A specter is haunting Seattle—the specter of a War on Cars. All the powers of Old Seattle have entered into a “holy” alliance to win this war: Seattle Times publisher and city council president, columnist Joni Balter and developer Kemper Freeman, Rainier Club regulars and suburban slobs.
Where is the advocate for increased bike and pedestrian safety who has not been branded an anti-car “militant”? Where is the politico who has not used the “War on Cars” rubric as a tool for demonizing the nondriving classes, for marginalizing our city’s walkers, bike riders, and mass transit users?
The mindless repetition of this “War on Cars” falsehood—by car advocates harboring a phony, self-serving sense of victimhood—has led to a situation in which this “War on Cars” is acknowledged by most Seattleites to be real. Because of this regrettable specter, it is high time that cyclists, pedestrians, and their transit-riding comrades openly publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of a “War on Cars” with a manifesto of and by the nondrivers themselves:
I. The car-driving class must pay its own way!
For cars we have paved our forests, spanned our lakes, and burrowed under our cities. Yet drivers throw tantrums at the painting of a mere bicycle lane on the street. They balk at the mere suggestion of hiking a car-tab fee, raising the gas tax, or tolling to help pay for their insatiable demands, even as downtrodden transit riders have seen fares rise 80 percent over four years.
No more! We demand that car drivers pay their own way, bearing the full cost of the automobile-petroleum-industrial complex that has depleted our environment, strangled our cities, and drawn our nation into foreign wars. Reinstate the progressive motor vehicle excise tax, hike the gas tax, and toll every freeway, bridge, and neighborhood street until the true cost of driving lies as heavy and noxious as our smog-laden air. Our present system of hidden subsidies is the opiate of the car-driving masses; only when it is totally withdrawn will our road-building addiction finally be broken.
II. All power to the people’s transit
If Seattle is to become a people’s paradise, our buses, rail, streetcars, and ferries must stretch into every neighborhood, running reliably, affordably, and at all hours of the day and night. Since mass transit serves the masses, the mass of our transportation dollars must hereafter be spent to meet its needs.
III. The pedestrian and bicycle classes must be protected. And served!
The history of transportation is the history of struggle between the drivers and the nondrivers whose lives and limbs have literally been crushed. Between 2000 and 2009 in King County, 19 cyclists and 238 pedestrians lost their lives to cars, while injuries sent another 423 cyclists and 1,656 pedestrians to our hospital wards for two days or more after being hit by cars. If there is, in fact, a “War on Cars,” then the cars are winning—as a look at recent headlines confirms. Saturday, September 10, brought the death of a young cyclist in the University District, and Sunday, September 11, brought the death of a woman biking on the Olympic Peninsula while wearing a helmet and a bright protective vest. Both were killed in collisions with cars.
The bikers and walkers, which neither slurp government dollars nor consume natural resources at the pace of the drivers, demand safer streets and sidewalks. As the Economist suggested on September 3 when responding to Seattle’s spate of recent cyclist deaths, cars on streets with bike lanes must be subjected to “traffic calming” methods already used in European capitals like Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Portland. When cars must slow down below 20 miles per hour, they kill less than 5 percent of collision victims. And the busiest bike lanes must be physically protected from the four-wheeled instruments of death through concrete buffers, rows of trees, or other barriers. In some places, whole streets—yes, whole streets, we have plenty to spare—must be closed to cars, creating bike and pedestrian malls and paths of the kind found throughout more forward-thinking, class-conscious cities.
We make these demands because, unfortunately, we must. Our epoch, the epoch of the car, possesses this distinct feature: It has created a simplified antagonism. Seattle as a whole is now more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly fighting each other—car driver and nondriver.
This antagonism traces directly to the creation of the modern car driver, a privileged individual who, as noted, is the beneficiary of a long course of subsidies, tax incentives, and wars for cheap oil. But the same subsidies that created this creature (who now rages about the roads while simultaneously screaming of being a victim in some war) can—and must, beginning now—be used to build bike lanes, sidewalks, light rail, and other benefits to the nondriving classes.
September 11: About three miles west of Port Angeles, a Mercury Sable driven by a 65-year-old woman struck a woman riding her bicycle along Highway 112, according to the Peninsula Daily News. The cyclist had been wearing a helmet “and a neon-yellow safety jacket” when she was hit from behind. She died from the injuries.
