The Bike Lobby is too powerful in DC...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The bike lobby has fought any proposal to impose safety requirements regarding children on bikes.

If you put a three year old in a car, they have to be strapped into an approved car seat or you can be cited.

But if you put a three year on a bike, there are no safety rules at all.

That is because of the child seat lobby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I ride a bike and drive a car. I have no problem with holding bikers and motorists to the same obligations to obey all traffic signs regardless if on a bike or a car. That makes both safer. How can anyone argue that it is safer for bikers to be able to run stop signs? Again, love cycling but this is just common sense to me.

So you come to a complete and full stop with your foot down on the ground at every stop sign while you are riding?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I ride a bike and drive a car. I have no problem with holding bikers and motorists to the same obligations to obey all traffic signs regardless if on a bike or a car. That makes both safer. How can anyone argue that it is safer for bikers to be able to run stop signs? Again, love cycling but this is just common sense to me.

Generally, if you can just proceed through the intersection as soon as you verify that it is clear, that is better for bikes, instead of stopping fully. Bikes and cars are totally different vehicles.

Right and I am sure most of the time you are right but if we are all held to the same standard it makes biking more safe to stop. If a bike cruises through a stop sign and does not realize that a car is traveling at a high speed and will not be stopping for whatever reason, then the biker is dead. I have seen too many bikers cruise through stop signs when cars are stopped assuming they have some sort of right of way. That is also inherently dangerous for the biker. Courtesy goes both ways.

If that happens, then the intersection wasn't clear, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I ride a bike and drive a car. I have no problem with holding bikers and motorists to the same obligations to obey all traffic signs regardless if on a bike or a car. That makes both safer. How can anyone argue that it is safer for bikers to be able to run stop signs? Again, love cycling but this is just common sense to me.

Generally, if you can just proceed through the intersection as soon as you verify that it is clear, that is better for bikes, instead of stopping fully. Bikes and cars are totally different vehicles.

Ok then why do we share a road? Why do I have to creep behind the Little Engine that Could if we are different vehicles with different capabilities.

And I see how its better to slow down than make a full stop....but tell that to all the bikers that I almost hit when I have the right of way, use my turn signal and safely proceed and they run through a stop sign. Share the road, share the rules.

This is why they are banning right turns on red.

Because drivers are often looking left as they roll through an intersection without, you know, also looking at the crosswalk they are driving into.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I ride a bike and drive a car. I have no problem with holding bikers and motorists to the same obligations to obey all traffic signs regardless if on a bike or a car. That makes both safer. How can anyone argue that it is safer for bikers to be able to run stop signs? Again, love cycling but this is just common sense to me.

Generally, if you can just proceed through the intersection as soon as you verify that it is clear, that is better for bikes, instead of stopping fully. Bikes and cars are totally different vehicles.

Ok then why do we share a road? Why do I have to creep behind the Little Engine that Could if we are different vehicles with different capabilities.

And I see how its better to slow down than make a full stop....but tell that to all the bikers that I almost hit when I have the right of way, use my turn signal and safely proceed and they run through a stop sign. Share the road, share the rules.

We share a road because that is the infrastructure that we have. It is also why cyclists are asking for protected bike lanes, so the road doesn't have to be shared.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I ride a bike and drive a car. I have no problem with holding bikers and motorists to the same obligations to obey all traffic signs regardless if on a bike or a car. That makes both safer. How can anyone argue that it is safer for bikers to be able to run stop signs? Again, love cycling but this is just common sense to me.

Generally, if you can just proceed through the intersection as soon as you verify that it is clear, that is better for bikes, instead of stopping fully. Bikes and cars are totally different vehicles.

Right and I am sure most of the time you are right but if we are all held to the same standard it makes biking more safe to stop. If a bike cruises through a stop sign and does not realize that a car is traveling at a high speed and will not be stopping for whatever reason, then the biker is dead. I have seen too many bikers cruise through stop signs when cars are stopped assuming they have some sort of right of way. That is also inherently dangerous for the biker. Courtesy goes both ways.

