Nobody wants more cyclists less than a fast bicycle commuter

On Friday, October 2, 2015 at 6:23:25 PM UTC-7, David Scheidt wrote:
Frank Krygowski wrote:
:On 10/2/2015 4:17 PM, jbeattie wrote:
:
: When they do things around here, they're often ceremonial and unhelpful or only modestly helpful to cyclists. But they're always expensive. http://www.peopleforbikes.org/blog/e...-can-look-like
:
: That facility used to be a road that one could just ride down. Now it's a rat maze with endless conflicts with streetcars, pedestrians and other cyclists. With the construction of all the condos and the addition of the streetcar, the road was destined to change, but it could have changed much more simply (road, bike lane, sidewalk). I can only hope that the developers picked up a hefty chunk of the tab.

: From the story: "the project didn't come cheap: $310,000 for barely a
:mile of roadway..."

A mile of road for cars costs about a million bucks.

The $310,000 was just for recent revisions of the facility; that is, changing it from one rat maze to another with some more paint and minor hardscape changes. Getting around other cyclists is difficult, particularly further down the trail where the bike facility narrows and is hemmed-in by parallel street car tracks. You have to be pretty good with high speed bunny hopping.

The whole place smells like Futurama -- trains, condo towers, aerial trams. http://www.gobytram.com/ My favorite experience was having some narcissistic young professional prance across the hardscape and then stop in the middle of the bike lane to stretch. I about ran him down . . . on purpose. I only use the facility if I'm too happy and need to **** myself off -- or I'm bored of my other routes home. It's basically like riding through a busy parking lot.

-- Jay Beattie.



-- Jay Beattie.

On Thursday, October 1, 2015 at 5:11:56 AM UTC+1, jbeattie wrote:

Unlike SF, most people around here don't use DRLs.

Makes you wonder if the perception among cyclists in Portland is that it is safer to cycle there than in San Francisco, with the corollary question of whether a larger part of the population cycles in Portland (or in in denser numbers somehow) than in SF, that is, whether we're seeing a symptom of "the more people cycle, the more courtesy drivers show them".

Andre Jute
Statistics is the most sensitive of interpretive arts in mathematics

My physician rides with me, and unlike the ladies who also ride with me, he is insenstive to the traffic behind being unable to pass cyclists two abreast on a narrow road. The ladies and I very quickly go to single file, and usually if the lane is very narrow on the wrong side so the car can pass driver to driver and thus the driver can see how close the mirror is to us. He doesn't give way, unless prodded.

But this is the strange thing: I've notice that when I ride alone, and take the lane because it is dangerous to both the motorist and me to let a car pass, motorists get impatient more quickly than when there are two of us taking up the lane in places where we could in fact safely let the motorist pass. Odd, to say the least. I must make a small deliberate study of this effect.

Andre Jute
Peer reviewed by me