nick burns

It's been played out here ad nauseum. Any hope of putting it to rest already?

Treespeed

No more VC preaching, it is a nice idea, but it just doesn't work for everyone. Yes I do a modified version of it, it is just not the cure-all that some profess it to be. We should just have a VC FAQ and stop the all of the hair splitting.

genec

Hey, no one said you had to read all the threads. I for one never visit the BMX forum.

bostontrevor

Or perhaps one thread. Or maybe Serge, Gene, I, and a select few can get a room and everyone else can move on.

nick burns

Unfortunately many threads get hijacked by the debates. It's getting a little old.

Daily Commute

That's one of the reasons why the recent giant thread with the poll is useful.

The reason EC discussions are so ubiquitous is that cycling technique and road design are relevant to a lot of topics. If, in a thread, someone explains how great it is that their city is putting in bike lanes, it is perfectly fair to reply that bike lanes are often dangerous. Banning an entire school of thought would not make these forums stronger.

If you don't want to deal with EC issues, then don't start any thread that touches on road design, cycling in traffic, or bike politics. The only thing left would be discussions about Lance Armstrong and chain lube.

nick burns

You know, it's funny. I've been commuting over 10 years now, and didn't know of anyone else who did. When I discovered this forum, I thought it would be great to finally talk about commuting. But it just seems like a lot of people bickering. I can honestly say I've never been concerned about road design or bike politics since I started cycling. I thought more about poor roads when I drove a car. I never even knew what bike politics was. I wish I still didn't. There shouldn't be so much thinking involved in riding a bike.

soda

Yes, please SHUT UP about the bike lanes and VC. Thank you for posting this thread.

Daily Commute

What peaked my interest is when I learned my city was looking at installing narrow bike lanes along my commute to work. The route is efficient the way it is. The proposed bike lanes would make my route to work slower and more dangerous.

Road design and bike politics may not be your cup of tea, but some of us like it. If you don't want to discuss the subjects, ignore the threads that highlight them. You can also skip over posts that touch on them.

As to the bickering, I agree that the debate sometimes gets too harsh. But that's a problem of civility, not subject matter.

nick burns

OK, if I see a thread about bike politics, I'll ignore it. If you see a bike lane you don't agree with, don't use it.

randya

If all the energy spent aguing about this amongst ourselves were directed outward towards lobbying local politicians for more support and funding for bicycling in their communities, maybe then we would start making some real progress...

Daily Commute

Ahh, if that were only the law. Although we don't have a mandatory sidepath law here (at least for now), cops could say I have to use them to be as far right as "practicable." Cyclists can be cited for failing to use bike lanes in many places, as this case from Portland, Oregon shows.



The problem is that we all don't agree on what to do with the money. More money is a bad thing if it means bad bike lanes.

bostontrevor

randya, If only we could agree on what we wanted.

genec

The problem IS that currently the politicians hear these conflicting voices and then chose to put in stadiums instead of bike facilities.

Daily Commute

I don't think this is something the "cycling community" can have a unified front on because we disagree. EC'ers believe that most urban bike lanes are dangerous. Some cyclists believe that bike lanes are good even downtown. Unless one side convinces everyone on the other side to switch sides, there won't be a unity of opinion.

So, if everyone is willing to concede that bike lanes are almost always bad for cycling, and that EC principles are always correct, we can end this debate. Otherwise. . . .

randya

How about better bike parking in the ROW for starters; maybe a showers and lockers ordinance for commuters; some safety and skills education programs for both cyclists and motorists; helmet and light discounts or give-aways, development of better and safer design and engineering standards for bike lanes (because some advocacy groups and transportation planners are always going to insist on them); and doing research and development of alternative bike-friendly road treatments and designs like the work SF did on shared lane markings?

For me I think the botton line is that strict adherence to vehicular cycling principles is not going to sell well to the general public. If the goal is to increase the bicycling mode split on our roads and streets, alternatives to sending newbies out to mix it up with the traffic on the local arterials are essential. If you don't like the current bike lane design and engineering standards, you should be working in your local community to make improvements to the designs, developing safe and viable alternatives, or working to implement a transitional design like shared lane markings, which gets us closer to vehicular cycling than bike lanes do.

Helmet-Head

Except for all the useless bike lanes they keep adding.

This was posted yesterday on the sdcbc email list (which you should join... www.sdcbc.org):

Daily Commute

OK. Sounds good. I'd be happy to stop the fight. Now if only you can stop others (like a group of 5-6 cyclists in my city who pretend to speak for all cyclists) from pushing bike lanes everywhere, we have a deal. If local governments and certain bike organizations would drop the push for bike lanes, the fight would be over.

Of course, that's silly. But it's equally silly to expect the bike lane debate to end by telling bike-lane skeptics to shut up. There are only two ways to shut us up: 1) persuade us to change our mind; 2) stop construction of new striped bike lanes, and remove stripes from existing lanes.

bostontrevor

randya, I agree with all you said. In fact, I was about to post the same. There are common elements that both sides of the debate can agree on.

My comment was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. The fact is, the bicycle debate is artificially constrained to facilities versus not by those who don't see cyclist advocacy as anything wider. There are lots of things that we can jointly advocate for until the bike lane question is decided (which may not be for a long time).

Policy-makers who see a disagreement on this specific point as evidence that the cycling community doesn't know what it wants is already looking for a reason to write them off. There are lots of different populations that disagree on a particular issue or another. It's called diversity.

Daily Commute

bostontrevor and Randya, I may be a bit jaded by my own local bike organization.
It's leader says he does not want any members who oppose a complete network of downtown bike lanes. He is pushing through (or has just pushed through) bylaws changes to make sure that the members of his organization have no vote about who sits on the board or what policies the group advocates. The Thunderhead Alliance of local bike groups is pushing similar policies nationwide.

If the Thunderhead folks and other pro-bike-lane people won't work with anyone that dissents on the bike lane issue, discussion on other issues is impossible.

genec

I think that if it was stated like this, we could find agreement: if everyone is willing to concede that bike lanes are almost always bad for cycling, and that EC principles are almost always correct...

then, we could end this debate.

It is all about the actual road conditions... never about absolutes! Ever.

Raiyn

I'm sick of closetbiker's rants.

There I said it, happy?

It's not good enough to have him on ignore when everybody quotes his pedantic ramblings.









For those frightened by big words:
pedantic

adj : marked by a narrow focus on or display of learning especially its trivial aspects [syn: academic, donnish]

Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University

genec

Well said. This is really what it comes down to. I tip my hat sir!

Tree Trunk

It's a hot topic. It's in the news here in the Chicago area all the time. Looks like we should be talking about, ad nauseum or not.

Daily Commute

'
But then we'll need endless numbers of thread to debate the meaning of "almost." Wait. That doesn't sound all bad. . . .