Actually, I have been as clear as I can be that I don't buy into the myth that All infrastructure that is labeled as bikey will enhance cycling quality or cyclist numbers. I hope I have been clear that high quality builds can indeed bring about more cycling. I bemoan the fact that too much of what has been built over the past couple of decades is poorly thought out and that the reason it is designed so poorly is because of an unwarranted, irrational fear of overtaking traffic, rather than a focus on intersection and door zone issues. These designs (and redesigns) often exacerbate both intersection conflicts and door zone issues.

Look, PDX has been flat in terms of cyclist numbers for years in spite of greatly expanded infrastructure. Same story in Davis (actually, the cyclists have gone down as infrastructure has gone in). Having experienced what has been built and rebuilt in these places, it is clear that the primary reason cyclists aren't flocking to these facilities is the poor quality of what is going in. It only takes one community in which it was built and they went away to break the case of "build it and they will come". Several have been pointed out in this thread, but, in an act of supreme faith, some folks cling to the belief in the magic of bikey builds. I'm sure that feels good, but it isn't going to get us to where we mostly all want to go (that being high (>50%) bike modal share).

A little more data: Minneapolis Public Works Department has released their study which expands on the Bike-Walk Twin Cities data that came out in Mid December. Same general conclusions. The MPWD data includes a table at the end of pretty much every number from every year at every location, and categorizes the type of infrastructure at each location. In lots of places, that has changed over the years, so folks are free to do their own data cuts.

http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/www/...s1p-118648.pdf

Methodology here:

http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/www/...s1p-118654.pdf

+1

http://www.streets.mn/2013/10/04/do-...-bike-lanes-2/

I think this sums it up: "What mom wouldn’t want to take her kids for a thrill bicycle ride on Park or Portland [bike lanes]?"

I would venture to say, you have not been clear on that point. It would have been useful had you stated this more clearly in your OP rather than waiting 11 pages into the thread. :rolleyes:

But that's in the nature of A&S. Dogmatic, black and white, sound bite threads get more attention than one's that admit to the ambiguities and uncertainties of reality.


Ah, the old "irrational fear of overtaking traffic" theory. Usually this one is accompanied by the "cycling inferiority syndrome theory" and the "childish notions of cycling" theory. Not that there ever can be or is there proof for such theories but they sound good. For me they are a bit dated. They worked in the 70's but in the hard data demands of the 21st century they are not worth the effort needed to dispute them.

Is this your opinion or do you have something to back this up? It's interesting that spare_wheel claims that bike counts are skewed because new infrastructure is built, cyclists rush to it and DOT statisticians and Copenhaginista bikey builders quickly count them so as to justify its implementation.

Which is it? Are you guys on the same page with this or no?

Which imaginary folks are you talking about here? Me? Because, frankly, most of what has gone on here in the Boston area and NYC is what I would classify as subsistence bike infrastructure. It's not all that great. I could pick it apart with the best of them. BUT it is having an effect on the numbers of cyclists, it is increasing motorist awareness of cyclists and it is an improvement on the non- bike specific infrastructure that existed before.

Increasing overall numbers is wonderful but the objective may also be to make the environment as safe, convenient and accessible for those that do ride and some basic infrastructure can do that.

Portland and Davis are pretty unique in the US. Whether the numbers are flattening in those places or not and, if they are, what the root causes of it is are certainly worth examination. But my understanding of this thread was that the question of "Will they really come if you build it?" Was to be more generally applied.

In many American cities building bike infrastructure of any kind is still a gleam in a cyclist's eye. Communities are in negotiation and still determining whether the addition of even a simple bit of bike lane stripe or a sharrow is being argued. A question I posed earlier in this thread was whether cyclists like you and spare_wheel, who live and ride in the rarified Portland area, really want to send the signal to less well endowed communities that infrastructure is not the answer? Because that's the message I'm getting from you guys in this thread.

Yeah, it is better than it was but the bike lanes are problematic for riding on busy streets like Park or Portland.

Currently I am riding in Tucson, making my way from bike path to bike path and checking out bike lanes/shoulders. Some are horrible. And you really have to be careful of being right hooked or sideswiped. And there is glass everywhere. The couple of bike shops I have been to really talked up the quality of Tucson biking with its network of paths and lanes, but they have nothing on Minneapolis. Though I will say that I am finding people on the bike paths are really polite and seem to follow the rules. Except for one guy, who passed my spouse on the right, almost wiping both of them out. Jerk.

