Anonymous wrote:I really appreciated the guy going 20mph on his e-bike in the bike lanes ringing his bell as he ran the red light so the pedestrians had a chance to scatter before he went through the crosswalk. All the cars at the intersection were stopped, by the way.
Wow. I also saw many cars speeding and couple running red lights yesterday. Shall we all chip in with our observations of bad behavior by road users in Washington, DC. What great fun that would be.
How many of those cars honked their horns to make pedestrians scatter out of the crosswalk while they ran the red light? I’m not talking about technical violations that may have resulted from inattention, which, while extremely dangerous, is not the same as wanton and willful lawbreaking. The problem with too many cyclists is that they expect everyone to adjust to their presence regardless of what the law is. That tendency is worse when they’re in protected bike lanes because they don’t have to worry about cars.
If I’m walking in a crosswalk, having already established a lawful presence there, stop for me. It’s the law and it’s also common courtesy.
Yes, it is. It's the law. Which is routinely broken by drivers of cars, with or without bike lanes, and when drivers do it, they can seriously injure or kill you. But sure, let's focus on bike lanes.
The more people bike instead of drive, the safer you as a pedestrian will be.
You never acknowledge that you have any responsibility for the safety of others as a cyclist, so your argument that I'll be safer with more bike lanes falls flat. That's the problem. Too many cyclists fail to take responsibility for anyone else's safety, even that of other cyclists. I'm pretty sure getting hit by a cyclist on an e-bike or regular bike at 20 mph, which is faster than cars usually go at this intersection because of the congestion, would result in some broken ribs at the least.
A regular bike at 20 mph on a bike lane in your mysterious unnamed intersection in DC? Where is that mysterious unnamed intersection, by the way?
It’s on a downhill. It’s an easy 20. You still keep deflecting instead of acknowledging how your own conduct can put other people at risk.
I’ve seen cyclists go faster than that on sidewalks. I was driving down one of those streets named after a state, going maybe 25mph, and was passed by a bike on the sidewalk
Faster than 25 mph, on a bike, on the sidewalk of a street in DC. You don't say.
People do some crazy shit
People also have no sense of speed. Unless you have Olympian-level strength, attaining - let alone maintaining - 25mph on level ground is very difficult and especially so on a confined space such as a sidewalk. 15mph is possible but that’s about it.
Nonetheless I’d be all for a law banning cycling on any and all sidewalks where there is an adjacent protected bike lane. That is entirely reasonable.
It’s not uncommon for runners to run five minute miles. That translates to 12 miles per hour. Someone on a bike could easily go twice that.
20 mph (PP's estimate) is right in the middle of the average for an advanced cyclist and on a downhill they could easily get to 24 mph (the average top-end speed for an advanced cyclist). Thanks for the link.
It's good to hear that DC's sidewalks are in such an outstanding, smooth, unblocked, non-bumpy condition that athletes can reach Tour de France speeds on them.
PP wasn't talking about a sidewalk. PP was talking about a protected bike lane on a downhill stretch. Just keep deflecting.
Huh?
“I’ve seen cyclists go faster than that on sidewalks. I was driving down one of those streets named after a state, going maybe 25mph, and was passed by a bike on the sidewalk”
No cyclist are doing those speeds on a sidewalk. It’s patently absurd. To assert such only shows you no nothing about speed nor cycling.
The discussion about speed started with this: "I'm pretty sure getting hit by a cyclist on an e-bike or regular bike at 20 mph, which is faster than cars usually go at this intersection because of the congestion, would result in some broken ribs at the least." One of the bike trolls claimed no one rode 20 mph in a bike lane, which prompted the dubious claim of 25 mph on a sidewalk.
20 mph downhill on the road or a bike lane is certainly possible. But any cyclist who routinely runs red lights or stop signs at 20 mph is not someone who is going to be around long enough for you to worry much about.
Don’t you understand? Nothing is ever a cyclist’s fault. If a cyclist ran a stop sign at 30 mph and got hit by a car and died, it would be the driver’s fault regardless of the details of what actually happened.
This thread notwithstanding, the number of cyclists in DC who are killed by drivers is pretty close to the number of cyclists who are eaten by bears.
Yeah, you keep saying that, and every time you say it, it makes you sound worse.
I think PP's point is the the number of cyclists killed is statistically insignificant, and they're not wrong. Every death is a tragedy but the story is in each narrative, not the overall numbers.
What an absolutely ghoulish thing to write. Every road death represents a life tragically cut short. Those lives may not mean much to you, but they do to so many others. What is especially tragic is that many of these deaths could have been prevented if we had better infrastructure and more rigorous enforcement of road regulations, especially speeding.
Uh huh. While you hyperventilate about drivers, it’s worth noting that the number of cyclists killed in this city is minuscule. It’s amazing it’s not higher given all the stupid things cyclists do.
The number of children murdered in this city dwarfs the number of cyclists killed. But sure let’s all focus on that one white guy on a bike who got hit by a car three years ago
These are completely unrelated policy questions, though. We can be furious at children being murdered but also think the roads could be safer to bike on.
Except that’s not what happens *at all*. All the attention and a stunning amount of money goes to the white guy on a bike who is an adult who voluntarily chose to do something that everyone knows is dangerous. Every public dollar spent on one thing like subsidizing the hobbies of Bernie bros is a dollar that can’t be spent on another thing.
please stop. I doubt you care about black kids getting shot - you’re just trying to make a point. meanwhile, black kids actually DO disproportionately suffer from traffic accidents (and some die, including those on bikes). making streets safer for bikers and pedestrians would strongly benefit black kids.
Uh huh right. I think it’s disgusting how much of our public resources white guys are able to commandeer for their hobbies in a city with shocking poverty and crime rates. Our poverty rate is the same as West Virginia. We have as many murders as Baltimore. The children angle will upset anyone who has kids (you obviously do not).
White peoples from Ward 3 go to the front of line for everything including scarce tax dollars
It's common sense that scarce tax dollars should not be spent subsidizing others' personal choices, particularly when those choices impose negative externalities on the rest of the population. For this reason, DC should impose congestion and road tolls to ensure that all users who impose their vehicles on the city's roads contribute their fair share to the massive cost of maintaining the city's road network and that said users are properly incentivized to opt for forms of transportation that are less socially harmful.
Except those roads are not built in order to provide a space for someone's hobby. They were built in order to enable the transportation of goods and workers. No roads = no food. No roads = no ambulances. No roads = no iphones, renovations, whole foods, uber, doordash or instacart. Just because you hire someone to mow your lawn does not mean that lawnmowers aren't needed.
I want to understand why you think riding a bike is "a hobby", particularly on main transit routes. Is it your belief that most of these cyclists are just out riding for pleasure with no destination or purpose?
Anonymous wrote:I don't own a bike and haven't ridden a bike in years.
But I do understand three things:
1. The built environment influences behavior. You don't build a park where people are already playing soccer. You build the park and people start to go there. This is called induced demand, and it is why adding lanes to roads never actually decreases congestion. More people just drive.
2. Making roads more difficult to navigate does not generally make them more dangerous. In fact, the opposite. If drivers need to slow down and pay attention, it makes it safer.
3. City planner, particularly ones who have environmental sustainability goals, need to plan for a future. Yes it is a gamble, but it happens all the time.
Actually...
1. Soccer fields are indeed built where people play soccer. 2. Making roads more difficult to navigate obviously makes them more dangerous because they are more difficult to navigate.
3. Obviously it's a gamble. The question is whether or not it's a smart gamble.
Really, that's how it works? People play soccer in a vacant lot, then the rec department decides to build a soccer field there?
You might believe that making roads more difficult to navigate makes them more dangerous, but in actual reality it makes them safer, because drivers drive more slowly.
I drive and speed bumps and things like that make me more likely to roll stop signs. If you’re going to slow me down in the middle of the street, then I’m going to make up the time elsewhere. Sorry. There’s no free lunch with slowing down drivers. (It’s like when they close streets or lanes to cars. All they’re doing is forcing traffic elsewhere.)
Look at this a**hole announcing to the whole world what an a**hole they are.
PP here. It’s not my fault your theories about “traffic calming” are nonsensical. Maybe you should stop believing in stupid bullshit?
Despite the best efforts of extremely narcissistic people like you to terrorize everyone else on the road simply because you can't organize your life properly, traffic calming does actually work. Sources:
Traffic deaths are incredibly rare in DC. There’s usually between 30 and 40 per year. Typically a quarter of those are the fault of people who weren’t driving according to the police. There’s also a smattering of people who have medical emergencies while driving. So you’re really talking between 20 and 30 deaths per year. That’s out of billions of trips taken. Been that way for decades. Hard to see what difference “traffic calming” makes except to force cars to sit in traffic longer which doesn’t seem like a plus for the environment.
In all things in life, it’s hard to make things that are already extremely rare even more rare.
Anonymous wrote:I don't own a bike and haven't ridden a bike in years.
But I do understand three things:
1. The built environment influences behavior. You don't build a park where people are already playing soccer. You build the park and people start to go there. This is called induced demand, and it is why adding lanes to roads never actually decreases congestion. More people just drive.
2. Making roads more difficult to navigate does not generally make them more dangerous. In fact, the opposite. If drivers need to slow down and pay attention, it makes it safer.
3. City planner, particularly ones who have environmental sustainability goals, need to plan for a future. Yes it is a gamble, but it happens all the time.
Actually...
1. Soccer fields are indeed built where people play soccer. 2. Making roads more difficult to navigate obviously makes them more dangerous because they are more difficult to navigate.
3. Obviously it's a gamble. The question is whether or not it's a smart gamble.
Really, that's how it works? People play soccer in a vacant lot, then the rec department decides to build a soccer field there?
You might believe that making roads more difficult to navigate makes them more dangerous, but in actual reality it makes them safer, because drivers drive more slowly.
