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Reduced sidewalk riding fine & cycle paths



 
 
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  #11  
Old May 13th 04, 01:53 PM
A mukluk wearing troll
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Default Reduced sidewalk riding fine & cycle paths

On Wed, 12 May 2004 18:39:04 -0700, LioNiNoiL_a t_NetscapE_D 0 T_NeT
wrote:

A mukluk wearing troll wants to know:

Do you ride here?


I was riding there twenty years ago, when your mukluk was still on the seal.


So was I. BOth in deepest suburbia and downtown. I went away to other
parts of the country for eleven years, and then came back. Congestion
and driver's manners and habits had changed a great deal in the
interval.

It's a giant pinball game out there. Sometimes I'm up for playing
(Queen Street is fuuuuunnnnn) and sometimes I'm not. Then, the Humber
River Trail, that runs by my front door, looks pretty good.

Shirley Hicks
Toronto, Ontario


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  #12  
Old May 13th 04, 07:38 PM
Tanya
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Default Reduced sidewalk riding fine & cycle paths

A mukluk wearing troll wrote in message . ..
On these sections, I soemtimes ride on the sidewalk. It's just safer.
I'd rather not bounce a hundred metres down the road. Pedestrian
traffic is very light.


But pedestrians are not the only safety consideration with riding on
the sidewalk. Cars do not expect a vehicle going at a bicycle speed to
be on the sidewalk, so you are completely outside of their radar.
Driveways, plaza entrances, and intersections - unless you are going
to come to a stop or slow down to walking speed at each and every one
of them, you are in greater danger of getting hit. In fact in the
Toronto cycling study I believe 30% of all cyclists hit were riding on
the sidewalk.
See http://www.toronto.ca/transportation...icle/index.htm
  #13  
Old May 14th 04, 10:14 PM
A mukluk wearing troll
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Default Reduced sidewalk riding fine & cycle paths

On 13 May 2004 11:38:35 -0700, (Tanya)
wrote:

A mukluk wearing troll wrote in message . ..

snip

But pedestrians are not the only safety consideration with riding on
the sidewalk. Cars do not expect a vehicle going at a bicycle speed to
be on the sidewalk, so you are completely outside of their radar.
Driveways, plaza entrances, and intersections - unless you are going
to come to a stop or slow down to walking speed at each and every one
of them, you are in greater danger of getting hit. In fact in the
Toronto cycling study I believe 30% of all cyclists hit were riding on
the sidewalk.
See
http://www.toronto.ca/transportation...icle/index.htm

That's a comprehensive report, Tanya. Thanks for posting the link.
It confirms what my own observations were telling me, that there are
two distinctly different cycling patterns going on in the city.

I hadn't realized that the dooring rate along Bloor and College were
that high.

Shirley Hicks
Toronto, Ontario

  #14  
Old May 20th 04, 06:49 PM
Dr Engelbert Buxbaum
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Default Reduced sidewalk riding fine & cycle paths

"At City Hall, a volunteer committee of 20 activist citizens views every
issue through the mud-spattered lens of an oppressed cyclist. Their job
is to develop policy and advise city staff and elected officials on
cycling matters. Last month, the committee virtually ensured that city
council will vote to slash the fine for sidewalk cycling to $50 from
$90. The rationale: The roads are getting too dangerous.


Is it only me who finds this logic strange? Instead of making the roads
safer, they reduce the fine for behaviour that makes them even more
dangerous.

Sounds like some people were promoted beyond their Peter-limit.


  #15  
Old May 20th 04, 09:47 PM
Jeremy Parker
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Default Reduced sidewalk riding fine & cycle paths

Is this stuff about dangerous roads even true? What is the city? How
do they know? I've seen reports of research in Canada that indicates
that the kind of people who like to ride on the sidewalk are indeed
more accident prone than others when riding on the road, but they are
still safer on the road than on the sidewalk.

