Ok, my wife reads this forum and pointed this out to me. Geesh, Bikeforums is very sedate in comparison.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/139458.page

Some of the posts in that thread are hilarious. I'm actually surprised that it hasn't degenerated into a free-for-all anti-bicycle thread. Well, so far, at least. I'm still working my way through page 2

Max

The MUPs in DC are way too crowded on weekends and some evenings during the week (except in the winter). I stay off them on weekends completely.

Many peds seem incapable of comprehending that they need to move to the edge of the MUP and make room for bike traffic. They seem to think that because they are on foot, that they can "take the path." I'm sure that bikes are also to blame in many instances for failing to signal or passing too closely.

I think the only solution is to create separate bike and ped paths, but the likelihood of that happening is close to zero.

Boy, what a lot of new and interesting points being made to this dead-horse topic...

Oh, and on another topic -- to fix the traffic on I-66 and I-495: One more lane of traffic ought to do it.

Although I regret the loss of life that prompted the debate, it is interesting how embellishments ensue. Starting with the newspaper article stating a "speeding cyclist on a BMX bike" is to blame.

Funny thing is that they are doing that "trail widening" along the Arkansas River in Tulsa. Some sections have been completed, some under construction, and some haven't been touched yet. Where they have the room, they run two paths, separated by a "island" of grass. One closest to the road is for bikes, the one closest to the water is for the peds.

Where they don't have the room to fully separate them, they merely double the existing trail in width and paint a solid white line down the middle. Some isolated spots just don't have any extra clearance for widening, in which case you follow the posted signage- share the MUP, general rules of the road type stuff (stay right, pass left and with care).

Damned near collided with a jogger in one of these shared zones. She was all the way to the left (when travelling in the opposite direction I was going, which made it my right) and proceeded to cuss me out without breaking stride that I was on the wrong side...

Maybe she was from Australia or England. I had this happen on my commute, called out "passing" and the jogger went left! We didn't collide but we met up later and he apologized and said he was visiting from Australia.

It interesting how we can get so defensive about things.

One thing I do find annoying is when people have their MP3 players in their ears or not paying any attention at all and never hear my bell or me yelling that I am approaching them on their left. They jump off to the side like I am about to kill them. I am sure a couple of people have cused my out under their breath. I have learned I need to slow down if people haven't moved over to the side as if they have heard me approaching becasue I never knwo what they will do. I suppose thats not that big of a deal we are sharing after all and I am rarely in that big of a hurry. If I want to go fast all the time I would need to ride in the street instead of the MUP.

Interesting that posters in the same thread there are complaining about bikes on the sidewalks being a danger to pedestrians, and bikes on the roads being an impediment to traffic. Someone ought to tell them that they can't have it both ways. I especially liked the logic of the poster complaining about how she has to pass the same cyclist more than once - but can't seem to grasp that she'd get there just as fast by not passing at all, since the cyclist is clearly making the same average speed she is.

Cyclists are the untouchables of the transportation world - pedestrians don't want us on their sidewalks and trails, and drivers don't want us on their streets.

The boardwalk in Va bch has seperate bike and ped paths. Think it matters? nope. I usually have to ride on on the boardwalk itself, which is wider, cause the bike path(labled bikes only) is full of peds.

I am not a supporter of the separation of cyclists and motor vehicles....read "the roads we have" on a google search for a great article on the unique system the U.S. has.

Well, I should say that I do support increased infrastructure for MUP's and bike paths, but never at the expense of on-street routes and bike lanes.

I always find the MUPs difficult to ride whenever I do hit one (we don't really have them here, so I usually only go to one when I'm visiting somewhere else). If you yell "passing on your left", it's often difficult to know how pedestrians will react. The ones who clearly have more experience with jogging, etc on the MUPs will move over and wave their hand to let you know that they know you're there. But a good portion of the time "on your left" will be interpreted as "jump left" rather than "passing you on your left", for some reason. The worst of all are the people who zig-zag back and forth all panicked as you approach them/try to avoid them after they do something unpredictable. Those people can be hard to avoid even at 5 mph, and I've actually had to completely stop for some of them because it was impossible to predict where they were going to jump to.

love how everybody is 'anonymous'. Anonymous wrote in response to 'Anonymous' who responded to OP 'Anonymous'. It's like a porn site...

I noticed that, too. If it like a porn site, it's obviously a MILF site given the name of the site.

I didn't read too far b/c threads like that on sites like that just tend to make my blood boil.

All that said, I do find that the fears outlined by the OP are wildly unfounded given the stats and history in DC. (Personally, as a pedestrian in DC I'm way more worried about drivers w/ MD tags than cyclists). It's the kind of irrational fear that media can build up by focusing on isolated incidents and portraying them as widespread. It's the same reason many of those same moms would have no qualms about buckling their kid into a car even though doing so would pose a much greater risk to their sweet little baby than taking them for a walk on a sidewalk in DC...

