Will thinks people drive because they’re good, conservative Americans who enjoy shitting on the planet to prove they’re not beholden to any train schedule.

I once worked for a man who felt this way.  He bragged that his lawnmower used diesel.  Seriously, he walked around the office going “my Lawnboy shoots clouds of smoke!  My lawnboy is a REPUBLICAN.”

Some days you just have to wonder how these people have enough brainpower to keep breathing.

Shorter George Will:  “Stay the course!”

I mean, is this not conservative in its most classic sense?  He’s arguing for the status quo by the sheer brute “virtue” of it being the status quo.  There is no

This is why I fear Austin light rail will fail.  Since they laid it on already existing track, it’s not visible or especially accessible to most of the residents of the city who would benefit from it.  But clearly, the issue is education not rugged individualism.

This pissed me off in Houston too.  I’d love to use the downtown light rail, but I have absolutely no idea how to use it.  I live out on Westheimer.  Is there some place I’m supposed to drive in and park?  And there are a handful of rather distinguished Houston points of interest - the Galleria, Minute Maid Park, Memorial Park - you’d think a public transportation system would integrate with.  :-p

I mean, the nice thing about the UT Bus routes and the greater Austin busing system was that it all took you where you needed to be.  If an Austin light rail is nothing more than a glorified Express Bus that runs from one side of town to the other, it should be able to work with the existing bus system to give people what they want.

He knows what plays in Peoria, and not just figuratively: He is from there. Peoria is a meatloaf, macaroni-and-cheese, down-to-earth place, home of Caterpillar, the maker of earthmoving machines for building roads, runways, dams and things.

Right. So maybe you should shut the fuck up and listen to him, George.

This “he WAS a brilliant man until he said something I didn’t agree with and now he’s a complete moron” is one of the punditocracy’s favorite substitutes for actual thinking.

Another climate change denialist… When will we stop taking them seriously?

My son and I watched Top Gear this weekend on BBCA.  It’s a show that celebrates driving and argues about what the coolest cars in the world are. 

At any rate, to bring us back to topic, they then had stars from “MI-5” or “Spooks” as it’s known over there race along.  The actors talked about what they drive and one of them mentioned that he would never get rid of his Mercedes b/c it was his first “decent car”.

This is Will’s problem.  He’s rich.  He does not drive a Chevy.  His car doesn’t rattle.  It doesn’t have a dent that he can’t repair b/c body shops don’t repair dents anymore; they replace the whole panel. 

He’s got a nice car that’s fun to drive.  He doesn’t have a giant SUV full of poptart crusts b/c he has to cart around children all day.  (Oh, the boy will be paying for the poptart crust mountain…he will rue the day he thought it was clever to pile crusts over on the side instead of eating them or throwing them away…)

I grew up in Indianapolis.  No road in that entire town is straight.  But when you’re a teenager, curvy tree-lined streets and a stick shift are fun.  Driving CAN be fun, but when you’re not a teenager without anything else to do it’s easy to forget that.

Chicago is almost entirely straight NS and EW streets on an 8 block/mile grid.  It’s easy to get where you’re going…except for the traffic and construction—and there is always construction.  Chicago is the city that works, you know, even if that means patching a road and then tearing it up and repatching it ad nauseum.

It’s much more fun here to take public transit.  Cars are very expensive and a gigantic hassle…unless you are rich enough not to care about the cost of parking and don’t mind sitting in stop-n-go for 45 mins or more.

I really wish we could become a one-car family. Ironically, the S.O. and I work at the same business complex, but we take separate cars to work because the scheduling is tricky to line up. Isn’t that insane.

On the weekends, I don’t use my car at all. And eventually the plan is to be a SAHM and I can’t imagine that I would need a car much… but two or three days out of the week isn’t nothing at all, and the business complex is too far away to justify driving him in in the morning and coming back to the house.

I really wish we had a nice bus / train system in the area, with stops to the library, schools, grocery stores, etc. You know, places that SAHM might need to get to. I really don’t have a problem with taking buses, you know. But it just doesn’t seem to be happening. *Sigh*

Peoria is a meatloaf, macaroni-and-cheese, down-to-earth place

I’m eagerly awaiting the “liberal versions of this dish which are elite and unAmerican” litany. I’m expecting, hmm, meat-less meatloaf and organic macaroni-and-cheese brule or something.

One more note:  I was in an R&D;meeting with Caterpillar at one point.  Most of their R&D;funding came from Exxon-Mobile, and they were tied into contracts saying all that funding would be yanked if they worked on alternative energy sources.  They had projects sitting on the shelf for 20 years because if they touched them, everything else got yanked.  And I had to wonder if Ford, GM and Chrysler had signed similar contracts (which I am assuming they had).

In case you were starting to forget the oil companies are evil.

It’s much more fun here to take public transit.  Cars are very expensive and a gigantic hassle…unless you are rich enough not to care about the cost of parking and don’t mind sitting in stop-n-go for 45 mins or more.

That’s the joke.  I’d love to know which cushy Beltway suburb George Will calls home.  When you’re living on a pretty little Cul de Sac in a 3000ft home, five minutes drive from the grocery store, the movie theater, and the office, then yeah - buses and trains seem a little silly.

When you’re living in downtown anywhere, with gridlock traffic and highway accidents and an hour commute from your house to downtown, then buses and trains sound a lot more practical.

I understand why Will might think HSR for everybody might not be such a great idea.  I don’t understand why Will misses how HSR would be fantastic for some people.  And in a city of millions, “some” is a lot of people.

I’m eagerly awaiting the “liberal versions of this dish which are elite and unAmerican” litany.

I make a mac’n'cheese with truffle oil instead of butter.  AND I use tallegio as well as cheddar.  But then again, I’m reading Pandagon, which put me out of the running in the first place.

Cars were fun to drive when I was a teenager. Heck, they were even fun to drive when I was in grad school and the big memories I have of driving involve road trips. But now that I’m all grown up, my typical experience of driving is going to work or driving home late at night after hanging out with my friends. Driving is work and not something I look forward to. If I could take public transportation to work and continue to live in my walkable neighborhood and leave the driving for the weekend road trips, then I could buy a “fun” car and wax poetic about the fun and romance of driving on the open road. But when you create the world that George Will wants to live in, driving is just a pain in the ass.

Doesn’t George Will have a chauffeur? I mean of course traffic doesn’t matter much for him, he’s got his own bar and it gives him a couple of hours of window-controlled silence to get some work done.

But yeah, it’s been evident since at least the 80s that some conglomeration of oil shucksters and masculinity challenged rich folk decided to sell the idea that pollution is somehow manly, a way of mass-producing the sort of “raw” manliness that comes from getting oily installing a transmission. As if the important part was the dirtiness.

I’ve always seen the pollution fetish as the perfect encapsulation of the GOP, insecure rich, pampered men looking to what half-formed images of “real men” did and taking exactly the wrong lessons. Sort of like how soldiers are heroes, so heroism is dressing up in a codpiece flight suit and declaring war for fun or poor men work dirty, menial, physically taxing jobs so dirtying up someone else’s environment for personal profit is totally the same thing.

DART is perfectly placed, so Dallas commuters greatly benefit.

Austin rail locations are funny, though. Up in Georgetown, there’s a piece that runs right through the Southwestern campus. There’s also a piece that used to run through some apartments that now dead ends, I shit you not, into a gazebo.

“Transportation, after all, is about concrete practicalities—planes, trains and automobiles, steel, asphalt and concrete.”

George Will in 1800:  “Transportation, as we know, is about practical things—ships, horses and carriages, sails, wood, and dirt.”

Sure George, things never are “remade” or “transformed”.  They stay exactly the same forever…idiot…

This is the guy who hates that people wear jeans, too.  So he wants you to drive more, but not in jeans.

The SLC system is really pretty spiffy.  It used the old rail system but added some inner city track.  Finally, they sent it zipping up to the University where most of the students think it is a godsend.  One had to deal with the “U” parking nazis to believe them.  It is much nicer than buses. 

I didn’t think it would catch on.  I thought people were too slavishly devoted to their cars.  How wrong I was and you too, Mr. Will, are dead wrong.

One of them attempts to discredit Matt’s argument with the fact that Portland has lots of white people.  Or something.

Lemme guess: “Sure in a mostly white city, you can bike around, but brown people = danger = DRIVING! With the doors locked and the windows up and rolling through stop signs if you can.”

I *used* to enjoy driving - until I moved to Seattle and it cured me of that.
What’s annoying is that Seattle puts a monorail tax on car tabs, which gets paid for a frew years, actually goes so far as to buy bits of land, etc. etc. and then! NOTHING.

They’ve made some nice leaps in the past few years - the bus tunnel makes it fast to get from one end of downtown to another in about 10 minutes - and I’m seeing light rail tracks going to the airport (non-operational ATM) - but there’s a huge roadblock in Seattle. There’s too many NIMBYs for real progress to be made until things get to a point where they can’t afford to delay and whinge any longer.

Yikes, Will is deluded as they come - who can like driving in this day and age? The more miles I drive, the less I like driving, doesn’t matter how nice the car. I can’t stand commuting in a car at all. Then again, I don’t ride a bicycle for one reason. Bicyclists. They’re the most obnoxious users of the road I can imagine. Try to find one that will stop at a stop sign, even in traffic. Half of ‘em don’t even care to stop at lights.  Their momentum is more important than anything else. Fortunately, I live about 3 blocks from a light rail station so that I can commute downtown without the car.

Yglesias’ trolls are just precious. One of them attempts to discredit Matt’s argument with the fact that Portland has lots of white people.

I think that was the infamous Steve Sailer. If you don’t know who he is, consider yourself lucky.

Then again, I don’t ride a bicycle for one reason. Bicyclists. They’re the most obnoxious users of the road I can imagine.

From where I’m sitting, it’s always made more intuitive sense to have bicyclists use the sidewalk. But then again, I haven’t spent a lot of time living in cities where pedestrians pack the sidewalks, so YMMV I guess.

My son and I watched Top Gear this weekend on BBCA.  It’s a show that celebrates driving and argues about what the coolest cars in the world are.

It’s also presented by a bunch of anti-environmental arseholes. Jeremy Clarkson in particular is a knob of the first order, prone to winding up anyone who leans towards the slightest bit of green. That said, he’s a funny and articulate knob, but a knob nonetheless.

From where I’m sitting, it’s always made more intuitive sense to have bicyclists use the sidewalk.

I can’t speak for US cities, but that ain’t practical here in the UK. By law only kids can use the pavement (i.e. sidewalk) to cycle on.

From where I’m sitting, it’s always made more intuitive sense to have bicyclists use the sidewalk.

Either way, they still need to stop at Stop signs. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve nearly killed an idiot cyclist… makes me sick to even think of it.

On the other hand, I know and have seen plenty GOOD cyclists. And when I *see* a good cyclist stopped at a light/sign, I give them a cheery wave and they always seem surprised and then thrilled that the Car Driver isn’t glaring at them homocidally. So I suppose Bad Cyclists Hurt Everybody, or something.

“From where I’m sitting, it’s always made more intuitive sense to have bicyclists use the sidewalk.”

The solution, where possible, is bike paths — basically small roads dedicated to bikes.  Unfortunately there are far too few, and bike paths seem to attract pedestrians who then make it difficult and dangerous to use them, for cyclists and pedestrians alike.

Bikes have been around since before the auto and they won’t go away.  Best to make peace with that and move on…

Having recently relocated to the Portland area, I’d like to invite George Will to go fuck himself sideways. The Max is awesome. And I am pleased to learn that it will be extended. Also, the news of the countrywide rail revitalization is such good news, not just for the environment and job creation front, but for those like me tired of the tyranny of the airlines who have decided that comfortable seats and food are now luxuries available only to the wealthy.

I’ve lived in both Peoria and Portland. Since I’m pretty sure George Will has done neither, he can STFU.

Peoria is depressed and has been for decades. When Cat hires, the city is cheerful. When Cat lays people off, the entire city slips into misery. Small businesses fail, domestic violence goes up, armed robbery goes up. Downtown is grungy, underused, and sad.

Portland is fun and vibrant and has great shopping. There are parks with hundreds of children playing in fountains, ice cream parlors all over the place, and restaurants so good they make me want to eat there for every meal. Oh yeah, and it has some jobs.

I don’t hate Peoria. It’s got some good parks, a Frank Lloyd Wright house, and a college that I loved. But given the choice between Peoria and Portland, I don’t even have to think.

Once upon a time, government was supposed to defend the shores, deliver the mail and let people get on with their lives.

And rich men used to ride around in Zeppelins, dropping coins on people.  Back in those days, nickels had pictures of bumble bees on them…

I mean, seriously, he might as well just quote Grampa Simpson verbatim.

Oh, it’s always time to post this video again:

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/george-f-wills-sports-machine/2734/

It’s exactly where my brain goes anytime I hear the name “George Will”

And I remade that cup of coffee by pouring half and half and sweetner in it.  Doesn’t get more physical and practical than that.

Or disgusting.

The other day, Atrios posted an old Streetcar map of Portland from the 30s; the coverage was just amazing. To think that we have to battle the likes of Bill Sizemore, Loren Parks, and especially Mark Fucking Hemstreet in order to even get what we have now - 1/6 of what we had 75 years ago. Grr.

but there’s a huge roadblock in Seattle. There’s too many NIMBYs for real progress to be made until things get to a point where they can’t afford to delay and whinge any longer.

Danica Lefse Queen

You got that right.  The monorail was proposed by a taxi driver initially.  It went viral and got put on the Seattle (only!) ballot by initiative.  This happened just a few years after Tim Einman’s tax revolt forced car tab registry from 1% of the car’s value per year to $30 flat.
The bonds were issued and revenue was started to be collected from Seattle (only!) residents and Tim had a hissy fit. (He lives in incorporated Kent, not under Seattle’s tax jurisdiction)
He sued 3 times to overturn the Seattle tax on car tabs claiming the state had the right to cap local taxes.  Finally Mayor Nickels leaked the bond rates would be 50 years rather than 30 so the ratings plummeted the taxes needed increased and forced a 5th and final vote which finally killed the monorail.

The Lightrail was delayed for 6 years for similar reasons and ended up costing 2.5 times more because of construction delays, the real estate bubble, and law suits. 

The Sounder (Heavy rail) was delayed for 2 to 4 years because of law suits and negotiations with BNSF rails.  People complained about the costs but it runs in the black and is standing room only.

What I saw in Portland: thousands of people getting to work, relatively few cars.

What I saw in Calgary: thousands of people getting to work on light rail, no crippling traffic - and this in an OIL city with limited rail lines.

Portland was built and grown on streetcar lines - putting them back made it possible to shoehorn in more people than have ever lived there and grow the population by 35-50% in the last 20 years while reducing traffic.  And what does that mean for people who want to or need to drive to work?  Less traffic. What “avid driver” would not want less traffic?

So truffle oil makes a roux as nice as butter?

