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@dbb 210737 wrote:

I’m eager to see the testing protocols to ensure the frogs and turtles that are rescued and relocated are not diseased.

temperature tests and masks, unless they have a vaccine passport

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@Mark 210724 wrote:

That’s the problem. On the streets I mentioned in my post, there is a double yellow line throughout their entirety, whether or not there is sufficient visibility to pass. The double yellow line on these streets is not being used as a guide when to and not to pass.

This. The double yellow is used at least here in Virginia on any local road with a traffic volume over a certain number of cars per day. On such roads you will never find a broken double yellow line indicating a passing zone. It is quite common on this sort of road for things like trash trucks or lawn service trucks or any number of things to block the lane. And guess what–drivers do not just sit there unable to go because they fear to cross the double yellow line. The meaning of the double yellow in this case is “you’re on a 25MPH neighborhood road, there’s never a reason to pass another car because you want to go faster so just slow down” not “there isn’t enough visibility to pass safely”. (And yet, for some reason, drivers panic and have absolutely no idea what to do when there’s a cyclist. The only fix for this is more cyclists so it’s a common thing not a novel experience. Unfortunately it’s a chicken/egg problem because a lot of people don’t want to bike where the drivers are clueless–or where, as a driver, they’d freak out if they saw a cyclist.)

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@lordofthemark 210657 wrote:

One reason you rarely see 14 feet lanes anymore is that lanes that wide encourage speeding.

Yes; 15 or 20 years ago it was DOT trendy to put in these superwide lanes as a “bike-friendly facility”. Then experience showed that people sped even more than normal in them and cyclists generally hated them. It took a while, but I think they’re no longer trendy anywhere in the region. But I can certainly think of examples of roads built with a super-size right lane “for bikes”.

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wait, people are happy that there’s a post in the path?

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@ImaCynic 210611 wrote:

Double yellow means no passing when I last checked the traffic laws, so the notion that a car has to completely cross the double yellow to overtake a cyclist makes no sense. When put in this situation, a driver has two choices; 1) wait, or 2) squeeze around the cyclist without infringing on traffic violation, and I suspect the driver will most likely choose the latter as I would do the same.

And this, kids, is why you make sure you’re far enough over to the left to keep idiots in cars from trying to squeeze past you.

As an aside: have you ever noticed how if a car breaks down or a lane is otherwise blocked on a road with a double yellow line that drivers just put their cars into park behind the obstacle and wait patiently for it to be removed? Oh, yeah, right–the inviolability of the double yellow line is something that only exists when the issue is cyclists making it “impossible” to pass, in all other cases people use their common sense and cross the stupid line when necessary.

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yes such rules are stupid, but changing them requires giving cyclists something and most legislatures don’t want to be seen giving in to the all powerful bike lobby. the best thing to do would have been to simply take the lane in single file and not gotten into an argument about the stupid riding abreast rules (which are generally misunderstood by police, to the point of people actually having been cited for riding by themselves with cars passing them…) let the idiocy of the rule speak for itself as they fume about you still being on the road preventing them from driving like maniacs as god granted in the constitution.

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honestly, the gnats on the w&od are more annoying

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@ursus 210438 wrote:

Does anyone have an update on the status of White’s Ferry? The latest that I read was that it was sold and the new owners wanted to reopen it.

it’s going nowhere fast

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@trailrunner 210427 wrote:

I agree that distracted driving, impaired driving, road rage, and speeding are major human factors leading to car crashes. Autonomous vehicles presumably wouldn’t have these problems, so they have that potential advantage.

Unless someone programs in an ego, or tendency to start thinking about things other than driving, or a fear that driving defensively will make their reproductive organs smaller, autonomous vehicles have many advantages. Simply not speeding through residential neighborhoods would cut the death rate, even if they hit the same number of people.

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@ImaCynic 210387 wrote:

I guess I should qualify my previous statement with “when there are others”. If there is no RoW decision involved, who cares?

because in my experience when drivers roll stops like that it’s because they plan to just keep going. so they only look to the left to see if there’s an oncoming car and never stop to check whether there’s someone approaching from the other side. if they actually intended to take the time to look, they’d have plenty of time to stop. when cyclists do the same thing you’ll typically see their head swivel all around, and the slowing and looking phase lasts longer than the brief pause of the equivalent driver. go ahead and sit at a busy intersection and watch the phenomenon.

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@trailrunner 210418 wrote:

If their only standard is to decrease fatalities, I can do that by driving 5 mph. Or completely stopping whenever I detect something, but can’t classify or identify it.

If we could just convince human drivers to just f’ing slow down or stop when they’re confused we’d probably have 10k fewer deaths every year. But no, human drivers just keep truckin’.

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@lordofthemark 210368 wrote:

This doesn’t really match my point though. People who regularly ride bikes on street generally have a pretty good idea of safe riding behavior, and of laws relating to bikes.[/quote]
Not in my experience. They generally have a good idea of what they think is safe/”normal”, but actual laws? No. That’s true regardless of mode.

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@Judd 206813 wrote:

After a day the MVT usually gets tough to ride because the footsteps and tire tracks refreeze and make for a rough and icy surface

In general, this. Even with studded tires a lot of the trails are really hard to ride because you’re constantly battling little craters. If it were smooth ice it would be a lot easier.

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would they build it that way if it were a car project?

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@huskerdont 203172 wrote:

“Strawman”–I don’t think you understand what that term means[/quote]
“Motorists complain about those because they have to slow down and be careful, and of course some won’t be careful, but surely we’re better than that?”
So you meant to say something other than what you said? Who is the “we” that’s somehow on the edge of not being “better” than complaining about having to slow down? The strawman here is that you’re the first person suggest that complaints about this design are somehow related to speed, then you argue against that suggestion. If you had argued for the design by directly countering points previously raised as criticisms or raised your own points in support of the design (even regarding speed, as kwarkentien did!), then you would not have been arguing a strawman.

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