Bekologist

socratic approach? more like high sophistry.

you VC EC instructions will NEVER reach any more than an incredibly small percent of cyclists; I'd say a fraction of one percent. better come up with a different approach. teaching less than one percent of bicyclists about the EC-styled inferiority complexes and how to overcome these 'taboos' doesn't seem to be working for the bicycling population at large.


educate drivers with PSAs? maybe LAB courses could be totally put on hold for one year; and the administrative costs for that program be sunk into a campaign of national PSA's instead?

rando

let's talk in more concrete terms. I'll use myself for an example. I have been bike commuting for a very short time compared to most of you. (a little over a year). my routes are comprised of sidewalks, neighborhood streets with "Bikeroute" signs, some Bike lanes with sharrows, and neighborhood streets without any bike markings. most streets are 25 MPH limit. traffic is sparse.

the route I take to work in my truck is a six-lane 45 MPH arterial where traffic during non-rush-hour times (when I'm biking) is heavy and generally goes 45-60 MPH. I rode this route once and didn't like it, so I resumed my back routes.

my recollection of this experiment is that I was not that scared, but I had the feeling of being out of place and not going fast enough. (I remember that I almost wore myself out trying to "keep up" with traffic before I realized there was no way I could) I got two honks from cars.

Do I have a phobia, taboo, superstition, inferiority complex,or is it just a matter of personal preference?

invisiblehand

Hi Bek,

So are you saying that a majority of motorists believe that cyclists belong on the road?

-G

invisiblehand

Either that or the majority will have legislation passed that pushes us off the roads.

Bekologist

invisible hand, i think turning autocentrism into a purported 'inferiority complex' possessed by cyclists to be dishonest.

randya

I totally agree with most of this, and think that motorist education is the key. Unfortunately, not much motorist education is occurring at any level as far as I can see, even bike-friendly Portland has totally dropped the ball on motorist education.

randya

I just think y'all need to find a better phrase to use than 'cyclist-inferiority culture/syndrome'. I understand what you're trying to convey, but that particular phrase has too much baggage associated with it and sets the wrong tone in general. For example, I would choose to call it 'motorist superiority disorder'.

randya

It's pretty ironic that you are lecturing me about pontificating. You also have no idea of where I have lived and cycled.

randya

Unfortunately, Portland really does only deserve a C- in motorist reeducation programs, but they are doing A work in getting more people out of their cars with their Tranportation Options program.

And I agree that the 'rights to the road' movement needs a better spokesperson, the message is clearly getting lost in the personality conflicts and the rhetoric.

John Forester

Certainly, but I have never based my opinions on my guess as to where you have cycled, whereas others have based their opinions about me on their guesses as to where I have cycled. More exactly, they have used their feel for my traffic opinions to guess where I have cycled, which is foolish.

John Forester

You have a perfect right to cycle any route that you choose (freeways generally excepted). If your only adverse feelings were those of "being out of place and not going fast enough", then I would say that those reflect the cyclist-inferiority superstition. As long as you are obeying the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles, you are doing the right thing and nobody should complain. As for honks from motorists, that just shows how ignorant they are and says nothing about you. Just ignore them as nothing more than foolishness.

John Forester

You talk about bike specific infrastructure. I don't know whether you are just trying to convey some professional-level impression by using big words, or whether you actually mean all kinds of bicycle-specific infrastructure. However, if you are discussing my opposition to something or other, my opposition is specifically to bike lanes and to bike paths that cross many streets. Therefore, I answer you on this basis.

I know about some of the list of cities that you mention. "portland, minneapolis, denver, bogota, copenhagen, delft" Portland, as I have written repeatedly here, never needed bike lanes. Neither had Minneapolis, a city with which I have had close cycling connections for decades. Denver, I've cycled there too, and it didn't need bike lanes. Bogota I have read about as making several changes regarding public transportation, but I have no knowledge of their bicycle transportation program. Copenhagen, the city in which cycling used to be so ubiquitous that the royal family were seen cycling around town. Not much room for increased cycling proportion in that city. Delft, so far as I know, is not much different from Amsterdam, and traditionally had the same high level of bicycle transportation, higher than it probably has today.

What you are actually saying with respect to the cycling that you have experienced is that the American public is so afflicted with erroneous beliefs about cycling that its members will cycle only under a system that they erroneously belive has made it safe to cycle incompetently. Considering your other remarks about vehicular cycling, that is you exact argument. I oppose this argument because of the harm that it does to cyclists.

John Forester

Portland has done more to create parity for cyclists than any other American city? You always had parity, before all this cyclist-inferiority blather occurred.

Helmet Head

It's normal to feel out of place in new situations. Cycling in fast/busy traffic is no different. So is looking back for potential right hookers and seriously considering merging left prior to any intersection.

The "out of place" sensation subsides with time, as you repeatedly expose yourself to such situations and become more and more accustomed to them.