I drive and speed bumps and things like that make me more likely to roll stop signs. If you’re going to slow me down in the middle of the street, then I’m going to make up the time elsewhere. Sorry. There’s no free lunch with slowing down drivers. (It’s like when they close streets or lanes to cars. All they’re doing is forcing traffic elsewhere.)
Look at this a**hole announcing to the whole world what an a**hole they are.
PP here. It’s not my fault your theories about “traffic calming” are nonsensical. Maybe you should stop believing in stupid bullshit?
Despite the best efforts of extremely narcissistic people like you to terrorize everyone else on the road simply because you can't organize your life properly, traffic calming does actually work. Sources:
Traffic deaths are incredibly rare in DC. There’s usually between 30 and 40 per year. Typically a quarter of those are the fault of people who weren’t driving according to the police. There’s also a smattering of people who have medical emergencies while driving. So you’re really talking between 20 and 30 deaths per year. That’s out of billions of trips taken. Been that way for decades. Hard to see what difference “traffic calming” makes except to force cars to sit in traffic longer which doesn’t seem like a plus for the environment.
Yeah, you're a ghoul. Regular people understand that crashes are bad, even crashes that don't kill people, and that crashes that killed people who were legally at fault are also bad.
Then why are you in favor of increasing crashes? There's almost 100 years of studies and data showing that congestion increases accidents.
And, in what qualifies as regular service on this thread, you can't present a single citation to back up your counterintuitive claims . . .
God you're committed to your lies. It's literally been the main focus of transportation research for decades and makes perfect logical sense unlike your nonsensical fantasy that inceasing congestion on major roads will decrease accidents on thise roads.
That has scores of other citations within it so don't claim it's only one.
Not even your own citation supports your contention.
Of course it does. There is 100% certainty of a casual link between accidents and congestion. What it also mentions is that there is some indication that fatalities occur most often when there is medium congestion.
The argument you are making is that we should increase increase congestion from medium to high in order to reduce fatalities and accept the increase in accidents short of fatal, along with all the economic and environmental costs of increased congestion.
This one provides a panel analysis using a very large (>100) city-level dataset spanning years. It finds that moderate congestion (defined as travel times up to 30% worse than free-flowing traffic) has a positive relationship with safety, but that generally as congestion gets worse than that, then there's an inverse relationship.
So, all these bike lanes that DDOT wants to put in where the impact on throughput is a couple minutes longer for a 15 - 20 minute drive? Not a big deal. Lane reductions reduce the amount of legal lane changes. They allow drivers who are obeying speed limits to set the pace. Gridlock is not a desirable goal, but the steady state of traffic congestion is just fine.
This is huge. The most dangerous drivers in the DMV are those who try to save a few seconds by incessantly attempting to change lanes, squeezing between cars, tailgating, cutting people off, and generally serving as a menace to everyone else on the road. The transition from 495 to 270 is the worst example, but it happens frequently on city streets as well. Any road improvements that cuts down the options for drivers to change lanes will improve safety.
Anonymous wrote:I really appreciated the guy going 20mph on his e-bike in the bike lanes ringing his bell as he ran the red light so the pedestrians had a chance to scatter before he went through the crosswalk. All the cars at the intersection were stopped, by the way.
Wow. I also saw many cars speeding and couple running red lights yesterday. Shall we all chip in with our observations of bad behavior by road users in Washington, DC. What great fun that would be.
How many of those cars honked their horns to make pedestrians scatter out of the crosswalk while they ran the red light? I’m not talking about technical violations that may have resulted from inattention, which, while extremely dangerous, is not the same as wanton and willful lawbreaking. The problem with too many cyclists is that they expect everyone to adjust to their presence regardless of what the law is. That tendency is worse when they’re in protected bike lanes because they don’t have to worry about cars.
If I’m walking in a crosswalk, having already established a lawful presence there, stop for me. It’s the law and it’s also common courtesy.
Yes, it is. It's the law. Which is routinely broken by drivers of cars, with or without bike lanes, and when drivers do it, they can seriously injure or kill you. But sure, let's focus on bike lanes.
The more people bike instead of drive, the safer you as a pedestrian will be.
You never acknowledge that you have any responsibility for the safety of others as a cyclist, so your argument that I'll be safer with more bike lanes falls flat. That's the problem. Too many cyclists fail to take responsibility for anyone else's safety, even that of other cyclists. I'm pretty sure getting hit by a cyclist on an e-bike or regular bike at 20 mph, which is faster than cars usually go at this intersection because of the congestion, would result in some broken ribs at the least.
A regular bike at 20 mph on a bike lane in your mysterious unnamed intersection in DC? Where is that mysterious unnamed intersection, by the way?
It’s on a downhill. It’s an easy 20. You still keep deflecting instead of acknowledging how your own conduct can put other people at risk.
I’ve seen cyclists go faster than that on sidewalks. I was driving down one of those streets named after a state, going maybe 25mph, and was passed by a bike on the sidewalk
Faster than 25 mph, on a bike, on the sidewalk of a street in DC. You don't say.
People do some crazy shit
People also have no sense of speed. Unless you have Olympian-level strength, attaining - let alone maintaining - 25mph on level ground is very difficult and especially so on a confined space such as a sidewalk. 15mph is possible but that’s about it.
Nonetheless I’d be all for a law banning cycling on any and all sidewalks where there is an adjacent protected bike lane. That is entirely reasonable.
It’s not uncommon for runners to run five minute miles. That translates to 12 miles per hour. Someone on a bike could easily go twice that.
20 mph (PP's estimate) is right in the middle of the average for an advanced cyclist and on a downhill they could easily get to 24 mph (the average top-end speed for an advanced cyclist). Thanks for the link.
It's good to hear that DC's sidewalks are in such an outstanding, smooth, unblocked, non-bumpy condition that athletes can reach Tour de France speeds on them.
PP wasn't talking about a sidewalk. PP was talking about a protected bike lane on a downhill stretch. Just keep deflecting.
Huh?
“I’ve seen cyclists go faster than that on sidewalks. I was driving down one of those streets named after a state, going maybe 25mph, and was passed by a bike on the sidewalk”
No cyclist are doing those speeds on a sidewalk. It’s patently absurd. To assert such only shows you no nothing about speed nor cycling.
The discussion about speed started with this: "I'm pretty sure getting hit by a cyclist on an e-bike or regular bike at 20 mph, which is faster than cars usually go at this intersection because of the congestion, would result in some broken ribs at the least." One of the bike trolls claimed no one rode 20 mph in a bike lane, which prompted the dubious claim of 25 mph on a sidewalk.
20 mph downhill on the road or a bike lane is certainly possible. But any cyclist who routinely runs red lights or stop signs at 20 mph is not someone who is going to be around long enough for you to worry much about.
Don’t you understand? Nothing is ever a cyclist’s fault. If a cyclist ran a stop sign at 30 mph and got hit by a car and died, it would be the driver’s fault regardless of the details of what actually happened.
This thread notwithstanding, the number of cyclists in DC who are killed by drivers is pretty close to the number of cyclists who are eaten by bears.
Yeah, you keep saying that, and every time you say it, it makes you sound worse.
I think PP's point is the the number of cyclists killed is statistically insignificant, and they're not wrong. Every death is a tragedy but the story is in each narrative, not the overall numbers.
What an absolutely ghoulish thing to write. Every road death represents a life tragically cut short. Those lives may not mean much to you, but they do to so many others. What is especially tragic is that many of these deaths could have been prevented if we had better infrastructure and more rigorous enforcement of road regulations, especially speeding.
Uh huh. While you hyperventilate about drivers, it’s worth noting that the number of cyclists killed in this city is minuscule. It’s amazing it’s not higher given all the stupid things cyclists do.
The number of children murdered in this city dwarfs the number of cyclists killed. But sure let’s all focus on that one white guy on a bike who got hit by a car three years ago
These are completely unrelated policy questions, though. We can be furious at children being murdered but also think the roads could be safer to bike on.
Except that’s not what happens *at all*. All the attention and a stunning amount of money goes to the white guy on a bike who is an adult who voluntarily chose to do something that everyone knows is dangerous. Every public dollar spent on one thing like subsidizing the hobbies of Bernie bros is a dollar that can’t be spent on another thing.
please stop. I doubt you care about black kids getting shot - you’re just trying to make a point. meanwhile, black kids actually DO disproportionately suffer from traffic accidents (and some die, including those on bikes). making streets safer for bikers and pedestrians would strongly benefit black kids.
Uh huh right. I think it’s disgusting how much of our public resources white guys are able to commandeer for their hobbies in a city with shocking poverty and crime rates. Our poverty rate is the same as West Virginia. We have as many murders as Baltimore. The children angle will upset anyone who has kids (you obviously do not).
White peoples from Ward 3 go to the front of line for everything including scarce tax dollars
It's common sense that scarce tax dollars should not be spent subsidizing others' personal choices, particularly when those choices impose negative externalities on the rest of the population. For this reason, DC should impose congestion and road tolls to ensure that all users who impose their vehicles on the city's roads contribute their fair share to the massive cost of maintaining the city's road network and that said users are properly incentivized to opt for forms of transportation that are less socially harmful.
Except those roads are not built in order to provide a space for someone's hobby. They were built in order to enable the transportation of goods and workers. No roads = no food. No roads = no ambulances. No roads = no iphones, renovations, whole foods, uber, doordash or instacart. Just because you hire someone to mow your lawn does not mean that lawnmowers aren't needed.
I want to understand why you think riding a bike is "a hobby", particularly on main transit routes. Is it your belief that most of these cyclists are just out riding for pleasure with no destination or purpose?
Different poster. You have plenty of options to get to work. You can drive. You can Uber. You can carpool. You can ride the bus. You can ride the subway. You can walk. The city shouldn’t have to make special accommodations because a teensy number of people want to use a form of transportation that’s not on the list. We don’t do that for people who want to roller blade to work. And the city certainly shouldn’t have to spend billions of dollars on safety measures because the form of transportation you want to use happens to be really dangerous. This is the epitome of white privilege.