September 10: Robert Townsend, 23, was delivering a sandwich for Jimmy John’s just after 6:00 p.m. Riding his bicycle south on University Way Northeast, he collided with a Hyundai Sonata that was coming from the opposite direction and turning left onto Northeast Campus Parkway. “As far as I could tell, the car’s windshield was hit pretty hard and there was a terrible pool of blood in the middle of that intersection,” says witness Tyler Brown.
Townsend soon died at Harborview Medical Center, according to the Seattle Police Department. The driver was not cited at the scene, and a final determination of fault could take months. “For us, this is as serious as a murder,” says SPD sergeant Sean Whitcomb. “About the same amount of care and detail goes into this type of investigation.”
But the cyclist likely had right-of-way southbound on University Way Northeast. There are no green arrow lights that would give the Hyundai driver a free left turn onto Campus Parkway. Whitcomb confirms what most road users already know: “When two vehicles going the opposite direction have a green light, typically the one that is making a turn must yield to oncoming traffic.”
Pete Marino, the Illinois-based spokesman for Jimmy John’s, says the company requires its delivery riders in Washington State to wear helmets—and, Marino added, “Robert was wearing one at the time of the accident.”
July 28: Mike Wang, 44, was riding in the northbound bicycle lane on Dexter Avenue North in the late afternoon when an SUV struck Wang, killing him. The driver then fled the scene. Wang was wearing a helmet at the time.
July 22: John Przychodzen, 49, was wearing a helmet and riding on the shoulder of Northeast Juanita Drive traveling to his brother’s house for dinner in Kirkland when a truck struck and fatally wounded him.
Chris Davis, an attorney who specializes in representing cyclists and pedestrians hit by cars, says the number of those cases coming to him “has been increasing steadily over the last couple years.” Typically, he’s had one dozen to two dozen of each type of case annually. But recently his number of such cases climbed by 20 to 30 percent.
Why more cases?
In part, Davis credits more cyclists on the road—including some who “ignore laws.” Also out there, Davis adds, are more “ignorant motorists to endanger cyclists.” Yes, confrontational cyclists can contribute to the problem, Davis says, but he thinks that overall “anti-cyclist sentiment” is the major factor in the increase in cases he’s seeing.
“Motorists will become frustrated and crowd bicyclists and not give them enough room, come up on the bicyclists fast and out of frustration,” he says. “The frustration translates into actions, sometimes intentional acts against the cyclist.”
Davis’s experiences—more injuries, more clients—appear to be borne out by citywide data that shows more collisions.
According to the Seattle Department of Transportation’s 2007 bicycle and pedestrian collision report (which appears to be the most recent such report produced by the city), the number of collisions between bicycles and vehicles showed an uptick over six years. While there was an average of about 275 collisions per year from 2002 to 2005, that number rose to an average of 349 per year in the next two years (roughly a 25 percent increase). The following years were also up, according to separate data reported last month by the Seattle Times. The newspaper reported an average of 328 collisions per year from 2008 to 2010.
Fatalities from bicycle and car collisions have also risen: The city report shows only two fatalities in the four-year span from 2002 to 2005 (half a fatality a year on average, as macabre as that may sound). But over the next five years, according to the city’s and Seattle Times‘ reports, bicycle collisions resulted in 10 fatalities. That is, on average, four times as many fatalities a year. And that average is borne out again this year, where as of last Saturday, two cyclists had been fatally hit in Seattle.
At the same time cyclist collisions and deaths have risen, the anti-bicycle rhetoric has grown more divisive and violent. Who is behind it? Consider the words of Michael Cornell, chair of the Green Lake Community Council.
“Bicyclists are militant and looking to cause a conflict whenever they can,” he said at the group’s community meeting on January 12 in the company of Seattle City Council member Tom Rasmussen. Seattle spends volumes more on car infrastructure than on bicycles or pedestrians, yet Cornell has complained of the “radical agenda against cars,” saying, “I call it the war on cars and the people who need them,” and describing the pro-bicycle agenda as a “war waged on people who drive cars.”
So cyclists are all militant.
They’re seeking out conflict.
They’re specifically waging war on drivers.
