Cars vs Bicycles vs Pedestrians

Don't think so, Charlatan. Pranksters at work, I suspect.

 

alert recieved

 

With the bike paths around my city, it is easier to go right through downtown on a bike than to go around it or to ride away from town into the suburbs. There are more stops at the intersections outside of town.

I wish I had done some bicycle touring/camping back when I was a poor college grad. And it would be nice if there was a really good network of hostels/campgrounds next to bike paths going from city to city.

This is a good website: www.crazyguyonabike.com

 

Orlando has a surprisingly serviceable array of either small enough roads that a bike can safely top out without worrying about vehicle traffic or outright MUPS that are in, again, surprisingly good shape.

 

*kicks in door, points finger at everybody*

Okay, who sent up the distress flare?

 

Dropped me onto Charlatan's post clean and smooth, and the red icon disappears.

 

HE DID IT!

 

There's a lot more worse spots then that in NY. Especially in certain parts in Chinatown.

 

I've been mixed about the bike lanes in Toronto. I'm an avid cyclist and used my bike to commute over the years, but it has usually been from the Gerrard/Yonge area to Lakeshore/Bathurst. An easy ride. It would have been a lot easier if there were bike lanes back then. I find that other cyclists piss me off far more than motorists (who on the whole attempt to be polite at least in the downtown core). These guys serve to embarrass me as a cyclist as they continuously flaunt safety and regulations - jumping curbs, wrong way riding, listening to Ipods while riding, ignoring traffic signals. grrr. And it isn't just couriers. It's all segments of cyclists. My wife and I have come up with a model of arrogance called the Arrogance Pyramid. It is inversely proportional to the number of wheels on your vehicle. The tip of the pyramid is occupied by 2 wheels. Cyclist hold the most arrogant position. They (we) combine a holier-than-thou sensibility with a flagrant disregard for safety and law. Truckers seem to be the base - the majority being considerate professionals along with their 18 wheels. Makes me wonder about the Unicycle rider I saw in the Beaches...

I am kind of glad that the war on the car is over in TO, but saddened that there is such polarization now. I would like to have bike lanes all through the city - but am very comfortable riding the suburban streets as they are. Glad that Jarvis street is removing the lanes - shouldn't have been there in the first place - and would love to see them on Sherbourne instead. Especially glad that Mayor Ford removed that STUPID STUPID vehicle tax of $60 on top of registration of cars. That - more than anything - served to usher out the Miller-ites. I like the Minnesota style - but wow. Lots of pavement out in the far reaches when the roads are wide. I find the lanes more important in the core where cramped conditions warrant the designation of space. Lived in Appeldoorn NL for a bit in the late '70's and there they had dedicated bike lanes with traffic signals but it was very confusing to pedestrians.

 

For some unknown reason, I am now very alert about this.

 

Hey Leto, the reason the $60 car registration was necessary is that the Feds and the Province have downloaded so many services onto the city but have not transferred more of our tax dollars back to deal with them. Toronto doesn't have a revenue problem per se. Toronto sends a lot of tax revenue out but a fraction of it comes back to fund things like Transit. The solution the Province offered wasn't to give us back more of our money, it was to grant us the right to raise more funding within our own borders (which is where the land transfer tax and the $60 car levy came from).

Despite what The Brother's Ford say, we don't have a spending problem in Toronto. Sure we can find efficiencies in the way we deliver services but really, there doesn't appear to be all that much fat in the existing system.

As for Jarvis, it totally made sense to put the lanes there. There is no need for a five lane highway road in the core of the city. As it turned out, the difference in commute times were negligible between the pre and post bike lane additions (an additional 3 to 5 minutes depending on time of day). Taking the middle (reversible) lane out of Jarvis was a good thing.

As for a war on cars... there was never a war on cars. What the city needs is fewer cars on the roads so that those who like to drive and not sitting in grid lock. The only way to make that happen is to make the roads more efficient. A combination of public transit, bicycles, walking and cars, making use of the road, efficiently, will do this. Putting more money into making roads better and easier for only cars, will only result in more congestion.