I don’t roux for truffle Mac’n'cheese—melt the cheese with with cream and oil, scalding in a pot on the stove, then mix in the mac, and bake in the oven—it sets up wonderfully, but without flour it doesn’t reheat well (everything separates).  So I only make it for large meals/special occasions.  Oh, and I forgot—must have bacon as well!

BTW, I bike and use transit in Boston because driving sucks and is hideously expensive.  As the transit system has been tanking in performance and has become excessively overcrowded, I have been biking more.  As construction has started, my husband has been using his motorcycle less and biking more.

That said, I completely enjoyed driving hundreds of country miles through Alberta’s wide open spaces.  I actually do like to drive - just not in traffic, in the city, in stupidly marked and laid out highways, etc.  Cars have a place and time.  Four to six kids to a soccer game is it.  Four people to the grocery store to buy $200-300 in groceries is it.  Road trip with the family and a kayak on top is it.  IKEA furniture purchase for a teen’s room or an entire kitchen worth of cabinets is it. My solo daily commute is not it

And if anyone would know the driving habits of meat-loaf eating average Americans it’s average American George F. Will:

Cokie Roberts told how fellow This Weeker George Will found himself stranded in the upper Midwest when the Trade Center was hit. Needing to get back to DC he solved his problem by going to a car dealership, buying a new Jaguar off the floor, and driving back.

This happened just a few years after Tim Einman’s tax revolt forced car tab registry from 1% of the car’s value per year to $30 flat.

Ugh cynickal… don’t get me started on Eyman. What a delusional ass. I think that people who can afford to have a very expensive Mercedes shuld be able to pay the costs associated with it. That would include the car tabs, insurance, etc.
Of course the whole “Why should I pay actual TAXES?” crowd is pretty strong outside of Seattle (other parts of King Co.)  but they don’t LIVE HERE. Of course they’re going to rant & rave about how “unfair” it is that they should pay for society to move ahead and make Seattle a nicer place to live and attract more taxpayers, businesses that pay taxes, etc.

It might make intuitive sense for bicyclists to use the bike path, but it’s absolutely the wrong thing to for us to do. A review of accident statistics makes it clear that riding on the sidewalk is quite a bit more dangerous than riding on the road. Some of this can be accounted for by the fact that a greater proportion of children ride their bikes on the sidewalk (this really isn’t safer for them), but it is mostly because of visibility and the fact that bicycles move much more quickly than pedestrians, which messes with drivers’ expectations of where a bicyclist on the sidewalk will be when they make a turn.

As for bike paths, they are nice and all, but only part of the solution, both because they can’t go everywhere they are needed and because they require financial and physical resources (especially space) to build. The fact is, we already have an infrastructure in place that is intended to efficiently and safely convey traffic to any conceivable desired destination - the roads. What needs to change is the number of bicyclists and the expectations of motorists. The roads do not “belong” to drivers, they were not “created for” drivers (funny story: the development of the modern road system was driven by the cyclist lobby of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s). They exist in order to accommodate traffic, which includes bicyclists.

George Will can suck it.

I come from the (Peoria-like) midwest. I am blind and don’t drive. In the midwest, to be blind often means to be on SSI, sitting around doing nothing all day. (And this goes for many other nondrivers with disabilities, too.)

I moved to Portland specifically because of its transit and walkability. I live in the suburbs, but I live 1/4 mile from a Max stop, blocks from 2 buses, a few MAX stops away from the commuter train, and I can walk to grocery stores, the gym, my UU church, and many other daily necessities. Good public transportation takes disabled people (and poorer people who can’t afford cars) out of the unemployment line and puts them to work. It makes us independent and able to live normal lives. When anyone starts knocking public transit, it not only means they don’t give a crap about the earth, it means they are really giving a big fuck off to the disabled, the elderly and the poor.

I also know many people who have been able to become a one car family because of public transit. This ability to downsize their need for cars and gas has helped some of them keep their homes in tough financial times.

Oh, and not that I can partake, but nearly every street in Portland has bike lanes which require bikers to follow traffic signals without being in the way of traffic flow and slowing down traffic. Since the bike lanes are ever present, the car drivers get used to being aware of them. This also helps their awareness of pedestrians, I think. Portland is also a big zip car town. Alternatives = freedom, George. Don’t republicans like Freedom?

The roads do not “belong” to drivers, they were not “created for” drivers (funny story: the development of the modern road system was driven by the cyclist lobby of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s). They exist in order to accommodate traffic, which includes bicyclists.

I’m pretty sure that, in the early 1900’s, we also didn’t have yellow lights. Because cars didn’t go as fast as they do these days.

Seriously, I’m sympathetic to bike riders, but there are roads they should not be on. Suburb road with 30 mph limit and high visibility? Fine. Six lane street that’s all but a full-fledged highway and everyone routinely goes 50 mph and whips in and out of lanes constantly? No. I see cyclists doing this under the whole “I belong on the road as much as you do” mentality and it’s just not safe.

I’ve also seen a woman in a motorized wheelchair use the roads as if she was a car / cyclist. She used to live by my apartment - saw her regularly. She is going to die - if she hasn’t already - doing that, and someone is going to have to live with that.

Again, I’m a big fan of cyclists and I’m hugely in favor of bike lanes, but this “roads are for everyone” rainbow-pony-dance routine regularly ignores that the speed and lethality of car has vastly outpaced that of bicycles and things need to change to reflect that.

Just to clarify, in Portland, bike lanes are not the same as bike paths.

Bike lanes are actual lanes in the existing street marked off for bikers. They are about 4 feet wide (I’m guessing) and are locating on the far right hand side of the street. They even have their own turn lanes. They follow all traffic rules that cars follow. They also create a nice buffer between sidewalk/pedestrian traffic and car traffic.

The fact is, we already have an infrastructure in place that is intended to efficiently and safely convey traffic to any conceivable desired destination - the roads.

When you’re saying bike paths, you mean separate paths, not bike lanes, right? Because unless you ensure bike lanes on at least the arterial roads, this is a crazy solution. Ensuring that the top speed on arterials is 20 miles an hour is not a prescription for smooth, snarl-free traffic, no matter how many cars you get off the road.

Also what the other people said.

“I’ve also seen a woman in a motorized wheelchair use the roads as if she was a car / cyclist. She used to live by my apartment - saw her regularly. She is going to die - if she hasn’t already - doing that, and someone is going to have to live with that.”

Just had to comment on this. I know a lot of people who use wheelchairs that are forced to use the road from time to time because the streets are lacking appropriate curb cuts (or even have one on one end and not the other) or they get dropped off from a bus in a place where they cannot access the sidewalk.

Just sayin’ you can’t blame disabled people for needing to get where they need to get to and having to deal with unexpected obstacles. The solution, of course, is accessability…but also bike LANES are a safer buffer than having the person using a wheelchair in traffic.

Bikes do NOT belong on sidewalks unless there is enough room and a dedicated lane.  Even then, you get wanderers on cel phones wandering into your path brainlessly.  Sidewalks have unaware pedestrians, obstacles like lamp posts, etc. and are a huge source of cyclist problem.  Many places ban bikes from sidewalks for these good reasons.

The safest place for bikes is on the roads, due to their speed alone. On-road lanes are nice, but I rarely find that the cars that insist on passing me - repeatedly - get anywhere any faster than I do on my bike when there is traffic to contend with. 

Note that there are far more ignorant and impatient fools behind car wheels than there are cyclists - lets start with the idiots piloting tons of heavy equipment first, shall we?

And for the record, the non-arterials are the places for bikes to blend with traffic, I have no problem with that. I’m just picturing Powell or Hawthorne Blvd (for people familiar with Portland) with thousands of bikes directly in traffic the whole way, and shuddering.

I live 3 stops up the Red Line from where I work in DC.  It takes me 5 minutes to commute to work (10 if you include walking to and from the stops).  Why would I trade this to spend 20 minutes per day each way to fight traffic in DuPont circle and another 20 to find parking?  (Or pay some outrageous amount for reserved parking.)  George Will must be senile.

That said, DC transit in general sucks unless you are in the NW quadrant.  I was hoping to get rid of my car when I moved here, but I regularly go into NE and SE for work.  Spending 2 hours switching buses to get to my destination wastes way too much of my time.  That and the buses are so unreliable that I would have to plan a trip well in advance to make sure I don’t miss the meeting I scheduled in SE or NE to begin with.  Buses are not the answer.

As for biking, count me out.  It might be fine in the relatively mild climate of Portland, OR.  But I consider some of the other places I have lived.  Places like Austin and New Orleans are just too hot.  I really don’t want to spend the workday soaked in sweat.  On the other hand, places like Worcester and Binghamton are too cold most of the year to bike (and snow removal in both places leaves something to be desired with respect to the possibility of biking).

“The solution, where possible, is bike paths”

Out here in the suburbs of Orange County CA, this helps out so much. I basically only drive to work (& carpool at that) and can bike everywhere else (grocery, some good restaraunts, hardware store). The bike path is awesome because you don’t have to watch for cars, just other cyclists & walkers.

“they aren’t talking about holding hands and projecting thoughts of non-pollution at it.”
did anyone else picture the CareBears doing the CareBear Stare?

my hometown (Omaha, NE) has been considering a light rail or even a trolley system for some time. our difference is, the only thing really keeping it from being a reality is where we would get the money. city council members in general favor the idea, but don’t want to raise taxes (even temporarily) to pay for its construction. of course, it doesn’t help that we just finished a multi-million dollar expressway through the center of town and are now facing a multi-billion dollar restructuring of our sewer system. still, we’re lucky because our current public transit system of buses is very effective, and has done a pretty good job of keeping up with the city’s expansion.

Yeah, I do “real” mac’n’cheese rather than the stuff that comes out of the box

Oh, me, too—grate the cheddar and cube the tallegio, and mix it all in with cream and truffle oil on the stove.  I just don’t flour it.

Just sayin’ you can’t blame disabled people for needing to get where they need to get to and having to deal with unexpected obstacles. The solution, of course, is accessability…but also bike LANES are a safer buffer than having the person using a wheelchair in traffic.

Yeah, I know, but the situation was that there were sidewalks and she didn’t want to use them. Didn’t even want to hug the curb. We’re talking middle-of-the-lane, screw-you-kids-and-your-cars weirdness. I’m somewhat disabled, and sympathetic, but this one, particular, anecdotal person was freaking crazy.

(And in the left lane, too. Not because she wanted to go left. Just because she liked being in the left lane. Like I said, very weird. The locals knew which streets to be verrrrry careful on, but it was a fairly busy area and non-locals would whip around the corners at the usual 30 mph or whatever and OMGTHEREISAWHEELCHAIRINTHEROAD <swerve> <squeal> <angry gestures and mild heart attacks>. Anyway, just offering it as an explanation for why “roads are not for cars only” mentality can go WAY too far.)

[...] I’m hugely in favor of bike lanes, but this “roads are for everyone” rainbow-pony-dance routine regularly ignores that the speed and lethality of car has vastly outpaced that of bicycles and things need to change to reflect that.

Agreed.  One thing I was thinking the other day is that the entire far right lanes on Connecticut Ave. here in DC should be converted into two bike lanes.  Right now, it’s just a parking lane for most of the day.  This means that a bunch of car owners from DuPont Circle to Chevy Chase have externalized their parking costs.

On another note, one thing that really annoys me in DC is that cabs have decided that bike lanes are turning lanes (and yes, it is almost always a cab doing this).  Yesterday, I was trying to make a right onto Connecticut from R, and a cab pulled up along side of me in the bike lane so it could cut me off and make a right first.  There is a special place in hell for driver who use bike lanes and cyclists who don’t obey traffic laws.

On another note, one thing that really annoys me in DC is that cabs have decided that bike lanes are turning lanes (and yes, it is almost always a cab doing this).  Yesterday, I was trying to make a right onto Connecticut from R, and a cab pulled up along side of me in the bike lane so it could cut me off and make a right first.  There is a special place in hell for driver who use bike lanes and cyclists who don’t obey traffic laws.

Agreed on both counts, and as for your cabs, Portland’s got your solution.

(Although I don’t personally ride on any streets with the boxes, so other Portlanders may disagree, this seems like it’s been a fantastic solution.)

And for the record, the non-arterials are the places for bikes to blend with traffic, I have no problem with that. I’m just picturing Powell or Hawthorne Blvd (for people familiar with Portland) with thousands of bikes directly in traffic the whole way, and shuddering.

Oregon and Portland give these things a lot of thought.  There are pollution reasons to not have bike arterials be on the major car arterials, too.  That’s why the bike lanes are set up in Portland to synapse on bikable bridges and stay off the major arterials.

In Boston you dont’ get that luxury because we have a medieval spoke/hub road system coupled to a speculative “put roads wherever” small road system built as the subdivisions went in.  There is now nor never has been any meaningful regional planning and there never was a requirement for communities to file their plans for road expansion.  Consequently, sometimes all you get is a major road and there is nothing to parallel it.

Does it thicken up nicely with just the cream and the cheese? The child and the husband aren’t fans of thin sauces and every cream-based sauce I’ve made without a thickening agent has been declared “too thin.”

It does, and I have left out the tallegio as well, and used just sharp cheddar.  The trick is to put it in a 400 degree oven for 10 minutes after stirring it all together to let it set up.  But, as I said, it doesn’t reheat well—the cheese separates into oil and solids.

We take the metro & car to work—drive 15 mins to the metro, then metro in.  It ends up taking about 75 minutes all told, which is the same as it would take to drive in NORMAL stopped traffic—if there’s an accident of any kind all bets are off.  But we have the time on the metro to relax and read and not bang our heads against a steering wheel.

Siobhan, do you boil the pasta before putting it in the oven? I couldn’t tell from your post.

(Damn you, Pandagon, always ruining my diet! )

Essie and Auguste, all respect and I like you guys and all, but you guys really don’t know what you’re talking about here. While I agree that it would be NICE if it were only necessary to cycle on quiet roads with 30 mph speed limits and perfect visibility, that just isn’t practically possible under many circumstances. I also think that we should all have puppy dogs and rainbows and eat ice cream all day, but that isn’t how the system works. It’s often necessary to use these less-than-perfect roads. What are we supposed to do, stay home? It’s true that changes in road design, road use and education would hugely improve the situation, but that takes time. The most important thing, though, is to get people OUT of their cars. Nothing makes traffic safe like less traffic. Trying to route people away from the most direct routes to the places that they actually need to go only discourages people from using their bicycles. Bike lanes are one way to encourage more cycling, but there is absolutely nothing inherently safer about them. What we really need is for road school to include bicycle instruction. I am 100% serious about that. We treat bikes as toys, and as a result no one knows how to operate one safely in traffic, and people like you guys are freaked out by the use of bicycles in traffic even when it makes sense and is safe. I’ve ridden on roads like the ones you describe - it can be done safely. Just like driving, it takes practice. It would be safer if more people were doing it.