The anonymity on that cite encourages a kind of mean spiritedness. It's kind of depressing the uncivil tone on that cite. I try to avoid it but my wife likes it for certain things and points me out to such threads.

I tried once to ride a MUP on the weekend in spring and gave up, it's frustrating enough riding the MUPs on the way home from DC in nice weather.

I only ride on the sidewalk for a very short period of time when there is really no other way to get to my work building. I also have to ride across the National Mall in places and during times like the Cherry Blossom Festival, I want to go crazy at times.

I wish the W&OD and Custis Trail would be doubled in width. It's pathetic that they are so narrow. Most sidewalks in Germany are clearly delineated with walking and cycling sections. I was in Colorado this summer and noticed the same thing near the University of Colorado. I bet the W&OD is the most visited state park in all of Virginia and it is basically lawless.

People in the DC area thinks it is so far ahead infrastructure wise but is really pretty backwards. Don't even get me started on the Metro, that's the main reason I commute to work on my bike so much. It's like the backwoods bumper sticker (The Worst Day Fishing is Better than the Best Day Working) except applied to Metro it is: The worst day riding my bike to work is better than the best day riding Metro.

I have to say that my experience in DC with actual sidewalks is that I wish the cyclists were somewhere else. Mups are a different matter. Seems to me that if cyclists bother you on a mup you should take to a sidewalk

That's what happens when you have that many females in one small area eventhough it's virtual.
Meow!




Stupid posts can be ignored if they are MILF.

In fairness, there are plenty of rude/ dangerous/ erratic cyclists in DC. It's one thing to push the limits on the road, where the danger is likely to yourself. It's another to push those limits on the sidewalk, legal for riding or not, where the risk is to the others. MUPs are their own special breed -- neither one nor the other. During commuting hours I find them pretty good... other times? Kind of crazy.

However, I'll say that 90% of the pedestrian/cyclist collisions or near misses that I've seen have been the fault of the brain dead pedestrian.

As I understand it, sidewalk riding is legal except in a specifically defined downtown area. Not that responsible, legal behavior seems to matter since opinions are so oblivious to actual situations.

We tend to paint with too broad a brush. There are so many evil bikers that I will never defend us/them as a class to peds. Neither can I condone blaming peds for most of the bikers' MUP woes, or the peds labeling even a perfectly responsible and legal behavior as an outlaw just because other two-wheeled demons exist.

Though I try to be neither, I ride like every ped is an idiot and walk like every biker is a jerk. Too frequently, I am not disappointed.

When I saw this thread I had to check the date, because it's almost exactly the same as one that appeared here around seven years ago -- word for word.

That message board is just like any other message board. It's main purpose is entertainment. It's secondary purpose is feeding the ego of people who have nothing better to do than post there 18 hours a day. Grain of salt.

My understanding is the same. However, I see cyclist on the sidewalk in those areas pretty regularly, and sometimes they're weaving in and out through pedestrians at speeds which make me shake my head. From the article, I believe this accident occured not on a sidewalk, but in an alley. The real issue may not have been the way the cyclist was riding as much as the hit and run - but perception of the public isn't swayed by facts or reality.

It isn't that I won't defend cyclists, but it is unsurprising that a self-centered group of presumed non-cyclists (and, in my experience, there are few groups more self centered than new moms) would find plenty to demonize in the DC Cycling community.

Every day I watch bikes blatantly disregard traffic control devices, cross walks with pedestrians in them, and common right-of-way etiquette -- even today, when I only saw 5 or 10 other cyclists. Are they the minority? Sure. But they are a very visible and annoying minority. The bad one in 10 is the one that all the non-cyclists remember, not the 9 who acted responsibly. The real problem, though, is that if public perception is shaped too much by incidents such as these, we'll be the ultimate losers, as we are the insignificant minority (in the US).

The pay HOT lanes will help I-495 in Va. And yes, I-66 does need another lane. The traffic literally is stopped almost the entire day including weekends.

Maybe -- I honestly don't know. My gut reaction if there is gridlock on I-66 almost perpetually is that there are too many damned cars using the roads simultaneously. When I moved to the metro area I made sure to have walking distance access to the subway and easy access to one of the local bike trails. Best decision I ever made -- driving is a real monster around here. It's our own fault too -- we've grown so accostomed to driving any place we need to go quickly and cheaply, with alternative transportation as an afterthought, that we've had no responses to these problems other than people demanding more roads.

Encouraging more people to drive into DC every day by making it easier (higher flow) isn't going to be a long-term solution to anything. I understand that not everyone can ride their bicycle or take the subway to their place of employment, but it's contradictory to argue for increased road infrastructure to lessen traffic -- increased infrastructure = easier to drive = more people choose to drive = more cars = same damned problem repeating itself.

^ yes. Like a gas, car use will expand to fill the volume of its container.

I took the prior comment as tongue in cheek.

Maybe that was intent and I missed it .