Anonymous wrote:I don't own a bike and haven't ridden a bike in years.
But I do understand three things:
1. The built environment influences behavior. You don't build a park where people are already playing soccer. You build the park and people start to go there. This is called induced demand, and it is why adding lanes to roads never actually decreases congestion. More people just drive.
2. Making roads more difficult to navigate does not generally make them more dangerous. In fact, the opposite. If drivers need to slow down and pay attention, it makes it safer.
3. City planner, particularly ones who have environmental sustainability goals, need to plan for a future. Yes it is a gamble, but it happens all the time.
Actually...
1. Soccer fields are indeed built where people play soccer. 2. Making roads more difficult to navigate obviously makes them more dangerous because they are more difficult to navigate.
3. Obviously it's a gamble. The question is whether or not it's a smart gamble.
Really, that's how it works? People play soccer in a vacant lot, then the rec department decides to build a soccer field there?
You might believe that making roads more difficult to navigate makes them more dangerous, but in actual reality it makes them safer, because drivers drive more slowly.
I drive and speed bumps and things like that make me more likely to roll stop signs. If you’re going to slow me down in the middle of the street, then I’m going to make up the time elsewhere. Sorry. There’s no free lunch with slowing down drivers. (It’s like when they close streets or lanes to cars. All they’re doing is forcing traffic elsewhere.)
Look at this a**hole announcing to the whole world what an a**hole they are.
PP here. It’s not my fault your theories about “traffic calming” are nonsensical. Maybe you should stop believing in stupid bullshit?
Despite the best efforts of extremely narcissistic people like you to terrorize everyone else on the road simply because you can't organize your life properly, traffic calming does actually work. Sources:
Traffic deaths are incredibly rare in DC. There’s usually between 30 and 40 per year. Typically a quarter of those are the fault of people who weren’t driving according to the police. There’s also a smattering of people who have medical emergencies while driving. So you’re really talking between 20 and 30 deaths per year. That’s out of billions of trips taken. Been that way for decades. Hard to see what difference “traffic calming” makes except to force cars to sit in traffic longer which doesn’t seem like a plus for the environment.
In all things in life, it’s hard to make things that are already extremely rare even more rare.
Luckily for you, incidents of drivers intimidating bicyclists through aggressive speeding and dangerous maneuvers are extremely common, providing much room for improvement through the construction of protected bike lanes.
Anonymous wrote:I really appreciated the guy going 20mph on his e-bike in the bike lanes ringing his bell as he ran the red light so the pedestrians had a chance to scatter before he went through the crosswalk. All the cars at the intersection were stopped, by the way.
Wow. I also saw many cars speeding and couple running red lights yesterday. Shall we all chip in with our observations of bad behavior by road users in Washington, DC. What great fun that would be.
How many of those cars honked their horns to make pedestrians scatter out of the crosswalk while they ran the red light? I’m not talking about technical violations that may have resulted from inattention, which, while extremely dangerous, is not the same as wanton and willful lawbreaking. The problem with too many cyclists is that they expect everyone to adjust to their presence regardless of what the law is. That tendency is worse when they’re in protected bike lanes because they don’t have to worry about cars.
If I’m walking in a crosswalk, having already established a lawful presence there, stop for me. It’s the law and it’s also common courtesy.
Yes, it is. It's the law. Which is routinely broken by drivers of cars, with or without bike lanes, and when drivers do it, they can seriously injure or kill you. But sure, let's focus on bike lanes.
The more people bike instead of drive, the safer you as a pedestrian will be.
You never acknowledge that you have any responsibility for the safety of others as a cyclist, so your argument that I'll be safer with more bike lanes falls flat. That's the problem. Too many cyclists fail to take responsibility for anyone else's safety, even that of other cyclists. I'm pretty sure getting hit by a cyclist on an e-bike or regular bike at 20 mph, which is faster than cars usually go at this intersection because of the congestion, would result in some broken ribs at the least.
A regular bike at 20 mph on a bike lane in your mysterious unnamed intersection in DC? Where is that mysterious unnamed intersection, by the way?
It’s on a downhill. It’s an easy 20. You still keep deflecting instead of acknowledging how your own conduct can put other people at risk.
I’ve seen cyclists go faster than that on sidewalks. I was driving down one of those streets named after a state, going maybe 25mph, and was passed by a bike on the sidewalk
Faster than 25 mph, on a bike, on the sidewalk of a street in DC. You don't say.
People do some crazy shit
People also have no sense of speed. Unless you have Olympian-level strength, attaining - let alone maintaining - 25mph on level ground is very difficult and especially so on a confined space such as a sidewalk. 15mph is possible but that’s about it.
Nonetheless I’d be all for a law banning cycling on any and all sidewalks where there is an adjacent protected bike lane. That is entirely reasonable.
It’s not uncommon for runners to run five minute miles. That translates to 12 miles per hour. Someone on a bike could easily go twice that.
20 mph (PP's estimate) is right in the middle of the average for an advanced cyclist and on a downhill they could easily get to 24 mph (the average top-end speed for an advanced cyclist). Thanks for the link.
It's good to hear that DC's sidewalks are in such an outstanding, smooth, unblocked, non-bumpy condition that athletes can reach Tour de France speeds on them.
PP wasn't talking about a sidewalk. PP was talking about a protected bike lane on a downhill stretch. Just keep deflecting.
Huh?
“I’ve seen cyclists go faster than that on sidewalks. I was driving down one of those streets named after a state, going maybe 25mph, and was passed by a bike on the sidewalk”
No cyclist are doing those speeds on a sidewalk. It’s patently absurd. To assert such only shows you no nothing about speed nor cycling.
The discussion about speed started with this: "I'm pretty sure getting hit by a cyclist on an e-bike or regular bike at 20 mph, which is faster than cars usually go at this intersection because of the congestion, would result in some broken ribs at the least." One of the bike trolls claimed no one rode 20 mph in a bike lane, which prompted the dubious claim of 25 mph on a sidewalk.
20 mph downhill on the road or a bike lane is certainly possible. But any cyclist who routinely runs red lights or stop signs at 20 mph is not someone who is going to be around long enough for you to worry much about.
Don’t you understand? Nothing is ever a cyclist’s fault. If a cyclist ran a stop sign at 30 mph and got hit by a car and died, it would be the driver’s fault regardless of the details of what actually happened.
This thread notwithstanding, the number of cyclists in DC who are killed by drivers is pretty close to the number of cyclists who are eaten by bears.
Yeah, you keep saying that, and every time you say it, it makes you sound worse.
I think PP's point is the the number of cyclists killed is statistically insignificant, and they're not wrong. Every death is a tragedy but the story is in each narrative, not the overall numbers.
What an absolutely ghoulish thing to write. Every road death represents a life tragically cut short. Those lives may not mean much to you, but they do to so many others. What is especially tragic is that many of these deaths could have been prevented if we had better infrastructure and more rigorous enforcement of road regulations, especially speeding.
Uh huh. While you hyperventilate about drivers, it’s worth noting that the number of cyclists killed in this city is minuscule. It’s amazing it’s not higher given all the stupid things cyclists do.
The number of children murdered in this city dwarfs the number of cyclists killed. But sure let’s all focus on that one white guy on a bike who got hit by a car three years ago
These are completely unrelated policy questions, though. We can be furious at children being murdered but also think the roads could be safer to bike on.
Except that’s not what happens *at all*. All the attention and a stunning amount of money goes to the white guy on a bike who is an adult who voluntarily chose to do something that everyone knows is dangerous. Every public dollar spent on one thing like subsidizing the hobbies of Bernie bros is a dollar that can’t be spent on another thing.
please stop. I doubt you care about black kids getting shot - you’re just trying to make a point. meanwhile, black kids actually DO disproportionately suffer from traffic accidents (and some die, including those on bikes). making streets safer for bikers and pedestrians would strongly benefit black kids.
Uh huh right. I think it’s disgusting how much of our public resources white guys are able to commandeer for their hobbies in a city with shocking poverty and crime rates. Our poverty rate is the same as West Virginia. We have as many murders as Baltimore. The children angle will upset anyone who has kids (you obviously do not).
White peoples from Ward 3 go to the front of line for everything including scarce tax dollars
It's common sense that scarce tax dollars should not be spent subsidizing others' personal choices, particularly when those choices impose negative externalities on the rest of the population. For this reason, DC should impose congestion and road tolls to ensure that all users who impose their vehicles on the city's roads contribute their fair share to the massive cost of maintaining the city's road network and that said users are properly incentivized to opt for forms of transportation that are less socially harmful.
Except those roads are not built in order to provide a space for someone's hobby. They were built in order to enable the transportation of goods and workers. No roads = no food. No roads = no ambulances. No roads = no iphones, renovations, whole foods, uber, doordash or instacart. Just because you hire someone to mow your lawn does not mean that lawnmowers aren't needed.
I want to understand why you think riding a bike is "a hobby", particularly on main transit routes. Is it your belief that most of these cyclists are just out riding for pleasure with no destination or purpose?
Different poster. You have plenty of options to get to work. You can drive. You can Uber. You can carpool. You can ride the bus. You can ride the subway. You can walk. The city shouldn’t have to make special accommodations because a teensy number of people want to use a form of transportation that’s not on the list. We don’t do that for people who want to roller blade to work. And the city certainly shouldn’t have to spend billions of dollars on safety measures because the form of transportation you want to use happens to be really dangerous. This is the epitome of white privilege.
You have plenty of options to get to work. You can walk. You can bike. You can ride the bus. You can ride the subway. The city shouldn't have to make special accommodations because a teensy number of people insists that their desire for a speedy, convenient drive is more important than all other considerations, including other people's lives.
Anonymous wrote:I don't own a bike and haven't ridden a bike in years.
But I do understand three things:
1. The built environment influences behavior. You don't build a park where people are already playing soccer. You build the park and people start to go there. This is called induced demand, and it is why adding lanes to roads never actually decreases congestion. More people just drive.
