Dangerous bike lane obstructions in Redwood City

On Feb 3, 10:31 pm, "Mike Jacoubowsky"
wrote:


I will put this as simply as possible.

No need. I handle complexity pretty well.


Bike lanes are an advertisement for cycling.

I agree.

The get people thinking that
bikes are part of the transportation system,

Yes, a separated part.

and both encourage people to ride,

I agree.

as well as let the cagers know they're not the only people with rights
to the road.

I disagree. I believe they let cagers "know" that cyclists have a
right to the bike lane, not to the rest of the road. Obviously, this
is one of the kernels of our disagreement.
[...]

Besides, Europe is loaded with bike lanes and separate bike paths. I don't
hear people clamoring to get rid of them. Are they just too dumb over there
to recognize the dangers? They're drinking the cyanide-laced Kool-Aid
unwittingly?

I'm certainly aware of Europeans who seriously dislike bike lanes (as
well as separate bike paths). The concerns I've stated are the same
ones they've stated. As one example, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4789146.stm

And regarding the Kool-Aid, let me give a related story. In our local
metropolitan park, we have what one of the most inept designs of bike
lanes I've ever seen. It's a two-way bike lane on the left side of a
one-way-for-autos road, that "features" many bollards IN THE CENTER of
the bike lane, as well as at its sides. These are serious collision
hazards, especially where they pop up on semi-blind curves and steep
downhills. Our bike club has tried unsuccessfully for years to have
the hazards removed. I've communicated with at least four nationally
recognized cycling facilities experts, and all (even the most pro-
facilities guy) agreed that the design is a serious hazard and needs
to be changed. I think even you will agree with that assessment.

But despite this, there are local cyclists who say they like it. As
one told me, "It's not perfect, but at least they're doing something
for us."

So, yes, I think there is some Kool-Aid being consumed. Any time a
large group accepts a "safety" measure imposed on them, despite
documented problems with that measure, and despite evidence that the
measure does not increase safety, Kool-Aid is a reasonable
supposition.

Or to put it more briefly: There are many people who are not
competent to judge.

At some point we have to look at the INTENT of the accomodation, and
recognize that if the intent is favorable (to cyclists), people are going to
be working hard to make sure that favorable intent actually happens. If, on
the other hand, you have a municipality that wants to "deal" with a
situation (getting cyclists off the dang road!), the outcome will likely be
quite different.

I'm sorry, but I can't be content with bad facilities, even if they're
installed with the best of intentions. What's the bike lane to hell
paved with?

- Frank Krygowski

On Feb 3, 10:59 pm, (Bill Z.) wrote:


My spin detector just went off. What *really* happened at this
meeting?

You need a new spin detector. What happened was exactly what I
described.

- Frank Krygowski

Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
I was recently in a meeting where a "complete streets" advocate was
talking to members of a civic group. He had a Powerpoint
presentation, showing the transformation of a busy street into a
hypothetical paradise, including (of course) bike lanes. The civic
group members were swooning just as he hoped; but I interrupted and
said "To be fair, you should point out that many cyclists have learned
there are problems with separate bike lanes."

I will put this as simply as possible.

Bike lanes are an advertisement for cycling. The get people thinking that
bikes are part of the transportation system, and both encourage people to
ride, as well as let the cagers know they're not the only people with rights
to the road....

Can not the same function be served by "sharrows" and "Bike Route" signs?

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
"And never forget, life ultimately makes failures of all people."
- A. Derleth

On Feb 4, 12:28 am, Tom Sherman
wrote:
Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:


Bike lanes are an advertisement for cycling. The get people thinking that
bikes are part of the transportation system, and both encourage people to
ride, as well as let the cagers know they're not the only people with rights
to the road....

Can not the same function be served by "sharrows" and "Bike Route" signs?

.... and questions on drivers' tests? And public service
announcements? And drivers' training instructions? And billboards?

- Frank Krygowski

Bill Zaumen wrote:
Tom Sherman writes:

Bill Zaumen wrote:
Tom Sherman writes:

Bill Zaumen wrote:
Tom Sherman writes:

Most places I have been in the US, tickets are hardly ever issued for
anything besides speeding and DUI, and the speed limits are clearly
posted. Not much is required in knowing the "rules of the road".
Your statement that "tickets are hardly ever issued for anything
besides speeding and DUI" is shear nonsense. Download
http://www.hsmv.state.fl.us/reports/fiveyearviolations.pdf (just did
a google search and that was the first one I found from an official
government source). DUI is small and speeding accounts for under 1/2
of non-criminal moving violations. For 2003, there were 1,155,218
citations for exceeding the posted speed limit versus 2,398,031
non-criminal moving violations. There were 531,230 criminal
moving violations (of which DUI represented a mere 65,113 case).

How many of the other violations were in conjunction with a speeding
stop? How many of the "other non-moving" violations were plea deals
for speeding (a common practice)? How many were stops for DWB? Is
Florida representative of the country as a whole? The raw numbers do
not tell the whole story.

