You mean an open dialog where two people seek common ground without prejudgment in a way that could better both parties?

It's so crazy it just might work!

Not sure it's ever been tried though....we're breaking new ground here.

in that case, you're gonna have to come find me and give me a ticket then. i've been doing my little sidewalk shortcut to get to the MUP trailhead for a couple years now. CPD doesn't seem to give a single flying $h!t.


that would be groovy with me. if the city were to put in a contra-flow bike lane on the one-way street in question, i'd gladly ride it, but until that happens......

SIDEWALK SHORTCUT!!!!!!


it's not that i'm not comfortable riding on the street in question, it's just one-way the wrong way to get to the the MUP trailhead, and there's a perfectly good, almost never used sidewalk just sitting right there, so..........


LOL! walk my bike? on a sidewalk that goes past a sewage pumping station that almost never has anyone on it? for 700 feet? yeah, i'm never going to do that.

as i stated earlier, on the rare occasion that i do encounter someone on that short stretch of sidewalk, i slow WAY down, and even pass people on the grass if i'm rolling behind them.


i agree, but until the city recognizes how asinine it is to have a one-way street lead to the trailhead of an MUP, i'll be happily riding on that stretch of sidewalk!

feel free to come and ticket me anytime

Haha, I think in theory one could still get a ticket, but most likely it's not going to come up unless there's reason to enforce, like a safety event. Meaning, there will probably be no ticket unless there was a collision or other accident, then the victim could bring a negligence suit against the tortfeasor under the theory there was an ordinance specifically against the conduct in question.

haha, I can imagine the challenges of cycling on the sidewalk in MY town on trash day - the sidewalks are just strewn with trash and garbage cans

We're all going to have our different iterations of "well, you're right about not cycling on sidewalks against traffic, except in MY case..." that's not exactly why I started this conversation ... to point fingers at any body or start a "witch hunt...." I was really going after the limited specifics of the scenario I mentioned above.

It just amazes me how a simple observation about a BSO cycling contra-flow to traffic on a wide suburban road is sparking so much excitement. It wasn't meant to.

welcome to the internet

which is all fine and good, but threads evolve, they grow, they branch out in multiple directions, one topic leads to another, leads to another, leads to another, etc.

topic drift in a thread on an internet discussion forum is perfectly natural and happens in about 95% of all threads that sustain themselves beyond a handful of responses.

and this one hasn't been egregiously bad. we started out talking about bikes on sidewalks, and here we are 4 pages later talking about bikes on sidewalks, so.....




as for me, i just enjoy ruffling the feathers of the absolutists. can't help myself.

"thou shalt not ride a bicycle on any sidewalk, anywhere, for any reason, ever"

well, sometimes i do. and there's not a damn thing anyone can do about it.

strike me down, lord. strike me down now with your wrathful vengeance.

THIS HAPPENED IN LOS ANGELES ON A BUSY CITY STREET (Santa Monica Blvd) INTERSECTION. WITH THOUSANDS OF CARS PASSING THROUGH EVERYDAY. IT WAS NOT IRRELEVANT TO THE OLD MAN LAYING IN THE STREET. THE POINT IS A BICYCLE GOING FAST ENOUGH TO STAY VERTICAL, WILL RIDE OUT IN FRONT OF A DRIVER (doing a rolling stop or after a full stop) FROM THE DRIVERS RIGHT SIDE BEFORE THE DRIVER CAN STOP OR EVEN SEE THE BIKE. AND NINE TIMES OUT OF TEN BICYCLE RIDERS RIDING ON THE SIDE WALK DON'T STOP AT THE CORNER. THEY KEEP GOING STRAIGHT ACROSS THE STREET AND CAUSE DRIVERS TO JAM ON THEIR BRAKES.

I think everybody here agrees that cyclists should not do that.

And could we agree that those instances of when it does happen, to chalk it up to cyclist inexperience? e.g. one bad apple spoils the bunch, that one inexperienced cyclist reflects badly on the 9 experienced cyclists that would never attempt such a thing?