2. Making roads more difficult to navigate does not generally make them more dangerous. In fact, the opposite. If drivers need to slow down and pay attention, it makes it safer.
3. City planner, particularly ones who have environmental sustainability goals, need to plan for a future. Yes it is a gamble, but it happens all the time.
Actually...
1. Soccer fields are indeed built where people play soccer. 2. Making roads more difficult to navigate obviously makes them more dangerous because they are more difficult to navigate.
3. Obviously it's a gamble. The question is whether or not it's a smart gamble.
Really, that's how it works? People play soccer in a vacant lot, then the rec department decides to build a soccer field there?
You might believe that making roads more difficult to navigate makes them more dangerous, but in actual reality it makes them safer, because drivers drive more slowly.
I drive and speed bumps and things like that make me more likely to roll stop signs. If you’re going to slow me down in the middle of the street, then I’m going to make up the time elsewhere. Sorry. There’s no free lunch with slowing down drivers. (It’s like when they close streets or lanes to cars. All they’re doing is forcing traffic elsewhere.)
Look at this a**hole announcing to the whole world what an a**hole they are.
PP here. It’s not my fault your theories about “traffic calming” are nonsensical. Maybe you should stop believing in stupid bullshit?
Despite the best efforts of extremely narcissistic people like you to terrorize everyone else on the road simply because you can't organize your life properly, traffic calming does actually work. Sources:
Traffic deaths are incredibly rare in DC. There’s usually between 30 and 40 per year. Typically a quarter of those are the fault of people who weren’t driving according to the police. There’s also a smattering of people who have medical emergencies while driving. So you’re really talking between 20 and 30 deaths per year. That’s out of billions of trips taken. Been that way for decades. Hard to see what difference “traffic calming” makes except to force cars to sit in traffic longer which doesn’t seem like a plus for the environment.
In all things in life, it’s hard to make things that are already extremely rare even more rare.
On the contrary, it would be quite easy for DC to cut the number of deaths in half. It's just that it would involve doing things that inconvenience you and don't favor your personal preferences.
Anonymous wrote:I really appreciated the guy going 20mph on his e-bike in the bike lanes ringing his bell as he ran the red light so the pedestrians had a chance to scatter before he went through the crosswalk. All the cars at the intersection were stopped, by the way.
Wow. I also saw many cars speeding and couple running red lights yesterday. Shall we all chip in with our observations of bad behavior by road users in Washington, DC. What great fun that would be.
How many of those cars honked their horns to make pedestrians scatter out of the crosswalk while they ran the red light? I’m not talking about technical violations that may have resulted from inattention, which, while extremely dangerous, is not the same as wanton and willful lawbreaking. The problem with too many cyclists is that they expect everyone to adjust to their presence regardless of what the law is. That tendency is worse when they’re in protected bike lanes because they don’t have to worry about cars.
If I’m walking in a crosswalk, having already established a lawful presence there, stop for me. It’s the law and it’s also common courtesy.
Yes, it is. It's the law. Which is routinely broken by drivers of cars, with or without bike lanes, and when drivers do it, they can seriously injure or kill you. But sure, let's focus on bike lanes.
The more people bike instead of drive, the safer you as a pedestrian will be.
You never acknowledge that you have any responsibility for the safety of others as a cyclist, so your argument that I'll be safer with more bike lanes falls flat. That's the problem. Too many cyclists fail to take responsibility for anyone else's safety, even that of other cyclists. I'm pretty sure getting hit by a cyclist on an e-bike or regular bike at 20 mph, which is faster than cars usually go at this intersection because of the congestion, would result in some broken ribs at the least.
A regular bike at 20 mph on a bike lane in your mysterious unnamed intersection in DC? Where is that mysterious unnamed intersection, by the way?
It’s on a downhill. It’s an easy 20. You still keep deflecting instead of acknowledging how your own conduct can put other people at risk.
I’ve seen cyclists go faster than that on sidewalks. I was driving down one of those streets named after a state, going maybe 25mph, and was passed by a bike on the sidewalk
Faster than 25 mph, on a bike, on the sidewalk of a street in DC. You don't say.
People do some crazy shit
People also have no sense of speed. Unless you have Olympian-level strength, attaining - let alone maintaining - 25mph on level ground is very difficult and especially so on a confined space such as a sidewalk. 15mph is possible but that’s about it.
Nonetheless I’d be all for a law banning cycling on any and all sidewalks where there is an adjacent protected bike lane. That is entirely reasonable.
It’s not uncommon for runners to run five minute miles. That translates to 12 miles per hour. Someone on a bike could easily go twice that.
20 mph (PP's estimate) is right in the middle of the average for an advanced cyclist and on a downhill they could easily get to 24 mph (the average top-end speed for an advanced cyclist). Thanks for the link.
It's good to hear that DC's sidewalks are in such an outstanding, smooth, unblocked, non-bumpy condition that athletes can reach Tour de France speeds on them.
PP wasn't talking about a sidewalk. PP was talking about a protected bike lane on a downhill stretch. Just keep deflecting.
Huh?
“I’ve seen cyclists go faster than that on sidewalks. I was driving down one of those streets named after a state, going maybe 25mph, and was passed by a bike on the sidewalk”
No cyclist are doing those speeds on a sidewalk. It’s patently absurd. To assert such only shows you no nothing about speed nor cycling.
The discussion about speed started with this: "I'm pretty sure getting hit by a cyclist on an e-bike or regular bike at 20 mph, which is faster than cars usually go at this intersection because of the congestion, would result in some broken ribs at the least." One of the bike trolls claimed no one rode 20 mph in a bike lane, which prompted the dubious claim of 25 mph on a sidewalk.
20 mph downhill on the road or a bike lane is certainly possible. But any cyclist who routinely runs red lights or stop signs at 20 mph is not someone who is going to be around long enough for you to worry much about.
Don’t you understand? Nothing is ever a cyclist’s fault. If a cyclist ran a stop sign at 30 mph and got hit by a car and died, it would be the driver’s fault regardless of the details of what actually happened.
This thread notwithstanding, the number of cyclists in DC who are killed by drivers is pretty close to the number of cyclists who are eaten by bears.
Yeah, you keep saying that, and every time you say it, it makes you sound worse.
I think PP's point is the the number of cyclists killed is statistically insignificant, and they're not wrong. Every death is a tragedy but the story is in each narrative, not the overall numbers.
What an absolutely ghoulish thing to write. Every road death represents a life tragically cut short. Those lives may not mean much to you, but they do to so many others. What is especially tragic is that many of these deaths could have been prevented if we had better infrastructure and more rigorous enforcement of road regulations, especially speeding.
Uh huh. While you hyperventilate about drivers, it’s worth noting that the number of cyclists killed in this city is minuscule. It’s amazing it’s not higher given all the stupid things cyclists do.
The number of children murdered in this city dwarfs the number of cyclists killed. But sure let’s all focus on that one white guy on a bike who got hit by a car three years ago
These are completely unrelated policy questions, though. We can be furious at children being murdered but also think the roads could be safer to bike on.
Except that’s not what happens *at all*. All the attention and a stunning amount of money goes to the white guy on a bike who is an adult who voluntarily chose to do something that everyone knows is dangerous. Every public dollar spent on one thing like subsidizing the hobbies of Bernie bros is a dollar that can’t be spent on another thing.
please stop. I doubt you care about black kids getting shot - you’re just trying to make a point. meanwhile, black kids actually DO disproportionately suffer from traffic accidents (and some die, including those on bikes). making streets safer for bikers and pedestrians would strongly benefit black kids.
Uh huh right. I think it’s disgusting how much of our public resources white guys are able to commandeer for their hobbies in a city with shocking poverty and crime rates. Our poverty rate is the same as West Virginia. We have as many murders as Baltimore. The children angle will upset anyone who has kids (you obviously do not).
White peoples from Ward 3 go to the front of line for everything including scarce tax dollars
It's common sense that scarce tax dollars should not be spent subsidizing others' personal choices, particularly when those choices impose negative externalities on the rest of the population. For this reason, DC should impose congestion and road tolls to ensure that all users who impose their vehicles on the city's roads contribute their fair share to the massive cost of maintaining the city's road network and that said users are properly incentivized to opt for forms of transportation that are less socially harmful.
Except those roads are not built in order to provide a space for someone's hobby. They were built in order to enable the transportation of goods and workers. No roads = no food. No roads = no ambulances. No roads = no iphones, renovations, whole foods, uber, doordash or instacart. Just because you hire someone to mow your lawn does not mean that lawnmowers aren't needed.
I want to understand why you think riding a bike is "a hobby", particularly on main transit routes. Is it your belief that most of these cyclists are just out riding for pleasure with no destination or purpose?
Different poster. You have plenty of options to get to work. You can drive. You can Uber. You can carpool. You can ride the bus. You can ride the subway. You can walk. The city shouldn’t have to make special accommodations because a teensy number of people want to use a form of transportation that’s not on the list. We don’t do that for people who want to roller blade to work. And the city certainly shouldn’t have to spend billions of dollars on safety measures because the form of transportation you want to use happens to be really dangerous. This is the epitome of white privilege.
Ok since I can bus and black people take the bus, let’s remove a lane of traffic and parking for rapid bus lanes, as well as congestion pricing downtown so buses can move faster. Speed limits of 15mph. And ban SUVs since they are more dangerous to pedestrians and small cars. Sound good?
Anonymous wrote:I really appreciated the guy going 20mph on his e-bike in the bike lanes ringing his bell as he ran the red light so the pedestrians had a chance to scatter before he went through the crosswalk. All the cars at the intersection were stopped, by the way.
Wow. I also saw many cars speeding and couple running red lights yesterday. Shall we all chip in with our observations of bad behavior by road users in Washington, DC. What great fun that would be.
How many of those cars honked their horns to make pedestrians scatter out of the crosswalk while they ran the red light? I’m not talking about technical violations that may have resulted from inattention, which, while extremely dangerous, is not the same as wanton and willful lawbreaking. The problem with too many cyclists is that they expect everyone to adjust to their presence regardless of what the law is. That tendency is worse when they’re in protected bike lanes because they don’t have to worry about cars.