Look, you just made a fool of yourself by stating that "tickets are
hardly ever issued for anything besides speeding and DUI", and I did
a quick google search and found one set of state data that shows you
simply made your "fact" up. Now you are just trying to ask more
"questions" in an attempt to weasle out of it by throwing out a lot
of BS.

I see that there are no answers to my questions.


The vast majority of people simply write a check and mail in the fine,
maybe with some grumbling. Very few go to court. If you don't go to
talk and interact with a DA, there is not going to be any "plea deal".

Citation?

I might add that some of the "DWB" complaints are bogus - there were
some complaints of racial profiling in San Jose a few years ago due to
an unsusually large number of Hispanics being cited, and when the
statistics were carefully checked, they found that officers were
ticketing fairly: what happened is that the police department was
spending more time patrolling high crime areas, where a lot of
disadvantaged Hispanics live, and they ended up getting more traffic
tickets because the police were around more trying to protect them
from serious crimes. Regardless of how you want to handle the
increased number of citations, the citations were in fact legitimate.
It's not that people were being cited for something they didn't do.

There's really no point in having a "discussion" with you if you
continually get all the facts wrong.

Which facts?

The ones you get wrong, which seems to be most of them. I gave
sveral examples above.

Where?

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
"And never forget, life ultimately makes failures of all people."
- A. Derleth

vey writes:

Bill Z. wrote:

Well, I've lived in the area for quite some time. Now, lots of
people
run red lights, but it is generally during the first few seconds
after the signal change. It has nothing to do with vehicle size as
you guys (or at least Tom) claimed. Most of the bicyclists ran the
lights too and the pedestrians jaywalked with abandon. The idea that
it was some sort of driver thing is ludicrous.

See, here it's all about SUV's because they out number cars
two-to-one. Bicyclists aren't even counted as running lights because
they would amount to .001 of one percent of the traffic.

That's a statistic you just made up:

http://ntl.bts.gov/DOCS/SF.html (this is a bit old - around 1990 - and
for the Bay Area):

"Bicycle mode shares range from 0.9 percent of non-home-based
trips to 4.2 percent of home-based school trips. The
home-based work bicycle share is 1.3 percent. Walk mode
shares range from 3.0 percent of home-based work trips to 21.5
percent of home-based school trips."

Quite a bit diffent than your 0.001 percent (and bicycle use is much
higher in San Francisco due to the relatively short distances coupled
with the difficulty of finding parking and the cost of parking).

And the only way pedestrians have a hope of crossing is to "jay
walk" between intersections because to try and cross at an
intersection is stupid.

Wrong.

http://www.wftv.com/news/6791504/detail.html
And if you include data about how far into the red phase the light
running went, you'll find that it is just a few seconds in most cases.

Not so. They ruled out the first five seconds. But you would know that
had you bothered to read the article.

Now you are reduced to lying. At no point in the artile you quoted do
they say anything about ruling out "the first five seconds". You just
made that up.

So you think that people *do not* buy SUV's to feel safer?

Bill, we people tell me that they want to be safe from the Hondas,
what exactly do you think they mean?
That either you are making it all up or they don't want to admit
to making a dumb decision when they bought their gas guzzler.

Bill, the California sun has gotten to your brain and cooked it. Are
you sure you don't live in So. Ca, cause you sure sound like it.

You know, for someone as ignorant as you are (see the numbers you
fabricated above and your lie about what was in a news article),
you really shoudn't go around taking about cooked brains.

I've yet to hear someone say "I bought an SUV to be safe from
Hondas". They may think they'll be safer in a crash if they are
in something that looks like a tank, but that doesn't mean they
want to use the vehicle as a battering ram.

Oh. Okay, what do I know? I just report the news, I don't make it.

What you seem to know is next to nothing given how bogus your numbers
are (see above). And your ability to report the news is, shall we
say, highly suspect (see above for that too).


--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

Tom Sherman writes:

Bill Zaumen wrote:
vey writes:

Tom Sherman wrote:
Bill Zaumen wrote:
Tom Sherman writes:
Street law is what happens in real life.
You mean "street law" is "sometimes people make mistakes"?

No, street law is "I win since I can easily kill you with my vehicle"
or "other stay out of my way because my vehicle is huge".
You can't be serious....

Time to join the real world. People drive that way all the time,
especially in the larger cities.

Indeed. People in the larger cities keep telling me that the reason
that they drive a SUV is because they are safer. They can hit
"anything", they say, and be safer than if they were in a Honda. If a
Honda runs a red light and T-Bones them, they will be safe; vice-versa
and pity the Honda driver.
They'll tell you they feel safer because that sounds like a good
justification for owning a dinosaur - so they won't seem so dumb
given what they have to pay to fill up the gas tank. While people
may buy them for all sorts of reasons, that has little to do with
what they tell you. With current gas prices, I bet a lot of SUV
owners wished they had bought a more fuel efficient car.

