AG: Aunt Granny's Advice, or How to become an elderly cyclist:

On 9/4/2016 8:02 PM, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 04 Sep 2016 09:29:03 -0300, Joy Beeson
wrote:


We go on and on about the dangers of sidewalks because the
uninstructed newbie thinks that sidewalks are extra, extra safe, and
makes every ride into "pop unexpectedly into path of car, repeat",
varied occasionally by running down a pedestrian.

A while back I ran into a situation where riding on the sidewalk
really was safer than riding in the roadway.

While approaching Buffalo on my way to Marsh Supermarket, I remembered
that I was curious about an establishment a block or two south, so
when I got to the intersection, I turned left.

At this point, Buffalo Street is also SR 15, which is the primary
north-south route west of Fort Wayne and east of Plymouth. Four lanes
are just barely adequate for the traffic where 15 runs along Detroit
Street, but where Buffalo crosses Prairie, it's all funneled into an
ordinary city street -- and there's no place for local traffic to go
to avoid the congestion.

Throttling one lane down to the speed of a bicycle -- even one not
ridden by an arthritic old lady who is looking for an address -- would
create an embolism that would have far-reaching consequences, so I
steered up the first wheelchair ramp that I saw.

There's no risk of inconveniencing pedestrians here, because there
aren't any. There's no need to get off to cross streets because, for
the same reason that the road can't be widened, there are no cross
streets.

There are lots and lots of driveways, so I proceeded at walking pace
to give myself plenty of time to look for vehicles that might want to
enter or leave a parking lot.

And I stopped at the first bench I saw to change into walking shoes.

================================================== ====================

A few weeks later the establishment I'd been curious about advertised
a charity "garage sale" of worn uniforms. (Alas, all the pants were
blue jeans. I kinder wish I'd bought one of the carbon-fiber lab
coats.) This time I walked all the way.

It helped that, having come from the courthouse-square farmers' market
instead of having just circumnavigated the lake, I was already wearing
walking shoes. And from that direction it's possible to get into the
car-wash parking lot from the back, which shortened the distance I
needed to walk.

Alas, prolonged study of my map confirmed that the only way out was
back the way I came.

I've always thought that sidewalks were for pedestrians and if one
wanted to use them while cycling than one should, perhaps, get off and
walk, or if there was little pedestrian traffic perhaps ride at
walking speeds.

They are for pedestrians, but in many places it's legal for cyclists to
ride them. Local laws vary.

AFAIK, every study on the issue has found sidewalks to be more dangerous
than riding on the road. This doesn't mean that sidewalks are never
safer. I'm sure it depends on the traffic situation, the skill of the
cyclist, and the skill and good sense of the cyclist in recognizing and
mitigating sidewalk hazards.

Sidewalk hazards? Running into pedestrians is one, although in much of
America, nobody walks. But crossing ANY intersection, even a driveway,
can be very dangerous because the motorist using that will never expect
any fast-moving sidewalk traffic (fast = "more than 3 mph"). Then
there's the hard drop-off edge of most sidewalks, meaning if your front
wheel drops off, you're likely to go down. There are sign poles,
telephone poles and other hard obstructions. There are often limited
sight lines. There are often big bumps from sections of concrete that
have risen or sunk, and/or from tree roots, etc.

Having said that, there are two short sections of sidewalk I use at
least weekly. Each is less than 50 feet long, and I've never passed a
pedestrian on either one. Each saves me about 200 yards of heavy
traffic and a difficult left turn. But I ride them slowly, on high
alert, with my head on a swivel, jet fighter style.


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Sun, 4 Sep 2016 21:34:47 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 9/4/2016 8:02 PM, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 04 Sep 2016 09:29:03 -0300, Joy Beeson
wrote:


We go on and on about the dangers of sidewalks because the
uninstructed newbie thinks that sidewalks are extra, extra safe, and
makes every ride into "pop unexpectedly into path of car, repeat",
varied occasionally by running down a pedestrian.

A while back I ran into a situation where riding on the sidewalk
really was safer than riding in the roadway.

While approaching Buffalo on my way to Marsh Supermarket, I remembered
that I was curious about an establishment a block or two south, so
when I got to the intersection, I turned left.