And… now there’s an uptick in drivers killing them.
Go figure.
But Cornell is hardly alone in ramping up the anti-bicycle-rider rhetoric.
Seattle Times columnist Joni Balter is equally divisive, if not as inflammatory. “Increasingly, cars are being shoved aside,” Balter wrote in a recent editorial, “as evidenced by efforts to jack up commercial parking rates, the constant plea for more light rail, and significant transfer of asphalt to bike lanes.” Shorter Balter: Funding non-car infrastructure is an attack on drivers… the same illogic some Christians use to claim same-sex marriage erodes the traditional penis-in-vagina kind. According to the US Department of Transportation, the number of passenger vehicles on the roads has increased by four million since the 1960s, yet always the victim, Balter bleats as if cars are an endangered species.
In a cavalcade of logical fallacies, Balter uses the Seattle Times as a platform to instigate more anti-bicycle sentiment. For instance: “Every new bike lane can make a road less appealing to a car or a truck. Bicycles prevail, freight mobility takes a sorry hike” (false dilemma). Also: “Bike and pedestrian lobbies, whose efforts began before the arrival of [Mayor Mike] McGinn, are already getting improvements that infuriate some motorists” (association fallacy). She asks “whether this group of citizens can impose their will on the rest of the place” (argumentum ad populum).
Cars are being forced off the roads, Balter insists (falsely), and oooh, it just makes her so angry! And she’s hardly alone.
Portland radio host PK on Jammin’ 95.5 pushed the pedal to the metal in 2006, announcing: “If you are a cyclist, you should know I exist, that I don’t care about you. That I don’t care about your life,” the blog Bikeportland.org reported (the station never released an archive). “When I hear on TV that a cyclist has been hit and killed by a car, I laugh, I think it’s funny.”
While some people foment anti-cyclist rage, others are content to merely blockade spending on transit infrastructure. Seattle’s prime non-mover-and-shaker is city council president Richard Conlin, who twice in 2010 voted to suspend the city’s Transit Master Plan, thereby delaying rail planning. Conlin was also the city’s chief advocate for a $4.2 billion deep-bore tunnel that lacks transit, and was for years a leading voice to stop the monorail project. And last year, Conlin advocated advancing construction on the new, wider 520 bridge in an effort to head off transit advocates from tweaking the design to accommodate light rail.
His pro-roads/anti-transit agenda lumps Conlin in with some rather unsavory company: the right-wing think tank Washington Policy Center, which has claimed that “Seattle’s war on cars is a war on drivers”; Fox News, which relentlessly drums up the “Seattle’s War on Cars” meme; and wingnut local blogger Stefan Sharkansky, who takes aim at Mayor McGinn for “punishing people for driving.”
All the sort of violent rhetoric that can’t help but have a violent end.
If money is ammunition in the war on cars, then cars have most of the firepower. The pie chart above cites the city’s spending on various transportation projects. Only $18.4 million—about 7 percent—of the Seattle Department of Transportation’s $270 million in expenditures last year was dedicated strictly to bicycle and pedestrian improvements. Another 6 percent, approximately, goes to transit, such as paying for buses in the downtown ride-free zone. But the vast majority of the city’s transportation dollars—more than 85 percent—is dedicated to projects that solely fund vehicle infrastructure (such as parking programs) or primarily fund vehicle infrastructure (such as the Spokane Street viaduct and other major road construction). While the latter may include some pedestrian or bicycle amenities, the projects primarily serve cars. “It is false to argue that there is a war on cars,” says SDOT spokesman Rick Sheridan. “When you consider the spending on road building, maintenance, traffic signs, and signals, we spend a significant percentage of our budget on vehicles.”
Wallingford resident Doug stepped outside his home on August 26 to discover that city transportation workers had painted a giant bicycle on his street. “I now live on a giant bike path,” he said. “We are winning the War on Cars!”
Indeed, between 2000 and 2009, car use declined in Seattle by 7.7 percent, according to the American Community Survey. During this same period, transit use increased 10.9 percent, biking increased an astounding 59 percent, and walking increased 4.4 percent. US Census data shows that in 2009, nearly 40 percent of Seattle’s population walked, biked, bused, or carpooled to work. That number is only going to increase as the city becomes easier to navigate without a car.
