Reply to Connecticut Ave bike lanes are back!

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This article from the NYT on how e-bikes have made life more dangerous for pedestrians in New York.  Shouldn’t Washington DC consider similar legislation/rules for e-bikes?

“[T]he explosion of e-bikes has also soured the way some New Yorkers view the streets.
“In the last three years there’s been an enormous shift,” said Susan Simon, who moved to New York in the late 1970s. “The quality of life has gone down.”

“The streets are very dangerous,” Simon continued. “What used to be a wonderful walking city for tourists, for pedestrians, has become something of a nightmare.”

Simon used to pedal a bike herself, for fun or to go to the grocery store. But e-bikes are different, she said — faster and heavier and therefore riskier. She noted that a woman was killed last year after someone riding an electric Citi Bike hit her.

There are some efforts to tame the chaos. Janet Schroeder and Pamela Manasse, who was hit by an electric vehicle in 2022 and suffered a severe brain injury, founded the NYC E-Vehicle Safety Alliance, which promotes various regulations for e-bikes.

[b]The alliance supports a bill that would ban e-bikes and other e-vehicles from parks and greenways. It would also like the government to require that e-bikes be registered and riders licensed.”[/b][/quote]

I am a cycling advocate. I would support such limits for eBikes that can go over a certain speed. I would not be supportive of banning them from parks and greenways. Otherwise, one couldn't ride one in Rock Creek Park, either on the road or the path, which seems misguided.

I would also be for speed limiters for cars, so they could not exceed the posted speed limits.[/quote]
Rock Creek Park was not created for use by motorized vehicles and their ban in the park would be far from misguided. It would bring the use of the park back to its true purpose. [/quote]

The amount of carbrain idiocy in this thread is staggering.

You know what was bigger in the 1960's and 1970's?  Kids riding bikes and walking to school.

You what wasn't bigger in the 1960's and 1970's?  The kids themselves - childhood obesity rates were so low it was never considered a major concern - less than 5%.  Today?  ONE FIFTH to ONE FOURTH.

Jesus christ.

Why?

Because our roads are ridiculously dangerous.

SUVs and massive trucks.  Distracted driving because of phones or texts.  Too much speed.  Too many cars.

A major dependence on automobile infrastructure has provided us with...

...massive increases in obesity rates across all age groups
...a huge amount of microplastic pollution from tires
...a ridiculous amount of money being dumped into road resurfacing constantly to fix all the potholes left by the increasingly heavier cars (electric vehicles are WORSE for this)
...noise pollution (hello mr. Dodge Challenger driver, or mr. I'm late for my dentist appt but stuck in this school drop off traffic-horn lay-er on-er)
...air pollution
...a money sink for a massive chunk of the average family's income into an asset that depreciates quickly and doesn't help build wealth (which btw is disproportionately felt by lower income families)
...a defunding of public services related to mobility like buses, trams, trains, etc because "no one is using these because they all drive" (while sticking buses and trolleys in traffic and then wondering why people don't use it).

We need all of our major streets in the city to be rethought.  We need all of our streets in the city to consider multiple modes of transportation that *advantage* anything but a single-occupancy motor vehicle.

The amount of energy poured into blocking this bike lane by a bunch of people who have spent their whole lives happily driving automobiles and wanting to do so to the grave while their kids and kids' kids can deal with the consequences is absolutely absurd.

Like wtf.  We have speed limiters on freaking stand on scooters in DC.  But every freaking day the dozens or so of speed cameras are racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in tickets (which many go unpaid because of VA and MD drivers just ignoring them) and there's not really any serious discussion about speed limiters on motor vehicles.  Instead you carbrains are like - [i]ah ITS THE EBIKES FAULT that our roads are so dangerous!!![/i][/quote]

Oof. Imagine calling people idiots and then writing something like this and willingly posting it.[/quote]

Typical anti-biker boomer response. You probably grew up riding a book to school.  But now that you’re old and don’t have the energy for such physical exertion, you demand the right to the widest possible streets and an abundance of parking because what could possibly be more important than your own convenience? The inevitable consequences of further embedding car dependence - congestion, pollution, unnecessary deaths and injuries, squandering of resources and so on - are none of your concern for the likelihood of you being around here to experience what this all leads to in 10 to 20 years is slim to none. Of course, you lack the self-awareness to realize that this is what really going on but nonetheless come up a strange cognitive dissonance when anyone brings serious facts to the discussion. And so “Oof.” is about all you can muster by way of a response.[/quote]Not PP but whoever wrote this sounds like a kooky cult member.  [b]If you really want to make things safer for cyclists, diverting them to side streets would be a great idea. [/b] But safety is not your actual goal.[/quote]

No, not really. A great idea is: Connecticut Avenue that is safe AND ALSO streets in the network around Connecticut Avenue that are safe. Also a simple idea, conceptually. Streets should be designed, operated, and maintained to accommodate safe and convenient access and mobility for all users of the District's transportation system, including pedestrians, bicyclists, users of mass transit, motorists, emergency responders, and persons of all ages and abilities.[/quote]And yet only the minority of cyclists is asking local government to spend everyone’s tax dollars for their convenience.  Cyclists are still out there without bike lanes.  It is your choice to bicycle. [b]If you feel unsafe riding near cars DON’T ride near cars.[/b]  Problem solved instead of problem created.  [/quote]

And for all the people who pay taxes but down own or operate cars?[/quote]

NP. Bus, metro, ride share, walk. [/quote]

So basically, you get to drive, polluting the air and taking up a lot of space for YOUR convenience, while forcing me to take more time to walk, or more money to ride share or metro.

Thanks, that is very generous of you.[/quote]

To me, it demonstrates a bizarre and obsessive anti-bike animus. All transportation modes are fine, EXCEPT bikes, bikes are not fine, bikes are terrible.

It's as though they were pro-rainbow, except yellow. What colors should people use? Red, orange, yellow, blue, purple; people should not use green, green is terrible, no green, those green-users are so entitled wanting to use green for their own convenience; why can't they just use red, orange, yellow, blue, purple, that's plenty?[/quote]

Except imagine now that the color is one that few people ever choose, and many people find annoying.[/quote]

So what?[/quote]

So we don’t spend everybody’s money on a color that they don’t like and don’t want, simply because a tiny vocal portion happen to like that color.[/quote]

What an odd misunderstanding of government policy-making you have. Many people don't use green, some people hate green, therefore [b]we should remove green from the color spectrum![/b] Very odd.[/quote]

Nope, just that we shouldn’t be spending money on and using green in places that people don’t want green. It’s called democracy, try it sometime. It’s “very odd.”[/quote]

But people do want bike lanes on Connecticut Ave, including people who were elected by the voters of DC.

Do you also hate people when they're on skateboards or scooters, or just when they're on bikes?[/quote]

Clearly they don’t, because DDOT pulled the idea based on community feedback.[/quote]

No, the Mayor unilaterally went against 4 years and 70+ public engagement meetings, the will f the ANC's and the past and current councilmember as well as DDOT recommendations for Concept C.[/quote]

In the document from the original post on this thread: “DDOT’s justification for the delay was that it has ‘received a considerable number of comments during this past year related to the parking removals required to implement Concept C.’”[/quote]

Yes, and most of those comments were from residents, not even from DC, who want to be able to drive and park, totally ignoring the local resident who want a safer walk and the ability to bike/scooter safely as well.[/quote]

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