The system is intended, except on limited-access highways, to accommodate traffic at all speeds. That includes bicycles, construction equipment and, yes, powered wheelchairs. And Essie - I don’t know the exact situation, but chances are good that this “crazy” woman was ensuring the maximum possible safety for herself by taking the lane. No one will try and squeeze by and end up clipping her in that situation, they will take their time to go around. MUCH safer. Annoying? Yeah, maybe, but we really need to get over this idea that the automobile right-of-way is sacrosanct and never to be delayed. Motorists are just ONE class of road user, and the right to go fast does not trump the right of others to make use of the roads. Unfortunately, we as a culture seem to have convinced ourselves that it does, even nice liberal people you guys. Nor does traveling slower than automobiles make the roads less safe, provided that all operators obey the rules and use good judgment. I’ve ridden on roads like the ones you describe where I live in Western Mass, in Boston and in New York City. The big places are worse, sure - mid-town Manhattan is pretty fucking scary, but then, I wouldn’t want to drive there either - but it can be done, and done very safely.
feeling. And again, I mean no disrespect, but my discussions of this subject with others who have no experience in actually bicycling in traffic indicates that you really have no accurate conception of what actually is or isn’t safe, that these judgments are based upon speed and the obvious vulnerability of bicyclists, rather than experience in negotiating traffic from that position.

Oh, I forgot to add: there is NO evidence that bike lanes as implemented in the US make roads safer for bicyclists. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. They give people a warm fuzzy feeling, but that’s NOT the same thing. They actually tend to complicate and confuse when it comes to positioning at intersections, which can be a very serious problem. Sorry, what I think we need is effective education on proper use of our existing road system (and changes to it to calm traffic and encourage less driving), not a feel-good panacea like bike lanes.

I can’t speak for US cities, but that ain’t practical here in the UK. By law only kids can use the pavement (i.e. sidewalk) to cycle on.

I may be mistaken, but I believe that’s true in the states as well.  Although it’s not very well enforced in the cities I’ve lived in.

Suburb road with 30 mph limit and high visibility? Fine. Six lane street that’s all but a full-fledged highway and everyone routinely goes 50 mph and whips in and out of lanes constantly? No.

Personally my solution to that would be to slow down the cars.  The bikes aren’t the problem in that equation.  There’s no reason to have city streets that are practically indistinguishable from highways.  Especially since the newer subdivisions are designed in such a way that you have to go out on the main roads to get anywhere not in your subdivision.

Grolby, no offense, but your solution sounds freaking insane to me. I live in Texas, where taking a corner at 30 mph is standard. You whip around a corner and there’s a 5 mph wheelchair in your lane all of the sudden? The wheelchair is splat.

Bike lanes are one way to encourage more cycling, but there is absolutely nothing inherently safer about them.

Except, of course, for the fact that they aren’t in the middle of the road, slowing down the car-drivers, causing the cars to whip out from behind the cyclists to try to get around them. Meaning that you’ve got (1) a bottleneck, (2) people going slow trying to merge with people going fast, and (3) people coming up fast behind them who don’t see the cyclist until the car changes lanes and then you get either a dead cyclist or a brake-squealing pileup.

Do you also advocate bicycle riding on the interstate?

Siobhan, do you boil the pasta before putting it in the oven? I couldn’t tell from your post.

LOL!  Ok, here goes—1 lb pasta, boiled, drained and NOT rinsed.  On the stove, 1 cup cream, 2 TBSP truffle oil.  Scald cream and oil and mix in 1 lb grated/cubed cheese to melt—I use a 3:1 mix of very sharp cheddar and tallegio—+ 2 TBSP fresh grated parmegian cheese.  When it’s all melted, combine in casserole dish and either mix or top with lots of crumbled bacon.  10 minutes in a 400 degree oven.

You can add more truffle oil, too, or mix it up and use both truffle and garlic oils.

I was actually in SLC when the first light rail line opened up. People were driving in just to ride the thing. It was that weird and novel to them. And come the first Christmas, the trains were packed.

Boston’s system wasn’t so bad if you AND your work were close to a bus/train line. But if you didn’t, there was no choice but to commute via car. (Fortunately, my commute was a reverse commute to the sticks and not too bad, except during blizzard weather.) But yeah, I wasn’t commuting via car because I loved the car. In fact, I would have been overjoyed if the commute had moved to a train or bus commute. More time to read, y’see.

Seattle’s transit system—where I live now—has some very good points to it, but they are just now starting construction on the major light rail station in CapHill. Time to being finished: 2012. The whole light rail system won’t be installed until 2020ish or some number that currently seems a LONG way away. Weirdly, it makes me think of all the transit bonds in my Utah childhood that never went through because people didn’t think Utah needed a light rail system. (Until they had to redo the roads for the Olympics, and suddenly realised, “Hey, our growth is outpacing our roads.” Duh.)

Personally my solution to that would be to slow down the cars.  The bikes aren’t the problem in that equation.  There’s no reason to have city streets that are practically indistinguishable from highways.

Wow…just wow.

I’m going to go sit quietly and think about how odd it is to be a Texan now.

Chicago is the city that works, you know, even if that means patching a road and then tearing it up and repatching it ad nauseum.

Caren puts her finger on a key point here:  there is much more scope for corruption with road contracts than there is with rail.  You can dig up the same damned road thirty times over and repave it, even when it doesn’t need it.  And that business does go to the assorted Tony Sopranos, both legal and illegal, out there, with the right contracts.  Rail is a much more sophisticated system which is ills-suited to this sort of corrupt jobbery, and whose maintenance is usually withing the already-established system.  There are s-loads of politicians and construction companies whose wallets will go anorexic if rail becomes common and viable.

It’s often necessary to use these less-than-perfect roads. What are we supposed to do, stay home?

I think maybe you’re misunderstanding me. What you’re supposed to do - and not just you, bikers, but everyone - is lobby the cities for better solutions. Including dedicated bike lanes. In a city where the change isn’t coming, of course you as a biker have to ride in traffic. But your initial post made it sound like you’d prefer, on a 45 mph arterial, bikes in traffic rather than dedicated bike lanes.

Which I see from your followup is indeed what you’re looking for. So, whatever.

Oh, I forgot to add: there is NO evidence that bike lanes as implemented in the US make roads safer for bicyclists. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

No evidence is not the same thing as evidence of no. True, the studies haven’t been done in large enough number yet to establish anything conclusively, but those limited studies which do exist are pointing in a particular direction, and it’s not yours. Specifically studies (coincidentally?) at UT and PSU.

Essie, I think Grolby is talking about major cities where there really is no need for cars to go very fast because all they do is sprint between backups and stoplights.

Like I described above, bikes don’t slow traffic if traffic cannot move.  I have had the same idiot pass me again and again, and then pass him in a bike lane again and again because bikes form up nicely at stops and cars are so large they have to stack up.

I’m still fuming that Boston built a major stretch of surface road over the Big Dig, complete with large sidewalks that restrict bikes, and no bike accomodations whatsoever.  Not even a shoulder in places.  Very very backward, considering this is the only sane way to get from North Station to the Financial District and South Station and the Seaport areas.

But your initial post made it sound like you’d prefer, on a 45 mph arterial, bikes in traffic rather than dedicated bike lanes.

Which I see from your followup is indeed what you’re looking for. So, whatever.

Yeah, that blew me away, too. This whole “traffic needs to go slower” meme emerging just boggles my mind. Nearly everyone on here has mentioned an hour long (or more) commute - the LAST thing we need is to double that. And for what? A warm, fuzzy feeling that bikes are like little cars with angels perched on the handlebars, or something? Seriously, I’m not seeing WHY it’s a good idea to reduce all traffic to 20 mph everywhere except maybe highways.

A review of accident statistics makes it clear that riding on the sidewalk is quite a bit more dangerous than riding on the road.

grolby, do those studies pre- or post-date the ubiquity of cell phones, ipods and car stereos with black tic-tacs with tiny print for the onboard radio?  If not we can safely toss them. 

I ride the sidewalks a lot simply because the average driver isn’t any smarter than they used to be (and they’ve always been pretty fucking dumb) but because they are now just as dumb and barely paying attention to what they do.

Places like Austin and New Orleans are just too hot.

That’s a fine excuse in the summer, but I’ve found that “not wanting to be sweaty when I get there” isn’t an issue from November-May.  That’s most of the year.  Right now, it’s 75 degrees in Austin.  And even in the summer, as long as it’s morning or early evening, you’re often better off biking than walking if you want to avoid sweating, because you get a breeze biking.

Well gee, Essie, that sounds terrible. How many bicycle-induced multi-car pileups are there on your roads in a year? I’d venture to guess: zero, or nearly zero. This is not the problem you are making it out to be. If you are concerned about traffic problems, blame all the motorists who are out there. If the roads are that jammed, here’s a thought: it’s not the bicyclists fault, NOR his/her problem. Dangerous traffic is caused by too many CARS on the road, not a tiny minority of bicyclists. This should be patently obvious. Drive carefully, legally, defensively and bicyclist will not cause the deadly disruption you are suggesting. Doesn’t happen. In any case, riding fully in the lane, while permissible, is not something that I or most cyclists recommend doing under most circumstances. Nor, however, is hugging the curb. That’s just inviting someone to blow by you and clip you. A lot of riding in traffic is making use of driver psychology to protect you - hang out in about the same area that the right tire of vehicles passes over, and life becomes much safer for everyone, since motorists realize they actually need to slow and go around.

And laterose is exactly right. It’s not as appealing a solution as wasting resources to build all of these segregated facilities that do so little to actually encourage increased transportation cycling, but slowing and reducing traffic, along with education, are the solutions we need.

As far as the interstates go, riding bicycles on limited-access highways is illegal. Use of others is not. That pretty much sums up my position on the matter. I don’t really understand why you are asking that question. If you are implying that your suburban roads are as dangerous as the interstate would be for a cyclists, I would like to offer the thought that something is horribly wrong and should be fixed, and it’s not the bicyclists.

Essie, I think Grolby is talking about major cities where there really is no need for cars to go very fast because all they do is sprint between backups and stoplights.

This.  In LA people will zoom up to 30-40 mph for all of twenty feet only to screech a halt at the next light or traffic back up.

Essie, I think Grolby is talking about major cities where there really is no need for cars to go very fast because all they do is sprint between backups and stoplights. <blockquote>

Which is why maybe this is just a weird Texas thing. I’m in the DFW area, which is a fairly large city by my standards, and there are PLENTY of city streets that are 4-6 lanes, 45-50 mph, with traffic lights few and far between.

Part of it is because we’re so gosh-darn spread out down here, sure. I mean, downtown you can’t do that. But smack dab in the middle of Fort Worth? You bet your ass, pardon the expression. Saying, basically, that traffic just needs to go slower in cities is, in my opinion, displaying a lack of experience with southern cities.

<blockquote>That’s a fine excuse in the summer, but I’ve found that “not wanting to be sweaty when I get there” isn’t an issue from November-May.

Heat and cold tolerance is a personal thing, though. Texas Mays are plenty hot and sweaty for me. So I can totally see this. Plus, who wants to ride a bike to work in the rainy season? I’m just saying, if you work a job that expects you to “look” a certain way, but doesn’t provide showers and changing stalls, then your options are limited right now.

Bah. I fail at html.

Essie, I think Grolby is talking about major cities where there really is no need for cars to go very fast because all they do is sprint between backups and stoplights.

Which is why maybe this is just a weird Texas thing. I’m in the DFW area, which is a fairly large city by my standards, and there are PLENTY of city streets that are 4-6 lanes, 45-50 mph, with traffic lights few and far between.

Part of it is because we’re so gosh-darn spread out down here, sure. I mean, downtown you can’t do that. But smack dab in the middle of Fort Worth? You bet your ass, pardon the expression. Saying, basically, that traffic just needs to go slower in cities is, in my opinion, displaying a lack of experience with southern cities.

That’s a fine excuse in the summer, but I’ve found that “not wanting to be sweaty when I get there” isn’t an issue from November-May.

Heat and cold tolerance is a personal thing, though. Texas Mays are plenty hot and sweaty for me. So I can totally see this. Plus, who wants to ride a bike to work in the rainy season? I’m just saying, if you work a job that expects you to “look” a certain way, but doesn’t provide showers and changing stalls, then your options are limited right now.

How many bicycle-induced multi-car pileups are there on your roads in a year?

Well, not many, probably related to the fact that the cyclists here are wise enough to stay off the 45 mph city streets. I’ve certainly not seen one in a month of Sundays. It would be suicide down here.

I bike quite a bit, down pretty busy roads with a lot of turning-off points. And to an extent, I agree with grolby - the way to make that a safe situation for myself is to act like I own the freaking road, because if I don’t, the drivers aren’t going to pay me any mind. And that does sometimes involve slowing down traffic by coming away from the shoulder, because otherwise there would be too great a temptation for drivers to try to squeeze around me.

And, yes, the problem with stop signs/lights. In the case of lights, you really need to get into the dead center of the correct turning lane, which is a risky proposition, but for stop signs, if you actually stop you have to dismount, and that can cause your center of gravity to shift in a dangerous way if there’s an overeager driver behind you. It’s never smart to run a stop sign, but I can see where it’s a calculated risk (rather than just general assholitude).

As for biking, count me out.  It might be fine in the relatively mild climate of Portland, OR.  But I consider some of the other places I have lived.  Places like Austin and New Orleans are just too hot.  I really don’t want to spend the workday soaked in sweat.

Bingo.  Take Toronto, for instance: a brutally hot and drainingly humid city in the summer.  A friend of mine with a large Toronto company found herself marched down to the obligatory Big Meeting Room to be told by the Sr.VP in Charge of Proles and PR that their company was going green, blah blah blah, and how the staff would have to do this, that and the other, blah, blah blah, world leader blah blah…. And then opened the floor to questions. 

First question: Will the company install showers so that more of us can bike to work instead of driving or taking the TTC (and thus freeing up mass transit for other riders)?  Answer (translated into plain English): fuck you, do you think we’re made of money?  Bike to work and it’s your responsibility to make yourself magically clean by the time you walk through the door.

I am part of that .4% that bikes to work (3 days/week, about 30 miles RT) - on a mix of residential streets, dedicated bike paths and major arterials.  And I will unapologetically take up a full traffic lane sometimes when there is no room for a motorist to pass me safely.  (Getting clipped by someone’s side mirror when they pass too close hurts like nobody’s business.)  When it’s safe I’ll move right and let people pass.  And yes I stop at stop lights and signs and signal turns. 

Paradoxically I find doing all this - basically acting like I’m a very slow moving car - helps the drivers around me calm down.  They see me, they know what I am doing and which way I am going.  The number of bad interactions I’ve had has dropped dramatically since I started riding this way.

If I had reliable bus service between home and work I would never drive.  Hey Mr Will - I just had an egg & cheese biscuit for breakfast—that “Real American” enough for ya?

Re: bikes on sidewalks.

