I don't see how anyone can have participated on this forum for any reasonable length of time and yet never seen the arguments that show how bike lanes contradict the rules of the road.

It's incredible to believe that you really do not recall any of the myriad of discussions we've had about how bike lanes to the right of straight-or-right lanes direct through (c yclist) traffic to the right of right-turning (motorist) traffic. This is a fundamental contradiction to the rules of the road, and exists at any point where a bike lane intersects another road, alley, driveway or any place where traffic is allowed to travel into or out of, and there is no dedicated right turn lane with a bike lane to the left of it.

Leave it to the polarizers to miss my point entirely.

Some of us tend to refer to it as the fallacy of the false dichotomy around here, but it's all the same thing.It would be helpful if Bekologist would read that page, but I'm not holding my breath.

no, head, it's very apparant that jhon is allied with pro-motoring organization www.americandreamcoalition.org that would prefer bicyclists off the roads, a network of high speed arterials and bicyclists banned from high speed transportation cooridors, pushing bicyclists off to slow speed roads. he states as much in this very thread.

its pathetic to see how far he's fallen.

Only down to being an advocate of cyclist-inferiority cycling on frontage roads. Compared to that, being an advocate of cyclist-inferiority cycling on bikeways (the notch from which you've _never_ _risen_!) is all the way down there where the rock is molten.

Calm down, Junior.

Haven't you figured out that different does not necessarily equal inferior? You are the one buying into the 'cyclist inferiority' attitude by perpetuating this argument.

Just because someone likes bike lanes or bike paths, doesn't mean they think they can't also use the road. Or is that too inclusive for your bigoted little mind?

The average one of your bikeway-cycling (_and_ bikeway-designing) buddies _should_ "think that they can't also use the road", because they _can't_! This fact is made abundantly clear by their cluelessness about how to even _cross_ a road when they get to where their beloved bikeway must cross a road. Us Foresterians have _been_ "inclusive" enough to do several percent of our cycling miles on such farce-sillities just to be sociable with your faction, but our patience with which to do so wore thin after a while when we had to, at too high of a percentage of trail/road intersections, waste time dismounting and walking hundreds of feet to avoid having our accident rate go up astronomically due to pea-brained trail/road interface design. If that's not an "inferior" facility/maneuver, then I don't know what you _do_ call inferior!

A simple 'yes' would've sufficed.

I have to admit, that while one can use both road and facilities, the design of facilities sometimes makes me chuckle.



Oh, I'm getting critical, again.

to each, his own

cmon, bek

you're beginning to sound like joe mccarthy

Many writers to this forum, particularly those who consider themselves to be bicycle advocates, have shown a lamentable inability to think and to write logically, and an equally lamentable ignorance of cycling outside of their own little precincts. Furthermore, there is much ignorance of surface urban transportation, which is a field in which much cycling takes place.

There is steady complaint about the logical impermissibility of false dichotomies, with vehicular cycling on one side and something else on the other. However, as has been explained many times, vehicular cycling is operating in accordance with the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles. No matter what scheme of cycling one chooses to follow, it is either vehicular cycling or something else, and, so far as vehicular cycling is concerned, that other cannot be vehicular cycling. For many people, that other method is cyclist-inferiority cycling, following the principle of staying out of the way of same-direction motor traffic by some means or other, rather than operating in accordance with the rules of the road. Since vehicular cycling best combines safety, efficiency, and cooperation, it is the legal and preferred method. Operating otherwise than in the vehicular manner either frequently produces dangerous conflicts with other traffic or it forces the cyclist to delay until gaps in traffic, or similar, cause the conflicts to be removed.

I specifically exclude from this discussion of the defects of non-vehicular cycling the risk-taking violations of the rules of the road that are typical of much bicycle messenger cycling, violations taken to reduce the delays normal to proper road use. While these violations may be individually satisfactory for skilled traffic cyclists of the messenger type, they are socially unacceptable among road users and should be prosecuted.

Among the false dichotomies, there are statements of opposition to vehicular cycling, for various reasons, not one of which is a valid violation of the rules of the road. Take the person who wrote that he wasn't a vehicular cyclist because he sometimes cycled in the gutter. That's illogical, because there never has been a rule of the road prohibiting cycling, or driving, in the gutter. The same went for his other complaints. Of course, the cyclist can also choose to operate by pedestrian rules; on occasion that is more convenient, and there is nothing against that where the pedestrian laws permit such operation.

While opposition to operating according to the rules of the road has been expressed by some in this forum, so far as I know no other system of operating has been described. If you don't like the rules of the road, what then do you propose in their place? And for what reasons, and with what justification?

