genec

I have to admit that the counter argument by the anti BL folks sure looks like an appropriate response.

The problem with the expectation of school children operating in a vehicular manner on the current roads or siting the school in a better location is that it denies the fact that much of this infrastructure is already in place... and further denies the "improvements" made by automotive organizations such as AAA and ADC which push for laws that favor motorists over all others. Case in point is the 85 percentile rule here in California which has pushed road speeds well over the original speeds posted.

For instance... those wonderful 35MPH roads you tout in Cary... in California they would probably be pushed to 45 or 50MPH simply because 85% of the road users drive over the speed limit, so the speeds would be adjusted to meet those scofflaws rather than enforce the limits... now how would that affect the previously "well sited school?" Would you want your children riding vehicularly on a 50MPH road?

As an example locally a new road was put in near my office. It was really quite fun to ride, as it was simply free of traffic... the subdivisions and homes had not been built in yet, so here was nice new pavement that happened to offer connection to a bike path that parallels a freeway... so it made for a nice 22 mile round trip... a good noon time ride. Well the new road is posted at 50MPH. Yup they designed it that way. And off that road is a surface street posted at 60MPH. On that road are apartments and light industrial businesses. Back to the road I like to ride... the 50MPH road... after building in some clusters of homes, they built a school. Opps right on the 50MPH arterial. (bad planning I would say). Soon after they lowered the speed limit within a block either side of the school... to 45MPH. How many drivers do you really think slow down that 5MPH? How fast do you think most motorists are driving?

Oh sure there are bike lanes on the road... as if they help.

The problem is organizations that push for high speed roads in the first place... and designs and designers that make these urban freeways possible.

But that is only one example. Roads I have ridden over 25 years ago... once marked at 45MPH... now are marked at 65MPH. Roads that were once 40MPH are now 50... with no improvement to the road. (you can still see the old faded painted speed limits on the road).

How does it work in NC... do you have an 85 percentile rule? If so, how can you keep roads marked at 35 today from becoming 45 and 50 MPH roads in the future?

sbhikes

So if sidewalks are so horribly dangerous why on earth would anybody advocate that kids ride bikes on sidewalks? That makes no sense to me.

I think that VCers just have nothing to offer toward a complete, community-wide solution to safe cycling. They worship the automobile and praise cycling that imitates it. It a foolish platform when taken in its entirety and doesn't serve children or others who are less than the serious cyclists they favor.

The best solution combines cycling in accordance with the vehicle code and on-street cycling facilities. These facilities help children understand what they are supposed to do and let motorists know that cyclists will be present. The only thing you would teach children to do differently from adults would be to do two-corner left turns or use cross walks instead of attempting to merge across lanes to reach a left turn lane.

Get sane people.

rando

yes!

that is all.

Roody

IMO, sidewalks are dangerous for people riding fast along busy streets with lots of cross streets and driveways. Not a good place for kiddies to be. But if school is approached by less busy streets, I think kids can ride safely on the sidewalks at pedestrian speeds, and cross like peds in the crosswalks. I wouldn't like to see little kids on busy streets, even with fantastic bike lanes. Riding in bike lanes, like riding in regualr lanes, takes traffic handling skills that young brains just aren't equipped for. It is unethical to encourage young people to ride on unsafe streets by striping bike lanes on those streets. A far better alternative is to totally redesign that street to make it safe for everybody.

Your second paragraph is asinine and offensive. Most VC advocates don't worship automobiles and they don't say that only "serious" riders are favored. They do say that when roads are poorly designed, we must learn special skills if we choose to ride bikes on them. I think it would be "insane" to do otherwise.

Personally, I'm a VC rider, but my anti-car and carfree sentiments and activism are well known on this forum go back more than 35 years. So stop with the bigoted and offensive remarks, please. You really sound ignorant and destructive when you make statements like these in the second paragraph.

