Joni Balter is actually making sense:
Bicyclists, runners, pedestrians and motorists share limited space and a grim truth: One wrong move and your life changes forever. It’s dangerous out there so we all have to do a better job divvying up the pathways and roadways. Motorized or wheeled road hogs hurt everyone.
Whether we like it or not, urban travel has reached a point of congestion and competition for space from which we can never return. So let’s make it work. Park those tempers at home.
I am not an advocate for any group because I drive, run and bike at different times. When cycling, I want drivers to slow down. When driving, I want bikers to refrain from darting out of nowhere in front of my car. When running, I just want to complete the run. No clear assumptions about who owns the road. That bright idea about making eye contact with a driver that smart pedestrians employ when crossing streets applies as surely in byplay with a bicycle.
Related: According to Treehugger, BMW is working on “intelligent” car doors that would become more difficult to open in the presence of obstacles (like passing cyclists). Streetsblog cites the European model of road use: “Make cars, buy cars, just don’t drive them all the time.” And GOOD has an inspiring before-and-after graphic of a street in Manhattan that was improved to improve mobility and safety for all users, not just cars.* “It’s easy to forget that our streets are alterable,” the authors write.
*Via Slog tipper tothepoint.
When the hell are we going to get jet-packs and flying cars?
I love you, ECB.
When I used to drive my commute, I was crazy about the non-signalers. Now that I bus it and walk much more, my pet peeve is drivers who don’t LOOK BOTH WAYS before entering an intersection (often while on the phone). Having the right of way is small consolation when you’re pinned under an SUV.
@3, fuck you, man. Look what you did to the underside of my car!
I’ve always thought cars should come equipped with several types of horn sounds instead of just the obnoxious blast.
Toot toot: translation – hey there, partner, the light just turned green.
Meep: translation – uh, I’m right behind you here, friend, so stop backing up.
Chirp chirp: translation – after you, fair lady.
Whistle: translation – Well hello there, hottie.
Blooop: translation – head’s up cyclist, I’m gonna pass you now.
Nah nah: translation – the reason I’m driving really slow because I’m looking for parking.
Hoot hoot: translation – look out everyone, there’s a nutjob on the road.
That ‘intelligent’ car door idea sounds awful. it would just take one electrical problem to turn your car into a prison.
Something about stealing a nine dollar bottle of wine.
I as well do all three, and this is what I would like to see people in this town start doing:
Pedestrians: Walk the 50ft. to a crosswalk please, and stop running out into the middle of arterials. It’s not fair to disrupt the entire flow of traffic because you don’t want to walk to the intersection that is designed to keep traffic flowing while accommodating everyone.
Bikes: Follow the rules of the road. Stop running red lights, it makes us all look incredibly douchey and drivers don’t want to be nice to us any more.
Drivers: Learn how merging works, for all of our sanity. If I make a hole in front of me for you, speed up and use it.
‘Traffic’ covers these topics extremely well…and points out that traffic has been a problem in cities for thousands of years. The main conclusions about city traffic are 1) it will always exist and 2) city roads need to be designed to make everyone act more carefully-narrower lanes, sidewalks right next to the street, smaller curbs, fewer street signs, etc.
“Make cars, buy cars, just don’t drive them all the time.”
Finally, a voice of reason. Most posts (and comments) on Slog promote this ridiculous notion that we should have a car-free city — you know, like the Europeans (yeah, right).
I have a bus pass and commute daily on Metro, but the idea that I would have to rely on Metro or Zipcar or renting a car every time I want to go skiing or hiking or kayaking or to the coast is ridiculous. If you can and want to live your life car-free, terrific, but this all-or-nothing anti-car mentality is way over the top and unproductive.
#2 beat me to it, though I’d have to describe it as more of a crush. there. I said it.
One thing that would help is for bike riders to follow the rules of the road and thatbthe police enforce those rules an bike riders as much as they do drivers of cars.
I use my cereal boxes for jet packs, of course.
But if we just spent a very small amount on free blinking LED lights for the helmets and jackets of runners and bicyclists, we’d save more than that in reduced police time and traffic accidents and improved commutes.
One person in hospital costs more than the cost of such lights for 1000 people (repairing people is expensive).
I’m so sick of this argument about following the rules of the road. I know that’s the law, but it’s illogical and I refuse to follow it. When I’m on my bike my blind spots are measured in millimeters and my self-interest is strongly in favor of not tangling with cars; when I’m in my car my blind spots are measured by meters (and lots of ’em) and it really isn’t going to affect me in a profound way if I hit a cyclist. Roads, stoplights and stop signs are all engineered under the assumption that you can’t see shit, that you’re driving a several-ton piece of shit and you’re such a shit that you don’t look around you.
