As worthless as most of your posts are, this one is slightly different. I have lots of bike jerseys that I wear, but some are strategic selections. Mainly I want to be seen to reduce the chance of being hit. My favorite to wear when riding in red-neck mulletville where every pickup has a rear window gun rack is my stars and stripes US flag jersey. I'm no more patriotic than the next guy, but this jersey seems to put me in good stead with the mullet guy and get a thumbs up instead of him tossing his giant-size Mountain Dew container at the cyclists he passes along the road.

It still seems that the main resentment toward bikes in this thread is that motorists see themselves as being inconvenienced by the presence of bikes on the road. Bikes are required to follow the rules of the road, but many of them don't, just as motorists are required to follow the rules of the road, and many of them don't either. The easiest option is to adopt a share the road attitude because the road transportation system is going to get worse and not better. The stuff Aunty is describing about transportation planning is correct. Transportation engineers have long known that we cannot build our way out of highway congestion, and it will get worse. If you cannot or will not change your attitude about driving, your frustration will increase, and you can count on that. The human population of WA increases by about 50,000 people per year and isn't going to slow down any during the next several decades. Just understand that each and every one of them has the same expectations of a place on the road for themselves that you do. If you're a smart person, you can figure out that isn't going to work.

BTW, when I'm riding I don't wait until there's 5 of you behind me before I pull over to let the cars by. And I have very few problems with motorists when I'm riding except for the very occasional asshole, which is better than when I'm driving.

Sg

I have no issues with cyclists. My brother and brother-in-law are both competitive road cyclists. Heck, I experimented a few times in college, at riding bikes that is.

They just laugh at McSchwinn and his antics.

There are boneheads in all groups, like the cyclists on Orcas Island I almost really ran into one day. I lived near Olga at the time and had made it through Moran State Park. A bit past there the road opens up a bit, so I increased my speed accordingly. I come around the corner and here were 40+ cyclists having lunch IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD. Nice.

So how long did you debate which pedal to mash down. . . . .??

"It still seems that the main resentment toward bikes in this thread is that motorists see themselves as being inconvenienced by the presence of bikes on the road."

Not from me. My resentment is the removal of capacity and using our dollars to do it. You ask Metro or Community Transit and they want ridership and more buses yet the elected dope is reducing their ability to navigate.

Where is it written that delibrately removing road capacity for cars, buses and trucks improves transportation? Explain how 125th NE, a long extemely large hill, needed to be reduced to two lanes and two bike lanes that NEVER get used because it's a long ass steep hill that nobody wants to ride a bike on? This mayor and the dopes supporting him have gotta go. I wish I could vote him out but I will never live in King County let alone Seattle again.

You need to reach in the bag and grab a clue, the color white is most visible...duh!

While trying to figure out why McGinn was building bike lanes on the eastside I came across an interesting blog entry that might answer some questions about NE 125th.

http://seattlebikeblog.com/2011/08/24/bl...-125th-project/

It seems NE 125th isn't McGinn's baby and this 'road diet' stuff isn't just about bikes. In W. Seattle they recently finished one of these projects on a portion of Fauntleroy and it's actually a big improvement over what was there previously. It's sort of counter-intuitive, but sometimes taking lanes out improves traffic flow, especially on urban arterials.

I never said I was blaming you for coming up with these ideas, but you are supporting them.

I don't hate or resent people who ride bikes...I own and occasionally ride one. I also do so only on bike paths, the right side of the white line on roads that have a decent size shoulder, or the frick'n sidewalk. These are all places a bike actually belongs, not in a traffic lane of a road.

What I fail to understand is how we are going out of our way to accomodate bicyclists on roadways that were not built for their use, and that they don't directly help pay to maintain (extremely minor issue), or most importantly, build (the main issue). It's obvious that we are moving toward a more 'user fee' based tax system, and I'm ok with that. General funds are easier to confuse and abuse. But, this issue is an awful lot like...

Commercial fisherman, who recieve a huge subsidy to their industry because they pay almost nothing for access to often ridiculous amounts of allocation in almost every fishery. Most everyone seems to agree it makes no sense. So tell me, what's the difference?

Lowering speed limits and coverting car lanes to bike lanes to 'encourage' us to ride bikes? Really? Sort of a "if you build it they will come' kind of dream? How did carpool lanes work out? Is that dream not old enough to have had time to come to fruition yet?