I can’t speak for American cities, but the blues here in London, ON have a simple “don’t be a dick” rule of thumb for bikes on sidewalks.  If you go slowly and treat the pedestrians with deference and respect then they leave you alone.  Go too fast or too aggressively and out comes the ticket book for riding your bike on the sidewalk.

Re: interaction of bikes and cars.

Part of the problem lies in the fact that there’s a certain institutional tendency in some police forces to see “traffic enforcement” as being synonymous with “speed traps”.  The million and one non-speed oriented bits of law breaking and general assholery tend to go unpunished.

Okay, for everyone saying that traffic just needs to “go slower”, are you seriously suggesting that people with, say, an hour commute already should just suck it up and take the 2 hour commute? So that cyclists and motorized wheelchairs can make sure that the effective speed limit on the roads is a flat 20 mph, at best?

Because this is what I’m hearing and I just want some clarification.

And none of this “no, we need fewer cars” crap, because that’s a dodge from the question about wheelchairs on the road.

(And I am not saying, by the way, that bicycles don’t belong on the road. But I’m amazed by this dismissal of bike lanes.)

But your initial post made it sound like you’d prefer, on a 45 mph arterial, bikes in traffic rather than dedicated bike lanes.

Which I see from your followup is indeed what you’re looking for. So, whatever.

WTH would the point of dedicated bike lanes on a 45 mph arterial be? What would they accomplish that a wider outside lane, or wide, paved shoulder would not? If nothing else, bike lanes appear to be ripe for abuse, because no one knows what to do with them. There’s NO standard design, NO rules or standards for implementation, NO clear idea as to how they should work at intersections. Fix those problems, and I’m fine with striping bike lanes everywhere, but the simple truth is that we need changes in driver behavior, not just paint on the roads. Bike lanes impose an artificial restraint on the movement of bicycles within traffic. This isn’t a big deal when I am not required to use one, but they often come with laws requiring their use when they exist. This is fucking insane, since the positioning of the bike lane may hugely interfere with what is practical and safe for my intentions (e.g. turning left across traffic on such an arterial). A lot of people who use bike lanes for their alleged safety benefits do not have my experience and my knowledge of appropriate maneuvering in traffic. Bike lanes are effectively cages, but without physical barriers providing actual protection from traffic. I have no doubt that they can help, but without enormous changes to our overall traffic infrastructure, I don’t see them as much of a solution. I am not opposed to them on principle, but I can count the number of useful or well-implemented bike lanes I’ve ever seen in the U.S. on the fingers of one hand.

Yeah, that blew me away, too. This whole “traffic needs to go slower” meme emerging just boggles my mind.

Essie puts her finger on part of the problem.  In Toronto, one of the biggest problems with “reduce car use strategies” was that they were advocated by people who basically had one idea: make driving a car into the downtown as miserable as possible.  Nothing like being told by some bike-riding city councillor with access to a gym and change room at his workplace (which is 1 km from his house) that I have to make it to court from the ‘burbs in my wool suit on my bike with three bankers’ boxes somehow magically balanced on the back of my ten speed.  Traffic reduction policies have to be integrated and functional, not just “ooh!  let’s be total dicks to drivers!!!!”

Essie, I think the idea is that everyone needs to respect the right of others to use the resources available, and work toward implementing resources that are more helpful for everyone (bike paths, for example, where a motorized wheelchair would be more at home).

I mean, it sounds like this one woman in your neighborhood might have had some particular motivation for riding as she did that wouldn’t be addressed by, say, adding a bike lane. But then I think about my 94-year-old grandfather who drives a boat of a car at about 15 mph everywhere he goes. He does this because he has a bum leg, and has to physically lift his foot from the gas to put it on the brake. This is NOT SAFE, and we are trying to get him to stop. He shouldn’t have a license. We don’t live anywhere near each other, though, so there isn’t a whole lot my family can do about it, and in the meantime we just have to hope the drivers around him treat him with respect (and, well, fear. Because he can’t stop. It’s bad bad bad, and a good thing he lives in a small enough town that everyone knows the situation).

Okay, for everyone saying that traffic just needs to “go slower”, are you seriously suggesting that people with, say, an hour commute already should just suck it up and take the 2 hour commute? So that cyclists and motorized wheelchairs can make sure that the effective speed limit on the roads is a flat 20 mph, at best?

I have to run, so I have no time to address this in detail, but you are really badly misreading this argument. Again: cyclists and wheelchairs are not reducing the speed of traffic. CARS are. What I suggest is that we need considerably more options in transportation, like rail, that will get people off the road. What I suggest is that people do indeed “suck it up,” and choose to live somewhere where they do NOT have a one-hour commute to their jobs. What I suggest is that, yes, the people who don’t want to move ALSO suck it up and come to understand that choosing to drive everywhere does indeed have penalties, and not just abstract ones, like environmental damage. And that they then make choices about where they live and how they get to work that actually make sense, AND make their driving, when they do it, more pleasant.

And even in the summer, as long as it’s morning or early evening, you’re often better off biking than walking if you want to avoid sweating, because you get a breeze biking.

I remember that it regularly breaks 75 degrees F in December in Austin (and yet the next day could be an ice storm).  I would say that December-March MIGHT be decent cycling weather in Austin and New Orleans.  Still, I don’t like being sweaty at work so there you have it.  Biking to work is not for me.  I like a train-based transit option.

My solution to this was actually to move to the Northeast/mid-Atlantic region.  Dense, walkable cities, train-based mass transit, and New England/New York weather is for me.  I also just fit in much better here than in the South or Texas.  YMMV. 

If where I lived was my only concern, I would just move to Boston (or maybe NYC) and never leave.

WTH would the point of dedicated bike lanes on a 45 mph arterial be?

Maybe I’m being lazy in my descriptions. This is the kind of thing I see you arguing against:

http://is.gd/BonI

And arguing that bikes should be fender to bumper with cars, say, here:

http://is.gd/BokL

And as I mentioned before, in cities where the choice is ride in traffic or not ride at all, I’m absolutely in favor of riding in traffic. I’m probably at least partially blinded by only being able to understand in the abstract how non-bike-oriented other cities really are.

I recognize good old Akard Station in that photo. The expansion of public transportation in Dallas is one of the only progressive things about this city, and I believe it’s helping us stay on the less precipitous end of the plunging economic curve. I’m really quite surprised Austin has lagged in that area, although their buses do have wifi.

I always think it’s hilarious when Atrios gets pounded by commenters for promoting dense city development to make public transportation more viable. People take their long-ass commutes very personally.

Essie - I think the argument about bike lanes is more that when cyclists are in bike lanes they are “marginal” to most drivers’ thinking—off to the side & out of the way.  So a distracted or inattentive driver is less likely to see/really notice them and is more likely to drift over or cut them off or some other bad thing.

When cyclists take the lane, they are in the driver’s more immediate field of view and the driver is more likely to see them & react appropriately (slow down, change lanes).  That’s not to say that cyclists should stay in that lane position all the time - it’s much more polite to move over & let faster traffic pass you when it’s safe.  So sometimes faster traffic has to slow down for a while, but presumably not forever, since eventually it WILL be safe for the slower vehicle (bike, wheelchair, whatever) to move over. 

Note: I am not sure I 100% support this argument myself - I see some real advantages to bike lanes.  But I’ve certainly heard it out there.

Aaand I am a slower thinker & typist than others here!

Which is why maybe this is just a weird Texas thing. I’m in the DFW area, which is a fairly large city by my standards, and there are PLENTY of city streets that are 4-6 lanes, 45-50 mph, with traffic lights few and far between.

I don’t know Essie.  Where I used to live in Ohio was a suburb that was built up but they hadn’t updated the roads since they were built as country roads.  Which means they were two lane roads with 35-50 mph speed limits, and no sidewalks.  Since the developments were all new they were designed so that none of the roads were through streets.  You’d see teens riding their bikes on the road all the time because that was the only way they could get anywhere on their own.  The only bike accident that occurred in the five or so years I lived there was caused by a car driver running a red light. 

Also I do think those roads could have used a speed reduction.  Country roads do tend to have high speed limits (which is nice when you have to drive ten miles to get to the next building), but it works out because there are so few cars on the road.  When you get more cars on the road they either need to be exclusive to cars, like a highway, or slowed down a bit.  And I say this as someone who currently has a commute that ranges between 45 min and two hours.  If all the cities streets I take got lowered to 25 mph that would probably add about ten minutes to the commute.  The main reason for the long commute is that there are too many damn cars on the road.

Ya know why George Will hates public transport (and is willing—ha!—to lie about it)?

Because public transportation might bring THOSE PEOPLE into HIS neighborhood, and since simply everyone is wearing jeans these days he—and the police—will not be able to spot THOSE PEOPLE at first sight.

I’ve forgotten the name of the Washington D.C. underground (subway) but although it seems to move people to jobs pretty efficiently, it doesn’t go to Georgetown.

Which, I read somewhere or other, is because the Georgetownians didn’t want THOSE PEOPLE who take public transportation to have easy access to their town. No matter that statistics show crime doesn’t jump with the subway into any neighborhood.

Same problem out my way. I’ve used public transportation for 25 years in Los Angeles (really!) during which time both the subway and light rail have been proposed to go out to the westside, where I live.

But the westside is also populated by rich and influential assholes who don’t want THOSE PEOPLE to have faster access to their neighborhood, and don’t care if their help has to travel two hours by bus each way, or that their chauffeurs are stuck on the 10 for an hour each way during rush hour—they can read Variety cover to cover by then.

Light rail is finally being built and named “the Subway to the Sea”—which is a laugh because funding and building is official only to Culver City, a good 10 miles from there.

Even if it would breakup the three rush hours a week day on the freeway (coming, going and lunch), the five on the weekend (back from the beach at four, going out Friday and Saturday night, and coming back at midnight) the Los Angeles version of George Will is still frightened that THOSE PEOPLE (and everyone else) won’t be burning fossil fuels in their neighborhoods.

What I suggest is that people do indeed “suck it up,” and choose to live somewhere where they do NOT have a one-hour commute to their jobs.

I’m enjoying your posts, grolby, but I have to take issue with this.  Again, take Toronto as an example.  It is a terrible example of sprawl gone mad and is a hideously expensive housing market.  People buy where they can afford to buy which is often very far indeed from their jobs.  What happens then is that the government that supplies the mass transit service can’t be arsed to make it good/.  GO Transit for example (for GTA train commuters) has weird “only in in the morning and out in the evening” schedules rather than two-way flows.  It also let auto break-ins run rampant in its parking lots for ages until shamed into pretending to care by negative press coverage in the Toronto Star.  There’s an awful lot of people who wanted to go by rail and who couldn’t because they already lived in the city and worked in the exurbs (moi, for example!) or who said “bugger this for a lark” after their car had been broken into for the third time.

The break-in problem actually raised an interesting reality: that mass-transit solutions can’t be restricted to mass transit itself; they need to be integrated into other component parts of the government and society.  Better policing (and better communication by GO to the police) would have nipped a rider-draining problem in the bud.  When people think “how do we get people out of their cars” they often forget things like “what non-transit players need to be participants in our planning processes?”.

I always think it’s hilarious when Atrios gets pounded by commenters

Atrios has commenters that comment on the actual topic of what he’s posted on?

People still read Atrios’s comment sections often enough that they know what goes on there?

I’m sorry, Grolby, but I don’t think I understand you at all.

WRT my wheelchair example, you seem to be defending that she should have been in the road, rather than the sidewalk that I already mentioned was available to her. If you are advocating this - that roads are “for” motorized wheelchair use (and you seem to be), then I again say that your argument is going to only work in an alternate reality where driving is completely different than it is now.

WRT bike lanes, you seem to be saying that you prefer bikes to be in the main traffic rather than in bike lanes. You also insist that it is safer for bikes to be in main traffic because… there are no studies saying otherwise. Ok.

WRT “being in the traffic means the driver sees you” - not necessarily. You are talking to someone who watched her sister-in-law plow into a parked car, with hazard lights on, in the middle of the day, in the left lane on a completely empty, totally straight highway. So, no, being in the middle of traffic does not mean that the driver is more likely to see you. Saying you don’t want to be clipped by hugging the curb… I think you do not understand what I mean by “bike lane”. Bike lanes are 4 or 5 feet wide. They are a special lane for bikes.

I do not understand the hostility towards bike lanes. Maybe people don’t know how to use them, but re-educating them about bike lanes seems a lot easier than re-educating people not to take fast corners because wheelchairs might be on the road. And I think there are people here who do not understand what it is like to have a 5 mph wheelchair in the road in front of you. It’s scary.

Atrios has commenters that comment on the actual topic of what he’s posted on?

Transit posts are p. much the only time this happens.

Which, I read somewhere or other, is because the Georgetownians didn’t want THOSE PEOPLE who take public transportation to have easy access to their town.

I used to believe this, too, but it actually turns out that the real reason is that the land on which Georgetown is built was considered too unstable to build a metro station on at the time and that back when they were building the metro, Georgetown wasn’t considered the “major destination” that it is today. In retrospect, it was considered a complete mistake.

And the truth is that it wouldn’t surprise me if george will lived in a place like Bethesda or Chevy Chase which does have decent and frequent public transport options. The wealthy outlying areas of DC that aren’t served by convenient public transport, like Potomac, are considered a bit too nuveau-riche for the likes of Will.

What I suggest is that people do indeed “suck it up,” and choose to live somewhere where they do NOT have a one-hour commute to their jobs.

Ironically and tangentially, I moved within biking distance of my office, essentially intentionally, then got laid off and had to take a job with a lot more driving (not commuting, for the record.)

Did I just say ironically? Ah well.

Which, I read somewhere or other, is because the Georgetownians didn’t want THOSE PEOPLE who take public transportation to have easy access to their town. No matter that statistics show crime doesn’t jump with the subway into any neighborhood.

Yep, that is exactly right.  Of course DC has also made sure that there is no decent Metro coverage of the areas where those people live.  THOSE people are forced into buses whose routes look suspiciously like they were designed to discourage movement between the quadrants of DC.

My favorite example of this is the Southern Ave. Metro stop.  It looks like a concrete fortress surrounded by razor wire, sited in the middle of a field.  You can’t really walk to it easily from the neighborhood.  It is only effectively accessible by bus.  And the bus runs about once every half hour and is chronically late.

The upshot is that Georgetown screwed themselves out of a Metro stop for no cognizable reason since the transit system here was designed to maintain segregation.*

* Granted, Columbia Heights has only become yuppie-town in the past two years or so - and solely because it has a metro stop.

Someone mentioned mac and cheese?

Here is the perfect recipe for elitist dijon mustard-eating traitors like us…

I used to believe this, too, but it actually turns out that the real reason is that the land on which Georgetown is built was considered too unstable to build a metro station on at the time

I did not know that.  (And thus, in part, I lose a perfectly good reason to hate on Georgetown!)

Columbia Heights has only become yuppie-town in the past two years or so - and solely because it has a metro stop.