At this point, Buffalo Street is also SR 15, which is the primary
north-south route west of Fort Wayne and east of Plymouth. Four lanes
are just barely adequate for the traffic where 15 runs along Detroit
Street, but where Buffalo crosses Prairie, it's all funneled into an
ordinary city street -- and there's no place for local traffic to go
to avoid the congestion.

Throttling one lane down to the speed of a bicycle -- even one not
ridden by an arthritic old lady who is looking for an address -- would
create an embolism that would have far-reaching consequences, so I
steered up the first wheelchair ramp that I saw.

There's no risk of inconveniencing pedestrians here, because there
aren't any. There's no need to get off to cross streets because, for
the same reason that the road can't be widened, there are no cross
streets.

There are lots and lots of driveways, so I proceeded at walking pace
to give myself plenty of time to look for vehicles that might want to
enter or leave a parking lot.

And I stopped at the first bench I saw to change into walking shoes.

================================================== ====================

A few weeks later the establishment I'd been curious about advertised
a charity "garage sale" of worn uniforms. (Alas, all the pants were
blue jeans. I kinder wish I'd bought one of the carbon-fiber lab
coats.) This time I walked all the way.

It helped that, having come from the courthouse-square farmers' market
instead of having just circumnavigated the lake, I was already wearing
walking shoes. And from that direction it's possible to get into the
car-wash parking lot from the back, which shortened the distance I
needed to walk.

Alas, prolonged study of my map confirmed that the only way out was
back the way I came.

I've always thought that sidewalks were for pedestrians and if one
wanted to use them while cycling than one should, perhaps, get off and
walk, or if there was little pedestrian traffic perhaps ride at
walking speeds.

They are for pedestrians, but in many places it's legal for cyclists to
ride them. Local laws vary.

AFAIK, every study on the issue has found sidewalks to be more dangerous
than riding on the road. This doesn't mean that sidewalks are never
safer. I'm sure it depends on the traffic situation, the skill of the
cyclist, and the skill and good sense of the cyclist in recognizing and
mitigating sidewalk hazards.

Sidewalk hazards? Running into pedestrians is one, although in much of
America, nobody walks. But crossing ANY intersection, even a driveway,
can be very dangerous because the motorist using that will never expect
any fast-moving sidewalk traffic (fast = "more than 3 mph"). Then
there's the hard drop-off edge of most sidewalks, meaning if your front
wheel drops off, you're likely to go down. There are sign poles,
telephone poles and other hard obstructions. There are often limited
sight lines. There are often big bumps from sections of concrete that
have risen or sunk, and/or from tree roots, etc.

Having said that, there are two short sections of sidewalk I use at
least weekly. Each is less than 50 feet long, and I've never passed a
pedestrian on either one. Each saves me about 200 yards of heavy
traffic and a difficult left turn. But I ride them slowly, on high
alert, with my head on a swivel, jet fighter style.


I'm still of the opinion that "side walks" are purposely built for
foot traffic and while I've never been anywhere that bicycles were
banned from them, still, the primary purpose is for pedestrians.

Thus, while I see no reason not to ride on them I can hardly see that
a bicycle can possibly have any priority of use on them.

As an aside, due to the construction method in much of the city, side
walks are nearly always rougher than the adjacent road so most
cyclists ride in the road :-)
--
cheers,

John B.

John B. wrote in
:

I'm still of the opinion that "side walks" are purposely built for
foot traffic and while I've never been anywhere that bicycles were
banned from them, still, the primary purpose is for pedestrians.

I think that banning bicycles from sidewalks is a municipal measure. That is
the case here in Ottawa. It is frequently disregarded because many kids are
ignorant of it, and manyu adults seem not to care. That said, the adults I
see riding on sidewalks are generally in areas that are poorly engineered
for bicycle traffic.

Down the page, second from the bottom. Some re-assembly of the URL may be
required.
http://ottawa.ca/en/residents/transp...cling/cycling-
and-law
--
Andrew Chaplin
SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO
(If you're going to e-mail me, you'll have to get "yourfinger." out.)

