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@baiskeli 33553 wrote:

I know it goes against every urge in every muscle of our bodies to not GO GO GO, but that’s what safety requires sometimes. It’s not that hard to do. My system isn’t perfect, but it takes 2 minutes and adds a very comfortable margin of safety in return. It’s worth my 2 minutes.[/quote]

Why not just not go at all until there are no cars in sight? That would add an even larger measure of safety and wouldn’t be entirely dependent on all these confusing lights. The entire point of the countdown is to let people know whether there is time to cross safely, and ignoring that just to be holier-than-thou makes no sense.

If you really want to see safety improved, abolish the right turn on red. Also have a cop there to enforce the prohibition on cars entering the intersection before they are clear to proceed through. Then you won’t have this “mad scramble” of cars trying to force their way through.

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@ShawnoftheDread 33561 wrote:

Whether you think peds and bikes should wait for the next green or not, the fact is that it’s ridiculous to have only 15 seconds of “walk” and 30-45 seconds of “don’t walk” at an intersection that takes only 5-10 seconds to cross. The walk signal should be longer and the don’t walk should be much shorter for each cycle.

The point of the countdown is to let people know whether they have enough time to cross, and the length of the countdown is determined by the width of the road & the average pedestrian pace. (This is why the lack of a update to the law to allow crossing during the countdown, as long as you’re done before the countdown ends, is a bug that has been fixed in many jurisdictions. The feds discussed making the change a mandate but have not yet done so because children might be confused by having more than a binary decision [stop/walk]. I consider this a generally stupid rationale, as we do not typically make children the standard by which we determine what adults should do.)

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Oh, and tire size will mostly affect speed: if you use skinny tires on the rougher sections of the western towpath you stand a good chance of breaking something at speed. Slower, it’ll be fine (but bigger will be more comfortable).

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Cross county trail is often rougher than the canal, and there’s a good chance of breaking a bike that would be fine on the towpath. There are parts of the stream valley network in fairfax that are comparable to the towpath, but it can be hard to put them together, especially for novices that you want to keep out of traffic.

Is this a supported tour? If so, the need for training loaded is less (no load) and you’re mostly just needing time in saddle. The towpath is a pretty easy ride, the biggest challenge is just being on the bike for a long time if they aren’t used to it.

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There’s no problem with the timing. When the crosswalk light is blinking you get just as much protection from the light cycle as you do when it’s solid white. Many places have already updated the code to reflect the wonders of countdown signals, and the fact that virginia hasn’t is a bug rather than a feature. If you want to stand on the curb while it’s safe to cross, go for it. But insisting that bikes should always wait unless they show up during the few seconds out of a multi-minute cycle that the signal is solid white makes no more sense than insisting that only cars that were waiting at the light should proceed during the green and that others should sit and wait for the next green “because it’s not a big deal”.

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This makes a lot of sense. So much so that I propose likewise giving cars only 15 seconds, followed by a two minute period while the intersection is red in all directions. One to five cars can continue after the red (as usual). This will cut down on the number of accidents at intersections, and I look forward to seeing VDOT implement it immediately.

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@KLizotte 33487 wrote:

I want the seat that doesn’t require pedaling (four seats, three cranks).

Well, that one also doesn’t seem to have anything to hold onto. I’d rather have the basket so I could just close my eyes and curl up.

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@baiskeli 33474 wrote:

It’s a legitimate piece of information.

Not if the article already says that the accident happened on the road.

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I wonder if speed could be a factor. Nice how the article pointed out that the cyclists weren’t on the trail (where they’re supposed to be?).

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that’s great! room for four kids and a parent. but, wow, that’s a lot of water weight in the foreground.

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@CPTJohnC 33443 wrote:

Ignore legality for a minute and consider: This is exactly how most motorists feel about bikes being on ‘their’ streets. We’re a danger because they can’t be bothered to learn to accommodate us.

How do I accommodate something illegal and inherently unsafe? There’s no framework in which to build expectations. For cyclists in the road at night I have a set of expectations like “keep to the right” and “have a light or reflector” because those are legal minimums. (And I have no more patience for ninja salmon than ninja road joggers). Do we codify legal requirements for road joggers (which then imply that unsafe behavior is actually a right which needs to be accommodated in road design)? And could there ever be a serious policy discussion of lighting requirements for pedestrians?

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@Terpfan 33441 wrote:

The legality of a traffic sign doesn’t change the vehicular duty to obey it.[/quote]

Of course it does. If you walk through a mall and pass a stop smoking display with the familiar red sign, you have no duty to stop and see if there is anyone to whom you must yield the right of way. Similarly, if my kids are playing out side and leave a familiar red toy at the side of the road, you have no duty to obey it. If a vandal rips down a stop sign and throws it on the sidewalk, pedestrians may blithely walk over it. You are only legally required to respect a stop sign created and installed in accordance with some governing legislation. In the absence of any legislation specifying your response to the sign, it’s just a pretty piece of pop art.

Quote:

I don’t think running a stop sign is necessarily a negative connotation unless the individual did so in an utterly unsafe method

Well, it may not have a negative connotation for you, but others use the term to describe the entirely unsafe behavior. Using ambiguous terms makes it very hard to have a reasonable discussion because people end up talking past each other. E.g., if you say that you run red lights on occasion when it’s safe, someone else may assume you’re nuts as it’s never safe to blow through an intersection without looking.

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Tubeless on a commuter? I hope you like to walk.

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@Tim Kelley 33412 wrote:

Yes, getting into the legality of running in the street is lot like cyclists running stop lights. Running against traffic in the bike lanes on Wilson or Fairfax is a bad idea, but running in the street in a sleepy residential neighborhood seems much more acceptable.

In my experience in the residential neighborhoods they tend to stick to the more heavily trafficked streets with the double yellow lines rather than the really quiet back streets because they “feel safer” where there’s more traffic than where there’s nobody around. I would not say it’s anything like the cyclist stop light issue because they’re there because they simply don’t feel like going somewhere else, not because they don’t have options. (Unless they actually are running to work or the store or something at 6 in the morning and this isn’t purely recreational.)

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@Tim Kelley 33404 wrote:

The too hard sidewalk on a residential road excuse is legit

I’m still unconvinced. If they really can’t run on the sidewalk, then they should run around a parking lot or use one of the two school tracks in the neighborhood.

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