Then, as we do each week, we look at news and events in the bike world.
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Scott Mace contributes a segment from San Francisco suburb El Cerrito on the new bike parking set-up at BART Stations.
Still we Speak event in NY.
Reverend Billy supports NY Critical Mass with a benefits in NY and San Francisco.
The San Francisco Housing Action Coalition will host a bike tour led by bicyclist and architect David Baker.
If you're reading this now you missed a great party at the San Francisco Bike Kitchen featuring Cyclecide.
"To get an idea of what, exactly, the Cyclecide folks do, imagine Cirque du Soleil. Now take away the grace and beauty of a hundred seminaked French people and replace it with a bunch of surly, moonshine-swilling, outlaw types wearing monkey boots and moth-eaten clothing." August 2003 SF Weekly
..."contraptions that look like Salvador Dali dream- cycles riding through a psilocybin hallucination...." May 2001 SF Chronicle
"One of the group's mottoes is ``No brakes, no problem.'' These people aren't anti-safety, but safety isn't a major priority. Or a fleeting consideration." August 2000 SF Chronicle
-jon
3 comments:
Bike lanes may not be the greatest solution for cyclists, but the lanes make drivers aware of the fact that they will be sharing the road with cyclists.
I agree that in most cases this is true, especially where there are fast cars and slow bikes. But on Market street it really doesn't matter what the lines on the street mean. The mix of cars, busses, taxis and delivery trucks adds up to one thing: anarchy.
What's the solution? Personally, I like it the way it is but I've been biking for years. If we want new bikers out on the street we have to, in my opinion, get private cars off market street. And maybe restrict deliveries to certain early morning or late night hours.
Chris's solution also makes a lot of sense: separate the bikes onto separate bike paths divided from the traffic by a curb. I've seen this in Paris and the potential problem there is in the interaction with pedestrians. It could work though...
-jon
Just discovered your podcast; listening to the Bike to Work Day episode while I work.
Re: the bike lane issue
While I'm not familiar with your streets, here in Asheville, NC, my experience with our bike lanes has been that they primarily serve to collect gravel and other debris. Much better than a striped bike lane would be to have the road the same width as with the bike lane, but not striped. That would give plenty of room for bikes and cars to coexist, while not "ghetto"-izing cyclists as "off the road/out of mind," yet still encourage cars to use the whole lane when cyclists aren't present (and thus "sweep" the edge of the lane).
As it is, I often find myself riding to the left of the bike lane stripe in order to avoid the gravel, glass, nails, etc. that carpet the bike lane itself.
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