If I’m walking in a crosswalk, having already established a lawful presence there, stop for me. It’s the law and it’s also common courtesy.
Yes, it is. It's the law. Which is routinely broken by drivers of cars, with or without bike lanes, and when drivers do it, they can seriously injure or kill you. But sure, let's focus on bike lanes.
The more people bike instead of drive, the safer you as a pedestrian will be.
You never acknowledge that you have any responsibility for the safety of others as a cyclist, so your argument that I'll be safer with more bike lanes falls flat. That's the problem. Too many cyclists fail to take responsibility for anyone else's safety, even that of other cyclists. I'm pretty sure getting hit by a cyclist on an e-bike or regular bike at 20 mph, which is faster than cars usually go at this intersection because of the congestion, would result in some broken ribs at the least.
A regular bike at 20 mph on a bike lane in your mysterious unnamed intersection in DC? Where is that mysterious unnamed intersection, by the way?
It’s on a downhill. It’s an easy 20. You still keep deflecting instead of acknowledging how your own conduct can put other people at risk.
I’ve seen cyclists go faster than that on sidewalks. I was driving down one of those streets named after a state, going maybe 25mph, and was passed by a bike on the sidewalk
Faster than 25 mph, on a bike, on the sidewalk of a street in DC. You don't say.
People do some crazy shit
People also have no sense of speed. Unless you have Olympian-level strength, attaining - let alone maintaining - 25mph on level ground is very difficult and especially so on a confined space such as a sidewalk. 15mph is possible but that’s about it.
Nonetheless I’d be all for a law banning cycling on any and all sidewalks where there is an adjacent protected bike lane. That is entirely reasonable.
It’s not uncommon for runners to run five minute miles. That translates to 12 miles per hour. Someone on a bike could easily go twice that.
20 mph (PP's estimate) is right in the middle of the average for an advanced cyclist and on a downhill they could easily get to 24 mph (the average top-end speed for an advanced cyclist). Thanks for the link.
It's good to hear that DC's sidewalks are in such an outstanding, smooth, unblocked, non-bumpy condition that athletes can reach Tour de France speeds on them.
PP wasn't talking about a sidewalk. PP was talking about a protected bike lane on a downhill stretch. Just keep deflecting.
Huh?
“I’ve seen cyclists go faster than that on sidewalks. I was driving down one of those streets named after a state, going maybe 25mph, and was passed by a bike on the sidewalk”
No cyclist are doing those speeds on a sidewalk. It’s patently absurd. To assert such only shows you no nothing about speed nor cycling.
The discussion about speed started with this: "I'm pretty sure getting hit by a cyclist on an e-bike or regular bike at 20 mph, which is faster than cars usually go at this intersection because of the congestion, would result in some broken ribs at the least." One of the bike trolls claimed no one rode 20 mph in a bike lane, which prompted the dubious claim of 25 mph on a sidewalk.
20 mph downhill on the road or a bike lane is certainly possible. But any cyclist who routinely runs red lights or stop signs at 20 mph is not someone who is going to be around long enough for you to worry much about.
Don’t you understand? Nothing is ever a cyclist’s fault. If a cyclist ran a stop sign at 30 mph and got hit by a car and died, it would be the driver’s fault regardless of the details of what actually happened.
This thread notwithstanding, the number of cyclists in DC who are killed by drivers is pretty close to the number of cyclists who are eaten by bears.
Yeah, you keep saying that, and every time you say it, it makes you sound worse.
I think PP's point is the the number of cyclists killed is statistically insignificant, and they're not wrong. Every death is a tragedy but the story is in each narrative, not the overall numbers.
What an absolutely ghoulish thing to write. Every road death represents a life tragically cut short. Those lives may not mean much to you, but they do to so many others. What is especially tragic is that many of these deaths could have been prevented if we had better infrastructure and more rigorous enforcement of road regulations, especially speeding.
Uh huh. While you hyperventilate about drivers, it’s worth noting that the number of cyclists killed in this city is minuscule. It’s amazing it’s not higher given all the stupid things cyclists do.
The number of children murdered in this city dwarfs the number of cyclists killed. But sure let’s all focus on that one white guy on a bike who got hit by a car three years ago
These are completely unrelated policy questions, though. We can be furious at children being murdered but also think the roads could be safer to bike on.
Except that’s not what happens *at all*. All the attention and a stunning amount of money goes to the white guy on a bike who is an adult who voluntarily chose to do something that everyone knows is dangerous. Every public dollar spent on one thing like subsidizing the hobbies of Bernie bros is a dollar that can’t be spent on another thing.
please stop. I doubt you care about black kids getting shot - you’re just trying to make a point. meanwhile, black kids actually DO disproportionately suffer from traffic accidents (and some die, including those on bikes). making streets safer for bikers and pedestrians would strongly benefit black kids.
Uh huh right. I think it’s disgusting how much of our public resources white guys are able to commandeer for their hobbies in a city with shocking poverty and crime rates. Our poverty rate is the same as West Virginia. We have as many murders as Baltimore. The children angle will upset anyone who has kids (you obviously do not).
White peoples from Ward 3 go to the front of line for everything including scarce tax dollars
It's common sense that scarce tax dollars should not be spent subsidizing others' personal choices, particularly when those choices impose negative externalities on the rest of the population. For this reason, DC should impose congestion and road tolls to ensure that all users who impose their vehicles on the city's roads contribute their fair share to the massive cost of maintaining the city's road network and that said users are properly incentivized to opt for forms of transportation that are less socially harmful.
Except those roads are not built in order to provide a space for someone's hobby. They were built in order to enable the transportation of goods and workers. No roads = no food. No roads = no ambulances. No roads = no iphones, renovations, whole foods, uber, doordash or instacart. Just because you hire someone to mow your lawn does not mean that lawnmowers aren't needed.
I want to understand why you think riding a bike is "a hobby", particularly on main transit routes. Is it your belief that most of these cyclists are just out riding for pleasure with no destination or purpose?
Different poster. You have plenty of options to get to work. You can drive. You can Uber. You can carpool. You can ride the bus. You can ride the subway. You can walk. The city shouldn’t have to make special accommodations because a teensy number of people want to use a form of transportation that’s not on the list. We don’t do that for people who want to roller blade to work. And the city certainly shouldn’t have to spend billions of dollars on safety measures because the form of transportation you want to use happens to be really dangerous. This is the epitome of white privilege.
Bike lanes can accommodate and do accommodate a wide variety of modes, including roller-blading, scooters, Segways, e-bikes, pedal bikes, wheelchairs, and many other forms of assisted mobility. The notion that DC (or DMV governments generally) are spending billions of dollars on bike lanes is nothing short of laughable. Spending on bike lanes comprises a tiny fraction of the overall transportation budget and bike lanes will never make up more than a tiny fraction of available road space. The allocation of hundreds of millions of dollars to road maintenance and new road construction represents massive subsidies for those who drive or are driven. As you point out, those who do so have many other options to go to work and nothing other than "privilege" describes the reflexive opposition that some drivers have towards bike lanes that allow people to travel throughout the city by cheaper, cleaner, and healthier modes. And it is driving, not cycling, that is "really dangerous". Cases of single-ride bicycling accidents are extremely rare. Cases of cyclists and pedestrians being killed or seriously injured by inattentive drivers are, on the other hand, anything but rare.
Anonymous wrote:I really appreciated the guy going 20mph on his e-bike in the bike lanes ringing his bell as he ran the red light so the pedestrians had a chance to scatter before he went through the crosswalk. All the cars at the intersection were stopped, by the way.
Wow. I also saw many cars speeding and couple running red lights yesterday. Shall we all chip in with our observations of bad behavior by road users in Washington, DC. What great fun that would be.
How many of those cars honked their horns to make pedestrians scatter out of the crosswalk while they ran the red light? I’m not talking about technical violations that may have resulted from inattention, which, while extremely dangerous, is not the same as wanton and willful lawbreaking. The problem with too many cyclists is that they expect everyone to adjust to their presence regardless of what the law is. That tendency is worse when they’re in protected bike lanes because they don’t have to worry about cars.
If I’m walking in a crosswalk, having already established a lawful presence there, stop for me. It’s the law and it’s also common courtesy.
Yes, it is. It's the law. Which is routinely broken by drivers of cars, with or without bike lanes, and when drivers do it, they can seriously injure or kill you. But sure, let's focus on bike lanes.
The more people bike instead of drive, the safer you as a pedestrian will be.
You never acknowledge that you have any responsibility for the safety of others as a cyclist, so your argument that I'll be safer with more bike lanes falls flat. That's the problem. Too many cyclists fail to take responsibility for anyone else's safety, even that of other cyclists. I'm pretty sure getting hit by a cyclist on an e-bike or regular bike at 20 mph, which is faster than cars usually go at this intersection because of the congestion, would result in some broken ribs at the least.
A regular bike at 20 mph on a bike lane in your mysterious unnamed intersection in DC? Where is that mysterious unnamed intersection, by the way?
It’s on a downhill. It’s an easy 20. You still keep deflecting instead of acknowledging how your own conduct can put other people at risk.
I’ve seen cyclists go faster than that on sidewalks. I was driving down one of those streets named after a state, going maybe 25mph, and was passed by a bike on the sidewalk
Faster than 25 mph, on a bike, on the sidewalk of a street in DC. You don't say.
People do some crazy shit
People also have no sense of speed. Unless you have Olympian-level strength, attaining - let alone maintaining - 25mph on level ground is very difficult and especially so on a confined space such as a sidewalk. 15mph is possible but that’s about it.
Nonetheless I’d be all for a law banning cycling on any and all sidewalks where there is an adjacent protected bike lane. That is entirely reasonable.
It’s not uncommon for runners to run five minute miles. That translates to 12 miles per hour. Someone on a bike could easily go twice that.