For instance, voters approved a funding package in 2008 to extend light rail north to Northgate and east to Redmond. Two years prior, Seattle voters passed the nine-year, $365 million Bridging the Gap levy, applying a parking-lot tax that funds transportation maintenance and improvements. Since then, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) has added roughly 180 miles of bike lanes to city streets and a series of green “bike boxes” that give cyclists right-of-way at signaled intersections. In 2009 alone, SDOT added 26 blocks of new sidewalk to city streets, 40 new “countdown” crosswalk signals, and repainted more than 800 crosswalks. In the last few years, several road diets have eliminated vehicle lanes and replaced them with bicycle thoroughfares on 125th Avenue Northeast, Stone Way North, and other streets around the city—despite the protests of petulant neighbors who bray as if their freedom were under siege. Meanwhile, a First Hill streetcar connecting the International District to Capitol Hill is set to begin its circuit in 2013.
All the while, gas prices are rising and parking rates costs are increasing. The carless commuters see victory on the horizon.
Our heroes are fueled not by petrol, but by the inspiration from King County Council member Larry Phillips, who pushed past a phalanx of suburban Republican lawmakers to approve a $20 car tab fee this summer that will save commuters from a 17 percent cut in bus service. To put that victory in perspective, consider this: Metro’s average monthly ridership is up 3 percent from 2010. (In May alone, the number of weekday bus and van trips exceeded predictions by 22,115.) “The best thing King County can do to recover the local economy is to keep buses on the streets so that people can get to work,” Phillips says.
He isn’t our only trailblazer—Wallingford resident Cathy Tuttle is head of the group Spokespeople. She’s leading Seattle’s “greenway movement” to convert select nonarterial roads that connect neighborhoods into dedicated bike routes, where driving is discouraged. In 2009, Tuttle wrote a grant asking the city to turn 44th Street, between I-5 and Stone Way North, into a greenway. Her grant was awarded last year and Seattle’s first greenway will be open to riders by the end of November. Now at least five other groups in the city are organizing to build greenways in their neighborhoods.
Others can’t be left out: Seattle City Council member Nick Licata is a tireless advocate for the city’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plans, which call for adding new sidewalks, crosswalks, and over 450 miles of new bike lanes to city streets by 2017; Representative Jamie Pedersen (D-43) pushed through a vulnerable roadway users bill this year that imposes up to a $5,000 fine and 90-day license suspension on drivers who kill other road users. And it goes without saying that behind all this is the invisible hand of the Cascade Bicycle Club.
But perhaps our greatest mmm-asscot is Seattle City Council member Mike O’Brien‘s perky ass, honed from 10 miles of bicycle commuting every day (O’Brien’s ass has only bused to work three days since taking office in January 2010). One of O’Brien’s goals is creating a dedicated bike route, like a cycle track, in downtown Seattle. “I don’t know what street makes the most sense,” he says, “but right now, it’s a little scary downtown. There’s a huge gap for new riders between what’s possible and what we have today.”
Keep your quarter; O’Brien’s ass is so tight you could bounce a brick off it. 
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DOUG @41 will make up any shit he wants to and pull it out of his ass at any time to score gotcha points on blogs. Most people are on to his game.
@46 even non-profit foundations?
@48- So how do you think landlords pay their property taxes? They’re not operating at a loss.
@48: Technically, the rent has to be high enough to factor in property taxes, because otherwise the landlord would be losing money. It’s a cost of doing business for him/her. When you pay rent you’re paying your share of your landlord’s property taxes, their mortgage, and their maintenance costs.
@52: You’re assuming (a) that these cyclists do not also own cars, and (b) that they don’t take public transit or patronize businesses that get their goods shipped in by truck.
The fact is everyone benefits from the road network. Without roads there wouldn’t be a city to complain about.
I love my car and don’t bike much. But I am totally with the bikers on this. Car drivers should pay their own way. And know how to drive.
@25: Munich is also flat (it’s farther from the mountains than most people think). I’ve been living in Berlin for about 3 years now and while the weather here is totally shitty, it is also completely flat. If you threw a few Queen Anne/downtown sort of hills in Berlin, I bet you would lose the vast majority of your cyclists. And even my most dedicated cycling friends resort to the taking the commuter train when the weather turns.