And there are the accusations, that have no merit whatsoever, that I advocate kicking cyclists off arterial streets. Or that I drive an SUV. Lies spread by bicycle advocates, purely because I oppose their prime program of bikeways.

The complaint that my opposition to bike lanes (and some bike paths) is dishonest because I sometimes ride in bike lanes is another illogicality. If the bike lane is in the place where proper cycling behavior would put me, then that is where I ride. If the bike lane is not designed to be in the place where proper cycling behavior would put me, then I ride properly, even if that is outside the bike lane. That does not disqualify my opposition to bike lanes, it justifies it. The fact that any practical bike lane system has to contradict the rules of the road provides all the justification that is necessary, because there has been no showing that violating the rules of the road provides a safer or more convenient environment for cyclists.

One might think it a mystery why bicycle advocates so passionately advocate bike lanes (and other bikeways) when those facilities were designed by motorists with the specific purpose of curbing bicycle traffic. It is an even greater mystery when so many of you admit that you ride in what appears to be the vehicular manner, whether or not a bike lane is present. If you know enough to ride in the vehicular manner instead of in the cyclist-inferiority childish manner indicated by the bike-lane stripe, why do you advocate that stripe? For that matter, why do you deny historical fact that the bike-lane system was designed by motorists to shove cyclists over to the side? The only reasonable conclusion to be drawn from your own actions is the explanation of the cyclist-inferiority phobia, which has generated passionate disclaimers from the bicycle advocates. But that is the only explanation for your absurdly irrational behavior that has been advanced. Since you don't explain your own illogical behavior, then others find it necessary to do so.

The cyclist-inferiority phobia is an irrational fear of same-direction motor traffic, exemplified by actions to avoid that without regard to the other dangers that are more frequent and are amplified by such actions. Avoidance of same-direction motor traffic is practically the only traffic action taken by the nation's program for bicycle transportation. The only explanation for its popularity among bicycle advocates is the cyclist-inferiority phobia. Quite clearly, some of you bicycle advocates do not suffer from the cyclist-inferiority phobia, but, all the same, you advocate the facilities that exemplify it. The reason for that is, of course, that becaue such facilities appeal to the general public who do suffer from that phobia, that makes such facilities the prime part of the anti-motoring program.

The public believes that bike lanes and bike paths, the facilities that exemplify the cyclist-inferiority phobia, can be combined into a practical system that makes safe bicycle transportation possible for those who choose not to operate in the vehicular manner. That's impossible in the modern decentralized urban area.

In short, bike lanes and bike paths are promoted dishonestly by anti-motoring bicycle advocates. That's quite sufficient justification for opposing them.

actually, NOT.

open your eyes and your mind, jon. wedging bikes into autocentric roads fails bicyclists miserably, and there ARE better ways to accomodate bikes into the transportation mix.

https://www.bikeforums.net/vehicular-cycling-vc/361941-rutgers-paper-promoting-cycling.html

That is why real cyclists want to be _dumped_ thereon, not "wedged" thereon as they are in the case of your beloved leper-cycling facilities.

Presumably in accordance with the rules of the road.

So how do you reach the conclusion that bikelanes are inherently in contradiciton with the rules of the road, when you yourself have experienced bikelanes that are clearly placed so that you can ride in accordance with the rules in them? That's illiogical

So you admit your resistance to bikelanes is based on emotion and personality conflict? We appreciate your honesty.

Boy that is a darn good point. If John is riding in accordance to the rules of the road, and in doing so ends up in a bike lane, then that bike lane must be in the proper place... so how can a bike lane be a contradiction?

Of course the issue John et. al. will bring up is the contradiction at intersections. Perhaps he will tell us what he does at intersections.

The system of bike lanes contradicts the rules of the road. Individuals sections of bike lanes often do not.

Al

john suffers from motorist superiority disorder.
countries that plan for bikes as transportation have many more bicyclists, lower accident rates, and riders that span the age and ability gaps.

leaving bikes to ply the way on autocentric roads has been an abject failure as bicycling policy; bicycling in this country and the UK are pathetic compared to places that place value on bicycling.

john and his motorist superiority disorder has served to stunt and ****** bicycling in this country, and all the acolytes of vc are unwitting accomplices in ******ing bicycling in this country. y'all should be ashamed of yourselves.

The fallacy of that statement is demonstrated by the fact that the places where I see the highest percentage of cyclists cycling like *******, are on bikeways, and that the times when double-digit-IQ cyclists' cycling speed becomes the most ********, is when they're on bikeways.

The random, comma scattering crowd, is here, apparently. Makes, it hard, to read.

