Reply to DC delays Conn Ave bike lanes bcuz of opposition

Forum Index » Metropolitan DC Local Politics

Reply to "DC delays Conn Ave bike lanes bcuz of opposition"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[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][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Connecticut Avenue is already on a diet now that parking is allowed all day, no rush hour restrictions.  That should slow things down the same as bike lanes would.[/quote]
With the safety argument gone and the transportation argument quite dubious seeing that it is a major public transit corridor there is no rationale at all beyond providing an expensive amenity for a couple dozen of wealthy white people in a city where a lot of basic needs are not being met. This is the kind of thing a city does when it has a growing economy and is flush with cash. That is not the DC of 2023 and thankfully Mayor Bowser and the Council understand that very well.[/quote]

It is such a trope to suggest this is for several dozen wealthy white people. As it currently sits, there are a lot of blue collar workers who ride bikes and bring them into the backs of the restaruants etc they work in. YOu don't see them because they are commuting to their work midday and are leaving in the dark of night. You have NO idea how people get to and from their jobs.[/quote]

If they're coming in mid day and leaving at night, when the roads are dead, they don't need bike lanes.[/quote]

It is dark out...they need them more than ever. This isn't about the road being congested and having bikes in a different space. It is about having a safe space for bikes and pedestrians, segregated from cars all together.[/quote]

[b]Then make sidewalks for bikes.[/b] Don't take up space that is urgently needed for cars to drive on. More people need roads for cars than they do for bikes. That's the reality of how we use the space.[/quote]

Sidewalks are for pedestrians. Pedestrians don't like having bicyclists on the sidewalk. Bicyclists also don't like bicycling on the sidewalk with pedestrians. The only people who like having bicyclists on the sidewalk are drivers.

The reality of how we use that space is that there will be bike lanes on it.[/quote]

I said, make sidewalks FOR BIKES. Sidewalks for pedestrians and sidewalks for bikes. The bike lanes in idiotic on so many levels. One is that cars have to cross them all the time. The other is that way, way more people need the space for driving than for biking. So dumb.[/quote]

Ah, sidewalks FOR BIKES. We call those "bike lanes".[/quote]

No, bike lanes are in the road. Where cars belong. Sidewalks for bikes are not on the road. Just like sidewalks for pedestrians.

If your bike lanes are off the road, like sidewalks are, then I'm all for them.[/quote]

So you want to keep the same space for cars but squeeze all of the people walking and biking and not polluting, who are supporting their local neighborhood businesses, so you can sit in your car and spew pollution at all the people who have to breath it, while you blow past one commercial area after another in your car.

That sounds....fair.[/quote]

Don't pretend you care about pollution. [b]Aren't bikers trying to do away with right turn on red?[/b] All those cars idling uselessly at red lights, just in case that one bike comes by?[/quote]

That is more a pedestrian safety issue, but sure, blame it on the cyclists.[/quote]

Pedestrians are not the ones pushing to eliminate the right turn on red. The cyclists are.[/quote]

Yes I never understood this one either. When you eliminate right turn in red turn cars are “competing” with pedestrians to turn right before the light turns red again. Better to turn right into a clear lane when the walk signal is red. [/quote]

It's better for pedestrians AND cyclists if cars aren't turning right on red, though. The cars aren't "competing" with pedestrians, because the pedestrians have right of way.[/quote]

Eliminating right on red is silly because no one will obey it and it’s unenforceable. This is just teaching people that traffic laws are meaningless in DC.[/quote]

Why will no one obey it? Right on red in particular, or traffic laws in general? Should we just get rid of all traffic laws?[/quote]

Is this a real question? Yes the government can pass whatever laws it likes. It can declare that everyone has to walk backwards on tuesdays and walking forwards that day is illegal but if no one obeys and it’s not enforced all you’ve done is convince people laws are not worthy of respect.[/quote]

Like stop signs and red lights and speed limits?[/quote]

NP but yes.  Have you driven at rush hour lately? People blow through stop signs and red lights speeding on a regular basis.  And this is not speeding up through a yellow light.  It’s incredibly dangerous and there are zero consequences.  Maybe they get a camera ticket but who would pay that anyway? [/quote]

So we should just get rid of all traffic laws?[/quote]

No. You’re missing the point. When the city starts passing laws that seem to have no purpose but to harass drivers and satisfy anti-car fetishists, people ignore the laws, which is worse than not having the law in the first place.

There’s a traffic light near me for example that seems to serve no point whatsoever but slow down traffic and now drivers routinely drive right through the red light. That is stupid and makes everyone worse off. People should obey all traffic laws but the government needs to be a lot more judicious and thoughtful in deciding what is worthy of putting into law.[/quote]

The point of banning Right Turn On Red is to reduce crashes where drivers hit and injure pedestrians. I think that is worthy of putting into law.[/quote]

Yeah that almost never happens. This is a solution in search of a problem. I will ignore all bans on turning right on red. If you want to protect people, maybe cyclists be should required to wear helmets. [/quote]

Almost never means it happens. The way to mitigate it is to simply ban the practice so it never happens.[/quote]

You must be a huge fan of requiring everyone to take their shoes off at the airport for the rest of eternity because some crazy guy 20 years ago tried to hide a bomb in a shoe.[/quote]

Except that it's actually quite common. The driver has a red, they roll across the crosswalk into the intersection looking to their left, they can't see anybody on their right because they're looking left, and CRASH. Everybody who has tried to cross with a walk signal has experienced this phenomenon (but hopefully not the crash).[/quote]

It’s so common that it doesn’t even show up in police statistics.

What does show up is that one quarter of the 40 traffic deaths each year in DC are the fault of the pedestrian/cyclist/scooter.[/quote]

It doesn't show up in police statistics because there is no box for "driver was turning right on red" on the form. 
 
In DC, in 2022, at least 504 pedestrians and 269 bicyclists were injured in crashes. It's really weird to focus just on deaths, as though there were only two possibilities, no crash or fatal crash.[/quote]

If it was common, they’d have a category for it.

All these silly rules to prevent things that are already incredibly rare seems reminiscent of life after 9-11 when we adopted lots of dumb precautions because terrorists were supposedly everywhere.

If the streets were dangerous, you wouldn’t see parents putting children on bikes.[/quote]

If the streets are dangerous, the city needs to stop people from putting kids on bikes. People should not be allowed to put children in dangerous situations.[/quote]

Child endangerment is no joke[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics