The last guy who pointed to the path and told me I was supposed to ride there.

Another example are 'do-gooders' who may not cycle much if at all who are strong proponents of bicycle facilities and consider all good. There was an environmenal organization I crossed paths with who fit this description. This is just an example, not neccessarily a 'signficant' one.
Al

Ya mean a BF poster yelled at you? Or was it some other bicyclist on the other side of the divide?:rolleyes: Cyclists' divided opinions is what this thread is about isn't it?

What if the yeller yelled "Get the F. outta da Way!" Would he still fit amongst the (1) group?

No.

No.

Yes.

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What was my score? 75%? :)

Why did you respond this way? Your post about someone telling you to ride on the path wasn't clear whether the yeller was an ignorant motorist (which wouldn't be relevent to this thread) or a fellow cyclist (which would be). Seems a reasonable question to me. Why the sarcastic answer?

Jalopy

My sarcasm was directed at ILTB's cross-examination, not you, Jalopy. If you take offense because he's your friend, I apologize to you. But I prefer not to be on the receiving end of ILTB's righteous crusades.

Put another way, some people have never seen a bike-specific facility they didn't like, because they believe anything bicycle-specific markets bicycling. They advocate bad designs like door-zone bike lanes because they want to see bike-specific markings on the ground any way they can get them. They applaud signing sidewalks as bike paths when bike lane stripes and stencils won't fit on the existing roadway. They applaud bike maps without any attention to the actual content of the map. They consider a community "bicycle friendly" as long as it has enough bicycle-specific infrastructure regardless of the quality of that infrastructure.

An example of such a person is Andy Clarke, former president of LAB. He, like many other bicycle advocates (unlike bicyclist advocates), turns a blind eye to operational problems with some bikeway implementations in order to keep the bikeways coming.

Many people are somewhere between (1) and (2). They believe that as long as making a facility bicycle-specific does not create significant operational problems for cyclists, it is inherently good because it provides marketing for cycling. People closer to (2) demand that the bicycle-specific facility provide adequate operational advantages for cyclists before they consider it good.

sggoodri: Who is Andy Clarke, former president of LAB and why does your representation of his views sound like a characature of a position a real human will take? Who are these "bicycle advocates" and how do they differ from "bicyclist advocates"? A bike is just an inanimate object unless there is a rider attached.

And on a side note, even his characatured position has a point, doesn't it? It seems well enough documented that the cycling environment becomes safer if there are more cyclists, disregarding all other influences. It jives with my experience. So a reasonable position to take (add your choice of caveat to make this not necessarily be my position in the argument) might be to advocate the marketing of bicycling through any means necessary to increase the numbers of cyclists on the road and, thus, increase driver awareness of bicyclists and in turn increase bicycling safety.

Your position, I maintain, has a critical flaw in that you ignore or try to hold one variable constant (driver behavior around bicyclists) and modify the other variable (cyclist safety). But these variables are not independent. Nature does what it does and doesn't allow bicyclist safety to be minimized while holding driver behavior around bicyclists constant. The best, and I will maintain, only way to effectively change driver behavior around bicyclists for the better is to expose drivers to bicyclists. That said, efforts should be simultainiously taken to ensure that bicyclists behave well around roads and drivers as well.

The variables of cyclist safety and driver behavior around cyclists cannot be made independent of each other. After you've done all you can to increase cyclist safety through bicyclist behavior, you are still not maximized cyclist safety. You are assuming the equation is one dimensional when it is in fact two dimensional. You cannot just maximize cyclist safety along one of the axis!

This was Galen's assertion, not Diane's.

Then stick to the topic. The division of cyclist thought about VC issues.

I'd call bringing up hooting and hollering from loud mouth yappers in a passing vehicle a diversion, if not OT; how about you? You better than anyone should know the topic of this thread.

Hmmmmm, interesting.

Is it the case that as you get more cyclists, that cycling becomes safer? I am still thinking about that ...

There are some graphs round here showing as bicyclists are greater in number in Portland (http://bikeportland.org/resources/bikesafety#charts), the total number of accidents remains steady, meaning the accident rate goes down (mere correlation, I know, but it is evidence, yes?). Besides that, humans who are exposed to anything on a regular basis tend to adapt. Anecdotally, I've noticed this in the last couple years compared to 8 years ago in this area.

(Graph #1 and Graph #2 for the lazy.)

I didn't take offence and I wasn't aware that ILTB was my friend. I simply had the same questions that he did and was hoping you would clarify.