20 mph (PP's estimate) is right in the middle of the average for an advanced cyclist and on a downhill they could easily get to 24 mph (the average top-end speed for an advanced cyclist). Thanks for the link.
It's good to hear that DC's sidewalks are in such an outstanding, smooth, unblocked, non-bumpy condition that athletes can reach Tour de France speeds on them.
PP wasn't talking about a sidewalk. PP was talking about a protected bike lane on a downhill stretch. Just keep deflecting.
Huh?
“I’ve seen cyclists go faster than that on sidewalks. I was driving down one of those streets named after a state, going maybe 25mph, and was passed by a bike on the sidewalk”
No cyclist are doing those speeds on a sidewalk. It’s patently absurd. To assert such only shows you no nothing about speed nor cycling.
The discussion about speed started with this: "I'm pretty sure getting hit by a cyclist on an e-bike or regular bike at 20 mph, which is faster than cars usually go at this intersection because of the congestion, would result in some broken ribs at the least." One of the bike trolls claimed no one rode 20 mph in a bike lane, which prompted the dubious claim of 25 mph on a sidewalk.
20 mph downhill on the road or a bike lane is certainly possible. But any cyclist who routinely runs red lights or stop signs at 20 mph is not someone who is going to be around long enough for you to worry much about.
Don’t you understand? Nothing is ever a cyclist’s fault. If a cyclist ran a stop sign at 30 mph and got hit by a car and died, it would be the driver’s fault regardless of the details of what actually happened.
This thread notwithstanding, the number of cyclists in DC who are killed by drivers is pretty close to the number of cyclists who are eaten by bears.
Yeah, you keep saying that, and every time you say it, it makes you sound worse.
I think PP's point is the the number of cyclists killed is statistically insignificant, and they're not wrong. Every death is a tragedy but the story is in each narrative, not the overall numbers.
What an absolutely ghoulish thing to write. Every road death represents a life tragically cut short. Those lives may not mean much to you, but they do to so many others. What is especially tragic is that many of these deaths could have been prevented if we had better infrastructure and more rigorous enforcement of road regulations, especially speeding.
Uh huh. While you hyperventilate about drivers, it’s worth noting that the number of cyclists killed in this city is minuscule. It’s amazing it’s not higher given all the stupid things cyclists do.
The number of children murdered in this city dwarfs the number of cyclists killed. But sure let’s all focus on that one white guy on a bike who got hit by a car three years ago
These are completely unrelated policy questions, though. We can be furious at children being murdered but also think the roads could be safer to bike on.
Except that’s not what happens *at all*. All the attention and a stunning amount of money goes to the white guy on a bike who is an adult who voluntarily chose to do something that everyone knows is dangerous. Every public dollar spent on one thing like subsidizing the hobbies of Bernie bros is a dollar that can’t be spent on another thing.
please stop. I doubt you care about black kids getting shot - you’re just trying to make a point. meanwhile, black kids actually DO disproportionately suffer from traffic accidents (and some die, including those on bikes). making streets safer for bikers and pedestrians would strongly benefit black kids.
Uh huh right. I think it’s disgusting how much of our public resources white guys are able to commandeer for their hobbies in a city with shocking poverty and crime rates. Our poverty rate is the same as West Virginia. We have as many murders as Baltimore. The children angle will upset anyone who has kids (you obviously do not).
White peoples from Ward 3 go to the front of line for everything including scarce tax dollars
It's common sense that scarce tax dollars should not be spent subsidizing others' personal choices, particularly when those choices impose negative externalities on the rest of the population. For this reason, DC should impose congestion and road tolls to ensure that all users who impose their vehicles on the city's roads contribute their fair share to the massive cost of maintaining the city's road network and that said users are properly incentivized to opt for forms of transportation that are less socially harmful.
Except those roads are not built in order to provide a space for someone's hobby. They were built in order to enable the transportation of goods and workers. No roads = no food. No roads = no ambulances. No roads = no iphones, renovations, whole foods, uber, doordash or instacart. Just because you hire someone to mow your lawn does not mean that lawnmowers aren't needed.
I want to understand why you think riding a bike is "a hobby", particularly on main transit routes. Is it your belief that most of these cyclists are just out riding for pleasure with no destination or purpose?
Different poster. You have plenty of options to get to work. You can drive. You can Uber. You can carpool. You can ride the bus. You can ride the subway. You can walk. The city shouldn’t have to make special accommodations because a teensy number of people want to use a form of transportation that’s not on the list. We don’t do that for people who want to roller blade to work. And the city certainly shouldn’t have to spend billions of dollars on safety measures because the form of transportation you want to use happens to be really dangerous. This is the epitome of white privilege.
Bike lanes can accommodate and do accommodate a wide variety of modes, including roller-blading, scooters, Segways, e-bikes, pedal bikes, wheelchairs, and many other forms of assisted mobility. The notion that DC (or DMV governments generally) are spending billions of dollars on bike lanes is nothing short of laughable. Spending on bike lanes comprises a tiny fraction of the overall transportation budget and bike lanes will never make up more than a tiny fraction of available road space. The allocation of hundreds of millions of dollars to road maintenance and new road construction represents massive subsidies for those who drive or are driven. As you point out, those who do so have many other options to go to work and nothing other than "privilege" describes the reflexive opposition that some drivers have towards bike lanes that allow people to travel throughout the city by cheaper, cleaner, and healthier modes. And it is driving, not cycling, that is "really dangerous". Cases of single-ride bicycling accidents are extremely rare. Cases of cyclists and pedestrians being killed or seriously injured by inattentive drivers are, on the other hand, anything but rare.
The amount of rage that would be unleashed if a cyclist encountered a stroller or wheel chair in their precious bike lane would be nuclear level. I’ve encountered it personally while pushing a stroller or kids with training wheels on closed beach drive where there is plenty of room to maneuver.
Anonymous wrote:I really appreciated the guy going 20mph on his e-bike in the bike lanes ringing his bell as he ran the red light so the pedestrians had a chance to scatter before he went through the crosswalk. All the cars at the intersection were stopped, by the way.
Wow. I also saw many cars speeding and couple running red lights yesterday. Shall we all chip in with our observations of bad behavior by road users in Washington, DC. What great fun that would be.
How many of those cars honked their horns to make pedestrians scatter out of the crosswalk while they ran the red light? I’m not talking about technical violations that may have resulted from inattention, which, while extremely dangerous, is not the same as wanton and willful lawbreaking. The problem with too many cyclists is that they expect everyone to adjust to their presence regardless of what the law is. That tendency is worse when they’re in protected bike lanes because they don’t have to worry about cars.
If I’m walking in a crosswalk, having already established a lawful presence there, stop for me. It’s the law and it’s also common courtesy.
Yes, it is. It's the law. Which is routinely broken by drivers of cars, with or without bike lanes, and when drivers do it, they can seriously injure or kill you. But sure, let's focus on bike lanes.
The more people bike instead of drive, the safer you as a pedestrian will be.
You never acknowledge that you have any responsibility for the safety of others as a cyclist, so your argument that I'll be safer with more bike lanes falls flat. That's the problem. Too many cyclists fail to take responsibility for anyone else's safety, even that of other cyclists. I'm pretty sure getting hit by a cyclist on an e-bike or regular bike at 20 mph, which is faster than cars usually go at this intersection because of the congestion, would result in some broken ribs at the least.
A regular bike at 20 mph on a bike lane in your mysterious unnamed intersection in DC? Where is that mysterious unnamed intersection, by the way?
It’s on a downhill. It’s an easy 20. You still keep deflecting instead of acknowledging how your own conduct can put other people at risk.
I’ve seen cyclists go faster than that on sidewalks. I was driving down one of those streets named after a state, going maybe 25mph, and was passed by a bike on the sidewalk
Faster than 25 mph, on a bike, on the sidewalk of a street in DC. You don't say.
People do some crazy shit
People also have no sense of speed. Unless you have Olympian-level strength, attaining - let alone maintaining - 25mph on level ground is very difficult and especially so on a confined space such as a sidewalk. 15mph is possible but that’s about it.
Nonetheless I’d be all for a law banning cycling on any and all sidewalks where there is an adjacent protected bike lane. That is entirely reasonable.
It’s not uncommon for runners to run five minute miles. That translates to 12 miles per hour. Someone on a bike could easily go twice that.
20 mph (PP's estimate) is right in the middle of the average for an advanced cyclist and on a downhill they could easily get to 24 mph (the average top-end speed for an advanced cyclist). Thanks for the link.
It's good to hear that DC's sidewalks are in such an outstanding, smooth, unblocked, non-bumpy condition that athletes can reach Tour de France speeds on them.
PP wasn't talking about a sidewalk. PP was talking about a protected bike lane on a downhill stretch. Just keep deflecting.
Huh?
“I’ve seen cyclists go faster than that on sidewalks. I was driving down one of those streets named after a state, going maybe 25mph, and was passed by a bike on the sidewalk”
No cyclist are doing those speeds on a sidewalk. It’s patently absurd. To assert such only shows you no nothing about speed nor cycling.
The discussion about speed started with this: "I'm pretty sure getting hit by a cyclist on an e-bike or regular bike at 20 mph, which is faster than cars usually go at this intersection because of the congestion, would result in some broken ribs at the least." One of the bike trolls claimed no one rode 20 mph in a bike lane, which prompted the dubious claim of 25 mph on a sidewalk.
20 mph downhill on the road or a bike lane is certainly possible. But any cyclist who routinely runs red lights or stop signs at 20 mph is not someone who is going to be around long enough for you to worry much about.
Don’t you understand? Nothing is ever a cyclist’s fault. If a cyclist ran a stop sign at 30 mph and got hit by a car and died, it would be the driver’s fault regardless of the details of what actually happened.
This thread notwithstanding, the number of cyclists in DC who are killed by drivers is pretty close to the number of cyclists who are eaten by bears.
Yeah, you keep saying that, and every time you say it, it makes you sound worse.