Ok well that's not what the new bill allows, so that's good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I ride a bike and drive a car. I have no problem with holding bikers and motorists to the same obligations to obey all traffic signs regardless if on a bike or a car. That makes both safer. How can anyone argue that it is safer for bikers to be able to run stop signs? Again, love cycling but this is just common sense to me.

Generally, if you can just proceed through the intersection as soon as you verify that it is clear, that is better for bikes, instead of stopping fully. Bikes and cars are totally different vehicles.

Ok then why do we share a road? Why do I have to creep behind the Little Engine that Could if we are different vehicles with different capabilities.

And I see how its better to slow down than make a full stop....but tell that to all the bikers that I almost hit when I have the right of way, use my turn signal and safely proceed and they run through a stop sign. Share the road, share the rules.

The same reason a Prius and a turbocharged F-350 share a road?

Nice try, but a Prius and F-350 can both keep traffic moving at 25mph.

You don't have a right to go 25mph. You want to and don't care about other people. You probably also sit in traffic complaining about too many cars on the road.

So say its a one lane road with a 30mph limit, you think its ok to bike at.....15mph?....and slow down everyone behind you...and then roll through that stop sign. Talk about entitlement.....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:did you know bicyclists aren't required to wear helmets?

all this talk about safety and yet they fight any proposal to require them or even to require children on bikes to wear helmets.

Don't get me started on those idiotic rear mounted child bike seats with bars. So unsafe.

It's as if the bicyclists want everyone to stop for them - but they can't be bothered to follow the actual tules to keep themselves and their own children safe.

Riding in traffic with their toddlers and screaming across entry ways and walkways, as if no one else is on the road.

It is purely child endangerment.

Idiots.

you seem unduly angry

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I ride a bike and drive a car. I have no problem with holding bikers and motorists to the same obligations to obey all traffic signs regardless if on a bike or a car. That makes both safer. How can anyone argue that it is safer for bikers to be able to run stop signs? Again, love cycling but this is just common sense to me.

Generally, if you can just proceed through the intersection as soon as you verify that it is clear, that is better for bikes, instead of stopping fully. Bikes and cars are totally different vehicles.

Ok then why do we share a road? Why do I have to creep behind the Little Engine that Could if we are different vehicles with different capabilities.

And I see how its better to slow down than make a full stop....but tell that to all the bikers that I almost hit when I have the right of way, use my turn signal and safely proceed and they run through a stop sign. Share the road, share the rules.

The same reason a Prius and a turbocharged F-350 share a road?

Nice try, but a Prius and F-350 can both keep traffic moving at 25mph.

25MPH is a limit, not a floor. See the problem?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually agree with OP even though I think DC needs to reduce it's car infrastructure and would be in favor of drastic measures like shutting down parts of the city to cars or taxing cars using city streets during rush hour. I just think DC's current transportation trajectory, which seems to rely on continually increasing the number of cars moving in and out of the city, is totally unsustainable. I've lived in LA. At some point you have to invest in public transportation and car alternatives or you just wind up living in this sprawling traffic jam that decreases the quality of life for everyone on a daily basis. It's miserable. It's hard for people to transition to other forms of transportation but especially for commuters, it's really the only longterm option that makes economic and environmental sense. We can't just keep increasing road capacity. There is an upper limit.

But I find the bike lobby in DC tedious because it does often feel like all they want to do is add bike lanes and promote more biking. I bike places and even I think this is dumb. We do need to change streetscapes to make them safer, and bike lanes should be part of that. But the main goal should actually be pedestrian safety and reducing car speeds within the city. Instead we just stick a bike lane on an existing road where cars already go too fast. Great? This doesn't actually solve anything even if the bike lane is amazing for cyclists.

I wish the bike lobby would stop taking about bikes and instead focus exclusively on pedestrian safety and better infrastructure. If you do that, the city will naturally get safe for cyclists. But the truth is you are not going to convert a bunch of people into bike commuters. You might be able to convince them to take regional trains, light rail, metro, and buses, if you invest money in these options and make them affordable and convenient. Some people might also choose to bike. But why would this be your main focus? It's dumb.