Jalopy

Andy Clarke was president of the League of American Bicyclists a few years ago when he came to Cary to award the League's Bicycle Friendly Community award to Cary in front of the Town Council session. During the videotaped, broadcasted photo-op, Andy praised the town's bikeways and praised the the town's bike map which he held folded in his hand. But later he admitted never having looked at the bike map - not even a glance - and he hadn't seen any of the town's bikeways. Likewise, the Bicycle Friendly Cities application form that LAB had required our city staff to submit out asked about how many miles of striped bike lanes and bike paths the town had, but it did not ask how many of those were in the door zone/of substandard design or were sidewalk/sidepath designs. Clearly, under his leadership, quantity of bicycle-specific facilities was more important than quality. It is my opinion that since his departure from LAB things are starting to improve.

Let's assume a typical suburb like where I live, where the majority (>80%) of cycling miles are cycled by avid recreational cyclists on roadways, but the total amount of cycling mode share is fairly low.

If the increase in cycling is among cyclists operating according to normal vehicular rules, the crash statistics per mile will incrementally improve.

If the increase in cycling is among cyclists operating as pedestrians-on-wheels or otherwise contrary to vehicular rules, the crash statistics per mile of cycling will incrementally worsen.

If the increase in cycling miles traveled is from cyclists traveling more miles per cyclist, the average experience level of the cyclists increases, and the crash statistics will improve.

If the increase in cycling miles traveled is from more novice cyclists starting to experiment with cycling, the average experience level of cyclists decreases, and the crash statistics incrementally worsen.

At very high volumes of cycling, I believe motorists, dog walkers, pedestrians, and other cyclists do become more alert to cyclists. A nonlinear effect of public awareness may slightly increase the safety of a cyclist operating in a given manner in a given physical environment, all other things being equal. However, how does one get to this high level? Is it done by encouraging more novice cyclists to use facilities that require or encourage operation contrary to normal vehicular rules? Is it done by improving conditions for those who cycle according to what you and I consider best practices, and thus encourage more cycling miles by experienced cyclists as well as encouraging more of the new cyclists to ride in a safer manner? This question determines how the safety statistics will move as cycling begins to increase.

Whether or not encouraging novices to cycle contrary to best practices will ever generate enough cycling miles in a suburb to reach the nonlinear tipping point of increasing safety for other cyclists is a topic for another discussion. I believe the most ethical approach to increasing cycling is to encourage safe cycling through education and through engineering that is consistent with best cycling practices including vehicular rules on roadway rights of way. This does not mean that there should never be bike lanes and bike paths, only that these facilities should be built consistent with what we know about the operation of bicycles as vehicles, and best operational practices.

You know that same guy will point to the sidewalk and tell you you're supposed to be there. And if no sidewalk, he'll just tell you to get off the f-in' road.

Could be evidence that as you make cycling safer that more people cycle.

At the moment, I can see both positive and negative relationships (in the abstract) between the two. I don't see one effect naturally being larger than the other. I understand your rationale and I agree that it certainly is possible that drivers learn to cope with cyclists better. Alternatively, putting more cyclists on the road could impede motorists more and create more conflict making the environment more dangerous.

Okay. I've never been involved or interested in LABs advocacy. Most of our advocacy is on a local level here.


I see it all works out logically given your assumptions. But using pure logic to create a model carries risks. I don't know the answer. My point is to look very carefully about how you reduce your variables in your analysis of the situation.

For instance, you assume off the top that cyclist's safety is a weak function of motorist exposure, which is a direct contradiction to my assumptions. I don't believe that it takes a huge percentage rise in cyclist population to expose a population of motorists to cyclists. Portland has a mode split approaching 5% while outlying areas are substantially less, yet probably not below 1% in the summer, with quite a bit more on the weekends. This appears to be enough to expose a motorist population to cyclists.

You also assume that novice cyclists are incompetent about general rules of the road. Most novice cyclists who are given to taking up cycling for transportation have at least a passing knowledge of road rules, such as riding on the right using lights and blinkers at night.

