Kuma

From today's Atlanta Journal/Constitution. Roadies' route options in Atlanta are shrinking all the time.

https://www.ajc.com/metro/content/met...3cyclists.html

jamiewilson3

"I'm talking about the speed bicyclist," said Paul McNulty, who has lived there about 17 years. "They'll go 30, 40, 50 miles per hour down Columns Drive. They want the drivers, the skaters, the walkers to get out of their way so they can have the whole road."

If they are in fact going 50, then they can be given tickets. Clearly, he knows his stuff.


In a sense, Columns Drive has become a victim of its own success, he said. On warm days, the shoulders can become congested with cyclists, joggers and walkers, and sometimes cyclists must enter into the road to avoid hitting some of them. He suggested the county consider adding sidewalks.

-sidewalks for the pedestrians? - This guy is a renaissance man. Only a cyclist thinks this "out of the box"!



If it passes, please, someone get their 8 year old daughter to break the ordinance and get a $50 fine. Post that story on CNN and see how long it lasts. A little girl on her pink bike crying. Test cases are how the civil rights movement operated.

As an Atlanta native, and recent depart, it pains me to see this. I used to ride on Columns when at the river park growing up. Just sad.

Dubbayoo

I used to ride Columns Drive too; great flat training but nobody is hitting 50mph on it; few even 40mph. I say just enforce a 30-35mph speed limit and the problem will solve itself.

Miller2

How about a bike cop patrolling the road? We have one here in Suwanne that patrols the MUP. I wonder if the homes weren't 1million + if there would be any action taken.

If the cyclists are in fact doing some of the things they are accused of, then losing the right to ride there would be their own fault. If cyclists want respect they need to give it as well.

oilman_15106

What evidence does the resident stating that cyclists were dangerous when they went to get thier mail?!!

Should not the state motor code override any idiotic local ordinance. This whole thing is not good.

kk4df

He added, though, that cyclists have a responsibility to stay on the shoulder.

In a sense, Columns Drive has become a victim of its own success, he said. On warm days, the shoulders can become congested with cyclists, joggers and walkers, and sometimes cyclists must enter into the road to avoid hitting some of them. He suggested the county consider adding sidewalks.

And why would the cyclists have a responsibility to stay on the shoulder? This was spoken by a supposed cyclist.

huerro

That is called collective punishment. The is no "the cyclists." There are individuals who follow the law and individuals who don't. Those who don't follow the law should be ticketed. Those who do follow the law should be left alone to make use of a public roadway. The end.

I would think that people in Georgia would be especially averse to the practice of collective punishement.

Miller2

Well in the REAL WORLD it doesnt work that way. Sadly it is usually to time consuming and costly to pick out the offenders so everyone gets it in the end.

Kuma

Why?

spiderbike

I ride and run down there when I visit my inlaws...they live right of Johnson's Ferry ride but unfortunatlty there aren't many safe routes around there to ride if you don't have a lot of time...

I will still ride there only now I will look up Paul McNaulty's address and leave some snot rockets on his mailbox

huerro

V. To army corps commanders alone is intrusted the power to destroy mills, houses, cotton-gins, &c., and for them this general principle is laid down: In districts and neighborhoods where the army is unmolested no destruction of such property should be permitted; but should guerrillas or bushwhackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or otherwise manifest local hostility, then army commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless according to the measure of such hostility.

—William T. Sherman, Military Division of the Mississippi Special Field Order 120, November 9, 1864

Read all about it here:

DXchulo

If the shoulder is big enough, then it makes sense to stay in it. Sounds like the real issue is that all of the other roads in the area suck. If they had more roads with good shoulders, then people wouldn't have to ride laps around that place.

I couldn't ride laps in some neighborhood all the time. Sounds mind-numbingly boring. I think I'd rather take my chances on the bad roads. Then again, I'm not familiar with that area.

Miller2

Anywhere around there is dangerous, but not because the roads are poor. Atlanta has some of the most inept, inattentive and flat out discourteous drivers I have seen anywhere in the country.

botto 

touché

merlinextraligh

Most folks in Atlanta are transplants, and even the majority of the natives have gotten over the recent unpleasentness.