But I do have some problems lumping pedestrians with cyclists. First off–look at those numbers! Who are the people who are really being slaughtered by motorists? Secondly, I had many, many problems dealing with cyclists while being a pedestrian in Seattle (I lived there for about 3 years), both when I was running for fitness and when I was walking to/from work or running errands. Cyclists also need to own up to bad behavior.
Sometimes I do find myself driving around Portland and Seattle when I go back to visit friends/family. I always try to be careful and double-check for a cyclist before making a right turn, pulling out of a driveway, opening a door, etc. I would LOVE it if there were streets dedicated to cyclists. Portland doesn’t dedicate entire streets, but there are streets I know are heavily utilized by cyclists and I avoid them at all costs. Usually it makes absolutely no difference anyway, as these streets tend to be little side streets running parallel to the major arteries. It seems to me that having dedicated bike routes that are clearly marked so cyclists can use them and motorists can avoid them is definitely the simplest solution.
@52 – Well, at least I can see your logic. Even if I don’t agree with it.
The same argument can be said that motorists subsidize buses and light rail, and pay for your bike lanes due to gas taxes, license fees, etc.
But really, it’s a silly argument. I WANT to pay for those things. As a motorist, I want more public transit, bicyclists, etc. Less congestion. Less pollution. Less wear and tear on the roads. And it benefits my community. Who gives a shit who pays more of a share? EVERYONE BENEFITS.
“European capitals like Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Portland”
Which European country is Portland the capital of??
@59: I think maybe the whole idea of mixing motor and bicycle traffic is incompatible with the idea of having bicycle commuting catch on with the masses. And not just because people are afraid to ride in traffic. Safely riding in traffic requires keeping the speed difference between you and the cars to a minimum, which means riding fast. Even in favorable weather it’s almost impossible to do this without being a sweaty mess when you arrive at your destination. If you’re basting in your own juices under rain gear it’s even more miserable.
@61: Portlandia. Duh.
Orv @57: “The fact is everyone benefits from the road network. Without roads there wouldn’t be a city to complain about.”
I totally agree. My main point was to the guy @16 who seemed to think that cyclists didn’t pay for roads.
@60: Point taken. It’s the notion that cyclists are transportation freeloaders that I’m trying to refute.
‘Bout time. Should of started this back in the 70’s when the USA went from a net exporter to net importer of oil. ¡Sî se puede! Teach your kids that walking is cooler than driving – walk with them to run the errands and to play outside on the weekends. Yes, walking takes longer (especially with little kids), but it must be done. Good luck!
I hate you all, equally.
Pedestrian. Simply being in a vehicle isn’t enough to qualify as being one. People in wheelchairs act as pedestrians (sticking to sidewalks and crosswalks) and should therefore be treated as such.
@66: Well said, Mrs. Jarvie! I walk or ride the bus where I live on the days that I don’t drive, and am grateful that the local streets are still pedestrian friendly. It appears that in Seattle, they are not.
Hmmmm….how to visit Seattle anymore without driving, taking public transportation, or walking (I don’t own a bike)……that’s a toughie.
This escalating Battle of The Right of Way is just plain sad.
@69: The U District is still the most pedestrian friendly place I’ve ever been. I found out real quickly that trying to wait at the curb for a gap in traffic just confuses drivers, who stop and then wonder why you haven’t started crossing yet.
@68: Depends. Are they using a motorized wheelchair/scooter? How fast can it go? Are you talking about Seattle or other places?
http://hembrow.blogspot.com/2009/04/cycl…
An old Chicago saying “go play in traffic”, like many things that happen everyday that politypiggys and punks alike act like it never happens we can say we are just like Portland and just what part of “You are going to be road kill” did You not understand?
The irony of this article appearing in the paper today…..
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/world/…
Drivers have the responsibility of being extra careful because they are running through highly populated areas in a giant hunk of metal at high speeds. All infrastructure currently bows to the car, so they ought to have a little courtesy in return.
Bikes have the responsibility of being extra careful because they are sometimes stealthy and hard to see and hear coming. They ought to help drivers and peds out by being consistent and law-abiding. Use a bell, reflectors, lights.