I pretty much agree with your third paragraph. Combine good streets with education for the kids. (We had school classes that dealt with safety issues back in the 1960s. Maybe that's one reason more kids walked and rode bikes then?) I don't agree that kids or adults need on-street facilities if the streets are properly designed for all users. I think kids would be safer around schools with lots of stop signs, "school zone" speed limits and other calming features. After all, a bike lane on an unsafe street is still unsafe, while riding in the regular lane of a safe street is a better bet.

sggoodri

There are plenty of parents promoting sidewalk cycling for their kids; vehicular cycling advocates are unlikely to have much affect on this. The League of American Bicyclists Bike Ed program for kids focuses on awareness of traffic and safety equipment for young kids and parents, and teaches proper roadway cycling for older kids. Nobody I know of has devised a viable education program to teach sidewalk cycling technique, because (1) junction conflicts make sidewalk cycling more complicated than roadway cycling, and (2) any kid mature enough to reliably follow all of the rules required to make sidewalk cycling reasonably safe where cross-traffic exists is mature enough to learn to ride safely on two-lane residential roadways. John Forester has written extensively about teaching cycling to kids, I find very credible his reports that kids under 13 are capable of being taught to reliably ride on the right half of the road and yield to traffic before entering/crossing priority roads, and look over their shoulders before turning left, but that they have difficulty grasping destination positioning.

So, the "vehicular cycling program for cycling to school" would be that the school siting and surrounding road designs should be chosen to be well matched to the abilities of cyclists in that age group, i.e. two lane roads with modest speed limits, strict enforcement of reduced speeds during school zone hours, good street connectivity to nearby residences within easy cycling distance, and short-cut paths where adequate connectivity of pleasant streets does not exist. As far as I am aware, vehicular cycling advocates with or without children have been promoting such things for a long time.

If the roadway is designed in such a way that Diane feels that a vehicular left turn is beyond the ability of a child allowed to ride on it, then what can a bike lane stripe do to improve the situation? Nothing. If bike lane stripes end up encouraging cycling by kids without the skills to turn left safely, then perhaps such encouragement is not such a good idea.

In my experience, motorists slow down considerably when encountering a child cycling on the roadway; a bike lane stripe is unlikely to make them any more cautious. It's not possible for me to compare relative rates of overtaking collisions for children here in Cary because we've never had a motorist-error car-bike overtaking collision involving a child on a roadway. The only overtaking collision I could find involving a child involved a cyclist who swerved from the right edge of the road all the way to the centerline and past it to strike the side of a car that had moved completely to the opposite side of the road to overtake at slow speed. The child, who was not wearing a helmet, had some minor abrasions and was okay.

Our town has been working on Safe Routes to Schools activities to efficate safe cycling to schools. There is a lot of resistance from school officials, but the parents support their kids cycling. I know two different bike shop owners who have taken a leading role, one whose child was prohibited from cycling to school even though a greenway provided a useful low-speed shortcut. The Principal was afraid the child cyclists would strike and injure child pedestrians.

In western Cary, a high school student pedestrian was struck by a car when crossing a two-lane road in order to reach a short-cut path that is heavily used by cyclists and pedestrians. The path crosses a railroad track. The school system and town worked with the railroad to close the path, post no-trespassing signs, and place police officers on both ends of the path to prohibit use of the short-cut. This effectively cut the geographical area of walkable trip endpoints in half, and severed a popular cross-town cycling route. Avid road cyclists have lobbied heavily to reopen the path crossing over the railroad (it was originally a street that got closed) and to focus the concentration on roadway safety where it belongs, but to no avail.

Brian Ratliff

You and Roody consistently fail to take into account that the number of cars on those same roads has increased dramatically (nearly exponentially) in the last 10 years. Until you take this into account explicitly, then you cannot make a valid argument along these lines.

littlewaywelt

I'll add this to the mix. My 5yo will be starting Kindergarten this fall. He will ride to school (~2miles) with me following him on a MUP. The plan is to go rain or shine as long as he isn't suffering or hating it. If we didn't have access to the MUP, he would ride the bus or carpool. No way I'd let him ride along the sidewalks to get there. ...I wouldn't even consider the sidewalk option for several years. A child's bike handling skills (even a lot of adults) just aren't there imo to make sure he wouldn't go off the sidewalk and into traffic. No way I'd let him vc to school. While injury maybe statistically unlikely, there is absolutely no way I'd take any chances.

my .02

chipcom 

They are not trying to make a valid argument, they making an argument that passes the same validity standard as the premise of the OP. I happen to agree that the premise of this thread is silly. There are a lot of reasons why fewer kids ride/walk to school - vc, is neither the cause nor the magic solution.

genec

Chip man, that about covers it.

rando

total bull****. will VCism cure aids, too?
nice twist on the traditional sophistry though. Forester would be proud!

joejack951

And your counter argument is....?

genec

Well the best counter argument is to lower speeds everywhere, except on freeways, and make motorists adhere to speed limits.

