jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, March 24, 2018 at 9:04:28 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 3/24/2018 10:21 AM, Joerg wrote:
On 2018-03-23 11:53, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, March 21, 2018 at 3:18:52 PM UTC-7, Tim McNamara
wrote:
On Tue, 20 Mar 2018 13:49:25 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/...-friendly-town




I thought this was particularly sensible: "I've spent enough time in
Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Malmo to realize that the world's
truly great bicycle friendly places had lots of bicyclists before
they had lots of infrastructure.


They would have lost all that had they not built the infrastructure.
That happened time and again, including here in the US. In the old days
people rode because they could simply not afford a motor vehicle. Only
the doctor, the factory owner and the mayor could. Germany is a classic
example where ridership plummeted while DK and NL built a bike
infrastructure and, consequently, many people kept cycling.

IOW if you don't build it they'll leave.


Â*Change the culture.Â* Create
cyclists... more than you can possibly imagine.Â* If you do, then
the built environment will naturally follow."

I'm not saying it's easy. It's just more sensible than spending
a fortune hoping to build an Amsterdam.

The "if you build it, they will pedal" approach that many people
are rightly suspicious of.Â* That infrastructure draws existing
cyclists, but does it add to them?Â* I'm sure someone has some stats
on that.Â* I am doubtful but I could be wrong.


There are lots of examples, one of the being NYC and in particular
Manhattan. If has now leveled off which was to be expected but they sure
has phenomenal growth:

https://www.amny.com/transit/cycling...nyc-1.17556903

It has also resulted in extra business revenuw especially for
restaurants and pubs which also translates into more tax flow.


For the last 30 years, I've been cycling to the same building and
riding the same bank of elevators every morning.Â* No, this is not a
suicide note -- just background on the reoccurring conversation I
have with would-be cyclists. Once or twice a week, someone asks me
how far I ride or makes some comment on the fact that I rode in the
rain, snow, wind (whatever -- most comments came when I was riding in
an ortho-boot after my ski fractures), and then I get the excuse. "I
would ride except that [it is too far, there are too many hills, the
weather sucks, it is "dangerous" or "other"].

Yesterday, I was standing in the elevator, dripping wet from the
rain, and I got the usual question about how far I ride, and then
this early middle-aged, somewhat overweight woman tells me she lives
seven miles away but that there are two big hills, and she's not good
with hills. Hills are a serious impediment for people who live west
of the West Hills.

Anyway, no infrastructure is going to get a lot more people on bikes
unless it is flat, ...


Not so. At least not out here and not in all the places I lived which
were all quite hilly.


Â* ... placed near town or some work destination, ...


Not so either. They just truck their bikes to the trail head.


Â*... the weather is generally O.K. and that it is not "dangerous."


Correct. Most will not ride on busy thoroughfares and most won't ride in
the rain or when it's too cold or hot.


...Â* Dangerous can be other bicycles according to one fit woman I know.


That I haven't heard, ever. It's just that some of the faster riders
object to having to slow down so much before passing. Like people not
wanting to head out for a road trip in their car when everyone else does.


Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Â* ...Â* She's
afraid of other bicyclists in the crowded facilities.
https://bikeportland.org/2011/06/22/...r-photos-55300


BTW, the "other" category is simply never-will-ride people making
excuses like busy schedules and general impossibility.Â* Those folks
will never ride.

Just removing danger -- like building a separated facility -- will
bring out some additional riders, but if it is not flat or close-in,
it will probably just collect those people who are already riding and
are willing to make a real effort. A hilly bike path will attract the
young but somewhat timid and the spin-class heros who have big
engines but don't know how to handle themselves on the roads. It's
not going to get granny on her bike -- at least not on a regular
basis.


It is going to get a lot of people onto bikes, see Manhattan and umpteen
other examples. However, many of those will be people who are not
foreign to riding but generally don't ride (anymore). The proverbial
garage queen owners.

I have convinced some to start riding again after showing them bike
paths and singletrack. They simply will not ride on busy roads. That's
just how it is. If there is a bike path they truck their bikes there, if
there isn't then they don't ride and their bikes remain garage queens.

Joerg, you have convinced "some" to start riding again. Wonderful - but
how many is "some"? Did you get the local bike mode share above 10%?
Above 3%? No, "some" probably means three people rode their bikes for a
while. Odds are they will soon find something else to do.

Let's recall that despite all the rah-rah news tied to the thousands of
various bike facilities built in the past decades, bike mode share is
still microscopic:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slate...t_popular.html

Let's recall that during the years when a lawsuit prevented almost ANY
bike construction in San Francisco, cycling still rose in popularity as
much as it did in cities that were painting their roads green and
shuttling cyclists into chutes. It was fashionable to ride, so people
rode. No infrastructure necessary.

And lets recall that fashion is powerful but temporary. The current
increases in bike use are not as great as the surge in the early 1970s.
These modest increases are probably tied more to trendiness than to
weird segregated facilities. And the trendiness may last no longer than
the tie-dyed bell bottoms, disco, cabbage patch dolls or fidget spinners.

I think those who love riding bicycles will ride. Everyone else will
travel by the most convenient method available. Some of those "others"
will be on bikes, but in a country where people drive over 25 miles on a
typical day, most won't give up the car for the bike.

Facilities in some places will increase ridership -- but determining the
effect of the facility on the increase is really hard. There are
billions of riders in the new south waterfront cycle track that weren't
there 30 years ago. Nobody was there 30 years ago except me and some
crack-heads, back when it was a pot-holed road through a warehouse
district and former shipyard. Now it is a massive condo development -- a
pop-up mini-city for the hipster urbanites. I think it is blight and
preferred the empty, rutted road, but now it's crawling with people,
streetcars, buses, aerial trams -- and cyclists.

On the other hand, millions were spent on the HWY 205 bike path, and I
never see anyone riding out there or way out on Burnside in the pin-head
region. You can put in awesome facilities, and the locals won't give a
sh** if they're a bunch of mullet-heads tossing 40 ouncers out their car
windows. You have to have people who want to ride. I only ride those
facilities when I'm getting out to the Gorge. It's nice having them, but not much ROI.

-- Jay Beattie.


The build and they will come, does come but frankly with some fairly big
caveats, lot of the London Super Highways where busy with bikes before,
they where bike lanes, though the segregated sectors do seem to be pulling
in more than just the high speed/mileage commuters.

But not all works that well, my commute has a few miles of shared paths for
a few miles, lots of cars often stationary but bikes are a rarity, do see a
number of electric skateboards though! The path is direct and connects up
to the town centres on route but barely anyone uses it, they would rather
sit in there cars, it’s nr Heathrow and folks I swear go and sit in traffic
jams as a hobby around there!

Roger Merriman