I think that's where I can make sense of this thread right now, I was trying to point out what I perceived to be cyclist inexperience, hence my original desire to reach out to this cyclist and try to "re-direct"

This kind of reminds me of the dichotomy between some European countries. I had a Canadian friend that used to think Italian drivers were a little crazy. She then moved to Germany, and she was shocked that people admonished her for crossing (on foot) against a traffic light late at night when you could see the road in either direction for hundreds of meters. Somewhere in the middle...

No, "we" cannot agree with with spacey platitudes about bicycling safety and rider experience.
Maybe ""we" can agree that one misguided pontificator posting baloney about bicycling safety reflects badly on nine posters who post sensible ideas.

or knowing better and not caring. A lot of 'experienced' cyclists think their skill makes them above the law

+1, and I think we agree that it's irrelevant to both the old man story and the most recently described sidewalk-cycling scenario. The whole "KEEP GOING STRAIGHT ACROSS THE STREET" scenario was introduced to this thread, evidently as a diversion, by our esteemed omni-capitalizing poster.

And I hope we can agree that no one needs to shout an entire post.

As for speed, I reckon most of us can "STAY VERTICAL" going no faster than a typical pedestrian. Wheelchair users routinely use the sidewalk faster than I ever would on a bicycle. Should they be likewise excoriated?

As an aside / analogy, we technically have no "bike paths" here in one of the (reputedly) most bicycle-friendly cities in the US. They're all multi-use paths, aka MUPs. On a daily basis, cyclists find themselves waiting behind pedestrians on the path for a clear shot to pass, going exactly their speed. If you can't "STAY VERTICAL" at such speeds, then yeah, you should probably stay off any sidewalk or MUP. Then again, you should consider honing (not reaming...) your skills.

This! This, my god, this!!!

I see a hell of a lot more guys in full spandex on $3000 bikes doing stupid things on the road (running lights, ignoring stop signs, riding super busy curvy roads full of blinds spots with no shoulder, etc) than I see guys on cheap bikes in blue jeans riding to work doing that stuff.

I think most people hear agree that this is not a common occurrence at all.

I don't recall ever seeing someone do this. Run a red light or stop sign while riding in the road...sure. But being on the side of the road and just riding straight across it blindly? If this was a common thing we'd see a heck of a lot more flattened cyclists. You get to do something like that once...maybe twice in your life before statistics catch up with you and you die painfully.

The point about the danger of this behavior being related to intersections is quite valid. However, no one has mentioned driveways. This is more of a danger than the intersections in my mind, the same issue with not really looking to the right when turning right is a big one, regardless of whether or not the driver is responsible. If you're going to ride against traffic on the sidewalk you should be well aware that you could die from this and proceed accordingly.
Had a salmon yell at me to pay attention because I was looking down at my chain for a moment, never mind that he was on the wrong side. He almost t-boned my wife and I a few nights prior to this, doing exactly what other posters here have described. He wasn't riding on the sidewalk, so this story is a little off topic, but the fact that I haven't seen him in months makes me wonder if he finally got hit.
So, in short, be careful when on your bike.

That depends on the street.

One road I ride on has long driveways to garages and no street parking. I ride on the street here, but if I was on the sidewalk there would be plenty of visibility for a car backing out into the road. You'd see the garage door up, the car slowly backing down the driveway, etc.

There is another road near my house that I don't I ride on where the driveways are short so the parked cars' bumpers are right up against the sidewalk. There is street parking as well. So as a bike rider you'd choose between riding on the sidewalk knowing that a car backing up so much as 1 foot with no warning would be in your path. Or you ride on the road knowing that a car you can barely see backs out from between 2 cars parallel parked on the street and flattens you.

What I'm really getting at is that there is no single rule that applies to every street.

You have to use your head and decide how and if you want to ride on each street and make the decision based on that street, not the average of all streets.

The second example I gave is a death trap for cyclists in my opinion so I don't mess with it. Heck I don't even like driving down that street.

