for the separate bicycle parts and much, much less for the bike-lane-on-road parts.
* Most of the cost of building the GAP was provided by the rail road company who built the original railway the pat uses.
* Most of the cost of building the C&O path was provided by the canal company.
* How many former railways/canal routes are available to make into transportationally-useful bike paths?
* Glens Falls/Queensbury, NY are mostly suburban spawl (not exactly "rural").
* Most of the cost of building the GAP was provided by the rail road company who built the original railway the pat uses.
* Most of the cost of building the C&O path was provided by the canal company.
* How many former railways/canal routes are available to make into transportationally-useful bike paths?
* Glens Falls/Queensbury, NY are mostly suburban spawl (not exactly "rural").
05-31-13 | 06:02 AM
#19
Randomhead
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From: Happy Valley, Pennsylvania
It doesn't, but there seems to be an unstated assumption that, unlike cyclists, the motorists are doing something utilitarian. This is rarely the case.
05-31-13 | 07:18 AM
#20
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From: Far beyond the pale horizon.
I'm not sure they have to be "former" to have useful bike paths added to them. Lots of those right of ways are plenty wide enough to add rails-with-trails. I'd personally love to see the rail lines that run the length of Oregon improved with some bike paths. Most of the parallel roadways are not exactly great cycling routes, unless you like mixing it up on ten foot wide lanes with blind curves, heavy trucks, drunks and no shoulders. OMG, now I'm sounding like Mia Burk.
There's a long, established history of restricting/limiting access to active railways. It doesn't seem that it's likely that would change any time soon.
Note that, with the former railways, the paths use the railbed, which has already been nicely graded for a path (that would be extra work needed for paths in the margins of the right-of-way).
05-31-13 | 11:43 AM
#21
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From: Burlington Iowa
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What is NOT "utilitarian" about traveling (by any mode) to a convenience store to make a purchase? Purchased products that don't meet your approval?
05-31-13 | 04:18 PM
#22
I don't. I can clearly visualize him going off the MUP to go around the kids, hitting the grass or dirt which slowed him down slightly (probably too high a gear for the grass) and falling on his butt.
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05-31-13 | 04:21 PM
#23
Randomhead
Joined: Aug 2008
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From: Happy Valley, Pennsylvania
I can imagine an inexperienced rider doing exactly what you say. What I can't imagine is going fast enough around small children to make it necessary. I also approach adults on a bike path very cautiously. Most of them have not considered the notion that they will see a cyclist on a bike path. Our mups are all labelled "bike path," so you would think it would be obvious
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