I love it. :p


Thank you, Cranky One, for an excellent article about the kinds of separated infrastructure one sees in cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam. This is exactly the kind of infrastructure spare_wheel and B. Carfree are talking about modeling after, I am sure! ;)

You state that, regarding the three basic social theories concerning bikeways, "Not that there ever can be or is there proof for such theories." Your claim is technically accurate, but it is also entirely irrelevant. I see that I need to remind you, and our readers, that in science there never is proof of any hypothesis, only the balance of the evidence on each side of the issue. To reasonably dispute these three social theories you need to show some of the following. 1: That the great majority of car-bike collisions occur as straight-ahead cyclist being hit by straight-ahead motorist. 2: If you can demonstrate item 1, then that greatest fear of car-bike collisions is correct, but if you cannot prove item 1, which I think is a reasonable assumption, based on the facts, then you have to demonstrate that the greatest fear of car-bike collisions concerns those caused by turning or crossing movements. 3: You have to demonstrate that American bikeways have been designed far more to prevent car-bike collisions caused by turning or crossing movements than those caused by straight-ahead cyclists being hit by straight-ahead motorists. 4: You need to demonstrate that great majority of the American public, and of the bikeways advocates, believe that cyclists have legal and operational status equal to that of motorists. 5: You need to demonstrate that American bikeways, both the older AASHTO type and the NACTO type, are based on cyclists having and using the skills of normal drivers, the skills used by vehicular cyclists, rather than on cyclists who are presumed not to possess such skills.

Unless you can demonstrate all, or a great majority, of the above hypotheses, you have no basis for criticizing those three social hypotheses regarding American cycling. I believe that there are no grounds for confidence in your assertions.

Furthermore, I don't know the person hiding behind your pseudonym, but I think that identifying yourself by using a well-known picture of Einstein riding a bicycle demonstrates a flagrant claim that goes far beyond your performance.

And I repeat for those who didn't get it the first time-

And of course like any good hypothesis, the concept should be peer reviewed, and I don't believe any other cycling advocates or traffic engineers have elected to consider the "cyclist inferiority syndrome theory" as an issue.

Of course I could be wrong... if anyone has data on this.

"Hiding" behind a pseudonym? "Flagrant claim"? Just when I thought A&S discussion had touched bottom.:roflmao2:

Undarnbelievable! Wait til the Mods get wise to such a horrible scam! :eek::eek:

+1, I'm agnostic on the legitimate issue of this thread, but this is a new low. It's a classic "your mother....." shift from someone who can't seem to debate the facts.

The only thing these theories "worked" at in the 70's was fooling some people looking for simple answers backed by a wall of words, regardless of lack of credible evidence supporting the conclusions or simple minded catch phrases. Thankfully, today for the most part, these simple minded theories have been tossed into the dust bin for useless/manipulative schemes.

Now wait a minute... now just wait one darn minute... I'm getting a hint of sarcasm in your post...you're...you're not telling me you are not a smiling Cheshire Cat on a tree branch are you? :twitchy:


I have been deceived all these years!

:notamused:


Devastated.


:cry:

Ya outed me! Oh for shame. In order to end the suspense, below is the Real Truth.

Data are dangerous. I think if The Netherlands and Denmark had relied on data when they had the idea to begin focusing on building better bicycling infrastructure in the 70's, they would never have built anything. Just as with gambling, you have to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em.

Sometimes you have to use a bit of common sense.

And, I completely enjoy buzz's photo every time I see it. Makes me smile. Hope you don't ever switch hair stylists :-)

Could you be any more condescending? And it's amusing that you are essentially repeating something I actually explained up thread.


http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php/926697-Will-they-really-come-if-you-build-it/page2?p=16348688#post16348688

Quote:

---

I also think it's very important to note that ACS commuting numbers are not cycling mode share numbers. For example PDX has 6 universities/colleges with tens of thousands of student and not a single one of these student commuters is counted in mode share stats. Moreover, a person who does not commute the majority of the time by bike or who has a mixed bike commute is not counted. European mode share numbers typicall measure "cyclists" on a per trip basis so that anyone who uses a bike for any purpose is counted.

---

Despite the fact that ACS numbers are not equivalent to european mode share numbers there is no question that they are better measures of cycling **TRENDS** than amateur surveys conducted by volunteers at the behest of highly politicized transportation departments/bureaus.

The spike to ~6% in PDX was well outside the margin of error.

[TABLE]
[TR]
[TD="align: right"]2008:| 17365[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]2061[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]5.96%[/TD]
[TD="align: left"]2007:|[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]10987[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]1587[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]3.91%[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
(counts, margin of error, percentage)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...=sharing#gid=0

Buzzman, While you were referring to b_carfree I should state that I am unequivocally pro-infrastructure. I just don't see much evidence of correlation between infrastructure build out and increases in mode share. I do, however, believe that infrastructure is an important factor in the maintenance of elevated mode share.