Pedestrians have the responsibility of paying attention and defensive walking when you encounter a street, and realize that sometimes a bike needs to be on a sidewalk due to unsafe streets. Don’t assume anyone can see you, walk as if you are invisible, because in some conditions, you might be.
EVERYONE needs to be more understanding and realize that all kinds of people drive, walk and bike and we all deserve a break once in awhile.
EVERYONE needs to put away the smartphones while moving, regardless of mode of transport. I would bet that almost every accident these days involves someone not paying attention to the road and their surroundings because they are texting.
Be safe all…
The article compares the number of fatalities for cyclists, but doesn’t include the other data that’s necessary to evaluate. How many bicycle-miles were there in the compared years?
For a true comparison, how many fatalities are there per mile, or even per cyclist on the road? Is there any net change in the number of accidents (including non-fatality)? How about car traffic? More? Less? Fatalities or accidents per mile driven in the city?
Statistically, the numbers you’re talking about (four times as many) are worthless.
Thanks, Stranger!
Fresh from your support of the Boy Mayor (approval rating 23%), and your opposition to the tunnel (approved by 60%), you declare a War on Cars.
This ought to go well. See you in November. You know, that new $60 car tab fee? What will you say when the voters of Seattle fart in your direction?
Most cyclistas are poor white kids with a bad attitude, and are jealous of people who can afford real wheels.
Would better driver education help? Would better enforcement help (both for disobedient riders and cars)?
First, I find that most drivers are, in fact, adequately considerate towards riders. But, even if only 1% aren’t, that still creates quite a danger.
I’d like to see serious penalties if a driver comes within 3′ (or 5′ on faster roads) of a cyclist. And, I’d like to see some of these laws, like that one, incorporated into the driver’s test.
Oh hell yeah.
Seattle is the most enlightened place I’ve lived as far as shared roadways, but there’s still a long way to go. It blows me away every time a car buzzes me just to race up to a red light. Do drivers not realize the total lack of equivalency in outcomes? You hit us, we die. We hit you, you get a dent. Is human life really so cheap that you’re willing to risk it for the chance to get home thirty seconds faster? Are you going to be able to live with yourself for the rest of your life knowing that you killed someone?
We are doing this city, including its drivers, a FAVOR by biking. We make the snarling traffic better. We make the air cleaner. We make this a more progressive, attractive place to live. We lower the demand for gas. And the thanks we get are fucking existential threats from distracted fatties in their cars on a daily basis?
Nope. Time to get into the 21st century. Respect human life. And that goes for bikers, too–don’t do dumb shit and definitely leave the sidewalks for the pedestrians.
It’s only seven sentences in length, but here’s an editorial from the Seattle TImes in 1942 that discusses the increase in deaths of bicyclists:
http://classifiedhumanity.com/post/10226…
@76- You’re really jealous, aren’t you?
There is a simple solution to all of this: tax gas to at least five bucks a gallon.
Then sit back and watch this city’s attitude change to alternative transportation.
Government is for the future, and cars are clearly the past.
Hay deutche bag hipsters … just because your fixed wheeled bikes are trendy does not mean you’re really against cars. After all, years from now (when you inherit the trust fund) you’ll need roads to drive on (hopefully electric cars).
In the mean time, it is worth asking the retards who run the Cascade Bicycle Club why they did not advocate grade separation in Seattle’s Bicycle Master Plan? Mixing cars and bikes on arterials was fucking stupid.
@70: Thanks. That’s good to know.
@74: Well said! That all makes sense to me.
I live in a big house and drive a big car, I burn gas for fun, make 500K a year and laugh at the sorry plight of you downtown baristas living on top of each other like ants and pretending it is some kind of super-utopia.
I know you hate me, and I don’t care…..now chop chop, make me my coffee you little peon.
Glad to see that moronic “War on Cars” rhetoric get the treatment it deserves. While everything in this manifesto is great, here’s a few more ideas for improving traffic generally (I do not own a car, although I drive occasionally for business).
— Eliminate most on-street parking. This fouls traffic (I live on Capitol Hill, and on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, pedestrians are in great danger — those drivers are looking for parking spots, not pedestrians) and takes up precious pavement space. Also, when I ride a bike, I always wonder why drivers act like they can’t see anything. Then, when I drive, I find my view constantly blocked by parked cars. That small change in elevation, from the bike seat to the driver’s seat, means a lot when the view is cluttered with parked cars.
