High Roller

Sorry all you idealists out there, but I intend to continue riding my bicycle RIGHT NOW and not wait for some imaginary time in the future when my city has become a cycling utopia. And the best way I know to accomplish that, to co-exist on roads dominated by motor vehicles, is to follow the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles. Doing that is the only reason I am still alive after relying on a bicycle as my primary means of transportation for over fifty years. I am not a super-human creature – if I can do this, anyone can. Are improvements needed? Sure. But let’s stop using that as an excuse to keep people off bicycles.

chipcom 

But more people are cycling, even though all that wonderful infrastructure doesn't exist yet and probably won't for decades. Hmm...maybe "normal" people are not as dependent on infrastructure as some would have us believe?

FYI, as a VC big blue meanie, I don't think you or I are allowed to answer for the small people.

Bekologist

what are the people to do now?

not ride bikes as their communities are not well designed for comfortable use of a bicycle for transportation by a majority of the population.

the path is clear and the guidelines are being drawn and established on what works in america to drive more bicycle traffic in communities big and small:

plan for bicyclists in the transportation mix. in rural, small town, urban and metropolitan areas, planning for roadway bicycling is the way to direct transportation policy forward.

FHWA design guidelines are clear in their directive to : retain the current bicyclists and increase lawful roadway bicycling in accordance with traffic laws.

It is specious if not simply obstructionist to suggest that the current infrastructure situation is so hopeless or foregone that nothing needs, can, or should be done, all the while denying the projects that currently ARE being emplaced in cities large and small on rural highways and downtown streets.


guess what?

there's bike infrastructure, right now, being put in place in cities all over the country. and a lot of it is increasing roadway ridership, commuter and daily bike modal share in these towns and cities across the country. Even the most rudimentary look at chicago, minneapolis, denver, seattle, portland, leaves no doubt as to the effects of thoughtful planning for roadway bicycle traffic. raleigh, not so much

Speculation that planning for bikes using public rights of way presents too daunting a task is a feckless response on how to plan for bike traffic, and doesn't recognize whats currently happening in cities that ARE effectively planning for bicycle traffic.

Mikhail spelled it all out quite succinctly in his article; the rebuttals given in this thread are the same tired rejections he outlines as the VC talking points used to complain that bike infrastructure will never work here so why even try.

genec

No doubt as a blue meanie, perhaps you are right... but I try to keep a toe in the other world too, with my wife and son and many friends and acquaintances to give me real time feedback... it's part of who I am. I do what I need to, to keep moving forward, and keep an ear to the ground to hear what others think. Sometimes I get out of phase... but not nearly as much as some VC proponents. Earlier it was mentioned that vc isn't about promoting cycling... and I think that is where I break from vc, I am about promoting cycling in general for everyone, not just the "chosen few."

electrik

Necessity was and is the mother of invention. However such necessary invention doesn't include the perfection of a transportation system, it only gets you to a passable hack.

What would North American cycling look like if things had gone the other way during the years of highway and road expansion? I don't know, the author doesn't know... so really it is just a guess to say that VC is to blame for the comparatively low cycling rates. Maybe if we adopted a less VC styled approach and only had a few bike-paths(city coffers aren't endless) cycling rates would have ended up lower, localized and eventually die off. We could be in an alternate place where everybody rides around in circles on a MUP by the local river and waste-water plant since they are totally banned from the roads.

FunkyStickman

Very interesting conversation... I will need to absorb some of this before I make an educated comment about VC. Though I would love to see more MUP's, I know better.

From my experience, at least in my area, even the avid cyclists don't ride as transportation. They stick to roads with wide shoulders and drive to locations to ride. I live a few miles away from one place where lots of people group ride, and when I showed up, they all asked "Where's your car?"

In my town, just about the only people who ride bikes for transportation are a bunch of old guys who can't afford cars, or lost their licenses because of DUI's. Very very seldom do you see a younger person (I'm talking under 60) on a modern multi-speed bike just going to the store.

And then there's me. And I wonder why people look at me funny when I wait at lights and take left-turn lanes! It's because nobody does that here.

Very interesting.

genec

I really doubt that cycling rates would have been lower if we had adopted a less VC styled approach... more likely when highway and road expansion occurred, so too would have bike paths, just as sidewalks tend to line many roads. Remember the bicycle was mainstream form of transportation before and during the early years of the automobile, if roads were restricted to automobile traffic only, those that could not afford cars would have demanded their own infrastructure... and they too are tax paying citizens.

