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@chris_s 112315 wrote:

The Dutch have painted us a proven road map that works and it is separated infrastructure. Not necessarily saying that you can’t make biking normal, safe and expected with out it, but no country has done it yet despite years of trying.

Has any nation genuinely attempted to eliminate traffic deaths without any separated infrastructure?

@chris_s 112315 wrote:

Nothing makes you a more considerate driver than biking in traffic yourself.

+1 on that for sure. I know that I am a much more aware and considerate driver now than I was before I got back into riding a bicycle.

Among the many steps needed to achieve Vision Zero: demonstration of basic competency at bicycling in traffic should be a prerequisite to eligibility for a motor vehicle learner’s permit. And retested every five years or so. For those with a physical disability, a written or simulated test could substitute.

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@dasgeh 112296 wrote:

good, safe, protected, separated infrastructure isn’t as much about preventing collisions – it’s about getting more people out on bikes, which makes us all safer.

Yes, more people on bikes means more safety for everyone. And separated infrastructure is one way of luring newbies onto bikes. But it’s not the only way. Intended or not, it also does reinforce the idea that bicycles don’t belong in traffic. Overall, I’m not convinced that it gets us any closer to the goal: where cycling is a normal, culturally accepted, and safe method for anyone to get anywhere, anytime.

I worry that the movement for separated infrastructure is missing the forest for the trees. Only one thing needs to be fixed in order to make transportation cycling a viable and attractive option for all people in all times and places: driver behavior. Driver behavior is the ONLY problem. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Build a protected bike lane on Glebe Road: a 10yo (albeit one very alert to the perpetual danger of turning vehicles) can ride on Glebe Road. Eliminate bad driving: the 10yo can safely ride anywhere that cycling is legal.

The obvious objection is that fixing bad driving might seem to be impossible. For sure, it’s supremely difficult, and will require a gargantuan fight over many years. But there is a way forward, and the potential benefits to society of such a transformation would be even more immense than the challenges in getting there. We must recognize that the vast majority of today’s “accidents” are not acts of God but instead foreseeable consequences of very poor operator decisions. Almost all of which could essentially be eliminated through a combination of aggressive reforms in motorist education, enforcement, regulation, transportation policy, economic policy, legislation, and the court system.

Think Vision Zero, but a genuine implementation of it, not the empty rhetoric we hear from today’s politicians who may pontificate but who are unwilling to make the difficult decisions necessary to achieve anything. Isn’t this the vision that active transportation enthusiasts and road safety advocates should be fighting for?

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Who should I contact if I notice errors in the data for previously spotted racks? Are you the sysadmin, Tim?

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@consularrider 111798 wrote:

And why can’t drivers clear their windows so they can see what’s outside of their cars?

Because even foggy and snowy windows still transmit UHF just fine.

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Uh-oh. Do we have a pattern?

http://www.thewashcycle.com/2015/03/secret-service-police-officer-harassing-cyclist-in-rock-creek-park.html

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@Terpfan 111656 wrote:

You all continue to pave the way!

Pave paradise and put up a parking map?

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@scoot 111620 wrote:

Also at what point do the rules become too complex to expect drivers to be able to follow?

Eh, I guess I already know the answer to that one: Speed Limit X, where X is any positive real number.

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@dasgeh 111600 wrote:

You don’t think a sign that says “no right turn when lit” would address the issue? I don’t know if it’s possible to get that, but it’s been suggested.

Hmm… that one does at least inform drivers that there are some times when it is allowed and other times that it isn’t. But it gives no indication that the status is likely to change while they are waiting, and that they have to continue to monitor the traffic signal. I can only think of two other types of conditional restrictions on red right turns that I’ve seen: those which require checking your watch (e.g. “No Turn on Red 7am-7pm”) and those which require surveying the scene (e.g. “No Turn on Red When Pedestrians are Present”). In neither of those cases do you need to look back to the traffic signal after determining that a turn on red is permissible.

Also at what point do the rules become too complex to expect drivers to be able to follow? I suspect that intersection gets more than its fair share of out-of-town drivers. Realistically, how much information can be communicated to a visitor who just picked up a rental car at DCA and is now trying to find his hotel in Georgetown?

(For the sake of argument, let’s assume a good driver, conveniently overlooking the likelihood that this guy is on his Blackberry trying to make up for lost time in the air…)

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That’s a good point. It’s a cheaper way to add the same capacity. As long as one measures capacity in people, as opposed to cargo. I wonder how that ratio (cost divided by the sum of the number of miles traveled by all users, both actual and at capacity) would compare to something like a dedicated bus lane. Or Metro, for that matter.

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Nah, you’re the lead singer. But it helps when you’ve got a strong rhythm section, laying down a groove.

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I haven’t found anything that quantifies how road maintenance costs might vary with the level of bicycling or amount of trails. Again, induced demand.

Plus the fact that the pavement damage goes as the fourth power of vehicle weight, so truck traffic is disproportionately responsible for that. And it would be very difficult to argue that trails would reduce truck traffic, at least in the short term.

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Reducing automobile traffic produces significant air quality improvement. The effects are basically immediate:

When car travel restrictions reduced morning traffic by 23% during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, ozone concentrations decreased 28% and acute care visits for asthma decreased 41%.
Friedman, M., et al., 2001 – Impact of Changes in Transportation and Commuting Behaviors During the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta on Air Quality and Childhood Asthma, Journal of the American Medical Association, 285(7):897

Of course, due to induced demand, the trails themselves probably don’t alleviate overall traffic that much. Trails would be far more effective at improving air quality if they replaced existing roads, rather than complementing them.

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Here’s a compelling one from the health statistics section at the peopleforbikes site:

http://bikeportland.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/IntertwinePAObesityAssessment.pdf

Beil, K., 2011 – Physical Activity and the Intertwine: A Public Health Method of Reducing Obesity and Healthcare Costs

The author estimates that Portland’s investment in the Intertwine (its interconnected network of public trails and parks) saves the community $155M annually in healthcare expenses. Of this, $81M in healthcare savings is attributed to the trails alone ($55M for bicyclists, $26M for pedestrians) (page 6). BTW that works out to an average of $50 per person per year, using the population given in the paper. Methods are essentially a calorie computation and regression of healthcare expenses against body weights.

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@rcannon100 111570 wrote:

I mean, as a driver, my normal for an intersection where I am turning right is to approach the Intersection, look up for the “no right on red” sign – and if I dont see one – drop my eye sight back down to watch pedestrians and then go when clear. I am no longer looking up because in effect, if there is no “no right on red” sign – the traffic light has become irrelevant to me if I am turning right.

Bingo. Which means that a “No Turn on Red” signal phase will never work if it immediately follows a “Right Turn Permitted on Red, After Stop.” It doesn’t matter whether it’s an LED sign that turns on or whether it’s a red arrow that stops flashing, the point is that drivers won’t be looking there (and nor should they expect that they need to).

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@chris_s 111588 wrote:

Allow me to introduce you to http://www.peopleforbikes.org/statistics

I’d call it the best thing to ever happen to bike advocacy.

Thanks Chris! That site looks like a great resource.

Since the proposed cuts will affect pedestrians as well, I hope that someone will speak up on their behalf also. Perhaps pedestrian issues will resonate more universally? After all, almost everyone becomes a pedestrian at some point during each day.

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