And does that mean the various fisheries managers are trying to get us all to become commercial fisherman?

So many questions...

Ranty Armstrong.

From your "Bikeblog"

"Indeed! They are sort of about bikes. They are also sort of about dramatically reducing the rates of speeding, traffic collisions and pedestrian injuries and fatalities."

The mentality is we are saving lives by slowing everything down not just putting in bike lanes so don't beat the newly powerful BikePAC up about it. Of course slowing everything down and decreasing capacity is going to save lives. It also SLOWS TRAFFIC DOWN!. This looks like a call for Captain Obvious here. My point has been made exactly and I WILL blame the BikePAC and it needs it's power cut down to it's one tenth of one percent. I say we now dedicate the bike lanes to motorcycles. A lot more deaths on Motorcycles than bicycles. And while I am at it a speed limit on bikes. No greater than 5 MPH anywhere anytime. Remember it's about saving lives and that's a good one.

That Bikeblog has so many glaring errors and assumptions as to be absolutely as worthless as they are claiming the other side writes.

Those cocky bike riders will eventually be hauled away in an ambuLANCE no doubt.

Sol Duc,

White is one good color choice, but if you used more than your intuition for an information source you would know that chartruse is statistically more visible in traffic, and many fire engines and ambulances use that color. I don't have a chartruse jersey, but I have some colorful ones that you'd likely think are ghey (sic).

Call Aunty Ranty all you want, but she's still right, and you're wrong. I was just talking with a guy about the book Traffic (2008) the other day and then reading up on it a bit, and sure enough, traffic engineers worldwide are trying to change most everyone's driving behavior. I wondered about roundabouts and, yup, they're building them everywhere to force us to drive more safely, i.e. you can't drive as fast through intersections when you have to negotiate a roundabout. It's a sign of the times and too damn many people.

Backlash2,

Where do you get your notion that bikes don't belong on the traffic lane of a road? Out of your ass? Seriously, because it's sure not the law, given that traffic law has a fair bit to say about bikes on roads. Therefore, traffic law certainly expects that bikes will be on roads. I read that comment a lot that bikes don't belong on roads, yet no one can produce an authoritative source for that contention - because there isn't one. I'm curious where you came up with that idea.

Stlhead,

Interesting point that you want to impose a 5 mph speed limit on bikes. You might find interesting that John Forrester, who wrote the book Effective Cycling, claims that 5 mph is the maximum safe speed on MUTs (Multi Use Trails, often called bike paths). His conclusion is supported by the fact that MUTs support casual walkers (pedestirans), kids, dog walkers, joggers, in-line skaters, and sometimes equestrians. Consequently riding a bike on MUTs is less safe, in terms of number of accidents per 1,000 miles ridden, for competent cyclists than riding in motor vehicle traffic on roads. Therefore if you follow the object science bikes belong on roads with motor vehicles. Counter-intuitive, huh?

Sg

Sure as long as they aren' t impeding traffic. Unfortunately impeding traffic seems to be the goal of the bike lobby. Roundabouts have been around for decades.

Chuck nailed it. :>)

No BW just thought it was funny.

Typo.

Roundabouts are fantastic if everyone has their head out of their ass. They move traffic far better and more safely than lit intersections.

Traffic problems aren't caused by too many cars, or buses, or bikes. They're caused by dipsh!ts who can't f'n drive/ride/pedal correctly.

There is one spot in the entire state where the traffic congestion is caused by a lack of road space, and that's under the convention center on I-5 - everywhere else it's caused by dipsh!ts doing stupid crap. If you dispute that, then you ARE one of the dipsh!ts doing stupid crap and you just don't know it.

Ranty, does your bike have a basket ?

AM - I know that stretch of road, and if you put me in every car on the road, you'd see a mild slowdown at worst.

Going from 4 lanes to 2 is not some impossible feat, or even a difficult one..........unless you're an idiot. They warn you for miles that it's going to happen, and yet some donkey will wait until the last second, hit his brakes, and start the whole thing turning into a cluster.

The grinding lockdown IS caused by idiots. Traffic might slow there if you removed the donkeys, but the gridlock is donkey-caused.

I don't have a problem with bicyclists (as opposed to bikers, who keep up with traffic). In fact I even had one over for dinner once.

Your point?

Changing from 50 to 40 is different than changing from 50 to zero, which is what happens now...........and is caused by idiots.