Then they go on, "And besides, when I drive a SVU nobody tries to
muscle me out of the way, but I can." Uh, "muscle" as in push as in
driving aggressively to push in and pull out of traffic.
Odd that I don't have a problem with these SUV drivers trying
to "muscle" me out of the way when driving in San Francisco.

If Bill Z. doesn't get that message I guess we will have to send it by
telegram because that is where he is . . . way behind the times.
Reality - most people, including in cities, don't drive that way.
The overly aggressive drives use all sorts of vehicles, not just
large onea.

Ever drive in Chicago?

Why? I've never been there (aside from the airport, which is the pits).

--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB

Bike lanes are an advertisement for cycling. The get people thinking that
bikes are part of the transportation system, and both encourage people to
ride, as well as let the cagers know they're not the only people with
rights to the road....

Can not the same function be served by "sharrows" and "Bike Route" signs?

No, because most potential cyclists are intimidated by the idea of sharing
space with a car. Oh sure, I know, the problem is entirely education! Right.
Good luck with that. It's far easier to get people to change by altering the
environment than to get them to take a leap of faith and believe in what
they're told. Telling people smoking causes cancer and will kill them was
far less successful at reducing smoking than taking away places they're
allowed to smoke.

--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com
Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA


"Tom Sherman" wrote in message
...
Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
I was recently in a meeting where a "complete streets" advocate was
talking to members of a civic group. He had a Powerpoint
presentation, showing the transformation of a busy street into a
hypothetical paradise, including (of course) bike lanes. The civic
group members were swooning just as he hoped; but I interrupted and
said "To be fair, you should point out that many cyclists have learned
there are problems with separate bike lanes."

I will put this as simply as possible.

Bike lanes are an advertisement for cycling. The get people thinking that
bikes are part of the transportation system, and both encourage people to
ride, as well as let the cagers know they're not the only people with
rights to the road....

Can not the same function be served by "sharrows" and "Bike Route" signs?

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
"And never forget, life ultimately makes failures of all people."
- A. Derleth

Bill Zaumen wrote:
Tom Sherman writes:

Bill Zaumen wrote:
vey writes:

Tom Sherman wrote:
Bill Zaumen wrote:
Tom Sherman writes:
Street law is what happens in real life.
You mean "street law" is "sometimes people make mistakes"?

No, street law is "I win since I can easily kill you with my vehicle"
or "other stay out of my way because my vehicle is huge".
You can't be serious....

Time to join the real world. People drive that way all the time,
especially in the larger cities.

Indeed. People in the larger cities keep telling me that the reason
that they drive a SUV is because they are safer. They can hit
"anything", they say, and be safer than if they were in a Honda. If a
Honda runs a red light and T-Bones them, they will be safe; vice-versa
and pity the Honda driver.
They'll tell you they feel safer because that sounds like a good
justification for owning a dinosaur - so they won't seem so dumb
given what they have to pay to fill up the gas tank. While people
may buy them for all sorts of reasons, that has little to do with
what they tell you. With current gas prices, I bet a lot of SUV
owners wished they had bought a more fuel efficient car.

Then they go on, "And besides, when I drive a SVU nobody tries to
muscle me out of the way, but I can." Uh, "muscle" as in push as in
driving aggressively to push in and pull out of traffic.
Odd that I don't have a problem with these SUV drivers trying
to "muscle" me out of the way when driving in San Francisco.

If Bill Z. doesn't get that message I guess we will have to send it by
telegram because that is where he is . . . way behind the times.
Reality - most people, including in cities, don't drive that way.
The overly aggressive drives use all sorts of vehicles, not just
large onea.

Ever drive in Chicago?

Why? I've never been there (aside from the airport, which is the pits).

Drive in Chicagoland, and you will find out what aggressive drivers are
like.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
"And never forget, life ultimately makes failures of all people."
- A. Derleth

Tom Sherman wrote:
Eric Vey wrote:

Continuing my reading of recent cases concerning vehicular homicide, I
see that there has been a bit of a recent shift. Juries in the more
populous counties are happy to convict (unlike what we have been told).

Prosecutors have been more likely to prosecute than in many a year.
Judges, on the other hand, are more likely to see crashes as careless
rather than reckless, but Prosecutors have been taking those cases up
on appeal and, once again, in more populous areas, have been winning
their appeals. This would not have happened even five years ago.

Still, it can take up to a year before charges are brought. On Friday,
I asked about a crash that happened in October. "What case number?"
they asked me. I gave them a quick description and they said that
there was no case because no one had been arrested and no charges had
been filed. I filed a formal inquiry as to what is going on because
this one is a slam-dunk conviction.

It is pretty sad when a concerned citizen like me is the only one that
can get things going.

Well, it is reported that the tactic of pressuring DA's to prosecute at
fault automobile drivers worked for motorcycle organizations [1], so it
appears that bicyclists need to adopt the same tactic.

[1] At least the 99%ers.


People keep telling me to "let the professionals do their job." Well, it
ain't working.