VC worked well in the early years as all vehicle speeds were low, and thus there was not the huge speed difference between various forms of traffic on the roadways.

Take a look at this film shot from a street car in 1905 on Market Street in San Francisco, and note the relative speeds of all the forms of traffic.

chipcom 

But not in every city. Here in the poor excuse for a city where I live there are no bike lanes, rideable shoulders are rare, there are no plans at all for any cycling infrastructure and the only MUP is a good 5 miles from my house and doesn't help me to efficiently get anywhere that I really need to go anyway. So until cycling Utopia somehow magically appears in this burg, I have two choices...drive, or ride my bike on the roads, according to the rules of the road. The latter is easy enough for me, but according to many it is not a viable choice for 'normal' people, so as Gene mentioned, I guess they just have to continue to drive. Some cycling utopia this turned out to be.

Bekologist

yeah, no doubt, chip!

your community and county likely suffers low ridership compared to the rest of the country and world. its sad. Forced into the car by a transportation system distinctly unfriendly to populist travel by bicycle.

Senior citizens that could enjoy the greater vitality and freedom of mobility enjoyed by the use of a bicycle, stranded and sedentary because your community and state are so addled by the tailpipe vapors you can't see straight.

oh well, maybe your state can start improving the shoulders of rural roads when road projects are done for numerous reasons. id suspect your state DOES have a BMP as do many communities near where you live. small towns usually need very little in the way of bike specificity but on the main routes; most roads in any city with bikelanes will be streets WITHOUT bikelanes.

sggoodri

This reveals the utility of vehicular cycling. Most cycling will occur on roads without bicycle-specific traffic controls; cyclists will instead operate according to vehicular rules. Most of those roads lacking bicycle-specific traffic controls may still benefit from bicycle-sensitive design, of course, such as smooth pavement, safe drain grates, wider pavement to improve passing dynamics, signals that detect bicycles, good street connectivity, etc. Making roads work better for cyclists doesn't mean bicycle-specific traffic controls by default.

There may be some roads that benefit from bicycle-specific traffic controls. There are also some roads that are unpleasant for cycling regardless of adding bicycle-specific traffic controls. Sometimes having good alternative low-traffic routes is the most practical way to avoid cycling on unpleasant roads. In any case, bicycle-specific traffic controls and associated behavior are the exception, not the rule, to cycling transportation; vehicular cycling is the default.

Bekologist

..... but in communities that effectively plan for bikes in the transportation mix and see double digit ridership, there is ample roadway space for the preferential use by bicycles and significant traffic calming otherwise.


the rule to cycling transportation and planning for bikes in the transportation mix is effectively creating conditions on public rights of way so as to facilitate bicycle transportation without barriers to participation; Bicycle specificity is warranted in designing communities to make bicycle transportation easy for all.

TEMPO 30 zones are widely used in Europe, for instance, with 30km/hr speed limits, when there is no other preferred bike infrastructure. the speed in an american school zone when the yellow lights are flashing. NOT wide lanes on 40mph arterials

an engineer that claims to have to fight to plan for bikes on roads without using 'traffic controls' is totally ignoring what all the bonifide engineers at FHWA have come up with for how to effectively plan for roadway bicycle traffic. vehicular in scope and utilizing bike specific infrastructure on significant travel corridors if conditions merit them.

Those that FIGHT and try to deny these FHWA recommendations and the forward thinking planning for bike traffic being seen in NYC, Portland, etc... those flying the flag of the rabid Vehikular Cykling platform, are who Mikhail Anderson-Cooper is calling out in his copenhagenize blog post.

sggoodri

It's unfortunate that many seniors have stranded themselves by selecting retirement locations where useful travel by anything but a motor vehicle is very inconvenient and/or unpleasant. When serving on my city P&Z board, I encouraged the siting of senior housing near activity centers, preferably with good pedestrian connections between them. I also gained myself the nickname "sidewalk Nazi" over my emphasis on pedestrian facility design in site plans. There are a few retirement and senior facilities in my area that are located next door to major shopping centers. However, these land uses are separated by woods and fences, and the long access driveways to the shopping centers havevery busy traffic and no place to walk outside the travel lanes. It is very awkward for young people to make their way to the shopping centers from the road; a stroller or wheelchair would be especially unpleasant. I promoted a standard requiring sidewalks on such driveways, which was adopted, and also promoted direct pedestrian connections for convenience, which was not. Note that one retirement home runs a shuttle bus service from their site, out to the arterial, and into the shopping center next door.

