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HH: What is your favorite color?
BR: wall to wall carpeting

HH: (Asks a yes or no question)
BR: (provides a list of post numbers, where presumably, the "yes" or "no" is magically imbedded)

FWIW, HH, I understand what you are saying. However, you are adding words to Forester's mouth. I had to infer about his riding style (reckless) based on his descriptions of what happened. Nowhere in his essay did he let it be known that he was intentionally riding at high speeds without yielding to cross traffic. You are saying he didn't want to make the argument that being restricted to the sidepath was unfair because he would be slower, so he ginned up this "experiment" to show that it was less safe than the road [when ridden at full speed and without yielding (which he didn't make known when describing his experiment)].

Now then, do you understand my argument? Humor me and repeat it back to me.

Brian, if you believe Forester has claimed the experiment supports a conclusion that you feel is not supported by the experiment, please state specifically in a complete English sentence what you think that unsupported conclusion is.

An inability to answer this trivial request indicates that your belief is without basis.

You should know I don't do yes or no questions...

Read the posts those numbers represent Okemewa... Within... holds the answer...

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I've talked about this at length. Isn't this fun?

No, I don't understand your argument. In particular, I don't understand what you're saying he concluded that he should not have concluded.

Also, he clearly stated he was using road speeds following vehicular rules (which implies turning traffic is supposed to yield to through traffic), so he did make known that "when ridden at full speed and without yielding".

Let's look at what The Human Car postulated here, in terms of what John Forester wrote about his "study."
I'm going to rewrite it as if this were a test between the rules of driving on the freeway and the rules of the road on side streets for car drivers:
This little examination of John Forester's "study" shows a number of fatal flaws in the methodology. First, you cannot use a bicycle on a bike path the same way you can in a road, for the same reason that you cannot use a car on a side street the same way it is used on a freeway. You cannot maintain the same speeds (65-70 mph) on side streets that you do on a freeway when driving, so why would you assume that you could with a car on a bike path? What John Forester did here is "out-of-scope" of the use of a bike path, and therefore invalid as a comparison. He also, and quite obviously, disobeyed several laws about going onto a street, such simple things as stopping and clearing one's self before proceeding.

Now, a word about his "risk ratio." This is a statistical term, which is in my Fundamentals of Biostatistics, Sixth Edition, by Bernard Rosner, Harvard University (Thomson Books/Cole, 2006). On pages 635-637, he discusses the risk ratio.
He then goes into the math behind the estimate of the risk ratio.

With this in mind, please understand that John Forester's risk ratio is not valid. You need a statistical base, with a binomial distribution, to begin to make a risk ratio. Such a statistical base as the beginning point to make this estimation. The example that Bernard Rosner uses is:
He goes on and gives the mathematical explaination of the concept. Note that actual numbers of incidents are used, not perceptions like those John Forester used. If we use John Forester's actual numbers, he had zero accidents in his run, and therefore a real number would be that the two courses were actually comparable. He did not crash once! Because of that, he cannot use the concept of risk ratio, as there were no real incidents that he could use for a comparison.

I therefore, upon looking at what he did for his "study," find his risk ratio of 1000:1 invalid. The real number was 1:1, as evidenced by his own text, where he states that only by his superior bike handling skills was he able to avoid the collisions. The fact is that he was able to avoid these collisions, even at "vehicular cycling" speeds. Seeing that he probably violated safe riding rules in several aspects of his rides, and that he came out unscathed in any case, his rides are not valid as a means of comparing the two ride systems. Someone could rightly say that any sane person, riding in a safe manner, would have no problem with the bikeways.

John

Okay, so his point was specific and trivial.

So how did his "experiment" morph from showing that there needs to be a tradeoff between speed and safety, to one where sidepaths are "deathtraps" in their own right? Somewhere, you all anti-facilities people pulled a fast one and started labeling sidepaths as "deathtraps" and "dangerous", when, in fact, they are just inconvenient and force you to slow down.

Now, assume I am in the modern context of anti-facility talk, and someone brings up the test to show how dangerous sidepaths are compared to the road, neglecting to mention that the dangers only occur at high speed and without yielding. Can you see my point now? Comment #2 of his Chainguard post gets all the play in modern times, while comment #1 describing the tradeoff between speed and safety (this is really what Forester has his hackles up about, not no safety issue) is neglected.

From our perspective here on this forum in 2007, yes, it was trivial.
But given the context, where the city council was considering banning cycling on the roads on the grounds that cycling on the roads was inherently dangerous, and the sidepath was much safer, the point was not trivial. And, frankly, we all him a debt of gratitude for his efforts, or we might all be living with mandatory sidepath laws all over the place.

That's a different topic, since that's not a claim Forester has made, certainly not in the post we're discussing.

Yes, except, has anyone ever done this? And what does it have to do with debunking Forester, the topic of this thread?

I'm not sure what you mean by "gets all the play in modern times". Where? By whom?

I believe you're confusing your impression of what Forester said (just comment #2 without the context of #1) with what Forester actually said (comment #2 in context of comment #1).

