Thursday Morning Commute - Leaving on a jet plane

Good morning

• A good point I failed to make about the Hurt article. 
• Dr. Gridlock suggests wider trails as a way to dial down conflicts between peds and cyclists. 
• "After spending four days riding almost 400 miles from Newtown, Conn., the cyclists of Team 26 pedaled down Constitution Avenue through the rain Tuesday with a police escort leading them to the Capitol."
• DuPont Circle Bike groper being deported. 
• "To grasp the enormity of London’s $1.4 billion bicycle investment, Janette Sadik-Khan, the sitting Commissioner of New York’s Department of Transportation (DOT) has a budget of roughly $2 billion at her disposal… that’s her entire transportation budget."
• Heritage Foundation hates diverting "highway" funding to other transportation: "The current surface transportation law, called Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21), did eliminate some TAs, such as transportation museums and acquisition of scenic or historic sites and easements, from the list of previously eligible activities, but lawmakers should go further. They should eliminate the eligibility of these programs [including bike projects] for federal funding and turn them over to the states and localities." But they love the idea of diverting other tax money to highways. [ And while it's true that $27.3 billion is technically diverted to transit, TA, etc... $18.8 billion of the trust money came from general tax funds (and not user fees); so really only $8.5 billion is being diverted from users.]

Comments

[MM]

You can make MUPs twice as wide, paint bike/ped symbols on it, put up signs, whatever...but it won't make a difference. I was in San Diego a couple weeks ago and my wife and I were walking down the embarcadero. I told her about the ride I had done through that area and that I ended up riding on the street because of all the peds. My wife then pointed out that there was a bike lane and asked why I didn't just use that...within about 15 seconds of her saying that, several people ran past us in the bike lane, and we counted several more peds in the lane after that. This is an area with probably a 20 foot wide (wider in places) pedestrian walkway, with a 3 foot bike lane, and yet people thought it necessary to walk/run in the bike lane.

I don't see it being any different here, since MUPs are not seen as throughways, but as general recreation areas where "rules of the road" just don't apply. To a degree, this is fair, but I think that if local governments are serious about creating alternatives to driving, "bike paths" need to start being treated like transportation infrastructure and less like recreation areas, which is going to take more than widening paths and putting up signs. If only there were some other countries that had successfully done this and could serve as models....

[SJE]

Heritage should be consistent and complain about all tax transfers. Of course, they would run up against their base.

Federally built highways have driven the growth in the South: cities spread out, and the Fed's accomodate them with more highways. THere is a net transfer of funds from NE to South.

[SJE]

MM: I agree that DOTs need to consider bike facilities as transport, not recreation. However, I don't agree that widening them won't help.
The CCT is presently too narrow to have anything but an MUP, and close shaves and conflicts are inevitable. In other areas, I think we need some more education and enforcement: no cars in bike lanes, no bikers being jerks, and no pedestrians walking all over the place oblivious to anyone.

[Jonathan Krall]

Highway money --> road-building industry --> donations to the Heritage Foundation.

On this topic, they are only "conservative" in the sense that the people who are already rich are being helped to stay that way. I continue to be amazed that people who are not already rich support these people on their public investment agenda.

[highvizguy]

The author of the blog A View from the Cycle Path punched some pretty big holes in the London bike plan hype. Here: http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2013/03/londons-new-plans-serious-campaigning.html and here: http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2013/03/what-do-we-want-gradual-change-when-do.html

Can't say I agree with every point he makes, but he does make some good ones. I still think it's going to be a game changer for central London. I follow quite a few cyclists there and I'm always surprised to see how my cyclists are out there on pretty substandard infrastructure.

[ACyclistInTheSuburbs]

I skimmed those long posts, and from what I can tell the holes amoun to A. This won't make London like Amsterdam and B. Its only London, not the whole UK

For those of us who live in the USA, it looks pretty damned impressive - a lot more than what even bike friendly places here in the US are doing. That is not what the NL did is neither here nor there.

[Crikey7]

The trails are a source of a fair amount of modal conflict. If you're a commuter on a bike, you want to make time by maintaining speed. If you're a recreational walker, getting passed by cyclists going 20-25 mph can be startling and, after a while, unpleasant. Following trail rules is a minimum, but I'm not sure that at peak times the two can cohabitate the trail without some friction.

[Greenbelt]

The best trails have a fine gravel sidepath, which is often preferred to the asphalt by joggers and walkers. Helps reduce conflicts and doesn't need to be more than 2 or 3 feet wide to make a difference I think. Might be a low-impact, doable addition to some high-use/high-conflict trails in spots where there's room.

[highvizguy]

It's a valid point to say that it's not going to be Amsterdam though I think. While every solution the Dutch have come up with isn't going to work in every situation in other countries, there isn't any denying that they are the gold standard for bike mode share.
I have little doubt that it will make a difference in London, it seems like cycling has really taken off there, but I'm not sure that mode share will rise dramatically, and I doubt they'll get to 25% or more trips by bike. I really would take a substantially larger sum to create dedicated, connected bike facilities that everyone feels comfortable on.

[JimT]

At least on weekends,people seem to comply with the white stripes that separate the pedestrian from the biker/skater lanes on the trail along the Hudson River in Manhattan. Yet they walk in bike lanes.

Not that anyone cares, but I believe that the law requires pedestrians on trails to keep left. Pull that one out if someone sues you.

[Froggie]

Admitting bias here (since I grew up there), but I prefer the Minneapolis path approach: where possible, separate paths for bikes and pedestrians. Works pretty well there.