 

Poorly behaved cyclists enrage me as much as poorly behaved drivers. Maybe "enrage" isn't the right word, as I'm happy to see them getting around on two wheels, but their behavior endangers them as well as the drivers and pedestrians around them, reflects badly on law abiding cyclists and irritates drivers who might one day react by taking their irritation out on other cyclists with dangerous or life-threatening consequences.

With miles of scenic country roads and off-road trails, our area is already a popular cycling destination for locals and visitors alike. Our newspaper's LTE page regularly features residents complaining about cyclists riding three abreast, blowing through stop signs, riding on the sidewalk, going the wrong way up the street dressed in all black with no lights on in the middle of the night, etc. Like I said, I'm angered and frustrated by this behavior as much as they are, but their proposed solutions of banning bikes from public roadways, confining them to riding on the sidewalk (illegal in our county), or requiring bikes to be registered and tagged with license plates won't solve the problem.

In my mind, the most critical component of safe roadway use for all motorists and cyclists is education, particularly in Maryland where cyclists are legally allowed to travel on most of the roadways in the state. Lots of drivers don't actually know this, just as they and many cyclists don't know that bikes are supposed to ride on the road and function as vehicles. It's been a while since I was in Driver's Ed, so I don't know what, if anything, drivers are being taught about how to interact with cyclists on the road—whatever it is probably isn't enough. Likewise, I don't know of anywhere in the United States where you have to take a class on how to ride a bicycle in traffic before you do, but I think it might be necessary. In Holland, for example, kids in school must pass a bicycling skills course as part of their PE curriculum. This wouldn't go over well in many places in the US, and we'll probably never catch up with the Dutch in terms of using bicycles for transportation, but I still think it's a brilliant idea.

My city has applied for Bicycle Friendly Community status with the League of American Bicyclists; over time this will involve construction of bike lanes throughout the city and marking existing roadways with signage and sharrows to designate bike routes. Engineering changes are great and will make a big difference, don't get me wrong, but they'll do the city no good at all if riders are still salmoning up one way streets or barreling down sidewalks, or if drivers are still screaming at cyclists to get off the road.

I'm committed to doing my part and will join four other city residents in getting certified this fall as cycling instructors. My employer will be seeking a Bicycle Friendly Businessdesignation to go along with the city's designation, and I'll do what I can to help make sure both designations actually mean something.

Oh, and here's a video of what Market Street in San Francisco looked like at the turn of the 20th century, before there were traffic laws. Everybody was playing nice; can you believe it?

 

It's interesting you post that video. There are some places in the Netherlands that have been experimenting with getting rid of curbs and creating spaces that are not delineated. Without the space being defined, drivers are slowing down and pedestrians are paying attention... just like the video.

 

Yes, DamnitAll

That vid transported me. An eight minute trance. It looked like everybody was staying 'Awake', rather than blindly following or blindly kicking against rules and presumed conventions.

I was looking very closely, and wondered what, if anything was happening with the timing. I know that for many years, reprises of film this old used to be speeded up on account of more frames per second. In recent years, things have mainly been rectified.

My question is: is the vid now Slower than life, or are people moving more slowly back there then? There was a certain pace on the Greek Isle of Samos. It resembles this video. There are times when individuals seem to be leisurely swinging along ... look at the legs. Yet, when they hurry, there IS the kind of flurry I would expect from full speed. Horse trot seems full speed too.

IF they this video is at full speed, then something pretty darn amazing is happening: People have no rules or traffic lights to follow or to 'protect them'. They have to be fully alert more often, and we do see them jumping and leaping in and out of each others' way. Yet just look at the incredible 'chilled outness' in between those incidents, even though there are a few people who, in a hurry, are going at quite a clip.

If I have not just witnessed some vari-timing on film speed and blended it with wishful thinking, then to tie closely with the topic-title ... "Cars vs Bicycles vs Pedestrians", I think I am witnessing "Cars with Bicycles with Pedestrians." Versus" is not present, because at that era of 'thoroughfare-usage', different rules have not yet evolved to cause rigid expectations and differences.