This is why all of this is so frustrating. People skim over something Forester has written, see his "quirky" style, or are turned off by his arrogant style, and decide not to take him seriously (up to this point I don't have a problem), but develop conclusions about what he has said never-the-less. It's that last part that is the shame, and leads to so much misunderstanding.

And then what happens is they criticize his work based on vague generalities that are not really based on anything he actually said, often skipping over crucial details, and are reluctant to get into the specifics.

This is why it seems to me that the goal is often simply to vilify Forester, rather than genuinely understand his point and the context in which he was making it.

No matter how many tens of thousands of dollars he spends of his personal funds in support of bike paths through the Prokop appeal, he is vilified here as the anti-facilities icon. It's ridiculous.

I read your posts in the new thread, I see references to the 30 year debate, but still no clue as to what exactly you're talking about.

What do you think are the central questions and/or issues being debated?

One more thought; John Forester states, "I know of only one valid test of a sidepath system, my own..." If this is true, then he does not know how to set up an experimental design that can draw valid conclusions about the two systems. Dr. Hans Hass, a world-famous biologist and diving explorer, has since 1960 been exploring the areas of human interactions. He has a website that is one of his books, which is at:

https://www.hans-hass.de/Englisch/Hyp...roduction.html

He stated there:

I will discuss this in more detail when I write in Chip's new site. But for now consider that an experimental design could be set up to look at how bicycles interact with traffic on roadways, and on bike paths or multi-use paths, to see what the actual near-miss rate (which is what John Forester was discussing with his invalid use of risk ratios) is, or the actual accident rate (harder, as many fewer would be witnessed). We could set up cameras to record this information, like Dr. Hass did, over time and analyze that data, then come to valid conclusions. Dr. Hans Hass did this over a period of about 30 years, and is still at it (he's in his 80s now, and is still diving too).

There are problems with this in that it takes years to develop and valid data, and John Forester did not have that time. So he rode and did a very subjective evaluation of the two systems, and called it "scientific." It is not. I have done a similar "study," looking at what I called "bicycle-auto interactions." I defined these interactions as any time an auto came within my falling distance (4 feet) from any direction. I recorded a few of these observations on the A&S pages several years ago, and was roundly chastised by the VC riders in this forum for these kinds of observations. But John Forester did the same type of analysis, which the VC riders feel is valid. I found that I could minimize my bicycle-auto interactions by changing my routes to side streets, using bike paths, and riding sidewalks at times (which puts ten feet, plus light poles and sometimes trees between me as the bicyclist and cars or other traffic). VC riders did not like me saying this at all, as I was going against their conventions.

But I found that this kind of "study" had problems, as there was only memory to use for the actual interactions. I couldn't write while riding, and so had to remember the figures and jot them down when I finished. So the figures came from my head, and memory being what it is, I eventually gave it up as a "real" means to study the problem. It did tell me that there were advantages to riding side streets and bike paths, and I have continued that to this day (actually, until yesterday, as I don't ride on Fridays, which I have explained in other threads). But I would not try to publish these as an actual study, due to the limitations of the methodology of data collection. Because of this, I also question John Forester's "study" for the same reasons.

John

Right, lets sort this out:

The sidepath test proves nothing at face value. However it suggests, by induction something about bike facility plannng:

1) Is it intended for use by all cyclists as an alternative to the road?

2) Is it intended only for "road-wary" cyclists, or children for example?


If 1 is the case, it is evident that the planning department has a poor understanding of the variation in riding ability and speed capability of the cyclist. Not to mention the expectation of an experienced cyclist to travel without interruptions (excepting normal traffic controls).

If 2 is the case then OK - to a point.

Ed

I have deliberately avoided making an opinionated judgement here on the value of cycle facilities, rather I want to think about how they are created.

You have met the man and know more about his background. Do you realize that none of this is accessable to anyone on this forum? All we have is his writings. The thing about the "Prokop appeal"... I have no idea what you are talking about.

Furthermore, we are discussing about the Chainguard reply, but I have read other essays by him or by people he generally supports which use his comment #2 out of context. It was a while ago. I don't think those essays are accessable anymore, as much of the content of his website has changed since the last time I looked at it. It was, perhaps in his book. Anyway, he does not emphasis the speed vs. safety tradeoff thing. He assumes that this is a minor point, that his main consituency is only interested in maximum speed cycling. In the previous writings I've read from him, he plays up the safety comparison aspect while playing down the tradeoff aspect, which is really what all this is about. From what I can tell coming from you and others, is that this test is the basis for the conclusion that sidepaths are dangerous and can be described as deathtraps.

If he were honest, he would play up the contextual information and play down this "danger factor" thing. His writings and most of the writings coming from the "strict vehcular cyclist" camp do the opposite; they pass over the little caveat that he was, in fact, using the sidepath in a reckless manner to prove a point that one cannot travel as fast on a sidepath as on the road, that it is less efficient, and jump right to the danger and deathtrap aspect.

