Al, I don't know of anyone who would call you an extremist...well cept maybe Bek, but he thinks we're ALL gas-huffers. ;)

The difference between a moderate and an extremist is that an extremist already knows exactly what he or she will compromise for and not compromise for. A moderate arrives at a compromise after considerable discussion amongst a group of people.

An extremist is necessary to get the discussion into a certain particular ball park. For example, nothing but an extremist can get the public discourse off the view of "get bikes off the road" to the view of "bikes belong." After that though, the extremists need to step back and let the moderates work out the details.

I would agree that some bike facilities are poorly designed and might be better off eliminated (like those on Country Club Way, a 25mph road here in Tempe); however, I think bike lanes can be useful and of benefit to cyclists in more cases than you do; but still there's some common ground.

I am not even talking about removing bike lanes on intersectionless 25mph roads. (although the Country Club BLs are fully in the door zone, but fortunately on street parking is spotty)

I am talking about the worst of the worst:
-2ft wide BL on Chandler Blvd just east of I-10
-BL to the right of a RTOL in Mesa on Guadelupe (I forgot x-street but I ride by it often during weekend club rides)
And many more worst case examples that no one (at least that particpates in BF) would agree should remain.

Al

what would be great is for city planners and engineers to consult daily cyclists like you and many others on this board in their local communities so that dangerous facilities like those never get built in the first place. How can we get That to happen? those are the kinds of issues we all need to be involved with locally I think.

Standards that go beyond AASTHO.
I think in metro-phx it is very difficult seeing how developers rule. For example, when a developer puts in a new shoppping center, who is responsible to ensure their access points re-adjust the existing BL? I never see these things go for public review or even review by transport commitee. I've read/heard that the developer is responsible to meet, but meet what? from what I've seen a lesser standard than is currently required for new streets being built by city.
Like the apartments put in on University west of Mill avenue on the south side. They added on street parking just inside the bike lane, now the BL is fully in a door zone. What process would have stopped this?
Al

It's usually called "design review" and is typically the responsibility of the planning board/commission, often assigned to a committee. Sometimes major projects must also be approved by the local legislative body (e.g. city council, county commissioners/supervisors), and planning decisions can generally be appealed to such bodies.

Almost always, the plans are available for public inspection and comment.

If you don't catch the problems at this early stage, fixing them gets much harder.

Oh I understand this, I just don't see how cycling interest can review the thousands of projects yearly. At least with the system as it is today.

For (somewhat related) example a private drive was added entering the arterial I ride on every morning. It started as a dirt drive heavily used by trucks. Debris and soon severe pavement damage occured. I called city (bike coordinator) to get problem addressed (made entire outside lane unusable by bike). City rep called me and said it was the responsibilty of the private drive owner, etc. They were notified, they cleaned up, then 1wk later it was back to bad, repeat. Eventually construction was over, but replacement pavement is 1.5" lower than road. Bike lane continues across (now heavily used) private drive, thru cuts, drop and rough pavement. Call by me were responded that it meets. I know 90% of this was not a planning issue, maybe lack of post work inspection?
Al

As the lobsters are moved from the trap to the net to the bucket and finally the pot, there are the extremists who are pointing out that this is not good, the other extremists claiming it's wonderful, and the moderates asking the extremists to step back and let the moderates work out the details. Meanwhile, the water is getting warmer, so slowly that most of the lobsters don't even notice, and ignore the warnings of the first group of extremists as just uttering Henny Penny nonsense.

Indeed, it is easy to look at an existing hybrid system and say, "see, it works".
But the more useful observation is to look back 20-30 years, remember the attitudes about cyclists riding vehicularly in the road back then, compare them to today, and extrapolate to 20-30 years from now.

The water is getting warmer. But don't listen to me, I'm just an "extremist".

As you suggest, it's really difficult. One helpful procedure, in communities with "bicycle and pedestrian advisory commissions" (or similar titles), is to route new projects through those groups for review before planning approval.

Yep, crummy inspection process -- and officials who have lots to do and don't see that issue as high-priority. Gotta up the ante.

In similar situations, when initial contact doesn't bring a useful response, I include photos with my subsequent messages to public works, send copies to (1) city manager and/or mayor, (2) city attorney, (3) local news editor of the local paper. I point out, not very subtly, that death, serious injury and/or expensive property damage are predictable consequences of failure to correct the situation, for which the municipality will likely be liable. I also remind them that my messages may well be determined, in possible future litigation with injured parties, to constitute "notice" of the defect(s), in the legal sense.