When surface streets are driven at speeds that are accommodating for pedestrians and cyclists, then those roads will accommodate peds and cyclists... but when roads are treated as raceways or urban freeways... then automobiles rule.

Of course as long as 85 percentile rules prevail and motorists are comfortable with their wacky driving... as foolish as it may be (no turn signals, no safe following distances... ) then motorists will establish the speeds and damn us to use "their" roads.

Funny thing about how the 85 percentile rules do not take into consideration other users of the roadway.

rando

to say that the lack of vehicular cycling is the cause of roadways that are bad to ride on is just ridiculous. pretty ballsy, though.
lower speed limits, greater enforcement, traffic calming, complete streets, and bike infrastructure would all help make roads more friendly to cyclists.

joejack951

You haven't provided a counter argument. You've just agreed with Steve but applied his logic to all surface roads (which is something I can agree with too).

What better way to argue for lower speed limits on roads (that presumably have no other factors limiting speed) than the fact that children (and adults) on slow moving vehicles (like bicycles) use that road to get to the school. Because bicycles are vehicles, they will be using the road vehicularly and thus limiting the speed on that road makes sense. Once you start in with the mindset that all cyclists need is space off to the side of the road to ride on, there's no reason to even care what the speed limit is on the road. Can you see how bike lanes could actually work against making the roads safer for cycling for children?

rando

how the heck could a bike lane make the road LESS safe to bike on?

genec

I am not arguing for bike lanes. I am arguing for reasonable speeds.

What you say makes sense, but I have not seen a speed limit that is:

A) followed and maintained
B) is not subject to being raised by motorists envoking the 85 percentile rule.

As far as I am concerned... as soon as all streets are at 25 and 35MPH bike lanes never need to be painted, in fact you can erase all the lines on the road.

But to support BL... if the darn speeds are going to be high on a road (and they will be) then I want something to guide motorists. (I would prefer barriers at those speeds, but that really gets people in a bind)

genec

they make motorists pass cyclists with confidence and thus at a higher speed.

dynodonn 

And at a closer passing distance.

rando

but isn't that really depending on the width of the bike lane and where the rider is within the lane? if the lane is wide enough, would that even be a problem?

genec

You are right... I have riden in 10 foot wide BL up in Malibu and found that motorists were about 5 feet+ from me... now how do we get 10 foot wide BL put in everywhere?

Just as impossible as trying to get motorists to slow down to 25MPH.

markhr

Which isn't a problem if you have wide, wide roads - come to the uk and see some of the ridiculous one foot wide, gutter hugging bike lanes. These are generally squeezed in on unsafe, narrow roads anyway where it is clearly much safer to take the lane.

Especially ridiculous was a pro-motoring judge who decided, no matter how bad the facilities, if there was a bike lane you were required to use it. Luckily, this was overturned.

However, the terrified of roads lobbyists keep trying to sneak "cyclist are required where facilities are provided" into legislation. Thus far the pro-VC CTC and LCC lobbyists have kept that stupid piece of legislation off the books.

dynodonn 

If the lane is not paralleling next to parked cars, and on high speed roads, if the outside line is a minimum of 5 to 7 feet off the curb or shoulder edge, and is maintained regularly and no parked cars, I can live with a BL, but on lower speed, narrow streets with parked cars, I prefer no BL, I can take more lane space and control the traffic closing speed better than being "squeezed" by closer passing, line following motorists on one side and parked cars on the other when in our minimum standard BL's.

joejack951

Don't forget a lack of intersections. I use a multilane 45-50mph road to get home from work with 70 intersections in a 3 mile stretch. There's no way I'd be in a bike lane off to the side on that road. I barely use the 5-10 foot shoulder that's there now.

genec

so you take a lane on that?

markhr

yes - otherwise you'll end up stuck on the off-ramp, in the gutter or blown off by the backdraft from large vehicles.