— Synchronize the goddamned traffic lights already. As far as I can tell, the ONLY properly timed streets downtown are Second Avenue, Fourth Avenue, and Stewart Street. Pike Street downtown is an especially bad route, as every light seems to turn red as the driver or cyclist approaches. If the town of Astoria, OR, can time their main drag at 20 mph (and put up actual signs informing the drivers of this!) then so can we.
— In keeping with the last point, eliminate on-demand lights. I drove up through the near-deserted Industrial District this evening, and my trip was five minutes longer due to random (from my perspective) changes in the lights on Fourth Avenue South. Traffic on the arterial waits 30 seconds for five seconds of traffic from the side street.
— Ban Critical Mass, by enforcing the traffic laws. I’ve ridden around this town for twenty years, and my visceral reaction to Critical Mass is to wade in there swinging a truck tire iron. NOBODY owns the road! (I once watched smog build over Broadway as Critical Mass ground their way along, damming an ever-expanding clot of cars behind them. Ugly in many ways, none of them flattering to us cyclists.)
I’ll support bikes and bike lanes when they’re paying a licensing fee (nowhere near as large as car tabs, but, you have to have a plate on your bike) so that those who ignore traffic laws can be tracked down. And when cops ENFORCE traffic laws with cyclists! There are too many cyclists that self-righteously ignore ALL traffic laws, then wonder why they get hit and killed. They seem to think they’re above the law, because they can get away with it! I find it odd they expect only motorists to pay for the roads (despite the paltry amount paid by EVERYONE–NOT just cyclists– through other means, such as property tax), yet insist they be given a chunk of it. It’s like buying a pizza, and the cyclist wants the driver to pay for 3/4 of it, but they want half of it.
Then there’s the self-righteous, “I’m GREEN, I’m not using fuel!” but you are…you’re holding up traffic, causing all those cars behind you to burn MORE fuel. Bottom line is cyclists need to watch out for THEMSELVES, for they are squishy, and break easier than a 2-ton monstrosity of metal. Yes, egregious accidents happen at the fault of motorists, accidents between cars do daily, it’s just more widely reported when it’s car vs. bike because the cyclist is more likely to be horribly hurt in even the smallest accident. When they obey the rules of the road, not hold up traffic, and watch for themselves, get ticketed for offenses–THEN I will support them. It is not a viable option for me, living out of the area and needing to drive very far to doctors in Seattle, etc.
Even when I ride a bike I get run over by other militant bicyclists.
@80: Very cool. Thanks for the link!
@87: You can’t “track down” cyclists or motorists for minor traffic offenses. These are citation offenses, which means the officer has to actually witness the behavior to write a ticket.
@cattycat
Then there’s the self-righteous, “I’m GREEN, I’m not using fuel!” but you are…you’re holding up traffic, causing all those cars behind you to burn MORE fuel.
No, we’re not burning fuel, all those selfish(and there are only a few things more selfish then single occupancy vehicles in a metropolitan area) are burning fuel, to maintain there lazy, subsidized, unsustainable life style. Cars have there place, they are a very useful tool. The problem is how impractical and inefficient they are for getting around a city, not to mention dangerous.
In Houston last year.. two firetrucks collided where one ran a red light and killed a cyclist waiting at the intersection. A bicycle painted white attached to a pole with fake flowers is a memorial in her memory..She was employee of a nonprofit org Houston Center Of Photography.
Cars and the private automobile will eventually go the way of the dodo. Can’t you hear it blowin’ in the wind? I certainly can. The signs are there. You can huff and puff, car drivers, but the winds of change are blowing in our direction, the bicyclists, walkers and transit takers. Enjoy!
The problem is much deeper than Cars Vs. Bicycles. The problem is that many of us Americans are spoiled and immature brats. Similar to a sibling rivalry where one child throws a tantrum because their sibling got a better flavor of ice cream or cooler action figure.
The car folks panties are all wadded up because bikers get their own lane(gasp)Car folks are all butthurt because they see some bikers that don’t obey the rules of the road.
Yet as they are driving their lethal 2 ton V12 Hemi they are chatting away on a cell or texting their Fantasy Football picks or even chugging an alcoholic beverage.