Usually, this is sufficient to spur them to take corrective action in a reasonable period of time. Of course, I'm not on their holiday card lists. :)

EDIT: OTOH, they usually totally ignore me when I tell them to stop painting bike lane stripes.

:rolleyes:

30 years ago perhaps. San Diego perhaps. I love analogies. It makes a person seem smarter. Where to start responding to this one. Should I respond, seems to be a one-off zinger to make me feel bad. Perhaps if I point out that we are not lobsters. No, he'll just attack me for being difficult. Perhaps if I show that he's wrong with his analogy. I guess...

Okay, here goes: The analogy is wrong because there was no net. There is no pot, and there is no water getting warmer. We used to be in the pot. Some fighting got us out of the pot and now we are cooling off.

And again: What if the water wasn't getting hot due to it being a boiling pot, but because the sun came out. Should we rush out of the water to dry up on the beach because of the minisule possiblity that we might have been part of a conspiricy theory that might have put us in a pot without our knowing it and who might now have turned up the flame to make the pot boiling? Perhaps I just stay aware of the temperature and my surroundings in a way that humans are capable of but lobsters are not and just jump out when it really does appear that we are getting boiled. At least then we don't jump prematurely and end up dried up on the beach.

I dunno how to fight this analogy. Is it right? Is it wrong? Is it even relevent? I dunno. I guess I just keep riding the way I do and keep seeing things get better as the years go by (I did mention that it is noticeably easier to ride here than it was 8 years ago, didn't I?), and keep out of the crossfire. I haven't seen a road be rebuilt to make it worse for bicyclists, I guess that is something. Bicycles are making the newspaper on a regular basis, and the local advocates here raise a stink to get bicyclists considered on major new road developments, so I guess that is good. Shoot, I haven't even been honked at or yelled at for the last month of commuting; I only commute two or three days a week, but I guess that's something. 8 years ago, I used to get honked at on a regular basis. Even got lectured by some redfaced man who got out of his car and didn't care if I called the police or not. My coworkers seem to accept that I commute. The customers at the restaurant I work at once a week don't seem to mind, at least the regulars I talk to and have gotten to know. You know, I don't even feel like cycling is such a big deal anymore, just something I do, like driving, except I get a bit sweaty, so I wear bike cloths, since, well, I have to change cloths anyway, might as well wear stuff that is comfortable, since I have it already.

Gosh, is the sky falling? Is the bad guys coming with the pot and the net and the water boiling to cook me. How do lobsters fight that anyway? Don't the cooks tie up their claws and put lids on the pots? Hard to fight when the bad men tie your hands and lock you up, but we've got lawyers. Some even work especially on bike cases, so if the bad men arrest the good cyclist, they fight to get them released. I dunno. I guess I'll just bike and let that be my advocacy.

IMO there isn't even enough information available to argue about bike lanes. Everybody has an opinion but nobody really knows anything. We need a lot more studies before authoritive statements can be made. Meanwhile, each rider owes it to him/herself to learn to ride effectively in the many situations we face on a daily basis.

And the real truth is that over 90 % of the cyclists in America aren't riding on either bike lanes or riding VC. They're riding on the sidewalks. Shut up for a minute and look around you and you'd see that this is true. This is wnere advocacy needs to start--education of cyclists to get them off the sidewalks and riding effectively in the streets AND in the bike lanes.

Are you speaking for yourself? Smarter than what? Anyway, yeah, I guess you do have to have a certain level of intelligence to create, understand and use analogies. But in computer science, we use them all the time, so it seems like regular stuff to me.

I never want anyone to feel bad, certainly not you. By the way, for future reference, referring to people as "extremists" probably doesn't make them feel good, in case you're interested.

Now you're thinking. That's the point. If I'm right, we can't really know, but by the time we figure it out, it will be too late.

I just believe that marginalizing a behavior - and make no mistake that that's exactly what bike lanes do with respect to cycling - can only lead to more expectations for more marginalizing. It becomes the norm. Marginalizing becomes officially sanctioned. There may be short-term exceptions to this general trend here and there, but in the long run, it can only go one way, and that way is not good. If you don't want to believe me, fine, but please stay alert.