True, but that line only came in relatively recently—within the past 15 years or so—and was not part of the early construction of the metro. I don’t know what the original “pie in the sky” plans for the metro were back when it was conceived in the late 60s/early 70s, but there was no fully functioning green line for a long time after the metro was up and running.

I lose a perfectly good reason to hate on Georgetown!

Don’t worry. There are still plenty of other reasons.

He does this because he has a bum leg, and has to physically lift his foot from the gas to put it on the brake. This is NOT SAFE, and we are trying to get him to stop. He shouldn’t have a license.

Might hand controls be an easier option than pulling his license? They do cost anywhere from $250 to $500 but insurance may help pay for them. They simply hook (with removable tension bolts) right on the foot pedals and extend a hand control on usually the left side of the steering wheel to control both gas and break with one hand. Other people can still drive the car with foot pedals. The hand controls do not get in the way.

Essie, I’ll make this simple: people have lengthy commutes because of congestion.  People also have lengthy commutes because of sprawl.

Higher speed limits do not eliminate congestion.  Bike lanes might reduce congestion because they enable those with shorter jaunts to downsize to much smaller vehicles.

Higher speed limits encourage sprawl.  Sprawl lengthens commutes.  Transit alternatives and workable cycling and walking facilities discourage sprawl because they put a premium on having housing and jobs and shopping closer together.  Urban growth boundaries also limit sprawl, but then necessitate infrastructure for their density - which is why Portland is working out so beautifully while absorbing a huge chunk of people.

Now,. to bend your mind further, consider this: congestion is turbulent flow, non-congestion is laminar flow.  Higher throughput leads to turbulence.  Lower throughput leads to laminar flow.  This is some physics fun for ya - slower speeds may actually reduce congestion!  CA has done much with this by using light timings to keep a constant flow at a lower speed rather than stop/start at high speed.

the non-arterials are the places for bikes to blend with traffic, I have no problem with that.

I hate to break it to you, but arterials are typically safer for bicyclists.  The number one danger for bicyclists is unprotected (by a stop sign or, preferably, a stop light) intersections.  Arterials normally control traffic through stop lights to keep traffic flowing smoothly.  By diverting bicyclists onto less used roads, your department of transportation is likely putting them in danger.  Drivers don’t stop for bicyclists (or pedestrians for that matter), which means that bicyclists are less likely to be injured or killed if they stay on roads where drivers are required to stop for all through traffic.

CA has done much with this by using light timings to keep a constant flow at a lower speed rather than stop/start at high speed.

Which is an excellent idea, but there fourproblems arise.

First: some jurisidictions have politicians or traffic authorities invested in interfering with the traffic flow (the easy-answer “dick with the drivers” school I mentioned earlier).  I recall a TTC strike in Toronto in 1991 when the traffic authorities slipped and admitted that with the large amounts of extra cars now on the roads “we’ll have to adjust the lights to actually speed up traffic”, or words to that effect: slowing people down to the point where they will give up and get on transit was the idea.

Second: the public has to be briefed and to believe genuinely in it and the government has to care that there is buy-in.  If the public is permitted to perceive that it’s just the government getting into the way again then there will be a backlash.

Third: bring the cops aboard.  If the 20 mph speed limit is just an excuse for every cop within the city limits to wear out his ticket book for somebody going 25 on a clear road then you will have backlash.

Fourth: the lower speed limit must NOT be permitted to be a significant revenue-generator for the city.  If it is then we run into “Third” (above) and, bang, backlash.

It’s amazing how many politicians, bureaucrats and cops forget Burke’s most basic dictum: if you make the law their enemy then people will be enemies to laws.

Keshmeshi, the pollutant exposures on arterials are much higher than on secondary roads - accidents are not the only hazard!

Furthermore, non arterial roads do not necessarily have less lighting or priority than arterials - just smaller intersections.  This is most particularly true in places like Portland, where major intersections are defined by the priorities of the grid system.

Just to provide a source for my claim, this is where I heard the true story of the Georgetown metro which never got built.

One more small point—while I understand people not liking to get all sweaty, that has turned out to be much less of a problem for me than I thought it would.  I live in San Diego and commute in 90+ degree heat in the summer.  I keep my office clothes at the office, take it easy on the way in to work. When I get here I wash up in the ladies’ room with a washcloth & baby wipes and change from the skin out.  Even the dreaded helmet hair really hasn’t been much of an issue.  There is a shower in my building but I haven’t used it more than once or twice. 

It still may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it is possible to commute by bike and still maintain a professional look (and smell!).

The number one danger for bicyclists is unprotected (by a stop sign or, preferably, a stop light) intersections.

Firstly, There aren’t that many unprotected intersections in Portland. They do exist, and I avoid them even in my car whenever possible. Secondly, bicycle use in Portland has quadrupled since 1990 without an attendant increase in accidents, so the DOT might just be doing something right.

Thirdly, Wolfram|Alpha is a fucking joke. Per capita bicycle accidents too much for you do to anything with, W|A? Why not just give us a dropdown menu?

Bluefish, I think that the key is that you have the option.  You know that there is a shower for that 1 day out of X where you will stagger in looking like a sweat-soaked Gaspode.  If you know that you’re covered then you know you can ride.  Also, don’t some offices have conduct codes which preclude getting changed on the premises?  Further, who the hell wants to get changed in a bathroom?  I can’t speak to ladies’ rooms but some mens rooms can be pretty skanky places where I do NOT want to be in my socks, thankyouverymuch.

Also, how many people have an office where they can leave their stuff with such assurance?  People in large, anonymous organizations can be the most frightful thieves (as anybody with a shared fridge can attest) and leaving my suit or nice ties for somebody to take doesn’t seem brilliant.

Essie, I’ll make this simple: people have lengthy commutes because of congestion.  People also have lengthy commutes because of sprawl.

Ms Kate, I’ll make it simple for you: I don’t disagree with this because I’m not a freaking moron. Although I will note that - down here - most of my co-workers are on the “sprawl” side of delay, not the “congestion” side. But you’re not from here so YMMV. Shockingly.

Bike lanes might reduce congestion because they enable those with shorter jaunts to downsize to much smaller vehicles.

Which is one of the reasons I’m arguing FOR bike lanes. I’m arguing AGAINST people who say that bike lanes are undesirable.

Higher speed limits encourage sprawl.

Well, no. In my area, lower prices in the suburbs encouraged sprawl and the higher speed limits were added after the fact to try - somehow - to lower the burden for people who already lived fairly far out and didn’t have many options for moving. I mean, you’re talking to someone whose house payment is significantly less than my in-city apartment rent. And I don’t even have one of the longer commutes.

Transit alternatives and workable cycling and walking facilities discourage sprawl because they put a premium on having housing and jobs and shopping closer together.

In my area, the sprawl has already happened. Now we’re just trying to deal with it in a green way. The options are buses and light rail and good stuff like that or, um, bull-doze the burbs and start over.

I really enjoyed this condescending lecture from you that did nothing to address my main assertion: which is that expecting people to drive 5 mph on 6-lane roads to accomodate motorized wheelchairs because bike lanes are bad is unsafe and insane.

But I look forward to more condescention from you.

What I suggest is that people do indeed “suck it up,” and choose to live somewhere where they do NOT have a one-hour commute to their jobs.

When I took the job offer for the job I have now, I knew I would have to move, and so I intentionally picked an apartment that is only three miles away.  It’s a great idea if you can do it.  But, what about married couples who have jobs that are fairly far apart from each other?  What about parents whose bigger priority is a good school for their kids, and that means a longer commute?  What about people who bought a house close to their job and then got fired or laid off and got a different job farther away?  What about people who just can’t afford housing that is anywhere close to their job?  Right now I’m young and single and renting, and I love it that I can choose to live really close to my job, but I realize that eventually I might have a husband and kids, and we won’t all work and go to school in the same area.

Has someone already pointed out that his employers office building is three blocks (either way) from two Metro stops? I’m guessing that’s why he wrote this drivel because of the ease of his own commute via public transportation.

Anyone who has ever actually had to drive in DC (and I don’t mean sitting in the back sipping coffee while a chauffeur drives) knows that it sucks. You sit there in impotent rage at your green light because the light in front of you is red and none of those cars can move to allow you to move too. You have to go around the stupid traffic circles twice because a giant truck is blocking the street where you needed to turn. The largest expressway goes around in a circle. Two smaller expressways force you onto crowded DC streets if you simply want to go from one expressway to the other one. Two words:  Wilson Bridge. Any of these things can induce road rage in less than a second. Expanding the Metro with light rail would take cars off the roads and clog them with people dancing joyfully.

Plus, who wants to ride a bike to work in the rainy season?

Which is mostly all damn year ‘round in Seattle.

More power to people who do/are fearless enough but I’m thankful for the Metro (and my company’s free bus pass). At least we have that, as annoyingly dreadful service is after 6:30 PM.

Even though there are some seriously deranged and just plain wrong things that go on on the proletariat chariot. (see the Stranger’s Metro Hot Tipper’s stories!)

but I realize that eventually I might have a husband and kids…

Dear Ms. catgirl:

Regarding your post of 1431h, May 19, 2009 [Pandagon].

Please be advised that you are not on the list of permitted breeders, nor will you be permitted to marry.

Yours truly,
The Gay Agenda

DC Fem:

I once, as a tourist, got lost in the bewildering residential city streets of DC, at night, with no map.  I had to pay a cab driver to go where I needed to go, and just followed him there!

The SLC system is really pretty spiffy.  [...] I didn’t think it would catch on.  I thought people were too slavishly devoted to their cars.  How wrong I was and you too, Mr. Will, are dead wrong.

Yup. I live in SLC and, ten years on, I’m *still* gobsmacked with joy over the light rail. And now they’ve extended it and added commuter rail going north along the Wasatch Front, which I totally dig.

The really amazing thing to me was that people in ultra-Mormon, ultra-Republican Utah County voted themselves a tax increase to bring the rail down to their part of the state. That’s how awesome the rail is.

I’m curious to see what happens with it in Austin. Good luck with that - I don’t know how important it is that people be able to see it, though I’d never thought about that psychological boost before. Just riding it, being able to do work on your way in, and not have to mess with a car is reward enough, IMO.

Seeker, where is that list of permitted breeders, and is it mandatory? I do not think it will make us very happy if you keep me off and put Amanda or Mighty Ponygirl on!

Although we did float - forever ago - the idea of a Pandagon pregnancy-pact commune. Ah, memories.

Esssssssieeeee..
... lisssssssssst is ssssssssssssssssssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeecret!

Damn.  My snakier side can get out of hand.

Has someone already pointed out that his employers office building is three blocks (either way) from two Metro stops? I’m guessing that’s why he wrote this drivel because of the ease of his own commute via public transportation.

Actually, I suspect that Will is now at a level in his career (regular writing gigs with several different publications, syndication, etc.) that he writes at home and hardly goes to his employer’s office building at all, and certainly doesn’t do what any of us would call commuting. Heck, we’ve had repeated statements from Post editors that they don’t fact-check him, so why would he need to communicate with anyone above the level of a copy-editor? So as with most things, he’s doing the proper conservative thing of telling everyone that the government shouldn’t have any influence over how they live, and they should continue to behave how he remembers from twenty years ago, which he assumes is still how everyone lives.

Employers really do need to buy in.  I took a new job in Ann Arbor and for the first month it was great - took the bus every day.  Then my schedule changed and I needed to work until 2, 3, 4 AM.  The buses don’t run that late (which is not really the transit system’s fault - who the fuck commutes at 4 AM?).  So now I’m driving again, and I hate it.  The only part I like is being able to stop for groceries on the way home instead of making a separate trip.  If I could work anything resembling a normal schedule (say between the hours of 6am and 9:30pm), I could take transit, but my employer isn’t cooperating.  Policies established by my employer make me part of the commuting problem again.

Actually, I suspect that Will is now at a level in his career (regular writing gigs with several different publications, syndication, etc.) that he writes at home and hardly goes to his employer’s office building at all, and certainly doesn’t do what any of us would call commuting.

But does he ‘dress for success’ when he commutes, that’s the question. We know he doesn’t approve of jeans, after all.

Maybe he just lives in his pajamas.

So sad I’m late to the party on this post.

@Amanda

I think the reason Austin’s “light rail” will work is that it isn’t actually light rail. It is commuter rail for people from the northern suburbs. I’m willing to bet that most of the ridership will be Leander/Cedar Park-Downtown in the morning and back in the evenings. I don’t know why they’re calling it light rail. It isn’t designed for intra-urban transport. The stops between Kramer and downtown will mostly go unused, but it should be a very successful commuter train rom the northern Park and Ride stations, especially with free wifi.

@ Essie Elephant

What makes bike lanes less safe (at least in Austin) than taking the lane is the debris/obstacles in them. I commute everyday on roads that have bike lanes and which are full of parked cars (illegal but unenforced) and trash cans which cause me to have to swerve in and out of the “car” lane . They are also full of loose gravel, sand, branches, and other small debris that gets washed/swept off the main lanes of roads. flat tires and wiping out on gravel and sand are a constant worry. These problems could be addressed by not allowing parking in bike lanes and by having the city regularly sweep them.

A much tougher problem however is that people making turns don’t look into bike lanes when they are seeing if they can make a turn. They look to the center of the “car” lane. Cars making left or right turns across bike lanes cause many more collisions than bikes being hit as they are overtaken from behind. Riding all the way to the right (bike lane or not) also puts you (and by you I mean me) at a much greater risk of being doored as people exit vehicles.

More on Georgetown and the DC Metro. There were stops planned for Foggy Bottom in DC and Rosslyn in VA way back in the early 70’s. The Rosslyn station is VERY deep as it is so close to the Potomac. The depth of the tunnel made it impossible to put a station in Georgetown. Besides, Foggy Bottom to Wisc Ave is a nice walk. Rosslyn to Wisc Ave (is Dixie Liquor still there at Key Bridge?) gives you a great of Key Bridge.

And to the commenter up above in Houston: Sadly, light rail will not be going down Westheimer. It would be cool if it did, but construction would be too disruptive. It might be a good time to buy some real estate in Eastwood or along Scott Street near UH. Area will be a boomtown in a couple of years. and you will get to smell coffee roasting all the time from the Intertrade Coffee Plant.

Anyone who has ever actually had to drive in DC [...] knows that it sucks.

Yep.  I noted above that my main office is 3 stops down the red line from where I live.  This is the main reason why I got my apartment.  Then again, I pay entirely too much rent and realize that most people in the city could not afford to live in my building.  (So I would never tell someone making $30K/yr to “suck it up” and live on the transit lines.  They may want to buy food during the month as well as pay rent.)

On the other hand, I do a lot of work in NE and SE DC.  I have no other realistic option but to drive to locations in these areas.  So believe me when I agree that driving in DC sucks.  DC has to be the only place where you can regularly watch people drive in reverse half a block in traffic to get a parking spot.  You can also regularly see people on Connecticut Ave. hang a U in the middle of the street, nowhere near an intersection, in full rush hour traffic.