Once again, there is no such thing as "against traffic" on a sidewalk. Sidewalk traffic is two-way. The fact that vehicle traffic on the adjacent roadway goes in one direction or the other should have no (pardon the pun) impact. You could just as easily die from walking down a sidewalk where drivers entering from a driveway fail to do what's required of them and look BOTH WAYS down the sidewalk before even checking the street traffic. Is it safer to have to cross a busy street, and later cross back, only to use a sidewalk in a way that you happen to be going the same direction as the adjacent vehicle traffic? Should you have to go an extra block if you're using a sidewalk adjacent to a street that happens to be one-way, in the opposite direction of where you're going?

Driveways are a primary (and, one would hope, obvious) reason that, in many places that allow bicycle use on a sidewalk, it's still illegal to do so where a building directly abuts the sidewalk.

There's a spot where I cross a parking lot, jump the curb, go down a small hill and get on the MUP. It cuts off almost a mile of extra riding to the official entrance for the MUP and back to that spot.

Don't clutch your pearls too tight.

See if you can get the parking lot owners to make a curb cut at the point where you jump it....

(or just put a plywood ramp there and see how long it lasts....)

WRONG,... TOTALY wrong, Yes, pedestrian's, or 6 year old bicyclists can go either way.... NO, problem. BUT, when an , adult bicyclist starts to/and are riding at lets say 3 X, 4X, maybe even 5X the speed of pedestrians or said 6 year old's… Things can go wrong, wrong real fast, when combined with motor vehicle traffic… JMO as I see it...

OR, as the reasonable sidewalk cyclists on this thread have described, when an adult bicyclist starts to/fro riding at 2x the speed of pedestrians when there are no pedestrians in sight, and 0.5x the speed of pedestrians when approaching any pedestrians, or when approaching any blind corner, and when the cyclists yields to any pedestrians or even just plain stops and puts their feet down if necessary...

Nothing goes wrong.

Thanks for all the replies, really top-quality stuff. I must express some disappointment, however, with some of the responses. In my opinion, some of these responses are raising the "straw-man fallacy." I interpret that phrase to mean that you are 1) conveniently ignoring the specific fact pattern set out in thorough detail above, much of which undermines your position and 2) knocking down arguments that haven't been raised by anybody, and then 3) declaring total victory because you can't be changed from your own set of facts.

Again, the fact pattern that I raised at the beginning of this thread sets out that it is a very wide street that accommodates motorists and cyclists such that it doesn't seem necessary for a bicycle to operate illegally on a sidewalk. The post about potentially getting run-over I thought was a good one. That particularly stretch of sidewalk is interrupted by side streets leading to commercial and industrial businesses. Motorists trying to enter or exit those roads may also be surprised to see a BSO cycling on a sidewalk.

Given the facts above, it continues to be my opinion that the safer option would be for the salmon to operate with the flow of traffic. The salmon-ing BSO will confuse motorists not expecting to see BSO heading north in the south-bound lane. The other problem is that creates a situation (as described) where there are two bicycles heading north on opposite parts of the road. Motorists in either direction seeing two bicycles will likely be confused in what way to give the requisite 3 feet.

Again, this municipality has a blanket ban on all vehicles - including cyclists - from the sidewalk. It doesn't matter if they are operating contra-flow or not. You can scoff at that all you want, but if you're going to be picking and choosing what areas to follow the law, and which areas you're not, you may be creating a dangerous situation for yourself and others. As was stated above, cyclists aren't above the law.

That's great, I'm not sure I see the connection though. I personally detour-ed myself by at least 2.5 miles every day for a month last November in order to avoid several obstacles posed by a highway interchange that cuts through my municipality. We all do what we can to be safe.

This.

It's amazing how paying attention and keeping your speed in check with the specific conditions (pedestrians, visibility, etc) can virtually eliminate any and all problems.

Well the same could be said about operating a motor vehicle on a sidewalk, obviously that's also an illegal act.