Andrew Chaplin wrote:
John B. wrote in
:

I'm still of the opinion that "side walks" are purposely built for
foot traffic and while I've never been anywhere that bicycles were
banned from them, still, the primary purpose is for pedestrians.

I think that banning bicycles from sidewalks is a municipal measure. That is
the case here in Ottawa. It is frequently disregarded because many kids are
ignorant of it, and manyu adults seem not to care. That said, the adults I
see riding on sidewalks are generally in areas that are poorly engineered
for bicycle traffic.

Down the page, second from the bottom. Some re-assembly of the URL may be
required.
http://ottawa.ca/en/residents/transp...cling/cycling-
and-law
--
Andrew Chaplin
SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO
(If you're going to e-mail me, you'll have to get "yourfinger." out.)


It's in the Highway Code in Quebec so it's provincial.
The municipality can override this with signage though.


--
duane

On Mon, 05 Sep 2016 11:27:18 +0700, John B.
wrote:

Thus, while I see no reason not to ride on them I can hardly see that
a bicycle can possibly have any priority of use on them.

How to ride on a walkway is an idea for another post, but I doubt that
I can get it polished by Sunday.

It's amusing that the Heritage Trail recreationway runs through the
mountain-bike trails. (Compromise: the powers that be wanted to put
a roadway through; a blackway mollified them. Thinking about their
stated reasons for wanting a roadway, and going out to actually look
at the streets, would have kept the desire from existing in the first
place, but that's another story.)

I'm usually on a bike when I use the recreationway (it's the shortest
way to Roy Street) and I'm *always* on foot when I go into the
mountain-bike trails. So in both places, I have to get out of the way
of everything that comes along. Easy both places; the Heritage Trail
is wide enough for ambulances, so I never have to dismount entirely,
as often happens on the boardwalk, and the bike trails are so narrow
that one step sideways does the trick.

Been doing all my waling in town the last few years, though.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net

On Sun, 06 Sep 2015 01:05:47 -0300, Joy Beeson
wrote:

At first, I folded a newspaper in half and wedged it down on the floor
to hold the sides in place, then I noticed that the floor was already
at least as thick as the sides and stopped doing that.

And then for some reason, it got harder to keep the sides in place, so
I resumed using the floor newspaper. Hrrm . . . this happened about
the time the newspaper introduced a beautiful new format; I don't
think the newspapers overlap on the bottom as much as they used to.

Eventually, I deemed the newspaper lid rather useless -- unlike the
bag of crumpled bags, it doesn't deform to fit over the contents of
the cooler. (This varies according to what I'm carrying.)

But about the time I stopped putting a folded newspaper on top, I
started putting a folded newspaper in the bottom of the bag lining the
cooler: it holds the bag in place, keeps things square, and soaks up
the condensation that forms on frozen bottles and zip-lock sandwich
bags of ice cubes.

I've found that two small bags of ice work better than one big bag of
ice.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net

On 09/05/2016 11:28 AM, Andrew Chaplin wrote:
John B. wrote in
:

I'm still of the opinion that "side walks" are purposely built for
foot traffic and while I've never been anywhere that bicycles were
banned from them, still, the primary purpose is for pedestrians.

I think that banning bicycles from sidewalks is a municipal measure. That is
the case here in Ottawa. It is frequently disregarded because many kids are
ignorant of it, and manyu adults seem not to care. That said, the adults I
see riding on sidewalks are generally in areas that are poorly engineered
for bicycle traffic.

Down the page, second from the bottom. Some re-assembly of the URL may be
required.
http://ottawa.ca/en/residents/transp...cling/cycling-
and-law
--
Andrew Chaplin
SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO
(If you're going to e-mail me, you'll have to get "yourfinger." out.)


Is does indeed vary by town around here, and even areas of town.

Downtown sidewalk use is limited to kids 12 and under.

However, other neighboring towns have no restrictions.

I think if you're 18 or older, you should ride the road unless the road is extremely
bike hostile.


SMH

On Mon, 05 Sep 2016 22:16:50 -0300, Joy Beeson
wrote:

Been doing all my waling in town the last few years, though.