I think PP's point is the the number of cyclists killed is statistically insignificant, and they're not wrong. Every death is a tragedy but the story is in each narrative, not the overall numbers.
What an absolutely ghoulish thing to write. Every road death represents a life tragically cut short. Those lives may not mean much to you, but they do to so many others. What is especially tragic is that many of these deaths could have been prevented if we had better infrastructure and more rigorous enforcement of road regulations, especially speeding.
Uh huh. While you hyperventilate about drivers, it’s worth noting that the number of cyclists killed in this city is minuscule. It’s amazing it’s not higher given all the stupid things cyclists do.
The number of children murdered in this city dwarfs the number of cyclists killed. But sure let’s all focus on that one white guy on a bike who got hit by a car three years ago
These are completely unrelated policy questions, though. We can be furious at children being murdered but also think the roads could be safer to bike on.
Except that’s not what happens *at all*. All the attention and a stunning amount of money goes to the white guy on a bike who is an adult who voluntarily chose to do something that everyone knows is dangerous. Every public dollar spent on one thing like subsidizing the hobbies of Bernie bros is a dollar that can’t be spent on another thing.
please stop. I doubt you care about black kids getting shot - you’re just trying to make a point. meanwhile, black kids actually DO disproportionately suffer from traffic accidents (and some die, including those on bikes). making streets safer for bikers and pedestrians would strongly benefit black kids.
Uh huh right. I think it’s disgusting how much of our public resources white guys are able to commandeer for their hobbies in a city with shocking poverty and crime rates. Our poverty rate is the same as West Virginia. We have as many murders as Baltimore. The children angle will upset anyone who has kids (you obviously do not).
White peoples from Ward 3 go to the front of line for everything including scarce tax dollars
It's common sense that scarce tax dollars should not be spent subsidizing others' personal choices, particularly when those choices impose negative externalities on the rest of the population. For this reason, DC should impose congestion and road tolls to ensure that all users who impose their vehicles on the city's roads contribute their fair share to the massive cost of maintaining the city's road network and that said users are properly incentivized to opt for forms of transportation that are less socially harmful.
Except those roads are not built in order to provide a space for someone's hobby. They were built in order to enable the transportation of goods and workers. No roads = no food. No roads = no ambulances. No roads = no iphones, renovations, whole foods, uber, doordash or instacart. Just because you hire someone to mow your lawn does not mean that lawnmowers aren't needed.
I want to understand why you think riding a bike is "a hobby", particularly on main transit routes. Is it your belief that most of these cyclists are just out riding for pleasure with no destination or purpose?
Different poster. You have plenty of options to get to work. You can drive. You can Uber. You can carpool. You can ride the bus. You can ride the subway. You can walk. The city shouldn’t have to make special accommodations because a teensy number of people want to use a form of transportation that’s not on the list. We don’t do that for people who want to roller blade to work. And the city certainly shouldn’t have to spend billions of dollars on safety measures because the form of transportation you want to use happens to be really dangerous. This is the epitome of white privilege.
Bike lanes can accommodate and do accommodate a wide variety of modes, including roller-blading, scooters, Segways, e-bikes, pedal bikes, wheelchairs, and many other forms of assisted mobility. The notion that DC (or DMV governments generally) are spending billions of dollars on bike lanes is nothing short of laughable. Spending on bike lanes comprises a tiny fraction of the overall transportation budget and bike lanes will never make up more than a tiny fraction of available road space. The allocation of hundreds of millions of dollars to road maintenance and new road construction represents massive subsidies for those who drive or are driven. As you point out, those who do so have many other options to go to work and nothing other than "privilege" describes the reflexive opposition that some drivers have towards bike lanes that allow people to travel throughout the city by cheaper, cleaner, and healthier modes. And it is driving, not cycling, that is "really dangerous". Cases of single-ride bicycling accidents are extremely rare. Cases of cyclists and pedestrians being killed or seriously injured by inattentive drivers are, on the other hand, anything but rare.
The amount of rage that would be unleashed if a cyclist encountered a stroller or wheel chair in their precious bike lane would be nuclear level. I’ve encountered it personally while pushing a stroller or kids with training wheels on closed beach drive where there is plenty of room to maneuver.
Do you have persecution fantasies about a lot of stuff, or just bikes?
The amount of rage that would be unleashed if a cyclist encountered a stroller or wheel chair in their precious bike lane would be nuclear level. I’ve encountered it personally while pushing a stroller or kids with training wheels on closed beach drive where there is plenty of room to maneuver.
Hi, I'm a cyclist. I'm also a former stroller-pusher (my kids are now grown), and my partner sometimes uses a wheelchair. When you are imagining "cyclists" in your head, you are probably not imagining me. Just something for you to think about.
Anonymous wrote:I don't own a bike and haven't ridden a bike in years.
But I do understand three things:
1. The built environment influences behavior. You don't build a park where people are already playing soccer. You build the park and people start to go there. This is called induced demand, and it is why adding lanes to roads never actually decreases congestion. More people just drive.
2. Making roads more difficult to navigate does not generally make them more dangerous. In fact, the opposite. If drivers need to slow down and pay attention, it makes it safer.
3. City planner, particularly ones who have environmental sustainability goals, need to plan for a future. Yes it is a gamble, but it happens all the time.
Actually...
1. Soccer fields are indeed built where people play soccer. 2. Making roads more difficult to navigate obviously makes them more dangerous because they are more difficult to navigate.
3. Obviously it's a gamble. The question is whether or not it's a smart gamble.
Really, that's how it works? People play soccer in a vacant lot, then the rec department decides to build a soccer field there?
You might believe that making roads more difficult to navigate makes them more dangerous, but in actual reality it makes them safer, because drivers drive more slowly.
I drive and speed bumps and things like that make me more likely to roll stop signs. If you’re going to slow me down in the middle of the street, then I’m going to make up the time elsewhere. Sorry. There’s no free lunch with slowing down drivers. (It’s like when they close streets or lanes to cars. All they’re doing is forcing traffic elsewhere.)
Look at this a**hole announcing to the whole world what an a**hole they are.
PP here. It’s not my fault your theories about “traffic calming” are nonsensical. Maybe you should stop believing in stupid bullshit?
Despite the best efforts of extremely narcissistic people like you to terrorize everyone else on the road simply because you can't organize your life properly, traffic calming does actually work. Sources:
Traffic deaths are incredibly rare in DC. There’s usually between 30 and 40 per year. Typically a quarter of those are the fault of people who weren’t driving according to the police. There’s also a smattering of people who have medical emergencies while driving. So you’re really talking between 20 and 30 deaths per year. That’s out of billions of trips taken. Been that way for decades. Hard to see what difference “traffic calming” makes except to force cars to sit in traffic longer which doesn’t seem like a plus for the environment.
Yeah, you're a ghoul. Regular people understand that crashes are bad, even crashes that don't kill people, and that crashes that killed people who were legally at fault are also bad.
Then why are you in favor of increasing crashes? There's almost 100 years of studies and data showing that congestion increases accidents.
And, in what qualifies as regular service on this thread, you can't present a single citation to back up your counterintuitive claims . . .
God you're committed to your lies. It's literally been the main focus of transportation research for decades and makes perfect logical sense unlike your nonsensical fantasy that inceasing congestion on major roads will decrease accidents on thise roads.
That has scores of other citations within it so don't claim it's only one.
Not even your own citation supports your contention.
Of course it does. There is 100% certainty of a casual link between accidents and congestion. What it also mentions is that there is some indication that fatalities occur most often when there is medium congestion.
The argument you are making is that we should increase increase congestion from medium to high in order to reduce fatalities and accept the increase in accidents short of fatal, along with all the economic and environmental costs of increased congestion.
Well, yes, I do think it would be desirable to have fewer crashes that kill people. Fewer crashes that kill or seriously injure people, more crashes that are just fender-benders with no injuries - yep, that sounds good. Especially given the economic and societal costs of crashes that kill or seriously injure people.
There you go again. The only type of accidents that congestion reduces are ones with fatalities. Something that is actually quite rare. All other accidents short of death go up.
Anonymous wrote:I don't own a bike and haven't ridden a bike in years.
But I do understand three things:
1. The built environment influences behavior. You don't build a park where people are already playing soccer. You build the park and people start to go there. This is called induced demand, and it is why adding lanes to roads never actually decreases congestion. More people just drive.
2. Making roads more difficult to navigate does not generally make them more dangerous. In fact, the opposite. If drivers need to slow down and pay attention, it makes it safer.
3. City planner, particularly ones who have environmental sustainability goals, need to plan for a future. Yes it is a gamble, but it happens all the time.
Actually...
1. Soccer fields are indeed built where people play soccer. 2. Making roads more difficult to navigate obviously makes them more dangerous because they are more difficult to navigate.
3. Obviously it's a gamble. The question is whether or not it's a smart gamble.
Really, that's how it works? People play soccer in a vacant lot, then the rec department decides to build a soccer field there?
You might believe that making roads more difficult to navigate makes them more dangerous, but in actual reality it makes them safer, because drivers drive more slowly.
I drive and speed bumps and things like that make me more likely to roll stop signs. If you’re going to slow me down in the middle of the street, then I’m going to make up the time elsewhere. Sorry. There’s no free lunch with slowing down drivers. (It’s like when they close streets or lanes to cars. All they’re doing is forcing traffic elsewhere.)
Look at this a**hole announcing to the whole world what an a**hole they are.
PP here. It’s not my fault your theories about “traffic calming” are nonsensical. Maybe you should stop believing in stupid bullshit?
Despite the best efforts of extremely narcissistic people like you to terrorize everyone else on the road simply because you can't organize your life properly, traffic calming does actually work. Sources:
Traffic deaths are incredibly rare in DC. There’s usually between 30 and 40 per year. Typically a quarter of those are the fault of people who weren’t driving according to the police. There’s also a smattering of people who have medical emergencies while driving. So you’re really talking between 20 and 30 deaths per year. That’s out of billions of trips taken. Been that way for decades. Hard to see what difference “traffic calming” makes except to force cars to sit in traffic longer which doesn’t seem like a plus for the environment.