And emoticons too!!

'******' meaning stunted, wheelman - - not disabled.

Well, there is noisebeam's answer about the system of bike lanes being contradictory, but there is more. What Forester wrote was:
At any given time, for the current conditions, "proper cycling behavior" may put a cyclist in one particular lateral position, while it may put him several feet away (laterally) some other time under very different conditions. Under some of those conditions, the "proper cycling behavior" may put him in space that happens to be demarcated by the bike lane; at other times it puts him outside of the exact same bike lane.

That's one big inherent problem with bike lanes. They, being static demarcations of supposedly appropriate lateral positioning for cyclists, are based on the assumption that proper lateral positioning for cyclists is largely determined independent of current conditions. But, actually, the opposite is true: cyclists should be adjusting laterally all the time. It is a very dynamic process, based on current conditions (including but not limited to: weather, surface conditions, cyclist speed, cyclist's intended destination, speed, volume and location of other traffic, presence of parked cars and other potential hazards, lighting conditions, etc.).

This is not just a tenet of vehicular cycling, but is even endorsed by scofflaw-cycling rationalizers like Robert Hurst, whose book returns and returns to this theme. It is a great disservice to cyclists, especially to the relatively inexperienced ones that bike lanes are often touted to be mostly for, to create facilities that reinforce the notion that where cyclists belong on the road is largely a static proposition independent of current conditions.

For the most part, it is. For the other times, there's no wall stopping anyone from leaving it. That's your strawman.

Yeah, we all know you can't ride in a straight line, newbie.

Bikelanes don't prevent any of that. Your picking the wrong target, Serge. The problem is, if what you claim about 'most cyclists' is true, that they don't know how to use the bike lane properly (ie. knowing when it's appropriate or necessary to leave it), not that bikelanes somehow magically force them to ride stupidly. If they don't know how to use it, the problem is merely a lack of education. Why have cycling instructors like yourself been so inneffective at educating these people in proper bike lane use?

Well, then there is our fundamental difference. You think, "for the most part", that proper lateral positioning for cyclists is largely determined independent of current conditions (including but not limited to: weather, surface conditions, cyclist speed, cyclist's intended destination, speed, volume and location of other traffic, presence of parked cars and other potential hazards, lighting conditions, etc.). No wonder you like and support bike lanes. There is no way you can appreciate what's wrong with them if you think this.

Talk about strawman. I've never argued that there is a wall stopping anyone from leaving the bike lane, or anything like that. Anyway, this is now beside the point, because our fundamental difference is noted above.

I never said bike lanes prevented that or anything else. Are you having a discussion with me or just playing with yourself?

I said that bike lanes reinforce the notion that where cyclists belong on the road is largely a static proposition independent of current conditions, which brings us back to our fundamental disagreement.

Given my assumption about dynamics, relative to every-changing conditions, being the norm with respect to proper cyclist lateral positioning, the only proper training for bike lanes is to ignore them - position yourself as if the stripe is not there. But in that case, what is the bike lane for? But again, if you don't accept the assumption then this point is moot. Which brings us back to our fundamental disagreement, which I'm sure we can't resolve here.

I should clarify that while each time one may ride in a significantly different lateral position from the next or previous time, the cyclist's position should remain relatively static, once adjusted for the current conditions, on any particular trip through a given section.

I guess I'd better explain it in small words for you then.

For the most part, lane position is not governed by transient conditions. Most of the time, it's lane width - the static condition of the road. If there's enough room to share, hold a line just outside the car traffic lane (whether it's marked or not), otherwise, hold a line somewhere inside it. All those transient conditions you mention can possibly result in a need to adjust it, but not all that often, and when you do, do so gradually and predictably.

If you had a functioning memory, you 'd know that I've never said that I like or support bikelanes (ok, I do like some, when they're done well). I don't whinge about them either, though. I just think the VC cultists expend way too much energy arguing against them, when their energy could be better spent pursuing things that are actually important for cyclist's safety. The risks involved in using a bikelane are really fairly miniscule, if they exist at all relative to your weaving about behaviour. It's much ado about nothing.

But you seem to think that 'most cyclists' feel they aren't permitted to leave it.

If it reinforces anything, it's the idea that you pick your line, and hold it, unless it's necessary to change lanes. Just like you do in a car, if you're riding/driving vehicularly. Or do you change lanes on a whim in your car as well?

Your absurd notion that it marginalises cycling to an inferior position makes no more sense than saying a right turn only lane marginalises right turners.

For the same reason that any other lane marking exists. It's your myopia that can't accept that a bike lane functions like any other marked lane