Again, if where I lived was my only concern, I’d move to Boston and stay.

Besides, Foggy Bottom to Wisc Ave is a nice walk.

Not between May and October. 

Redshift:

I’d imagine that the paper doesn’t want Will in the building.  It costs a fortune to strew rose petals in front of him wherever he walks.

seeker6079

Like I said, it’s not for everyone.  As you & others here have noted, some people’s circumstances make bike commuting really impossible.  But in a lot of cases there’s a difference between “it’s impossible” and “I don’t want to.”  You don’t want to change in the restroom.  Fine!  Some people are grossed out by that, and who wants to be grossed out at the start of the work day?  I totally respect that.  But that’s an “I don’t want to,” not an “it’s impossible.” 

I have noticed that some things can loom large in people’s minds and keep them from even experimenting with bike commuting (sweat & hair issues seem to be big ones).  Many people seem to think it’s categorically impossible to ride a bike to work in warm weather and still look professional. That’s not true.  Can everyone do it all the time in all circumstances?  No.  But I’m all for getting more people to try it. So I put my experience out there as one example that maybe can help people think past “it’s impossible” to “what am I willing/not willing to do?”

And FTR even if my building didn’t have the shower I don’t use, I would still ride.

Babieca, that’s a good point. We’ve got a good sanitation system here, I guess, because the (few) bike lanes we have are always nice and clean.

I definitely agree that for a bike lane to work, there has to be proper sanitation, public education, and law enforcement. As seeker (I believe - too lazy to look) pointed out - the cops are too busy with speed traps to notice people running stop signs and infringing on bike lanes, and that’s a problem with law enforcement, not bike lanes. But that’s a whole ‘nother rant.

Of course, that’s not nearly the same things as saying “motorized wheelchairs deserve just as much a place on the road as the cars”, but I’m not holding my breath to be answered on that onw.

(sweat & hair issues seem to be big ones)

What’s the gender of the biker? It’s pretty much an open secret that women are held to a higher standard than men in many jobs. At my white collar job, messy hair and sweat for a man would be no biggie - we’re engineers and not expected to be adept at dressing ourselves. Unless, whoops, you’re a woman in which case, you’re going to get some looks.

I doubt it would overtly figure into your performance review, but you have to worry about intangibles like that.

I’d imagine that the paper doesn’t want Will in the building.  It costs a fortune to strew rose petals in front of him wherever he walks.

Oh, teh lols. If we didn’t have Will, we’d have to invent him. That was perfect.

Bluefish:
Granted, I see your distinction.  But there comes a point where basic personal dignity has to have a measurable value of it’s own that takes it into “can’t” territory.  To not concede that point is to adapt the same “you’re just a cog not a person” thinking that is so characteristic of the business world.  I think that a company that, say, wants its employees to be environmentally friendly can damned well get a shower and make sure that the bathroom is clean.  If they don’t then they are the obstacle, not my desire to not have urine-soaked socks.

I have long referred to the attitude that cars own the road as “car privilege”.  That’s because many people can’t see past the idea that wrapping a large piece of steel around you and taking up a hella lot of space confers special privileges to public infrastructure that all road users pay for, despite the car users being the most heavily subsidized class of users already.

Around here, the roads were paved after the League of American Wheelmen insisted upon it for cycling purposes.  I like to joke “you cars get off my asphalt!” as a result.  Transportation isn’t about cars getting around - it is about moving people around.

“I once, as a tourist, got lost in the bewildering residential city streets of DC, at night, with no map.  I had to pay a cab driver to go where I needed to go, and just followed him there!”

That is fucking awesome! I never would have thought of that. 

I’ve worked in a couple of places where there was a shower available.

My current workplace has its own gym and locker room where one could shower. But one of my former workplaces didn’t even had that—they just had a shower in one of the bathrooms.

I don’t have any trouble with my commute. I work in Area 51 (yes, that ONE) and we are flown daily from the North Las Vegas terminal on Janet, a red and white Boeing 737. It only takes twenty minutes, and ATC always gives us priority clearance. I don’t think the gov’t has any plans on putting in a light rail system.

(just foolin of course!)

The interesting thing about this comment discussion, IMHO, is the extent to which each city is unique, and faces different challenges in Cycling infrastructure.

I feel the frustration over bike lanes though. Calgary is full of roads that would be ideal candidates for them, and yet the city puts them in in places where they run for two blocks then end suddenly, run alongside parked cars, are too narrow, and on poorly maintained roads that are full of potholes. Meanwhile, the routes cyclists actually take get ignored. We also have an extensive pathway system that’s basically useless because there’s a 20 km/hr speed limit enforced and pedestrians don’t get their own pathway, making a lot of dangerously passing pedestrians and rollerbladers neccesary to get anywhere in any reasonable lenght of time.

Getting around by bike is relatively easy in areas that were built on the grid system, since there’s usually a road that runs parallel to the big ones and at least has lights instead of stop signs where it crosses major roads, but in subdivisions that have one major arterial road leading in and out, it’s a challenge.

HonestB:
Sorry to hear about the speed limit.  We have a fairly extensive path network here in London, and it has no such limit and it is heavily used.  However, it follows the parks along the river for the most part, and so is recreational rather than functional.  (See the yellow stripes in this picture: http://webmap.london.ca/MapServer/Temp/col_12122293_1.gif .)  Using it to commute any distance is often an exercise in doing the “outsides” rather than the hypoteneuse of a triangle.

The good news, though, is that if you live anywhere near the river you can bike almost right downtown with barely any need to go on a city street at all.  And that’s certainly much better than most cities have.

What’s the gender of the biker?

I’m female, Essie. Fairly low maintenance from a grooming standpoint, but I do manage to meet the expected standard and I always look professional for coworkers & clients.  If you worked with me you wouldn’t know I commute by bike, by sight or smell, unless I told you (or you tripped over my bike in the storage room).

Damn right about the bathroom floors, seeker.  And I totally agree that a company that wants its employees to be green—hell ANY company—should make the kind of accommodations you describe.  But if that’s just not happening at a given workplace, there’s often still a fair bit an individual can do on her own.  Lack of a shower doesn’t have to be a deal-breaker.

I knew all along that ayutokamina was lying: Area 51 uses D51-C(R) matter-to-energy transporters; everybody knows that!

Bluefish:

One of the kickers for me when I worked downtown and had my own office in the early 1990s was the unpredictability of working for a law office.  I once got into semi-trouble because my boss (with no notice) walked into my office with a client in tow and there I stood covered in sweat, the stupid little helmet perched on my head, tattered commuting t-shirt and big shorts on; I hadn’t had a chance to get from my office to the bathroom.  After that it was made known to me that once I was in the building I had to Look Professional, and that pretty much ruled out biking while at that firm.

Bluefish, ok, cool then. It’s probably just a YMMV situation - some people sweat more than others, etc. I myself have very difficult hair. Won’t bore you with the details, though.

In other words- the problem is bigger than just “get more cars off the road”, and the solution has to work for a locality’s climate, geography, urban/ rural mix, etc. and the businesses and industries located there.

Amen.

I have long referred to the attitude that cars own the road as “car privilege”.

I myself am not invoking “privilege” (based on what? My leet car-ownership skills?) so much as “safety”. I don’t hold truck with this “roads are for anyone who wishes to occupy a lane, be they a motorbike, a cyclist, a wheelchair resident, or a rollerblader” meme that keeps popping up. It’s a safety issue, and not just for the person who thinks they deserve a car-spaced hold in the road for their skateboard.

Pointing out that wheelchair residents haven’t destroyed civilation in this way yet ignores the fact that most sane wheelchair residents don’t “drive” their chairs down the left lane of a heavy traffic area of downtown Arlington.

The good news, though, is that if you live anywhere near the river you can bike almost right downtown with barely any need to go on a city street at all.  And that’s certainly much better than most cities have.

Our river pathway is similar in some sections, but the thing that really makes or breaks it is whether there’s a seperate path for pedestrians or not. I lived near a really good path for awhile, and my entire commute was along a pathway reserved for cyclists only. It was awesome, and is very well used. Most other stretches of pathway don’t have the seperate pedestrian path, however, and passing big crowds of joggers on the paths makes me wish I was in car traffic.

And, as an addendum, I can pretty much guarantee that if you were riding a wheelchair at >5mph in those conditions and a cop saw you, you’d be given a citation for obstructing the flow of traffic or creating a safety hazard.

In December, the first line for the Phoenix light rail opened. You should have heard the libertarians complain about how it wouldn’t pay for itself, like public transportation *ever* does, and how nobody was going to use it, etc. Ridership is way, way up—higher than anyone anticipated. It’s a huge success. In fact, last weekend, there was an NRA convention downtown, and I got to see a bunch of NRA folks riding the light rail with their “Keep your change, I’ll keep my freedom!” t-shirts. It was kind of amazing.

Incidentally, because I thought I should actually link to something legal instead of just writing whatever makes sense to me, here are (apparently) the 2007 Oregon state laws regarding non-cars on the road: http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/814.html

Note:

814.430 Improper use of lanes; exceptions; penalty. (1) A person commits the offense of improper use of lanes by a bicycle if the person is operating a bicycle on a roadway at less than the normal speed of traffic using the roadway at that time and place under the existing conditions and the person does not ride as close as practicable to the right curb or edge of the roadway.

Similar rules for motorized wheelchairs. I haven’t bothered to check Texas laws, because I’m lazy, but if they are the same as Oregon laws, then - yes - my wheelchair lady was breaking a law and - yes - there are different rules for “non-cars” because safety requires it. Even if that constitutes “car privilege” or something.

Damn, seeker, that sucks.  Wonder if that firm would still be so rigid now that making eco-friendly accommodations is at least a little more broadly expected/accepted.  Believe me, I know how lucky I am.

Actually now that I think of it, there IS one area where my commuting negatively impacts my professional appearance.  I have the world’s stupidest tan lines.

Bluefish, can’t you just ride to work in a bikini? Kidding, kidding.

“but the thing that really makes or breaks it is whether there’s a seperate path for pedestrians or not.”

From what I can see, HectorB, London gets by okay on the “don’t be a douche and we’ll all get along fine” method of path-sharing.  I’ve never seen a problem and I’ve been here 7 years.  For the most part the uber-polite, don’t-be-too-obsessed-about-speed nature of most Londoners (it’s the only town I’ve ever been in, btw, where people slow down for green lights in case it turns yellow) seems to get the job done.

Snort!

Dallas bike info:
http://www.dallascityhall.com/pwt/bike_links.html

From the Texas DPS “Texas Drivers Handbook:”

“A person operating a bicycle upon a roadway at less than the speed of the other traffic on the roadway at that time shall ride as near as practicable to the right curb or edge of the roadway except when a) overtaking and passing another vehicle proceeding in the same direction; b) the rider is preparing for a left turn at an intersection onto a private drive, road, or driveway; and c) [conditions on the roadway, including fixed or moving objects, parked or moving vehicles, pedestrians, animals, surface hazards, or substandard width lanes, make it unsafe to ride next to the right curb or edge of the roadway.]”

So it looks like the Texas laws are pretty much the same as Oregon’s in this regard.  For bicycles, anyway.  Motorized wheelchairs, I have no idea.  Not a lawyer, but my first guess would be they would be treated just like pedestrians.  Therefore driving your motorized wheelchair down the middle of the road would be jaywalking or some such.

What would really scare me would be trying to turn left from one arterial unto another, like from Belt Line onto Preston in Dallas.

Essie’s description of the electric wheelchair lady makes it pretty clear what type of personality she is: she will do that and drive people insane for ages, cause or come near to causing a dozen accidents with her mulish, self-centered pigheadedness, and then, when some cop finally grows a pair and gives her a long overdue ticket she will appear weeping on ActionNEWS! talking about how she was just crossing the street and some bully of a cop gave her a hard time.

Seeker, that makes me think of another case down here. We had a local blind woman who became something of a celebrity because of her Seeing Eye Horse. She rode him on the roads, but to her credit they stayed close to the curb and didn’t impede traffic.

The problem arose, however, when her apartment managers found out that she had a horse in her apartment despite their “no animals” policy. They were understandably upset, and there was a big kerfluffle here - it was a service animal, but I can imagine being annoyed about the horse poop and stuff - and I honestly can’t remember how it all settled. I think they gave her a new apartment at the edge of the complex, where the poop would be less of a problem, mostly to aviod the P.R. nightmare that it was.

In my area, the sprawl has already happened. Now we’re just trying to deal with it in a green way. The options are buses and light rail and good stuff like that or, um, bull-doze the burbs and start over.

See also Oregon, Portland.  Same city limits, same urban growth boundary (limited metro area land space), 50% population growth in about 15 to 20 years.

It is called zoning for infill, and promotion of higher density that encourages sprawl to be bought up and densified by development by prohibiting suburban growth.

Yes, it can and has been done - read about it.

It doesn’t matter who is right and who is wrong, in car v. bicycle- cyclist is the one who gets hurt.

Yes. This.

Which is why I’m a huge proponent of bike lanes as separate, relatively equal, and more safe. I’m a careful driver, but if I accidentally rear-end a car at 30 mph, I’m not likely to kill someone. If I accidentally rear-end a cyclist at 30 mph, I think I likely just caused permanent harm, maybe death. I’d rather not have to live with that.

Of course, the “answer” is to drive perfectly safe and never have an accident. But I don’t think I’m going to be able to live up to that standard.

I myself am not invoking “privilege” (based on what? My leet car-ownership skills?) so much as “safety”. I don’t hold truck with this “roads are for anyone who wishes to occupy a lane, be they a motorbike, a cyclist, a wheelchair resident, or a rollerblader” meme that keeps popping up. It’s a safety issue,

Yeah, and I’ve been told that it isn’t a matter of rights, but safety as a woman/white person/black person not to walk in certain areas at certain times of day.

You see where this is leading?  Cars and Car drivers do not own the roads - we all do.  To make it a matter of “bless your little heart but it ain’t safe” is patronizing bull.  What next: we can’t expect drivers of cars to have to bother to follow the rules? Oh, wait, you already went there.

Yes, it can and has been done - read about it.

Ah, I was hoping you’d come back to respond. And I see I was right in predicting that being absolutely wrong about my argument wouldn’t put a dent in your condescending tone. Brava.

Yeah, and I’ve been told that it isn’t a matter of rights, but safety as a woman/white person/black person not to walk in certain areas at certain times of day.

Cars and Car drivers do not own the roads - we all do.  To make it a matter of “bless your little heart but it ain’t safe” is patronizing bull.

I see what you did there.

I like your analogy that “driving” a wheelchair at 5 mph in the middle of a busy intersection is exactly the same as being victim blamed for your own assault.

I look forward to you reading the part where it’s illegal in at least two states to do what the woman in my example was doing.

What next: we can’t expect drivers of cars to have to bother to follow the rules? Oh, wait, you already went there.