Yeah, you're a ghoul. Regular people understand that crashes are bad, even crashes that don't kill people, and that crashes that killed people who were legally at fault are also bad.
Then why are you in favor of increasing crashes? There's almost 100 years of studies and data showing that congestion increases accidents.
And, in what qualifies as regular service on this thread, you can't present a single citation to back up your counterintuitive claims . . .
God you're committed to your lies. It's literally been the main focus of transportation research for decades and makes perfect logical sense unlike your nonsensical fantasy that inceasing congestion on major roads will decrease accidents on thise roads.
That has scores of other citations within it so don't claim it's only one.
Not even your own citation supports your contention.
Of course it does. There is 100% certainty of a casual link between accidents and congestion. What it also mentions is that there is some indication that fatalities occur most often when there is medium congestion.
The argument you are making is that we should increase increase congestion from medium to high in order to reduce fatalities and accept the increase in accidents short of fatal, along with all the economic and environmental costs of increased congestion.
Well, yes, I do think it would be desirable to have fewer crashes that kill people. Fewer crashes that kill or seriously injure people, more crashes that are just fender-benders with no injuries - yep, that sounds good. Especially given the economic and societal costs of crashes that kill or seriously injure people.
There you go again. The only type of accidents that congestion reduces are ones with fatalities. Something that is actually quite rare. All other accidents short of death go up.
Yes, there I go again, claiming that people's lives are more important than your minor personal inconvenience.
Anonymous wrote:I really appreciated the guy going 20mph on his e-bike in the bike lanes ringing his bell as he ran the red light so the pedestrians had a chance to scatter before he went through the crosswalk. All the cars at the intersection were stopped, by the way.
Wow. I also saw many cars speeding and couple running red lights yesterday. Shall we all chip in with our observations of bad behavior by road users in Washington, DC. What great fun that would be.
How many of those cars honked their horns to make pedestrians scatter out of the crosswalk while they ran the red light? I’m not talking about technical violations that may have resulted from inattention, which, while extremely dangerous, is not the same as wanton and willful lawbreaking. The problem with too many cyclists is that they expect everyone to adjust to their presence regardless of what the law is. That tendency is worse when they’re in protected bike lanes because they don’t have to worry about cars.
If I’m walking in a crosswalk, having already established a lawful presence there, stop for me. It’s the law and it’s also common courtesy.
Yes, it is. It's the law. Which is routinely broken by drivers of cars, with or without bike lanes, and when drivers do it, they can seriously injure or kill you. But sure, let's focus on bike lanes.
The more people bike instead of drive, the safer you as a pedestrian will be.
You never acknowledge that you have any responsibility for the safety of others as a cyclist, so your argument that I'll be safer with more bike lanes falls flat. That's the problem. Too many cyclists fail to take responsibility for anyone else's safety, even that of other cyclists. I'm pretty sure getting hit by a cyclist on an e-bike or regular bike at 20 mph, which is faster than cars usually go at this intersection because of the congestion, would result in some broken ribs at the least.
A regular bike at 20 mph on a bike lane in your mysterious unnamed intersection in DC? Where is that mysterious unnamed intersection, by the way?
It’s on a downhill. It’s an easy 20. You still keep deflecting instead of acknowledging how your own conduct can put other people at risk.
I’ve seen cyclists go faster than that on sidewalks. I was driving down one of those streets named after a state, going maybe 25mph, and was passed by a bike on the sidewalk
Faster than 25 mph, on a bike, on the sidewalk of a street in DC. You don't say.
People do some crazy shit
People also have no sense of speed. Unless you have Olympian-level strength, attaining - let alone maintaining - 25mph on level ground is very difficult and especially so on a confined space such as a sidewalk. 15mph is possible but that’s about it.
Nonetheless I’d be all for a law banning cycling on any and all sidewalks where there is an adjacent protected bike lane. That is entirely reasonable.
It’s not uncommon for runners to run five minute miles. That translates to 12 miles per hour. Someone on a bike could easily go twice that.
20 mph (PP's estimate) is right in the middle of the average for an advanced cyclist and on a downhill they could easily get to 24 mph (the average top-end speed for an advanced cyclist). Thanks for the link.
It's good to hear that DC's sidewalks are in such an outstanding, smooth, unblocked, non-bumpy condition that athletes can reach Tour de France speeds on them.
PP wasn't talking about a sidewalk. PP was talking about a protected bike lane on a downhill stretch. Just keep deflecting.
Huh?
“I’ve seen cyclists go faster than that on sidewalks. I was driving down one of those streets named after a state, going maybe 25mph, and was passed by a bike on the sidewalk”
No cyclist are doing those speeds on a sidewalk. It’s patently absurd. To assert such only shows you no nothing about speed nor cycling.
The discussion about speed started with this: "I'm pretty sure getting hit by a cyclist on an e-bike or regular bike at 20 mph, which is faster than cars usually go at this intersection because of the congestion, would result in some broken ribs at the least." One of the bike trolls claimed no one rode 20 mph in a bike lane, which prompted the dubious claim of 25 mph on a sidewalk.
20 mph downhill on the road or a bike lane is certainly possible. But any cyclist who routinely runs red lights or stop signs at 20 mph is not someone who is going to be around long enough for you to worry much about.
Don’t you understand? Nothing is ever a cyclist’s fault. If a cyclist ran a stop sign at 30 mph and got hit by a car and died, it would be the driver’s fault regardless of the details of what actually happened.
This thread notwithstanding, the number of cyclists in DC who are killed by drivers is pretty close to the number of cyclists who are eaten by bears.
Yeah, you keep saying that, and every time you say it, it makes you sound worse.
I think PP's point is the the number of cyclists killed is statistically insignificant, and they're not wrong. Every death is a tragedy but the story is in each narrative, not the overall numbers.
What an absolutely ghoulish thing to write. Every road death represents a life tragically cut short. Those lives may not mean much to you, but they do to so many others. What is especially tragic is that many of these deaths could have been prevented if we had better infrastructure and more rigorous enforcement of road regulations, especially speeding.
Uh huh. While you hyperventilate about drivers, it’s worth noting that the number of cyclists killed in this city is minuscule. It’s amazing it’s not higher given all the stupid things cyclists do.
The number of children murdered in this city dwarfs the number of cyclists killed. But sure let’s all focus on that one white guy on a bike who got hit by a car three years ago
These are completely unrelated policy questions, though. We can be furious at children being murdered but also think the roads could be safer to bike on.
Except that’s not what happens *at all*. All the attention and a stunning amount of money goes to the white guy on a bike who is an adult who voluntarily chose to do something that everyone knows is dangerous. Every public dollar spent on one thing like subsidizing the hobbies of Bernie bros is a dollar that can’t be spent on another thing.
please stop. I doubt you care about black kids getting shot - you’re just trying to make a point. meanwhile, black kids actually DO disproportionately suffer from traffic accidents (and some die, including those on bikes). making streets safer for bikers and pedestrians would strongly benefit black kids.
Uh huh right. I think it’s disgusting how much of our public resources white guys are able to commandeer for their hobbies in a city with shocking poverty and crime rates. Our poverty rate is the same as West Virginia. We have as many murders as Baltimore. The children angle will upset anyone who has kids (you obviously do not).
White peoples from Ward 3 go to the front of line for everything including scarce tax dollars
It's common sense that scarce tax dollars should not be spent subsidizing others' personal choices, particularly when those choices impose negative externalities on the rest of the population. For this reason, DC should impose congestion and road tolls to ensure that all users who impose their vehicles on the city's roads contribute their fair share to the massive cost of maintaining the city's road network and that said users are properly incentivized to opt for forms of transportation that are less socially harmful.
Except those roads are not built in order to provide a space for someone's hobby. They were built in order to enable the transportation of goods and workers. No roads = no food. No roads = no ambulances. No roads = no iphones, renovations, whole foods, uber, doordash or instacart. Just because you hire someone to mow your lawn does not mean that lawnmowers aren't needed.
I want to understand why you think riding a bike is "a hobby", particularly on main transit routes. Is it your belief that most of these cyclists are just out riding for pleasure with no destination or purpose?
Different poster. You have plenty of options to get to work. You can drive. You can Uber. You can carpool. You can ride the bus. You can ride the subway. You can walk. The city shouldn’t have to make special accommodations because a teensy number of people want to use a form of transportation that’s not on the list. We don’t do that for people who want to roller blade to work. And the city certainly shouldn’t have to spend billions of dollars on safety measures because the form of transportation you want to use happens to be really dangerous. This is the epitome of white privilege.
Bike lanes can accommodate and do accommodate a wide variety of modes, including roller-blading, scooters, Segways, e-bikes, pedal bikes, wheelchairs, and many other forms of assisted mobility. The notion that DC (or DMV governments generally) are spending billions of dollars on bike lanes is nothing short of laughable. Spending on bike lanes comprises a tiny fraction of the overall transportation budget and bike lanes will never make up more than a tiny fraction of available road space. The allocation of hundreds of millions of dollars to road maintenance and new road construction represents massive subsidies for those who drive or are driven. As you point out, those who do so have many other options to go to work and nothing other than "privilege" describes the reflexive opposition that some drivers have towards bike lanes that allow people to travel throughout the city by cheaper, cleaner, and healthier modes. And it is driving, not cycling, that is "really dangerous". Cases of single-ride bicycling accidents are extremely rare. Cases of cyclists and pedestrians being killed or seriously injured by inattentive drivers are, on the other hand, anything but rare.
The amount of rage that would be unleashed if a cyclist encountered a stroller or wheel chair in their precious bike lane would be nuclear level. I’ve encountered it personally while pushing a stroller or kids with training wheels on closed beach drive where there is plenty of room to maneuver.
Do you have persecution fantasies about a lot of stuff, or just bikes?
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