Urrrr . . . *walking*.

Now why does my spell checker include the name of a small town in
Nepal?

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

On Tue, 06 Sep 2016 21:42:11 -0300, Joy Beeson
wrote:

On Mon, 05 Sep 2016 22:16:50 -0300, Joy Beeson
wrote:

Been doing all my waling in town the last few years, though.

Urrrr . . . *walking*.

Now why does my spell checker include the name of a small town in
Nepal?

Actually, "waling" can be a verb used to describe the installing of
wales, or the material used for wales :-)

--
cheers,

John B.

Frank Krygowski wrote:

They are for pedestrians, but in many places it's legal for cyclists to
ride them. Local laws vary.

I agree that they're for pedestrians, specifically for foot traffic.

One significant problem is that people often assume "pedestrian", as
"not car", and not understanding the relative speed differential between
somebody on foot, and a wheeled object. For safety purposes, true foot
traffic does not mix well with anything on wheels. That's not just
bicycles, but things like roller skates and skateboards.


AFAIK, every study on the issue has found sidewalks to be more dangerous
than riding on the road. This doesn't mean that sidewalks are never
safer. I'm sure it depends on the traffic situation, the skill of the
cyclist, and the skill and good sense of the cyclist in recognizing and
mitigating sidewalk hazards.

I believe that I've heard of places that are trying to be "bike
friendly", and explicitly allow sidewalk riding, and I know of places
that explicitly prohibit bicycles on sidewalks.

It's actually the same issue as bicycles in traffic. It depends on the
traffic situation, the skill of the cyclist, and the skill and cyclist
in recognizing and mitigating road hazards.

I've found that in a lot of places, road support for bikes (especially
"bike lanes") tend to be clustered around schools, where the primary
traffic is expected to be school children, riding small bikes, and not a
lot of bike handling skills. As a fitness rider, I tend to avoid those
neighborhoods as much on my bike as I do, if I'm a motorist.

Sidewalk hazards? Running into pedestrians is one, although in much of
America, nobody walks. But crossing ANY intersection, even a driveway,
can be very dangerous because the motorist using that will never expect
any fast-moving sidewalk traffic (fast = "more than 3 mph"). Then
there's the hard drop-off edge of most sidewalks, meaning if your front
wheel drops off, you're likely to go down. There are sign poles,
telephone poles and other hard obstructions. There are often limited
sight lines. There are often big bumps from sections of concrete that
have risen or sunk, and/or from tree roots, etc.

Yes. There's a lot of hazards on a sidewalk that don't account for the
relative speed of a bicycle. And the issues are just as much for a
skateboard or roller skates, as well.

Having said that, there are two short sections of sidewalk I use at
least weekly. Each is less than 50 feet long, and I've never passed a
pedestrian on either one. Each saves me about 200 yards of heavy
traffic and a difficult left turn. But I ride them slowly, on high
alert, with my head on a swivel, jet fighter style.

There are specific situations where it's appropriate, especially if it's
a place where you go frequently, and know the situation. I have a friend
that commutes, and for the particular route that he rides, there's a
place where it's appropriate for him to briefly ride a sidewalk,
especially as a way of having to cross to the other side of a major
arterial boulevard, and then back again, to ride with traffic.

My beef is with people that ride against traffic, whether on the
sidewalk or on the street. I've had it happen a couple of times as a
motorist, where I'm pulling out of a driveway or making a right turn,
I'm looking to the left, to watch for oncoming traffic, and nearly run
into somebody riding the wrong side of the street, because they're
coming at vehicle speed, and a direction I'm not expecting. The other
problem with riding against traffic is that if the bike space is
blocked, there's no avenue for escape. If you're in a place where
there's a curb, there's often no way of getting over the curb quickly
(unless there's a driveway that happens to be handy), and the only other
place to dodge is to move out into traffic.

I'm not sure if the sidewalk is safer for somebody going against
traffic, or not (and assuming that there's no pedestrian).

But the underlying problem is the same, in that the speed of a bike
(even 10 mph) is more compatible with vehicular traffic on the road
(riding with the traffic) than it is with foot traffic on a sidewalk.

Smith