Also, since you like to “make things simple” for me, feel free to point out where I said that I don’t expect “drivers of cars to have to bother to follow the rules”. Because I’m very curious about that.

No, my analogy is that thinking that having a car gives you special privileges and then claiming the safety game is analogous to saying that women can’t go out after dark for their own safety.

There is no right to drive, and having and driving a car gives you no special rights to the road, only responsibilities.  If you can’t manage to drive without being sufficiently alert to share the road with others, you cannot blame your incompetence on the existence of other people being there.

Oh, and Essie?  Please start paying your share - car travel is hideously subsidized in this country at all levels.

On light rail, I definitely would ride it if it went anywhere near my office.  Unfortunately Dallas light rail is oriented towards people going from the suburbs to downtown and back; my office is crosstown.  There is decent bus service which I have used on rare occasions when my truck was in the shop, but it turns a 15-minute commute into 45 minutes to an hour (and costs $2.50, not cost-effective until gas goes over $4/gal), and I have to walk three blocks to the bus stop which kind of sucks in bad weather.  Also, it’s nice to hit the grocery store on my way home from work.

Ms Kate, seriously, you are embarrasing yourself.

It is dangerous for someone to occupy the middle of the road at a speed significantly less than the surrounding traffic. Because of that danger, we have laws against such behavior, laws that make it illegal - just as we have many “safety laws”.

Indeed, just as there is no “right to drive a car”, there is no “right to drive a wheelchair down the road in a manner that is unsafe and impedes traffic”. And there is no “right to drive a bicycle as if it were a car even if doing so impedes traffic at that time”, either. Sorry, but it’s true. You can’t insist that cars don’t have rights while still insisting that there’s some kind of god-given right to use the roads however you please via bike / wheelchair / anything-not-a-car.

You’re not showing anything with your arguments except intellectual dishonesty (you refuse to address the fact that the behavior we’re discussing is not just unsafe but illegal) and a huge chip on your shoulder against “drivers”.

I’m having trouble visualizing what Essie and Kate are discussing.

Are there no parallel local roads in Texas?

@Awkward

Registration, title and gas tax pay for about 60% of road costs. The shortfall is made up from general funds which we all pay whether we drive or not. Moreover, much of those state fees (the 60%) go to state highways. The in-town surface roads which bicyclists mostly use are much more likely to be paid for from local general funds (your local property and sales tax). About 2/3 of local road cost comes from general funds with 1/3 coming from user fees.

Walkers and cyclists are subsidizing car drivers on local surface streets. (And incidentally car drivers are subsidizing truck drivers on those state highways)

See here for a quick summary: http://www.seattlepi.com/opinion/331734_firstperson17.html

For more details see: http://www.vtpi.org/whoserd.pdf

After reading George Will’s column, I have to agree with him.  We have a light-rail system here that is convenient for me.  When I was working, I often used it to get downtown.  However, the fares don’t even cover 50% of its operating cost.  If the fares were raised to where they should be, the sparsely used service would have even fewer riders.  Meanwhile, citizens hundreds of miles from here are forced to subsidize my convenience.  I think that there is a justice issue here.

Bismarck:

I don’t see the farmers “hundreds of miles from here” objecting to their rafts of crop subsidies and road investments that cannot possibly be managed on local tax bases.  As a rough general rule, food flows into cities and money flows out. 

Pacifists pay taxes that support the military, businesses pay taxes which often flow to other businesses, and so on and so on and so on.  Everybody pays for a service that they don’t use*.  Get over it.

* - Except churches.  They get the best deal of all: lots of cash, earnings, tithes and donations and governmental protection flowing in, no tax revenue flowing out.

I just find it highly amusing that Essie has tirelessly lectured all of us about how we can’t possibly understand what it is like to live with a disability that means having to use a car or carry the whole house around with our kids, etc., and yet her reaction to a woman using the streets for her wheel chair is “get out of my way” and to questions of the fitness of alternatives is “the sidewalks are perfectly fine” as if she could possibly know that.

Oh, and I don’t think cars are evil - I just think their drivers can be pretty stupid and entitled and that planning a city around them is always bad news.

Okay, before I address anything else, this comes first:

814.430 Improper use of lanes; exceptions; penalty. (1) A person commits the offense of improper use of lanes by a bicycle if the person is operating a bicycle on a roadway at less than the normal speed of traffic using the roadway at that time and place under the existing conditions and the person does not ride as close as practicable to the right curb or edge of the roadway.

Here’s the rub: “as close as practicable to the right curb or edge of the road way.” Please note that the word used is NOT “possible,” it is “practicable.” The interpretive history of this wording gives bicyclists and other slower-moving elements of traffic considerable leeway in using their judgment to determine how far to the right that they must travel. If hugging the curb is judged by the rider to be unsafe - and it certainly is, since it encourages motorists to pass too closely at too high a speed - then it is not practicable to ride that close to the right. It certainly is polite to ride so as to allow traffic to pass, and if necessary, even to pull over occasionally to let traffic go by. Taking the lane isn’t something to be done all the time, but it’s the safest thing to do when traveling through intersections, when traveling around active road construction, etc. Construction equipment is slower than most traffic. Does this cause a problem? Hrm, no, people just GO AROUND. Same principle at work.

Grolby, in MA cyclists have a right to use the roads and take the lane if they so choose.  This has been upheld by the courts when a certain subgroup of police thought they could make up laws out of their rear ends.  Now there is a bike lane on the bridge where they used to try to hassle cyclists.

Okay, so. First, to everyone who took an issue with this statement:

What I suggest is that people do indeed “suck it up,” and choose to live somewhere where they do NOT have a one-hour commute to their jobs.

Yes, I know that this is not something that people can necessarily do. Like I said, I had no time to go into detail, but let it suffice to say that we have appalling structural problems in the United States (and Canada, no doubt) that really make it difficult to resolve these issues. Believe me, I’ve depressed the hell out of myself writing papers about the ways in which our urban and suburban infrastructure simply doesn’t allow for modes of transportation other than driving to be adopted in a large-scale way. Nonetheless, personal choices DO matter, and to the extent that people can choose to live in a way that makes more sense, they should. The thing is, most people DON’T. If this doesn’t include you, e.g. Auguste, don’t take it to be directed at you.

@ Auguste. I’m trying to failing to see a) What’s so horribly unrideable about those streets, which look safe and straightforward enough, except for the unfortunate lack of a shoulder or wide outside lane in the second example, and b) How they are improved by bike lanes. Hell, in the first example, the bike lane is only on ONE side of the fucking road! What good is that!? That road looks like it has plenty of shoulder, so why not either make the shoulder or outside lane a bit wider?

It is dangerous for someone to occupy the middle of the road at a speed significantly less than the surrounding traffic. Because of that danger, we have laws against such behavior, laws that make it illegal - just as we have many “safety laws”.

Indeed, just as there is no “right to drive a car”, there is no “right to drive a wheelchair down the road in a manner that is unsafe and impedes traffic”. And there is no “right to drive a bicycle as if it were a car even if doing so impedes traffic at that time”, either. Sorry, but it’s true. You can’t insist that cars don’t have rights while still insisting that there’s some kind of god-given right to use the roads however you please via bike / wheelchair / anything-not-a-car.

For the umpteenth time, you have no realistic understanding about what constitutes safe riding (or wheelchair operating, but we’ll drop that one since for all we know that lady really is causing a nuisance) and what does not. You keep insisting that riding on arterials and in the lane is unsafe, why? Because you THINK and FEEL that it MUST be. But, as the experienced riders here have told you, this is completely untrue. Arterials are the safest roads to ride on, and riding at least partly in the lane is the safest way to ride on them. The League of American Bicyclists, in their ROAD 1 courses, advocates riding in the right hand part of the traffic lane precisely because both experience and data clearly indicate that this is the safest way to ride.

You’re not showing anything with your arguments except intellectual dishonesty (you refuse to address the fact that the behavior we’re discussing is not just unsafe but illegal) and a huge chip on your shoulder against “drivers”.

I’ve already mentioned this above, but you’ve betrayed your utter lack of familiarity with how the law you quoted (all states have similar statutes) has historically been interpreted. There’s no need to “address” the illegality of this behavior, because the assertion that it is illegal is patently false. As is the assertion that it is unsafe.

If you can’t manage to drive without being sufficiently alert to share the road with others, you cannot blame your incompetence on the existence of other people being there.

This. Times a million.

Look, there are structural problems here. Bicycling is not nearly as safe as it should be. Many bicyclists have NO idea what they’re doing, since there is effectively no public education on safe bicycle operation in traffic. And there are lots of practical obstacles in play. But the idea that bicycling is unsafe (it is in fact more dangerous to be a pedestrian on the kinds of roads we’re talking about), that we would solve the problem by striping bike lanes instead of getting cars off the road and making other structural changes and that the responsibility of ensuring the safety of slower road users falls upon them - to the extent that they should surrender their rights to travel in the name of “safety”! - is just plain wrong. It’s the last one that really pisses me off. Car privilege indeed. In fact, Ms. Kate, it’s like you’ve read my mind on this; I’ve thought pretty much exactly the same thing about this subject.

Ms. Kate, I know, that’s basically the point I was trying to make - that taking the lane is not illegal, and that Essie is only claiming that it is because she lacks familiarity with how that traffic law has been read by the courts for decades.

Awkward, where did I say that ALL drivers were stupid and entitled?

I do own a car myself, and most cyclists do have drivers licenses.

Yes, there are suicyclists around too - they just tend to kill themselves with their light running and helmet avoiding ways, however, unlike the far more numerous entitled and arrogant “laws don’t mean anything to me” drivers out there with their bad habits and ill-operated heavy equipment.

But ... but ... it’s ridiculous and intellectually dishonest to continue to cite the laws and legal rights of road users established through years of case law when I AM HAVING AN OPINION AND I NEED TO HAVE MY PRIVILEGE!

What kind of car-hating green bean wackjob latte drinker are you Grolby!  Just leave us poor put upon car addicts alone to our special thoughts about things and stop troubling us with reality!

With respect, Ms. Kate, I don’t think that Essie said what you said she said.  She painted a pretty clear portrait of somebody was as in “a motorized wheelchair [and] us[ing] the roads as if she was a car / cyclist” when she (hate to state the obvious) wasn’t a car or cyclist but a slow-moving person in a wheelchair who didn’t seem to care about the people around her:

there were sidewalks and she didn’t want to use them. Didn’t even want to hug the curb. We’re talking middle-of-the-lane, screw-you-kids-and-your-cars weirdness. I’m somewhat disabled, and sympathetic, but this one, particular, anecdotal person was freaking crazy.

And in the left lane, too. Not because she wanted to go left. Just because she liked being in the left lane. Like I said, very weird.

A person in a wheelchair has every right to the road unless they place themselves where they are an obstacle to traffic and a danger to themselves or others.  It sounds not only as if this person was that but they liked being like that.  Being in a wheelchair doesn’t give you a self-centered dick licence.

Seeker, head back to the last thread where the car-enamored got all jumpy and look at the kinds of statements that Essie made whenever anybody dared question anything, all on behalf of the disabled.  That’s what I find amusing - somehow, when questioning any choices of giant stroller on the bus is an issue of disability or even insisting that public money be spent on public transit is an issue of disability and we should watch our privilege ... yet when a disabled person gets in her way, suddenly the sidewalk is perfectly fine (even if it isn’t, or debris on the ramps is a problem, etc.)?????

My point is that when Essie’s sacred cows are challenged, suddenly the whole world must worry that any little change would hurt the disabled ... except when she decides the sidewalk is good enough and that crazy lady is in her hurry hurry hurry way!

I’ll leave that portion of the debate to you and Essie, Ms Kate.  (Which thread?)  Suffice to say that the micro picture in this thread of somebody in a wheelchair being out in traffic as if they were a car is recipe for disaster, and, I may add, a bit rude to boot.  One should never conduct oneself in traffic as if everybody else has to adapt to you or go to the devil. 

I’m curious: Do you accept the notion that somebody doing, say, 5 mph (in a car, on a bike, in a wheelchair, in a Sea Legs, walking, I don’t care) in a left lane in a busy city street has a right to be there, proceeding that way?

I aspire to be a cyclist (ie I want to buy a bike for exercise, enjoyment, and errands - maybe commuting depending on where I move - after I check a few other purchases and savings items off the priority list), but some of the douchebag cyclists I’ve encountered really do make me rethink it sometimes.  The vast majority seem to believe that stop signs do not apply to them.  That I nearly squished one in March who was making a left turn from the right hand portion of the same lane I was traveling in without stopping may be coloring my views.  Nearly squishing somebody is traumatic.  But seriously, who the frack cuts in front of a moving car like that?

But seriously, who the frack cuts in front of a moving car like that?

People who arrogantly and sometimes fatally assume that everybody will just get the hell out of their way.  I’ve lost count, libdevil, of the number of times I have muttered under my breath while driving, “you are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too confident that I’m paying attention, and sane”.

I have biked in Portland and here in Southwest Ohio and in both places the same strategies work from a cyclist’s perspective.  I heard relatively similar complaints from drivers about cyclists in Portland as I do now.  Some cyclists will be assholes, just as some drivers will be assholes and arguing about whose showing their ass more isn’t really productive. 

The biggest thing Portland offered (other than the weather) was the bike maps of the city.  I loved the color-coding to explain the different types of bike paths and the traffic levels of streets.  I’d like to do something like that for my town, but haven’t gotten my stuff together enough. 

Bike paths are nice but they aren’t a substitute for road access and probably never will be.  The people who scream at me to get on the sidewalk or take the bike path (that doesn’t go anywhere) are a problem and it isn’t my fault and I don’t believe I should let it stop me from cycling.

“In fact, although Georgetown residents did oppose a transit station, their attitude was essentially irrelevant, for a Georgetown station was never seriously considered”

Sooooooooooooo, even if it had been feasible Georgetown residents would have blocked a transit station on the racist theory that it would bring THOSE PEOPLE into their neighborhood.

Hmmm, same difference, it seems to me.

“Yglesias’ trolls are just precious. One of them attempts to discredit Matt’s argument with the fact that Portland has lots of white people.  Or something.”

The other precious one is the guy arguing that we shouldn’t even DISCUSS a bullet train from SF to LA because it would be a long process that won’t turn a profit. He actually blames the environmentalists…yeah because every environmentalist I know is against high speed, affordable and pollution reducing public transportation.

My point is that when Essie’s sacred cows are challenged, suddenly the whole world must worry that any little change would hurt the disabled ... except when she decides the sidewalk is good enough and that crazy lady is in her hurry hurry hurry way!

Sigh. As yes, the “let’s reinvent an old thread the way I wish it had been” or what I like to call “poisoning the well”. You have failed to address any of my arguments in this thread and have instead just made a big scene of yourself jumping up and down and claiming that I’ve behaved badly somewhere else and expecting everyone to take your word for it. Such mature behavior, really.