Your reply requires the readers to conclude that even you, buzzman, cannot find sufficient data to offset what you, buzzman, consider to be the fatally weak data supporting the cyclist-inferiority hypotheses. I feel the need to inform you that the scientific test of an hypothesis is by considering the weight of the evidence on each side of that hypothesis. I have long provided the evidence on the cyclist-inferiority side of that hypothesis, while you, just now, have implicitly confessed to being unable to provide any item of evidence to counter any one of my items of evidence. You have provided no evidence to consider the cyclist-inferiority hypotheses to be not the best available explanation of American bicycle transportation affairs.

You need to consider how peer review is done. By and large, it is done by journal editorial boards when considering a paper that they would like to publish. Please inform us, genec, which journal you think would consider publishing papers of the type that I have been writing. Without such a journal, there won't be peer review in the normal sense. It has been a long time since failure of the attempted trials at journals of bicycle traffic engineering; the failures were caused by lack of sufficient interest in the subject.

Of course, some papers on the subject of bicycle traffic engineering have been published by journals whose subject field might be relevant, such as Accident Analysis (or whatever it is called). However, those papers utterly demonstrated that the referees employed by those journals knew nothing significant about bicycle traffic engineering. If the referees had had any relevant knowledge, they would have rejected those papers, as has been demonstrated by the post publication reviews by those competent in bicycle traffic engineering.

But refereeing does not occur until some editorial board has already decided that it would like to publish an offered paper. But editors who would employ referees as ignorant as those described in the previous paragraph would also dislike papers that those referees would dislike. Furthermore, several journal editorial boards advocate the environmentalist anti-motoring agenda; they would not publish (and one has so written me) papers that did not advance that agenda.

And think a bit more. Just who are my peers in the field of bicycle traffic engineering? Having my papers refereed by referees who know far less about the subject than I do does not constitute peer review; such review is no more than superstitious newspaper misinformation, of which there is plenty in the bicycle transport field.

We are left with the unofficial peer evaluators. By and large, my hypotheses have been accepted by Steven Goodridge, Dan Guttierrez, John Allen, John Schubert, Serge *******, and Keri Caffrey, all big names in the field of bicycle traffic engineering. For that matter, the I Am Traffic website is entirely based on a strategy for countering the cyclist-inferiority superstition.

Given all these facts, genec's criticism of cyclist-inferiority hypotheses carries no weight, except to display his own bias.

Dear god, so... buzzman is not actually Einstein?!?!

dunh dunh DUNNNNHHH

You aren't a lumberjack? Or did you not design a Subaru?

My faith in humanity, run ramshackle over the falls! :(

WHAT was this thead about to start with? It's become infested with vines.

Too funny! :lol: The best of the silliness being, My theories have been accepted by the Usual Suspects, all the big names in the field of John Forester Brand Vehicular Cycling Sycophancy.

When the "infrastructure" is based on what I consider to be an irrational fear of same-direction traffic and is shoe-horned into spaces where it both adds peculiar dangers (door zones, right-hooks) and is discontinuous (on-again-off-again), then I would recommend passing on it until something better can be built. If we're talking about communities that have the courage and wisdom to put in two meter wide bike lanes totally clear of the door zone, even if that means removing some car storage facilities and even some travel lanes, then there's some potential there. Sure, there's still intersection issues to be hammered out. (If they want to slow all the traffic down by banning right turn on red for automobiles and using separate signals for bikes and other traffic I would be interested to see how that works in an American environment.)

Perhaps our longer experience with segregated facilities and poorly done bike lanes out here in the west can explain some of our objections to things that seem fresh and wonderful back east. After "infrastructure" WILL come mandatory use laws. These laws will likely become more and more severe as infrastructure is added. Eventually, cyclists will be fighting for the right to use roads that are even parallel to something that has been officially designated as a bike route (that's where the fight is currently in Oregon).

Seeing this handwriting on the wall, some of us are now, belatedly, insisting that if it's going to be built and we're going to have to use it, we want it done right. We sure wish we had been insisting on this forty years ago when some of this stuff was first being done, because it's a lot harder to get dangerous, inconvenient things removed after the fact than it would have been to force them to be done well at the outset. Unfortunately, cycling advocates were just too giddy over getting something "bikey" to see the unintended consequences of what we got.

However, in the end, I don't think the lines and concrete are the biggest factors. (Note: I'm not saying they are unimportant.) When I have been in times/places where traffic laws are vigorously enforced, I rarely have any issues. In those times/places where everyone knows there are no consequences for uncivilized behavior, then things aren't quite as pleasant. Police departments don't operate in a vacuum. They will do the bidding of the elected officials, who in turn will do what they see as in their interests. So, we're back to that positive feedback loop of more cyclists leads to more demands for a better cycling environment, leads to more cyclists...with the twist that we shouldn't ignore the social/legal environment.