Jeremy Parker


"Dr Engelbert Buxbaum" wrote in
message ...
"At City Hall, a volunteer committee of 20 activist citizens views

every
issue through the mud-spattered lens of an oppressed cyclist.

Their job
is to develop policy and advise city staff and elected officials

on
cycling matters. Last month, the committee virtually ensured that

city
council will vote to slash the fine for sidewalk cycling to $50

from
$90. The rationale: The roads are getting too dangerous.


Is it only me who finds this logic strange? Instead of making the

roads
safer, they reduce the fine for behaviour that makes them even more
dangerous.

Sounds like some people were promoted beyond their Peter-limit.




  #16  
Old May 21st 04, 06:12 PM
A mukluk wearing troll
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Posts: n/a
Default Reduced sidewalk riding fine & cycle paths

On Thu, 20 May 2004 19:49:15 +0200, Dr Engelbert Buxbaum
wrote:

"At City Hall, a volunteer committee of 20 activist citizens views every
issue through the mud-spattered lens of an oppressed cyclist. Their job
is to develop policy and advise city staff and elected officials on
cycling matters. Last month, the committee virtually ensured that city
council will vote to slash the fine for sidewalk cycling to $50 from
$90. The rationale: The roads are getting too dangerous.


Jan Wong writes in a sardonic style. You have to be a regular reader
of the Globe and Mail or her columns to know that. It doesn't
translate well to Usenet.

Is it only me who finds this logic strange? Instead of making the roads
safer, they reduce the fine for behaviour that makes them even more
dangerous.


Ummm, have you had the downtown Toronto riding experience?
It makes sense in the local context, screwy as it may seem.

Shirley Hicks
Toronto, Ontario
  #17  
Old May 21st 04, 06:19 PM
A mukluk wearing troll
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Posts: n/a
Default Reduced sidewalk riding fine & cycle paths

On Thu, 20 May 2004 21:47:35 +0100, "Jeremy Parker"
wrote:

Is this stuff about dangerous roads even true? What is the city?


Toronto.

How
do they know?


This study,
http://www.toronto.ca/transportation...index.htmwhich
was posted in reponse to one of my earlier responses. There is one
pattern of accidents occuring downtown, and a different one out in the
suburbs. The suburban ones involve more bicycles on sidewalks both
kids and seniors, the downtown ones, more door incidents with 20 - 45
yr old riders.

I've seen reports of research in Canada that indicates
that the kind of people who like to ride on the sidewalk are indeed
more accident prone than others when riding on the road, but they are
still safer on the road than on the sidewalk.


It depends where you are riding. I'm safer on the road in downtown
Toronto than I am negotiating the 2 km stretch on either side of the
Queensway/427 intersection out in Etobicoke. There, I will take the
sidewalk, thank you very much. I try not to ride through there, but
some times, you just have to.

Shirley Hicks
Toronto, Ontario

  #18  
Old May 22nd 04, 01:42 AM
Bill Z.
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Default Reduced sidewalk riding fine & cycle paths

"Jeremy Parker" writes:

Is this stuff about dangerous roads even true? What is the city? How
do they know? I've seen reports of research in Canada that indicates
that the kind of people who like to ride on the sidewalk are indeed
more accident prone than others when riding on the road, but they are
still safer on the road than on the sidewalk.


One study, done in the town I live in, showed that the accident rate
for riding on a sidewalk was nearly identical to riding on the road
provided you road in the same direction as traffic. Riding on the
sidewalk against the flow of traffic is what is really risky, and
the accident rate was several times higher for this than riding
on the roadway in the direction of traffic.

The study controlled for a variety of factors, but not the speed of
the cyclist. Informal observations indicate that the sidewalk
cyclists usually are far slower than the ones on the adjacent
roadway in the town where the study was done.

Aside from the direction of travel, it seems that people are making
reasonable decisions about where to ride. All the previous studies
that showed an increased risk for sidewalk cycling did not control
for the direction of travel, as far as I know.

Bill

--
My real name backwards: nemuaZ lliB
 




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