I’m really not going to get into this with you again, but that whole thread where you slagged on mothers with “big strollers” for being, basically, stupid idiots who just don’t realize that they “don’t need all that crap” is very anti-feminist. But, then, you generally tend to slag on everyone who doesn’t behave exactly the way you do. Which is unfortunate because, frankly, you end up reminding me of phylospher in the breast-feeding thread - you know what everyone needs to do and why doesn’t everyone accept that?

You <i>still/i> have not answered this, even though Seeker and I have asked multiple times:

I’m curious: Do you accept the notion that somebody doing, say, 5 mph (in a car, on a bike, in a wheelchair, in a Sea Legs, walking, I don’t care) in a left lane in a busy city street has a right to be there, proceeding that way?

Instead, you seem more interested in casting aspersions at me and my motives and pretending to be a hyperventilating driver. Such good debate skills you Bostonian Professors (do I remember correctly?) employ.

Here’s the rub: “as close as practicable to the right curb or edge of the road way.” Please note that the word used is NOT “possible,” it is “practicable.” The interpretive history of this wording gives bicyclists and other slower-moving elements of traffic considerable leeway in using their judgment to determine how far to the right that they must travel. If hugging the curb is judged by the rider to be unsafe - and it certainly is, since it encourages motorists to pass too closely at too high a speed - then it is not practicable to ride that close to the right.

I’ve already mentioned this above, but you’ve betrayed your utter lack of familiarity with how the law you quoted (all states have similar statutes) has historically been interpreted. There’s no need to “address” the illegality of this behavior, because the assertion that it is illegal is patently false. As is the assertion that it is unsafe.

Well, um, no.

The fact that the term “practically possible” has been interpreted as, you know, what is practically impossible has absolutely nothing to do with my contention that slow-moving non-conventional vehicles can’t legally take up the left lane of a busy four-lane city street.

You’ve basically proved something that I wasn’t arguing (i.e., there are times when a slow-moving vehicle needs to take the full right-hand lane) and used it to blow off what I was actually arguing (i.e., that slow-moving vehicles don’t get to take up left-hand lanes and “act” like cars just because they feel like it).

Feel free to address my actual point, and not the ones you’d prefer I was making. Thanks.

The fact that the term “practically possible” has been interpreted as, you know, what is practically possible

Correction. Need coffee.

* passes coffee to Awkward

But that is beside the actual points being discussed, which you seem to keep missing because of some previous encounter with Essie.

Well, our “previous encounter” has nothing to do with the matter at hand, except that it’s a nifty way to ignore my actual argument.

“I’m not going to respond to you because you are making an argument that is not the same argument as in another thread I can’t link to” isn’t exactly a good rebuttal. In case anyone really wants to know (why would you, honestly, it was months ago) what Ms Kate is accusing me of, the thread in question is here:
http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/take_the_train_and_take_your_life_back/

And the point at which Ms Kate and I butted heads was here:

Ms Kate: Part of the “difficult” is the “lots of stuff”.  I will say from experience that 90% of the crap people haul along with babies is because they CAN not because they need it.  Suburbanite daytrippers are the worst offenders on the public transit systems around here - you know them in the city by their GIGANTIC strollers that are totally STUFFED with stuff they really didn’t need to bring along.

Ellen (pre-Essie registration): I’m not trying to single you out, but I would like to gently point out that your “I can do this, what’s wrong with everyone else” attitude - though probably unintentional - really hurts people with genuine disabilities…. People are smarter than you give them credit for and we carry our “crap” around for a reason, even if you can’t fathom what that reason might be because of your own privileges. I hope that didn’t sound harsh, I’m sorry.

Well, that was a nice walk down memory lane. Now, Ms Kate, can you actually respond to an argument in this thread or do you just want to keep dredging up your old ounds from last…what was that? November?

Can we claim stick rule on Essie?

Rachel,II, if you really want to. I would be surprised to be banned over arguing with Ms Kate (particularly when the basic point of the argument - i.e. that some things belong in a bike lane and not in the main road - was also stated by Auguste who is one of the Pandagon writers but whatever), but it’s certainly the owners’ right to do so. Would you like to point out where I was ‘dumber than a stick’ and engage me in a dialog at all? Totally up to you, of course.

Basically, my point is that until alternative forms of transportation are available, convenient and safe, people aren’t going to make the switch.

Awkward, I could not agree more. This whole discussion has motivated me to look up the public transportation options in my area. They are much better than I expected, in the sense that a bus actually exists, but I’m still stuck on how to get to the bus. It would be a long walk for me (I’m guessing an hour or more), so I’d have to drive to the bus stop, and park in one of the shopping center lots. Then the bus would have to make multiple change-overs to get me to where I need to go. I’m not overly confident that this would be a short, easy process.

I’m fairly certain that - right now - it would be easier and cheaper for me to just use my car, but obviously that’s not the Green option. So the question becomes how much am I willing to put myself out for the environment, and I’m not sure of the answer. If I was a SAHM trying to get to the library, I might try it, but currently, trying to get to work? Seems risky. I wish there was a better option locally, but I’m not certain how they would manage that, short of RSPV’d bus pick-ups (which would rock - “I’d like to order a bus from X street to Y street on a schedule of every Thursday, with a run time of no longer than 2 hours and no more than 40 stops for other pickups/drop-offs. Here’s my credit card. Thank you.” Or whatever.)

What I suggest is that people do indeed “suck it up,” and choose to live somewhere where they do NOT have a one-hour commute to their jobs.

This is just stupid.

First, given that the average employee will change jobs multiple times during his/her career, a corresponding change of address is every time is highly unlikely.

Second, people often make their housing choices based of factors like proximity to family and friends, thus greatly simplifying matters like childcare and access to elderly parent who may need extra assistance.

In the typical western American city, housing gets cheaper the farther you move from the city center.  Many families, when looking for a home, will choose the larger, newer home in the far suburbs over an older, smaller home in a more central location.  For families with children, choosing a good school district may easily override any commuting concerns.

For others, a safe neighborhood, nice community or need for a certain lifestyle will dictate housing choices.  My husband and I moved to a semi-rural village on the outskirts of Albuquerque because we wanted more land, the ability to keep a horse on the property, and the ability to run our metalworking business without bothering (or being bothered by) the neighbors.  Our neighborhood is a wonderful, friendly place where everyone knows everyone, and well worth the commute.  (Which my husband makes via bus/bike).

The issue is far too complex to dismiss other people’s choices as bad and tell them to “suck it up.”

Many families, when looking for a home, will choose the larger, newer home in the far suburbs over an older, smaller home in a more central location.

Another monkey wrench in the equation is that the newer homes will often be far more energy efficient, both in a “cheaper” sense and a “greener” sense. I just moved from an old house that was literally beggaring me on heating bills. My electric bill was insanely high and, upon investigation, it turned out that the 30-year-old house had a heater so inefficient that they aren’t legally allowed to install those anymore. Or something.

Would madame like to plunk down several thousand dollars for a new heater that will “pay for itself” in 5-7 years? No, madame does not have the capital for such a venture, thank you. Meanwhile, not only am I having to chose between running the heater for five minutes or buying the monthly groceries, I’m also killing the planet. Way to go, Essie.

Don’t get me started on the insulation in the old home. And this was a really nice old home. Just…old. Built under different regulations than what we have now. So do you buy the old, small home close to your work (green!) but with terrible energy efficiency (not-green!) or do you buy the new, larger home with a long commute (not-green!) but modern energy efficiency (green!)?

This is why, in my opinion, shaming people into ‘good’ behavior doesn’t work, because life often isn’t simple like that.

Many families, when looking for a home, will choose the larger, newer home in the far suburbs over an older, smaller home in a more central location.

Well, in the wake of the spike in gas prices and the real estate bubble collapse, I have to ask, as Dr. Phil would… “How’s that workin’ out for ya?”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. I’m getting impatient, Essie. You just don’t understand this law. It does not restrict slower moving traffic to the right-most lane. How the fuck else is a bicyclist supposed to make a left turn? If that requires me to ride my bike at 5 mph in front of you and that makes you angry, well fuck you! (“Fuck you” being used in the subjunctive mood, I don’t mean it in the context of this discussion). It’s legal, and in fact it is the safest way in which to make a left turn across traffic.

It’s fair to say that you probably can’t read the mind of a cyclist or other slower-moving traveler who is somehow out in the lane. They might have a good reason for being there. And they might not. If they get cited, then it’s up to the judge to decide if the given rationale is sufficient. The law does not negate the right of slower-moving traffic to use the roadways in any way shape or form. It provides a framework for preventing, through the issuance of citations and penalties, behavior that poses a risk to the safety of traffic. In short, yes - the person sitting in the middle of the lane has every right to be there, but they may not be able to reasonably expect to do so without good reason without getting a citation and probably paying a fine. In any case, much slower traffic taking up a lane on an arterial road is not nearly as unsafe as you make it out to me. Generally speaking, it is no worse than a momentary inconvenience (because heaven forfend that motorists be forced to slow down and change lanes). The people who actually deal with cases like this on a regular basis - that is to say, people who know what they’re talking about - are aware of this, and are pretty good at making a decision about whether the decision of a cyclist or other slow-mover to take the lane was prudent. The law has been read the way that it historically has for a reason.

@adobedragon - thanks, but I’m well aware of the many problems with that statement. I already said, not far upthread, that it was an egregious oversimplification. Come on. I’ve written papers on this stuff. I’m currently, through no choice of my own, employed 40 miles away from where I live (only for about another month, thank goodness). Like I said before, if it doesn ‘t seem to apply to your circumstances, don’t assume I meant it to. People in the position to do so should make better choices. The rest of us just need to muddle on the best we can. There’s no reason to assume that I would have meant anything else by that.

How the fuck else is a bicyclist supposed to make a left turn?

Well, there’s the <u>written exception</u> in the link provided that specifically states that slow-moving vehicles can use the left hand lane if they want to turn left. Which I already stated is not what the person in my example was doing.

It’s like you don’t even read my posts. *Sigh*

Essie, have you ever actually biked in a bike lane? Most bike lanes are too narrow, full of potholes, susceptible to cars turning across them without checking for a bicyclist, and are far too close to the parking lane, such that if you ride in them at any reasonable speed you are risking dooring. Maybe wherever you live has nice wide well-paved well-marked bike lanes that are not blocked by car doors, double-parked delivery trucks, buses, etc. Most of the ones in Boston do not meet that description. I am fully in support of bike lanes that actually make it safer for bicyclists to ride, but a poorly-designed bike lane makes it much more dangerous.

There is tons of documentation on <a >youtube</a> of why bike lanes are dangerous for bikers. Cyclists cannot be treated like pedestrians. We move too fast and have much less immediate maneuverability. Of course cyclists should not be blocking traffic by taking the lane if there is room for the cars behind to pass safely. But bike lanes are not a panacea.

So do you buy the old, small home close to your work (green!) but with terrible energy efficiency (not-green!) or do you buy the new, larger home with a long commute (not-green!) but modern energy efficiency (green!)?

Well, of course the answer is to buy the old, small home, and spend tens of thousands of dollars and huge effort to renovate it*.  Now, you may argue, you have a job, a family, and other responsibilities, and lack tens of thousands of dollars in ready cash.  To which I say to you, BAD LIBERAL!  PLANET KILLER!  HOW CAN YOU LIVE WITH YOURSELF?!?!?!?!

Alternately, buy the new, energy efficient house, start your own home business* with zero commute and spend all your spare time growing organic food in your garden*.  You might again argue that this is more utopian than practical, but, well, I’ve already covered my answer to that.

*Assuming the historical preservation society, homeowner’s association, zoning regulations, permit boards, and city inspectors allow it.

“**This is why I fear Austin light rail will fail. “

Pardon my asking, but isn’t Austin a bit small for light rail to work? These systems seem best suited for places like the Bay Area, where commutes are long and the freeways often congested.

Of course cyclists should not be blocking traffic by taking the lane if there is room for the cars behind to pass safely.

In which case, you are more on my side than you are on Ms Kate and Grolby’s side. Because this is exactly what I am arguing: that slow-moving vehicles do not have the right to occupy the left lane of a busy 4-lane city street when they aren’t planning to turn left in the next few miles. Grolby and Kate disagree, on the basis that cars don’t own the road and safety concerns are privileged.

“The solution, where possible, is bike paths — basically small roads dedicated to bikes.  Unfortunately there are far too few, and bike paths seem to attract pedestrians who then make it difficult and dangerous to use them, for cyclists and pedestrians alike.”

Twin Cities has an excellent bike path system, and it connects to further paths that spread out well into the suburbs and into farm country, which makes for nice, scenic weekend rides with the kids. One major problem, tho - It’s the Twin Cities. So unless you’re freaking Nanook of the North, there’s at least 4 - 6 months out of the year when you can’t use it at all.

And if you try to ride your bike on public streets in winter, you’ve got snow and ice patches to deal with, not to mention potholes. And if you have a high end bike, the road salt will corrode the chain and gear systems pretty damn quick!

The weather item that EricJG notes is especially important vis-a-vis the disrepair of bike lanes noted by cantabridgian poet.  The bike lane is often right by the curb and that’s where the pavement has a seam where it meets the curb.  Seams mean water leakage downwards and in cold climates that means nasty freeze-and-thaw damage which is often not repaired as quickly as potholes in the road.

In general, when I think about two wheeled vehicles, I’d much rather have a motorcycle. They can stay up with traffic, have much superior brakes and handling, have suspensions to handle potholes, and many of the sportier models can out-accelerate a Ferrari.

And they’re economical, too. My last bike got about 50 mpg. That’s Prius territory!

It raises an interesting regulatory issue, doesn’t it, EricJG?

We permit motorcycles on the road and they are manifestly one of the unsafest things out there.

We permit cars built to very, very exacting safety standards.  This means mucho metal, weight, etc.

We do NOT permit microcars with much lower safety standards and much higher gas mileage, even though they are probably much safer than motorcycles.  And even if we did the insurance companies would probably set premiums which would make them more expensive to run than motorcycles.

Square that circle. 

Me, I don’t believe that it is a rational regulatory or policy response to force a choice ONLY between “de facto armoured vehicle” and “suicide bike”.

A much tougher problem however is that people making turns don’t look into bike lanes when they are seeing if they can make a turn. They look to the center of the “car” lane. Cars making left or right turns across bike lanes cause many more collisions than bikes being hit as they are overtaken from behind.

I finally couldn’t make it through all the comments, but wanted to add to something grolby said and this comment added to. Here in DC, a 23-year-old woman was killed commuting in a bike lane when a truck in the car lane turned right and smacked right into her. This is the most common form of death or serious injury for bike commuters and why many bikers loathe bike lanes.

Also, did the cops give him a ticket despite his violating right of way? Of course not. Until law enforcement catches up with alternative commuting patterns, this will continue to be a problem.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy a related post I wrote a day or two ago entitled “Why Cars Suck”:

Read it here: http://pink-scare.blogspot.com/2009/05/why-cars-suck-redux.html