Fortunately, I've seen an increase in interest from retirement/housing developers in creating pedestrian-friendly mixed-use developments that place senior housing next to or even above nonresidential complementary land uses such as shopping, and surrounded by additional land uses such as condos, apartments, and single family residential at the outer edges. Unlike the so-called "golf cart" communities that are focused on golf cars as alternative transportation to recreational destinations, the mixed-use retirement communities integrate with both utilitarian and recreational destinations and are efficient for walking and cycling as well. Interestingly, the un-met demand for mixed-use development means that developers face market pressure to transition some of the senior space to general purpose housing.

In my city, these mixed-use projects are typically developed in one huge plan by a single developer. This allows all the details of the mixture to be done in a single plan without competetion between different land owners within the property (although opposition from outside the development may occur). Think of a mall owner designing all the stores, the food court, etc. It has been much harder to create zoning and development rules that allow such mixed-use development to occur where each land use occurs on a different owner's property, especially with efficient transportation flow between sites. It seems that many land owners want to block pedestrian access to and from their site in fear that either people will park on their property to walk elsewhere, or park elsewhere and walk to their property to do harm. Crazy, but all too common a fear among suburbanites.

Here are some examples of site plans and driveway designs I hate:
https://www.humantransport.org/sidewalks/crescent.htm
https://www.humantransport.org/sidewalks/crossroads.htm

FunkyStickman

There isn't a bike lane for 50 miles in any direction from where I live. The only reason I haven't started commuting by bike is there's a busy main stretch of road I have to take with no shoulder whatsoever. With the way people drive here, I don't fear, but know it will end in my getting clipped. If they would put a paved shoulder on that single stretch of road, I'd start bike commuting tomorrow. However, it's not inside city limits, so that's not going to happen.

I'm all for the concept of VC, but I cannot expect the entire populace to suddenly change the way they drive... not when my life depends on it. Therefore I am at the mercy of cars, whether I like it or not.

There was actually a story in the paper last year about a local college student who was pulled over and arrested for impeding traffic... the officer didn't even know the laws for bicycle road usage. And the person who reported the kid was a city judge! Until we get support from municipalities, it's a losing battle here. This is the main reason I'm interested in bike advocacy now.

Bekologist

...of course, we should all take a moment before our mornings commute and sing the praises of the Roussean virtues of the natural vehicular bicyclist and shout out a loud kumbaya to the utility of transportational bicycling.

To the mamacharis in Osaka and the baakfietsen in Copenhagen....


.....did you mean most cities in the USA? maybe instead of being a sidewalk nazi, you could recognize the utility of the bicycle! your depictions of traffic adverse to peds at those photos

what kind of message does that street send to bicyclists?

High Roller

Reality check: While I support the kinds of improvements Steve describes, this senior citizen is doing just fine using a bicycle as sole means of transportation in a typical American auto-centric community. You need to dig much deeper than the absence of bicycle infrastructure to fathom the root cause of North America’s decadent downward spiral. A nation whose principal form of ”exercise” is watching obese people work out on television is not going to send hordes of people out on bicycles just because you draw white lines on the roadways.

Bekologist

Reality check: 10 percent of german senior citizens bicycle regularly. In the USA, a fraction of a precent. you are in rare company indeed!

what is the root cause of americans drive away from the bicycle? lets see, do you mean something other than autocentrism as the dystopic transportation model?

chipcom 

Reality check - America has never adopted cycling as a form of transportation to the extent of some European countries...going all the way back to the late 19th century, before we built our current auto-centric society. Americans were not driven away from the bicycle, we never fully adopted it.

One reason why...our roads sucked. They say at one time it took longer to get imported European goods from NYC to Cincinnati by road than it did to get them from Europe to NYC in the first place.

Bekologist

.....the rich history of the bicycle expanding the reach of cities and towns and its literal vehicle as a force for the liberation of the american woman notwithstanding, chip.


Europe too, found itself driving away from the bicycle in the decades after WW II.

genec

Indeed you have a point... the roads were terrible... and just about the time funding was made available for roads, the automobile was being introduced... so while there was hue and cry from cyclists and cycling groups to pave the roads, the automobile coming into the picture drove the road builders to focus not on bicycles, but those new machines as the wave of the future. Problem is that rather than preserving what did work... street cars, trolleys, and other forms of public transit, as a nation we became single focused on the automobile for all our transportation needs.... and thus threw out the bicycle.

Now we have to live with the consequences of those earlier near sighted (and in some cases, greed driven) decisions. We as a nation are discovering that the single passenger automobile is perhaps not the best single solution to all our transit needs. Only time will tell.