You need to actually spend more time in public meetings and talking to people, and less time on twitter and DCUM and wherever you are getting your impressions. There is no "bike lobby." There is a broad coalition in favor of making DC streets safer and reducing emissions. Bike lanes just get vastly more attention because of the few paranoiacs who fixate on them. But DDOT is also working on all sorts of other things, like speed humps, bus priority projects, etc. Furthermore, adding bike lanes is a traffic calming technique for *all users.* You seem to think it's done for the "bike lobby," but it is actually often a integral part of slowing traffic for everyone.

Improving Metro and bus service is, unfortunately, not entirely within the control of DC, apart from changes to DC streets to improve the flow. I don't know a lot about that, but would be great if people actually investigated what's going on instead of frothing about the "bike lobby."

Thanks, I actually go to public meetings and work on these issues in my neighborhood all the time. There is a broad coalition working on street safety that includes lots of people like me who are focused on pedestrian safety and especially child safety. There are also a small number of [mostly male, entirely white, entirely UMC] people who view everything through the lens of biking in DC and often direct broader conversations about safety to the impact on cyclists because that is their experience. I am in agreement with them on many things BUT I think their voices are too prominent and that much of the backlash against safe streets initiatives is in part due to how much oxygen these folks take up.

One feature of this group is that they have an outsized expectation of how many people are going to adopt biking as a primary means of transportation, and this tends to focus them much more on bike infrastructure and insufficiently on public transportation and pedestrian safety. It's not that they don't care about these things -- if I said "we need more bus infrastructure in DC and we need to find more ways to incentivize bus ridership especially in areas not well-served by metro" they will agree with me! But then when it comes time to talk about policy initiatives, this is like #13 on their list of wants. And they are also happy to talk for hours about getting harassed as a cyclist but seem entirely ignorant of the experience of many bus riders who deal with safety threats on a daily basis, for example.

Half the time these arguments wind up just being a mansplaining, conservative middle aged man arguing with a mansplaining, liberal middle aged man about bike lanes. If you find yourself on EITHER side of that dynamic, consider being quiet for a while and instead elevating the voices of people who don't ride bikes but still want safe streets. There are a lot more of them.

I have literally never seen this coalition of "bike safety only" people in three years working on these issues in DC. Please let me know in more detail who this group is, when they've weighed in in a way that seems to ignore the interests of pedestrians, as well as their influence on DDOT. Because from where I sit, I've seen DDOT to a lot of stuff that never gets discussed on DCUM that has nothign to do with bikes, but people just fixate on the bikes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I ride a bike and drive a car. I have no problem with holding bikers and motorists to the same obligations to obey all traffic signs regardless if on a bike or a car. That makes both safer. How can anyone argue that it is safer for bikers to be able to run stop signs? Again, love cycling but this is just common sense to me.

Generally, if you can just proceed through the intersection as soon as you verify that it is clear, that is better for bikes, instead of stopping fully. Bikes and cars are totally different vehicles.

Ok then why do we share a road? Why do I have to creep behind the Little Engine that Could if we are different vehicles with different capabilities.

And I see how its better to slow down than make a full stop....but tell that to all the bikers that I almost hit when I have the right of way, use my turn signal and safely proceed and they run through a stop sign. Share the road, share the rules.

The same reason a Prius and a turbocharged F-350 share a road?

Nice try, but a Prius and F-350 can both keep traffic moving at 25mph.

You don't have a right to go 25mph. You want to and don't care about other people. You probably also sit in traffic complaining about too many cars on the road.

So say its a one lane road with a 30mph limit, you think its ok to bike at.....15mph?....and slow down everyone behind you...and then roll through that stop sign. Talk about entitlement.....

You typed it yourself. It is a limit, not a floor. I can drive a car in a 30MPH zone at 15 MPH and I would not be breaking any laws. If you need more time to get to your destination because you might be behind a slow driver or a cyclist, then you should be allotting more time for your trip, not driving your car on someone's rear bumper or rear wheel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I ride a bike and drive a car. I have no problem with holding bikers and motorists to the same obligations to obey all traffic signs regardless if on a bike or a car. That makes both safer. How can anyone argue that it is safer for bikers to be able to run stop signs? Again, love cycling but this is just common sense to me.

Generally, if you can just proceed through the intersection as soon as you verify that it is clear, that is better for bikes, instead of stopping fully. Bikes and cars are totally different vehicles.