Now ... that's my hypothesis at 1:40AM in England. No alcohol in me, but in a dreamlike state caused by half digested burgers and sausages.

If it holds water, then Charlatan's observation, to my eyes, lends weight to support the possibility that such 'states of original grace' are more attainable than supporters of rigid rules might believe. That more 'freedom' might spur the re-development of more in-the-moment senses of responsibility in other areas too.

I've not constructed my line of thinking very well. I confess, I'm too tired to kick its tyres and formalise it. But in a mood of cautious optimism, I'd like to put it on the table as a model of problems and solutions which might generalise to the process of 'people generally getting along together in shared space'.

 

This alone says it all.

 

I started biking in the last year, and I often do so for my commute - 3 miles to a bike shuttle, and then 10 miles on the shuttle to work (the shuttle goes over a long and busy bridge that's forbidden for cars). I started riding on trails, but gradually started feeling more comfortable on roads instead. I certainly support more bike infrastructure, but not all bike lanes are the same..

For instance, we have many bike lanes here on arterial streets, where the lane is 4-5 feet wide and right next to the row of parked cars. I tend to avoid those roads in favor or less busy nearby roads (with no lanes) since I don't want to be doored. Bike lanes should either be wide enough (and with a painted buffer) to be safe, or should not be there. But often there's a desire to put in a bike lane while keeping as much as possible cars + parking lanes, which doesn't work out quite well.

I know Portland and Vancouver has "bike greenways" which are secondary streets still open to cars, but less practical (traffic circles, no through driving) and with lights/stop signs arranged so that bikes can cross arterials safely. This seems like a good option when possible - I hope they try doing some of that in Seattle.

And there are certainly lots of stupid drivers, pedestrians, and bikers out there. There are a lot of bikers who blow through red lights, ride aggressively on the sidewalk, and don't wear helmets or use lights at night.. But the vast majority is law abiding. Same for pedestrians and drivers.

Though I will say that one rule that is sometime worth breaking on a bike is doing rolling stops when no cars are present at an intersection (especially going uphill..).. But you need to makes sure there are no cars around.
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I'll also add that it's too bad that some people feel so threatened by bike lanes that they regard any road reconfiguration as something to be fought tooth and nail.. But in the end we have different modes of transportation and we can/should accommodate everybody.

 

I hear you, and I even get & understand all those points. But I liked the suicide lane on Jarvis. it had character. I don't like how Gerrard got constricted with a bike lane - Cabbagetown was my main drive. I managed quite well cycling on the roads, without bike lanes and don't really see a big difference. I don't know what the answer is, except maybe to bring the Federal/Provincial gov't into the modern era for funding. It certainly wasn't imposing punishment taxes on the citizens. I knew as soon as the City of Toronto act was passed that we were steps away from more taxes, if not our own income tax. I'm just glad that I have some relief from one of the more onerous taxes. I actually got into an argument with the MTO clerk when they first tried to collect the extra $120 - as they were a provincial arm not a municipal tax collection agency. I'm glad that Miller is gone, but not very happy with the Ford group. Kinda amateurish.

 

Part of the problem, in Canada, has been the way cities have been set up and the natural (again Canadian) desire to vilify cities (especially Toronto). It's counter productive since that vast majority of our populations live and work in cities. Cities are our economic engine and yet we continue to choke them.

New and stable funding needs to flow to cities for infrastructure, transit and services. I also feel that, in certain cases, more governmental powers need to granted. At present, cities are the provinces' beast. They exisit at the whim of the province.

 

Can we add skateboarders to this list? They suck sometimes too. I almost got run down by one today.

 

Car beats bicycle and pedestrian. It's simple physics. Car also beats motorcycle, as my friends in Paramedical Services often relate with whimsical stories of gruesome death.

I dislike bicyclists. They act like they're above the law, forcing me to slow down in the street but running red lights whenever they see fit. The ones who follow all of the laws are annoying, but tolerable. The ones who cannot stand being constrained by current traffic regulations can sit on the hood of my truck as I crumple their eco-friendly ride into metal spaghetti.