You assume that inexperience automatically leads to a higher crash rate. On the contrary, as with most activities which require skill, it is probable that it is the experienced cyclists who are more prone to accidents. Experienced cyclists ride more miles, and thus have more exposure time; and experienced cyclists have a better idea of where their limits are, and thus tend to ride closer to those limits. Remember the post in the A&S main forum a bit ago about the consequence of doing things wrong? The consequence is often nothing; however, humans are able to feel fear and thus make adjustments to habits which lead to a higher probably of close calls. Most mistakes which novices are likely to make are more than made up for by their heightened sense of vulnerability and the situational awareness that comes with that. In fact, the tendency for mistakes, even in a risky environment, to amount to nothing is what allows novices to become experienced, regardless of book learning. Traffic cycling is not like walking blindfolded through a mine field. Nobody wants to hit anyone out there; you and the hazards are both actively looking to avoid collision.

I don't want you to take this worldview criticism personally. From what you've disclosed on the forums, it seems as though you are doing a lot of good for your community. But ultimately, bicyclist advocacy has to include active measures to promote and increase cycling for any of the bicyclist safety measures to have full effect. None of the stuff about vehicular cycling works if motorists are generally hostile to cyclists. Vehicular cycling actively relies on the cooperation of motorists. It works in the presence of agressively uncooperatively to begrudgingly cooperative motorists only because motorists are actively avoiding accidents - actively putting yourself in the path of their vehicle will force them to cooperate, but they will try to threaten you or shout at you to keep you from trying it again. Vehicular cycling works much better though in the presence of actively cooperative motorists, and producing an environment of actively cooperative motorists is something that take time and increased numbers of cyclists on the road.

I've been (very recently) told to get off the f road while riding fully within a BL with a friend. Not just told, but threatened with vehicle and yelled at to the point it got the attention of other drivers who stopped to ask if we needed assistance.

Al

yikes! where did this happen, Al?

On Elliot heading west just past McClintock.

Actually, Andy Clarke did show up a couple of years ago in Portland to present Portland's 'Best Cycling City' award...and it did sort of peeve me a bit that there was an element of quantity over quality - the award is partly based on number of miles of bike lane with no reference to the LOS that those miles of bike lane do or don't provide (e.g. all bike lane miles, good or bad, counted equally).

Quantity over Quality is the only explaination of why Tempe, AZ is a LAB awarded Silver Level Bicycle Friendly City.

What can I do to be absolved of this sin? :D

I'm just talking about recent stuff; I've only been living here for three years if you don't count the week here-week there when I was in college. The last couple years, I've heard nothing about the LAB in terms of direct bicycling advocacy in the Portland metro area. Plenty about the BTA, Shift to Bikes, etc. though.

There is definitely more to it than pure quantity of bike lane miles or anything else. I think the rest of the equation is somewhat ill defined though.

I measure safety as crashes per unit of distance traveled by bike.

I believe most of the experienced cyclists who post in this forum tend to operate in the vehicular manner (as opposed to as pedestrians on wheels) more often than do novices, and, when they do operate as pedestrians on wheels, tend to operate much more cautiously, because they know where the hazards lurk. Novices, by contrast, tend to make inaccurate predictions about where hazards exist and what will happen, and so they often feel safer riding against traffic on the sidewalk than with traffic on the roadway. This results in a higher crash rate for them, per mile traveled.

I think it would be interesting to poll forum readers how many accidents they had in their first 1000 miles of cycling, followed by their next 5,000 miles, and their next 10,000 miles, and so on. For me, my highest injury rate was at the start, especially when in college the locals told me to ride on the sidewalk. I am really embarassed at some of the things I did on a bike back then. After I quit sidewalk cycling and started educating myself about better road cycling, and then after college when I bike commuted much longer distances per week, including more night riding (with lights of course) my injury rate per N thousand miles dropped way down. Granted, none of these incidents involved cars, but I think car-bike collision probability follows a similar trend. Consider motoring: it is well established drivers make the most errors (and have the most crashes) per unit of distance when they are in their teens and early twenties, but with experience become safer and safer drivers into middle age, their crash rate increasing again only when their minds and bodies begin to deteriorate. Similarly, those motorists who drive the most miles tend to have the lowest crash rate normalized per mile; occasional drivers have the highest.

I believe cycling skills education, including traffic negotiation skills consistent with vehicular cycling, can accelerate the reduction in crash rate for beginning cyclists by accelerating the beneficial parts of cycling experience. Preferably on-bike, but by book if required, education can help them learn what works and alerting them to the primary hazards, such as wrong-way cycling and cycling without good lights after dark. I also believe that most of the reduction in crash rate is through an increase in cycling miles, that is, their reduced hazard rate and increased confidence and enjoyment lead them to cycle more, and they do so according to optimal practices. And, the more miles they ride, the more motorists see cyclists on the road operating well.