Ok then why do we share a road? Why do I have to creep behind the Little Engine that Could if we are different vehicles with different capabilities.

And I see how its better to slow down than make a full stop....but tell that to all the bikers that I almost hit when I have the right of way, use my turn signal and safely proceed and they run through a stop sign. Share the road, share the rules.

The same reason a Prius and a turbocharged F-350 share a road?

Nice try, but a Prius and F-350 can both keep traffic moving at 25mph.

You don't have a right to go 25mph. You want to and don't care about other people. You probably also sit in traffic complaining about too many cars on the road.

So say its a one lane road with a 30mph limit, you think its ok to bike at.....15mph?....and slow down everyone behind you...and then roll through that stop sign. Talk about entitlement.....

Ever see a tractor on a country road? It's a shared space. You pass if/when it's safe.

[Anonymous]

As a biker, I am always, *always* practicing defensive biking.

The analogy of a car stopping at a stop sign and a bike stopping at a stop sign just don't compare. A car can get from 0 to 30 much more quickly than a bike. So yeah, depending on the situation, I slow at a stop sign - looking both ways multiple times - and continue through without stopping, as long as it's safe.

I see cars come to a stop sign or turn all the time who don't stop or look both ways.

Bikes are not going away - best to tone down your anger. It's better for your overall health.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I ride a bike and drive a car. I have no problem with holding bikers and motorists to the same obligations to obey all traffic signs regardless if on a bike or a car. That makes both safer. How can anyone argue that it is safer for bikers to be able to run stop signs? Again, love cycling but this is just common sense to me.

Generally, if you can just proceed through the intersection as soon as you verify that it is clear, that is better for bikes, instead of stopping fully. Bikes and cars are totally different vehicles.

Ok then why do we share a road? Why do I have to creep behind the Little Engine that Could if we are different vehicles with different capabilities.

And I see how its better to slow down than make a full stop....but tell that to all the bikers that I almost hit when I have the right of way, use my turn signal and safely proceed and they run through a stop sign. Share the road, share the rules.

The same reason a Prius and a turbocharged F-350 share a road?

Nice try, but a Prius and F-350 can both keep traffic moving at 25mph.

You don't have a right to go 25mph. You want to and don't care about other people. You probably also sit in traffic complaining about too many cars on the road.

So say its a one lane road with a 30mph limit, you think its ok to bike at.....15mph?....and slow down everyone behind you...and then roll through that stop sign. Talk about entitlement.....

You typed it yourself. It is a limit, not a floor. I can drive a car in a 30MPH zone at 15 MPH and I would not be breaking any laws. If you need more time to get to your destination because you might be behind a slow driver or a cyclist, then you should be allotting more time for your trip, not driving your car on someone's rear bumper or rear wheel.

So then you are cool with riding behind me and not passing me when I roll down the street doing 5, 6mph?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I ride a bike and drive a car. I have no problem with holding bikers and motorists to the same obligations to obey all traffic signs regardless if on a bike or a car. That makes both safer. How can anyone argue that it is safer for bikers to be able to run stop signs? Again, love cycling but this is just common sense to me.

Generally, if you can just proceed through the intersection as soon as you verify that it is clear, that is better for bikes, instead of stopping fully. Bikes and cars are totally different vehicles.

Ok then why do we share a road? Why do I have to creep behind the Little Engine that Could if we are different vehicles with different capabilities.

And I see how its better to slow down than make a full stop....but tell that to all the bikers that I almost hit when I have the right of way, use my turn signal and safely proceed and they run through a stop sign. Share the road, share the rules.

The same reason a Prius and a turbocharged F-350 share a road?

Nice try, but a Prius and F-350 can both keep traffic moving at 25mph.

Do you know what a speed limit is? Because the 30 MPH you are referring to is a limit, not a floor. Are you aware of any minimum speeds on any roads that aren't interstate highways? Please do let me know when you find one.

You don't have a right to go 25mph. You want to and don't care about other people. You probably also sit in traffic complaining about too many cars on the road.

So say its a one lane road with a 30mph limit, you think its ok to bike at.....15mph?....and slow down everyone behind you...and then roll through that stop sign. Talk about entitlement.....