But the bottom line is not that we expect bike paths or infrastructure everywhere, or whether vehicular cycling works, but that there are those staunch vehicular cycling advocates that eschew cycling infrastructure, and even such things as "3 foot laws."

This is the real message of the OP... not that vc doesn't work, but that there are those of the VC Sect that in fact impede any "progress" that may make cycling more appealing to the masses.... "the normals." Now note, I put progress in quotes, as indeed we can and should question what exactly is "progress," as certainly a narrow sidewalk-like sidepath is hardly a positive thing for cycling in general. But why is it that cycling advocates in general cannot together agree and push for standards that will improve cycling, and why is it that those of the VC Sect don't push cycling at all, but merely rest on their laurels, and contend that cycling is only for the few? And how much do these attitudes of the VC Sect actually harm cycling... impede for instance the acceptance of cycling by motorists, due to the somewhat militant attitude displayed by some... Here I cite situations such as the website quoted in the OP and the comments that tend to acknowledge the usefulness of vehicular cycling while decrying the de facto guru of vehicular cycling as being a terrible representative for cycling.

As another example, look to the woes of our own Chipseal and his issues and actual trials... much more politically based than practically based. (his blog shows roads with quite smooth and usable shoulders which he refuses to use as they are "shoulders.")

The message of the OP is that the VC Sect is in large part cycling's own worst enemy.

chipcom 

and this is news?

genec

No, it's just worthy of discussion. Perhaps the biggest issue being WHY? Is it simply a matter of wanting to be a member of a unique club? Is speed the primary motivating factor, as some suggest? Why is the prevailing attitude "my way IS the highway."

squirtdad

Bek more reality check:

Germany: area 360,000 km2/138,000 mile2 Population density: 229 per km2/593 m2
United States: area 9,800,000 km2/ 3,800,000 mile2 population density 32/km2 83/m2

The simple geography differences explain much....... most american have to go further to do basic stuff. And there are many, many places that simply don't have the money or ridership to create any bike infrastructure.

I am not saying improvments in instructure are bad or not needed, but I am saying infrastucture is not the most important thing to increasing ridership and the there may be way more benefit from simpler/cheaper infrastructure that covers more roads (i.e bike lanes) than more complex/expensive options that don't cover as many roads.

Beyond that......there are cultural differences....... ie local stores that are more expensive vs the big box stores, as long as people insist on the lowest price (not best value) there will be a focus on building big stores with big parking lots.

Bottom line, ridership will not increase much beyond a core unless riding is an benefit to the rider, either in econimic benefit or convenience...with economic being the drivers

sggoodri

Traffic has slowed on that road since I took the pictures, about 10 years ago, due to the addition of a few traffic lights, additional development, and some road realignments.

However, then and now that road would be an ideal location for a road diet, benefitting both pedestrians and cyclists. Dropping it to one travel lane in each direction and adding sidewalks would calm traffic, make it much friendlier to pedestrians and would provide enough room for drivers to pass cyclists without changing lanes. If I were king I'd also replace a few of the signalized intersections in the shopping center with roundabouts.

Bekologist

Steve- if that road is signed anything over 35mph, 'road diet' would be strongly weighted for the inclusion of bike lanes. wide lanes and higher speed traffic are NOT a design accommodation for the vast majority of US bicyclists and would never meet safe routes to school criteria for example without a bikelane or other preferred facility of bicycle traffic.


yeah, that's why rural North Dakota and small towns in the great basin don't need bike infrastructure like germany. but most americans live in urban settings, didn't you know that? 80 percent would be characterized as living in an urban pocket or larger.

over HALF of all americans live in cities larger than 200,000.

surely we can do something for at least half of all americans to make their urbanized communities more amenable to bicycle transportation by more americans.

trying, and flailing, to point fingers at population density is no excuse.

Bekologist

yes. the point was Mikhail Cooper-Anderson's unveiling of the secret sect of vehicular cycling. i think most of us here are familiar with the obstructionist message associated with the rabid, militant Vehikular Cyklist and their illusory grail of supreme vehicularity.

Problems come when the VC infiltrate planning departments under the guise of promoting bicycling, like that Dallas bike cooridinator or much of the North Carolina 'bicycle driving' contingent that works with NCDOT to come up with ways to NOT add bike lanes to roadways (16 foot wide lanes haven't they heard of the right hook? sheesh)

Obstructionism to bike specificity of roadscape - that is proven to work in other countries and strongly implicated in the new surge of american bicycling - is the modus operandi of the cult of the supreme vehikularists.