I don't invent my impressions out of whole cloth. The VC guys are at least as culpable for allowing these "misunderstandings" to propogate. My suspicion is that it serves the VC camp well to allow people to believe that this experiment proclaims a strong statement of relative safety between sidepaths and the road. It allows the VC camp to vilify sidepaths through a "scientific test" that, in fact, never showed this at all. The test merely showed that sidepaths were less efficient than on-road cycling. But for the VC camp to be honest and highlight this fact would be contrary to their modern goals of opposing all on-road bicycle accomodation.

The fact that you could not merely point to the "comment #1" and kept challenging me on a point which was oblique to my argument is in keeping with the efforts for VC people to keep the real purpose and the real results of this test underwraps.

My argument still stands, BTW. You have convinced me that Forester had different purposes in mind when he did that test, but the test results have now been so twisted up that it is used in a manner completely inconsistent with the actual results. Forester's test shows nothing more than the fact that one cannot ride a sidepath in the same matter as on the road. It makes no statement about the relative safety of the two environments. If you admit to this much, which I think you are doing, then I am satisfied.

I haven't seen where he called it "scientific". Do you have a citation for this? Thanks.

I'm still laughing, and don't agree with you at all. Please don't take it personally; I don't bear you any personal ill will, either.

I'm sorry, but Forester's sidepath test proves something significant about the one and only thing it was created to test: whether riding on sidepaths at road speeds according to vehicular rules (including expecting turning traffic to yield to through traffic) is practicable. It proves that it is not.

Laugh and avoid the specific questions all you want. Your avoidance of answering the specific questions simply bolsters my argument that you don't understand what was actually said, and what you think you're disagreeing with is probably something that wasn't even actually said. But, hey, that's what happens when you don't take someone seriously.

I have to go now (for a few days at least), but I just want to say that "comment #1" was in the post ILTB provided way back there, and I had no way of knowing you somehow missed it. So I didn't know that I needed to point to it.

I can't tell you what you're missing if I don't know what you're missing. Okay?

Cya

In this paper, John Forester says:
So he feels that it is scientific, even if he did not state that implicitly. He did not say it was "scientific," but asked "How is this test biased and unscientific?" He therefore felt it was "scientific." That's the citation I have; what do you feel about that? He did say that it was "valid," and I have very specifically shown where I feel that the test is not valid above.

I will admit that if this was used as testimony in a hearing to close bicycling on the roadway, that it was effective, and for that I am thankful. But to now use it in a different way, and not to show it in its historical context, is misleading.

John

OK but that's kind of obvious, hence my questions about design parameters and the intended end user

Ed

I would like to suggest that sidepath is to surface street as surface street is to freeway is not quite an accurate comparison.

I can ride just as fast on a sidepath as on a surface street. That you cannot means only that you are capable of faster cycling than me, not that the sidepath is has an intrinsic prohibition to allowing cyclists to go as fast as they want.

I find that the main consideration with sidepaths is learning to negotiate the relative dangers. They are different and require different tactics. Just like there are different dangers and tactics on the freeway or on surface streets, or different dangers and tacicts for when you drive a truck or a motorcycle.

JF's failure was that he didn't adjust his riding style to suit the environment. This is exactly his complaint about most cyclists on the roadways. That they don't adapt. Had he adapted to the conditions he might have found them to be just as safe as what he's used to.

For anyone who reads these forums and thinks what Helmet Head is using is logic please compare it to this absolutely perfect use of logical reasoning in this response.

You should get a Nobel Prize for taking the time to write such lucid responses to such gobbledygook.

It has not been wasted on this reader though I fear your target barely registered it's merit on his radar.

I'm sorry, but it's too hard to have a dialogue with you. I've addressed many of your specific questions, and your response has been to attack my intentions towards other people as persons, to challenge my wisdom, and to repeat, over and over, that it's impossible to understand someone if you think their ideas are absurd. You've offered nothing else. Has it occurred to you that it may be the other way 'round, namely, that it's possible to read a paper, evaluate it carefully, and THEN decide that the ideas therein are simply impossible to take seriously? I mean, read the article: Forester makes the broad assertion that people who advoacte for bike lanes and MUPs suffer from clinically diagnosable phobias, that is, that people who disagree with him are mentally ill. What on Earth is there to take seriously? Of course I'm rolling on the floor in derisive laughter, as would any reasonable person.

(BTW, almost all of my riding is VC, and I absolutely refuse to ride on any sidewalk. However, I will use bike lanes and MUPs without hestiation if they're available, and if they take me where I want to go. I don't mind riding with cars, but I prefer not to if that option is available.)

i honestly think john forester posts in here sometimes, using anothers' moniker.

how them strawberries, captain Queeg?

yes, bragi, you've noticed that mr. "helmet head" is insufferably rude?

John forester is anti-populist bicyclist, and is arguably anti-biking. he works for speakers honorariums directed to him from an organization dedicated to american sprawl, www.americandreamcoalition.org

john forester is nuttier than a christmas fruitcake.

I'd bet money he scowls out his car window as he drives by the walmart bikers in blue jeans riding transportationally without regard to cadence.