Furthermore, it makes way more sense for me on my bike to be between flows of cars rather than riding alongside them and getting passed after every red light, then riding up to the red light (as you do in a bike lane) and getting passed by the same damn cars again. If I’m either out ahead of them or way behind them (and ahead of the next wad of cars) I spend a lot less time being menaced by them.
I get that a lot of cyclists ride like inconsiderate asshats, and I do wish a big stick got stuck in their spokes, but imperiously claiming that cyclists have to follow the rules of the road is a cop-out and an excuse made by asshats in cars for behaving like asshats.
If everyone followed the golden rule – don’t be a fucking asshat – maybe we could learn to coexist. Maybe.
Several bicycle riders has objects thrown at them on Lake Washington Blvd. recently. Someone on the Washington Stage Bicycle Association mailing list also followed up with another story.
“There was a similar incident on Newport Way in Bellevue a couple years
ago. A couple of teenagers slapped a cyclist on the butt while passing at
high speed. Cyclist went over the bars, broke many bones, and has
permanent, severe brain damage. He can no longer hold a job.”
This article is right. Its not cyclists vs. motorists vs. pedestrians. Its everyone learning to share.
@14 I don’t object to some flexibility about road rules, but bike riders should stop at stop signs just like cars must do and not feel that they can breeze right through with impunity. They should get a warning or ticket just like a car driver if they do not obey a sign.
I am all for more bike lanes and other bike friendly policies. The rest of us do not need to kiss thier lycra clad butts or genuflect in their general direction.
Public service announcements and scolding from a soapbox are known to be about as effective at making traffic safer as abstinence-only sex ed is at preventing pregnancy and STDs. Might want to look into strategies that work once all the hot air runs out.
@ 14:
Couple hundred bucks worth of moving violations would change your smug-ass tune pretty damn quick, I figure.
Here’s hoping you rack them up pretty soon now, because it’ll be better than being crippled or dead, and we wouldn’t want that.
@18: I’ve been riding for 20 years and have yet to get a single ticket. I’m not sure what that says about me or law enforcement. I don’t blow through every stop sign or every stoplight either as a matter of principle; I just do it when in my judgment it’s safe to do so.
My overarching concern when I’m riding is my own safety. Period. Some traffic laws put cyclists in danger, and those are the laws I disobey.
We need to look at this issue from a nuanced perspective, not the knee-jerk howl, “They’re breaking the law, so fuck ’em!”
@ 19:
Thank you for clarifying. In the 1970s and 1980s, I rode my bike all over Seattle, and my first concern was for my own ass, just like yours. But I stopped at all stoplights and stop signs. Yes, I did.
If you didn’t get any tickets, it says more about law enforcement. Almost all bicyclists I see in Seattle run stoplights and stop signs. It might be safe to do so, and it might not be. I’d rather that a cop decided that — it is, after all, what we pay them for.
It’s not all bicyclists, mind you. It’s just the 99 percent of them that give the rest a bad reputation.
Whoa – who let Joni into where they keep the sensible pills? This is bigger than Obama.
I’m not a big fan of banning things but the comment at the end about eye contact is one reason right up next to the seat belt law there ought to be one keeping drivers from riding around all Secret Squirrel with TINTED WINDOWS.
Will in Seattle has nailed it, but I’ll put it much more impolitely: cyclists without lights and bright jackets are assholes. I have almost clobbered some of them (not to mention myself) commuting home at night on the Myrtle Edwards/Pier 91 trail.
On a cheerier note, it should warm the hearts of all Seattle cyclists to know that the $250,000,000 Seattle Bike Master Plan is being implemented at the rate of about $3,000,000 per year, which means that in as little as 80 year’s we’ll have a full bike trail system citywide!!!!
This compares very favorably with the almost comparably priced tarted-up 6 block stretch of Mercer Street that Mayor Jowly and the Nine Dwarfs are hell bent to build NOW!!!! If fact this project would be DONE if only the mayor and the clowncil could suck off a whole shitload of STIMULUS $$$$ from the feds and/or the state.
This shit keeps going down in Seattle, The City That Just Doesn’t Work.
@14 The problem with “traffic rules don’t apply because I have better visibility” is that drivers are expecting certain things out of the other users of the road. When you ignore those protocols, you are unpredictable. I am much more likely to slam into you when you are running a stop sign precisely because I have less visibility than you do.