Bike folks got their spandex all chaffing up in their groin because car folks don’t bow down to them. And in fact many car folks actually point and laugh at them in their brightly colored Spandex faux super hero outfits.
But the bottom line is that each side is as stubborn as a child and in such is right and the other side is a fucking idiot blah blah blah.
The problem is that many of us Americans are spoiled and immature brats and have very little respect for anything other than them or theirs.
Jesus…hyperbole much? Here’s an idea…since our gas taxes/tabs pay for the roads we use and the crap mass transit that everyone agrees needs to be improved (but no one wants to pay for), how about all bike commuters register an license their bikes to pay for bike lanes and better transit? We don’t pay our share? Bullroar!
I want to see cyclists ticketed for not following traffic laws. I want to see an end to this “I’m traffic, now I’m a pedestrian, now traffic again” crap. I don’t want a cyclist to just whip out in front of me because the other cyclist in front of him in the bike lane is going too slow for him. I can’t do that on a single-lane road if the car in front is too slow. I want to see cyclists wait at lights and stop at stop signs like the rest of traffic. Use traffic ticket monies to help fund more bike lanes and improve transit.
I don’t have good joints, so I can’t bike. I won’t use the buses because they are horribly inconvenient for me. If transit improves, I’d use it and gladly leave my car at home more. It’s just not an option now.
Why can’t cyclists be held to the same standards of legality as drivers? Why can’t they help pay for these things they demand? Instead of fomenting an “us vs. them” attitude, try coming up with helpful solutions. Everyone should pay their fair share.
Jesus…hyperbole much? Here’s an idea…since our gas taxes/tabs pay for the roads we use and the crap mass transit that everyone agrees needs to be improved (but no one wants to pay for), how about all bike commuters register an license their bikes to pay for bike lanes and better transit? We don’t pay our share? Bullroar!
I want to see cyclists ticketed for not following traffic laws. I want to see an end to this “I’m traffic, now I’m a pedestrian, now traffic again” crap. I don’t want a cyclist to just whip out in front of me because the other cyclist in front of him in the bike lane is going too slow for him. I can’t do that on a single-lane road if the car in front is too slow. I want to see cyclists wait at lights and stop at stop signs like the rest of traffic. Use traffic ticket monies to help fund more bike lanes and improve transit.
I don’t have good joints, so I can’t bike. I won’t use the buses because they are horribly inconvenient for me. If transit improves, I’d use it and gladly leave my car at home more. It’s just not an option now.
Why can’t cyclists be held to the same standards of legality as drivers? Why can’t they help pay for these things they demand? Instead of fomenting an “us vs. them” attitude, try coming up with helpful solutions. Everyone should pay their fair share.
Oh boy, I don’t even know where to start with this…
gormoth @95: Your gas taxes and car tabs do NOT pay for Seattle’s roads. Seattle’s roads are funded primarily through sales taxes and property taxes, which every cyclist pays.
The hysterical language by the hysterical morlocks (who often tend to be auto supremicists) is, well, hysterical. I file the people who use the phrase “War on cars” in roughly the same place a with people who shout “CLASS WARFARE” at any attempt to address our nation’s growing poverty gap.
In other words, keep throwing the word “war” around. I don’t think it means what you think it means. Or rather, you don’t want to fucking know what a “war” really is.
In other words, keep throwing the word “war” around. I don’t think it means what you think it means. Or rather, you don’t want to fucking know what a “war” really is.
Remember, the article that these comments are attached to declared war on cars. It’s not real smart for the cyclistas to do such a thing. Two tons of steel beats 25 pounds of alumnium each and every time. You idiots want a war? Really?
bicyclists must also be cited for refusing to stop at stop signs and red lights.
there are plenty of laws to keep us from accidently killing each other if we actually obeyed them.
@100 – When I roll up next to some entitled, bully asshole in two tons of steel and put five rounds into the asshole in the driver’s seat, I win every time. Well, until I go to prison and end up becoming the Booty Warrior’s best friend.
Okay, obviously what I just said above was stupid and wasn’t serious, but it just goes along the lines of what I was originally trying to say – throwing around “this is war” is dangerous hyperbole. Sooner or later, some whacko will take the term seriously.