John Forester

Yes, I can well understand that you are getting thoroughly irritated. That's natural, when you who are in political power in cycling affairs have to be told, time after time, that the political program that you advocate so strongly has no basis in science or engineering, but only in foolish superstition that has been created by the motoring establishment to do harm to cyclists. It's your responsibility that you got yourselves in this irrational tangle by believing the motorists' claims.

If you had shown signs of trying to get out of this tangle, I would be trying to assist you, but all that your side has shown is stubborn refusal to look at facts and not only opposition to what might be done to make cycling better, but absolute rejection of its principles. That is, except, of course, that you say you obey them for your own interest. It is this incompatibility between what you say you believe and what you say you do that is an inherent part of this tangle. Try to figure out your way out of the tangle into which you have got yourselves.

sggoodri

Some roads are much more pleasant for cycling than others. I believe a combination of redundant/alternate routes and better pavement width on the busy high-speed thoroughfares is the best we can realistically hope for. I'm glad your alternative routes work for you. I know that there are some roads I find so ugly, noisy, and smelly and bumpy that I prefer to take backroads detours without even considering safety or social issues.

Vehicular cycling doesn't mean that all roads should be equally pleasant or even equally safe. It just enables using nearly any of them, and provides a model for how to improve them, i.e. that any roadway engineering changes to improve cycling should treat cyclists consistent with being drivers of vehicles on the roadway, rather than according to a conflicting paradigm such as pedestrians-on-wheels. It is the pedestrian-on-wheels paradigm that creates most of the bikeway engineering problems where I live.

genec

Ah but the real question was Personally I think it was just a matter of choice too... but "some" may believe that the choice is due to some phobia, taboo, superstition or inferiority complex...

Personally I would rather drive a quiet treel ined lane with birds singing then drive on some local 45MPH boulevards with bumper to bumper traffic... and that is seen as a clear choice, but making that same choice to bicycle a quiet tree lined bike path, over dealing with 45MPH motorists all hell bent for their next cup of Starbucks, seems to imply to some advocates that I am suffering from a phobia, taboo, superstition, or inferiority complex. Actually, I just like quiet tree lined routes and would make the same choice no matter what my mode of transit.

rando

I tend to agree that the more pleasant route is preferable. when in my truck, most of the unpleasantness (noise, exhaust, high speed cars whooshing past, weather...) is not an issue in the air-conditioned window tinted soundproofed environment of the truck cab... but it's a whole different experience riding the same route on the bike, of course, Since I like peace and quiet, I choose the other routes.

noisebeam

try motoriing with your windows down. thats what i do in the city

Commuting home on a 118F summer afternoon, I find the increased exposure time (especially stop time crossing arterials) to be far worse than the extra traffic and speed on the arterials, where one can keep moving and have a nice breeze.

Al

sbhikes

Why do these VC zealots have such a hard time reading. Helmet Head thinks every single topic is about his own personal DLLP agenda. John Forster thinks every topic is about bike lanes. I don't get it. I thought we all talked about all kinds of on- and off-street cycling improvements.

randya

you lost me when you started talking about 'conflicting paradigms'. sometimes the ped on wheels model works very well, as in Japan. there's nothing wrong with alternate parallel bike routes, either, if you've got an interconnecting street grid. and there's nothing wrong with bike lanes on the arterials to carve out some space for cyclists, and I really don't care to ride the arterials much these days, except in the places I have to, like river crossings. none of these necessarily limit cyclists' right to the road, and someone still needs to constantly remind the motorists that all streets are bike routes. these are compatible activities all working toward the same goal. John is creating unnecessary comflict within the bike community by insisting that his way is the only way.

genec

Good question. I tend to look at all cyclists and wonder why advocates don't use "all cyclists" instead of some subset, of which they feel a special attachment... such as lycra wearing, helmeted pelotons, or trike riders, or mountain bikers...

I-Like-To-Bike

My opinions about the value and credibility of Forester's body of work (or lack of such) are based on their content (or lack of such) and have nothing to do with Forester's personal experiences.

For the latest example of Forester straw man arguments and bogus statements see this quote from earlier in this thread.
Please furnish the references quoting "the original bikeway designers" stating that "bike lanes were intended to keep incompetent cyclists at the side of the roadway, that they were made because most cyclists are incompetent."

Sounds an awful lot like another example of Forester placing his Reasonable Assumptions in to the mouths of somebody/somebodies whom he Reasonably Assumes to be the so-called "original bikeway designers" and whom Forester Reasonably Assumes represent the interests and motivations of every individual and organization advocating expansion of bike line implementation.

rando

yes those stops at 118 degrees can be murder!

John Forester

Of course, but the number of locations where that is possible are so few as to be irrelevant to any general program of bicycle transportation. This is a non-issue.

However, the bikeway controversy becomes a major political issue when bicycle advocates say that bikeways make cycling safer, or even when they advance their program by using the public superstition that bikeways make cycling safer. That is a false claim, and those who make it or use it are either lying or phobic. Bicycle advocates could reduce their advocacy to cyclists must operate according to the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles, the program must teach them how, and, as a bit of sweetening, bike lanes make beginners feel better. If they did something like that, they could be supported.