You are wrong in so many ways it's not even funny.

Actually, we know quite a lot about bike lanes. And those of us who value our right to use the roads, especially those who live in one of the six or seven states where the law mandates that we use them where "provided," are quite likely to continue arguing, energetically, against them.

Did I call anyone an extremist? :)

What's the net? What's the pot? Who's the bad man turning up the heat slowly? Why do it slowly? Don't cooks usually boil the water then throw the lobster in? Perhaps I am slow, please, spell out just what the analogy is here.

You can make mistakes, arguing by analogy. Very, serious mistakes. Like those guys who argued over a bike lane in front of the city government and got the worse of all worlds, the bike banned from the road and a restriction to a 3 foot wide sidepath shared with pedestrians. Apparently, it's happened before, or something similar, as chipcom has documented during his time in politics; is this good? Did your guys win?

I don't feel marginalized. I ride where I want on the road without harassment. I take the lane in the midst of exactly no honks or threats. I don't get tickets for not using the bike lane. I certainly benefit from bike lanes; did I mention that they get swept? I see lots more cyclists than I used to. Cycling is in the papers regularly, for good reasons. Just last Saturday, there was a nice article in our local paper about the proposed bike rentals in downtown Portland. When roads are rebuilt, they are easier to bike on, yes, with bike lanes, at that. Even on those roads, with big, wide bike lanes that are swept and respected by cars, I leave the bike lane to make left turns and narry a person turns their head; I get treated like ordinary traffic.

Bottom line, lobsters are dumb, people are smart. You're analogy is not right... Not where I live.

I love this; this just after saying you cannot know if you are right. Then this... like you are a guru of some sort or another. Is 8 years "short term"? It's almost a third of the thirty that VC has been around in its current form. Come to think of it, 22 years before the 8, it was worse off than 8 years ago! It sounds like things are kinda getting better, doesn't it?

But there are consequences of your analogy being wrong. You expend so much time and energy fighting popular projects that you set yourself back 30 years. You are disassembling the whole car just so that you can use all metric fasteners here. What's the point? If the terrible Bike Lanes marginalize cyclists, then so do your beloved Wide Outside Lanes, as they, too, put a cyclist off to the side, and furthermore, force a cyclist to share a lane with another vehicle; a truly unique spectre when compared to all other vehicle types.

Your hedge carries consequences. My guess is that the so-called "auto-centric" cities like LA and Pheonix are suffering because your advocates refuse to stand in the way of the expansion of automobiling facilities, in favor of doing nothing but asking all cyclists to buy a $40 book and take a $80 class (or two!) in order to set wheel to the road before they have a chance to even decide whether they want to ride or not!

There are consequences to underreacting, yes, but there are also consequences to overreacting as well. You forgot that part.

I think a trail like that would be .....BORING...boring...BORING....

Who wants to ride through the middle of nowhere and see nothing? That's one reason rail-trails suck so badly. They are always constructed in a valley.

women have been marginalized so long they don't even recognize it any more....

By golly just ride your bike down the road and be done with all this nonsense..... even the mentally challenged can do it.

Actually, a hybrid is what I would find to be the ideal. I want a choice, not to be stuck with either one or the other. I think most people want to have choices.

And I like the idea of a coast-to-coast bike trail. Kinda like the Pacific Crest Trail for bikes.

Well, it could run through some terrain, and give Natl Park access with minimal impact....a lot of advantages here if conceptualized right!:D

I don't think it would be boring at all, Perhaps not practical or much used, but hardly boring.

I love wilderness, wide open places. A path thru an uninhabited valley would be a wonderful place to be. Although a path would make it a wilderness no more, which is why I'd much rather have the path adjacent to an existing interstate freeway.

Al

Brian, it is a good thing you and I live where we do. :)

And you actually think the view from the highway is any better? :rolleyes:

Nobody said anything about a 'Highway' (other than you) but there you go again....

Existing roads connect towns. Towns are fun. There are things to do in towns and things to see. Historic buildings. Nice resturants. B & B's. Existing roads go over mountains. Incidentally, most people like the view from on top better than at the bottom. Wilderness is fun too for camping or fishing but to unnecesarily add additional infrastructure to wilderness areas just to accommodate cyclists is dumb.