Reply to DC bike group says fewer now riding bikes to work than in 2012 (?!?!)

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have a few questions for the people who are determined to prove that families with kids can replace cars with bikes in DC if we just build more bike lanes and encourage biking.

- What do you do when your kids outgrow riding on your cargo bike but are still not really safe to ride a bike on their own behind you? I have a 7 yr old now who is already borderline for the back of a cargo bike. She can ride a bike on her own and I'm happy to take her own on certain trails and less-busy streets near our home during off peak hours. But I would not feel comfortable having her ride on her own bike in front of me during normal commuting hours to school -- there is too much traffic and drivers are so impatient that time of day and I don't think she has the awareness needed for that yet (it stresses me out sometimes and I'm and adult).

- What about the time and logistic crunch? My kid has an activity at 4:30pm one day a week. It requires some gear and that she change clothes from her school uniform and the venue doesn't have a place to change. Right now I pick her up from school on foot and then we walk home, she changes, and then I drive to the venue which takes about 15 minutes. On a bike it would take closer to 25 minutes. Even if I bike home from school cutting that commute in half over walking, I don't know how we'd get to the activity on time, plus I think the bike would be a little unwieldy with the equipment. And currently I often do grocery shopping while she's at the activity and then bring the groceries home in the car, but I don't see that being as feasible if we were on a cargo bike.

I like the idea of switching to a cargo bike in theory and if it were just me going to work, it would be a nobrainer (I currently take public transportation or walk to work though, so it wouldn't get a car off the road). But with a middle grade elementary kid it just doesn't make a ton of sense -- she's not a toddler who can easily pop on the back of a cargo bike and in a year or two that will be out of the question. And when I look at our schedule I ony see a few places where a bike would meaningfully compete with a car. For some things it's out of the question -- I can't take a cargo bike on a freeway to get her to her swim lessons or gymanstics camp. For other things like the weekday activity I just described it just seems inconvenient and inefficient.

I hear people raving about their cargo bikes around DC and especially other parents saying how it's replaced their car in so many ways and it makes life easier. The one thing I think would be nice on a cargo bike is grocery shopping (right now I either do it on foot and only get as much as I can carry or I take my car). But that's just once or twice a week, max. For everything else it makes more sense for us to walk (and let our kid scooter or bike if she wants but under our close supervision on foot) or drive.[/quote]

I don’t have all the answers for you except to say that there are very few people claiming that you can/should NEVER drive. Just that we should make biking possible for many more trips.

In answer to some of your questions, obviously if we had better biking infrastructure you would feel safer letting your child bike on her own. In terms of logistics, you just invest in some gear (like panniers) to hold clothes etc. And often times biking is as fast or faster than driving, or you just build in an extra 15 mins. For example my bike commute downtown from the Hill is about only 5 minutes slower than driving and about 20 minutes faster than metro. [/quote]

But if the goal is to make driving around DC harder than it is now, then yes people are arguing for people to replace cars with bikes/walking/transit, at least for local trips. But as someone who already does most of my travel on foot or via public transit, the idea of making the few things I now do by car harder just sounds like a burden and not one that can be easily addressed with a cargo bike (or any bike). And even if we found a way to do it with all the right accessories for the cargo bike (which are not cheap), we'd still have a car because we live in the US and it is not a country with the kind of transit infrastructure that makes it easy to travel places without a car. We can visit my inlaws without a car, for instance-- it is not actually possible to fly it take a train to where they live.

So when I look at it that way, I do not understand the fixation on bike lanes and bike infrastructure to reduce car congestion in DC. Making walking and public transit better and more accessible? Yes, no question. But I think there is a pretty firm ceiling on the percent of the population who will replace cars with bikes and I don't get why we cater so much of this conversation to that group of young, mostly child-free, bike enthusiasts. Realistically you are not going to convince older people, people with kids, people who have to have a car for other reasons, people with disabilities, etc., to ride bikes.

We'd be better off trying to convince people to take the bus.[/quote]

Sigh. None of the plans are intended to randomly make it harder to drive for no reason other than liking bikes better. All of the controversial DDOT plans are intended primarily to calm traffic and many also include bus priority lanes. It’s a farce and a distortion to claim that the goal is to “make it harder to drive” just due to animus towards cars.

And of course the people fixated on hatinf bikes are also against many of the bus improvements (bus lanes, bus stop bump-outs, automated camera bus enforcement.) [/quote]

It's this kind of basic and blatant lying that drives so much opposition.

DDOT has been very clear and explicit, even with all the euphemisms, that the intention is to increase congestion and make driving more painful.[/quote]

Cite your sources. The DDOT projects that have come under fire were TRAFFIC CALMING. Yes, that means making people drive more slowly - obviously. Yes, DDOT projects that some people will switch modes. And contrary to the wholly dishonest NIMBYs that pretend to pit biking against bus riding, these projects also include upgrades to bus transit. There is not one single project with the motiving goal of harassing drivers into not driving. The goal is traffic calming and improving non-car forms of transit. [/quote]
DDOT knows that cycling is unpopular but they are such committed ideologues on the anti-car agenda that they try to lie and instead claim that the bike stuff is something else. If you listen to DDOT, all the bike lanes are for pedestrian safety. But when you ask pedestrians they will tell you that the bike lanes don’t make them feel more safe. I fact cyclists are so reckless that crossing bike lanes to board buses makes them less safe.  [/quote]

lol OK. [/quote]

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