Michael S. Johnson wrote an opinion piece that ran in the Examiner yesterday that is, shall we say, less than complimentary of cyclists. It's also filled with inaccuracies and half-truths.
Though the title, "Bike Paths in DC are More of a Nuisance than a Benefit" - which he probably didn't write - makes is seem to be about the Metropolitan Branch Trail or the CCT, he actually never mentions bike paths. It's all about how dumb the Penn Ave bike lanes are, how dumb it is to try to get people out of cars, and how cyclists, unlike drivers, are a bunch of reckless scofflaw renegades. He also manages to blame this all on the Mayor I'm not sure who this Michael S. Johnson is, he doesn't have a bio or any other stories at the Examiner. The name is a pretty common, but the only person who springs to mind is this guy, but this seems like small potatoes for him.
Regardless, let's dig in.
False Claim #1: But with [New commercial development] has come a stubborn refusal to accommodate the additional traffic generated by all of those buildings, attempting to squeeze out vehicular traffic.
Actually, they have often succeeded in accommodating the additional traffic, when they apply transportation demand management- such as at the baseball stadium where, I believe, a majority of fans arrive by something other than car. The District has accommodated more traffic with transit expansion, bike facilities, transit benefits, car sharing etc...
False Claim #2: The result [of discouraging driving] has been disastrous. The city has produced gridlock on a gargantuan scale.
Wrong again. Only two of the 25 worst bottlenecks in the region are in DC. Both are on Kenilworth Avenue, where bike, walk and transit options are limited to non-existent. The DC region has congestion, but DC mostly doesn't.
False Claim #3 DC has added insult to injury by turning loose on the city streets a band of renegade bicyclists who, thanks to the example set by the Mayor (WTOP.com November, 9, 2009), disobey traffic laws with reckless abandon, endangering both motorists and pedestrians.
There are just so many things - like the fact that cyclists are less likely to be involved in a traffic crash than drivers are, that DC did not "turn cyclists lose" like we were a pack of wild dogs, that cyclists were running stop signs and stop lights way before Nov 9, 2009, that cyclists don't break the law as often as drivers or that cyclists don't endanger pedestrians anywhere near as much as drivers do and that it is exceedingly rare that a motorist is endangered by a cyclist. In five years of blogging, I know of only one case where a driver was hurt by a cyclist, and that was not even in the US.
False Claim #4 Most bicyclists I see on city streets have no licenses, no lights or reflectors, all required by city regulations, according to the DC government webite[sic].
Cyclists are not required to have licenses. Cyclists are only required to have lights and (not or) reflectors at night. While, unfortunately, I often see cyclists without lights, I almost never see one without a reflector. And, in my experience "some" night bikers ride without lights, but not "most".
False Claim #5: Economist Robert Samuelson reminded us recently that clean energy is a noble goal, but it must be embraced with the stark reality that energy-efficient light bulbs, windmills, new appliances and bikes are not enough to meet future needs.
I have absolutely no idea what this has to do with the cost of bicycles in China, but I'll bite. That isn't what Samuelson said. Samuelson was talking about the short term, but he didn't say anything about the long term. While Johnson's list isn't enough to meet future needs, all you need to add is some sort of storage medium - like electric car batteries - and you've got all the pieces you need to be "enough". And what is the point? That bikes aren't enough so we shouldn't encourage their use? That's like saying that if you can't save all the people in a burning building, you shouldn't save any.
Unsubstantiated Claim #1: The [original Pennsylvania Avenue] bike lanes choked off traffic and created serious congestion for thousands of cab, bus and car drivers who did a slow burn while an occasional lonely bicyclist enjoyed the new lanes and the middle boulevard.
If this happened, I never saw it or heard about it. Most eyewitness reports contradict it. There was no official study of traffic before or after, so there is no way to prove or disprove this, but the study done before the lanes were put in showed only a trivial change in travel times. Also, when I've been down there - outside of rush hour mind you - I always saw at least a half dozen other cyclists.
Unsubstantiated Claim #2: They run red lights, play dodge ‘em with pedestrians on sidewalks, skip in and out of lanes, and go the wrong way against traffic. They cross in front of cars to shift lanes or turn a corner, and they slip past cars in the same lane. Most bicyclists don’t use hand signals, except that one with the protruding middle finger, which indicates they’re going to cut you off.
Some of these things cyclists do. Some are not illegal. See here for a full response.
Exaggeration #1: They made a mess of the greatest thoroughfare in America
As above, no they didn't. And really? The greatest thoroughfare in America? Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I doubt many people would even list it as the best road in DC. It might struggle to be the best section of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Exaggeration #2: The bike lanes were an example of the extravagance of a Mayor who seems determined to impose his cycling obsession on the rest of us.
The Mayor's cycling obsession is with bike racing, and bike lanes have nothing to do with racing. Had he put a velodrome in the middle of Penn then he might have a point. Furthermore the initial plans for these bike lanes pre-date the Mayor, and the execution has more to do with Gabe Klein than Fenty.
Contradictory Claims #1: More profoundly, the bike lanes were dumb for what they symbolized--a sadly misguided attempt by the city government at social engineering. The city fathers have been trying for years to force entire generations of residents and commuters out of their cars and onto bikes, buses and subways.
And immediately afterward
New commercial development has swept over the city like a tsunami, restoring neighborhoods and adding millions of square feet of new office and residential space.
Wouldn't that imply that the city fathers' actions have been working? If gridlock were as bad as he claims it is, why would anyone build here?
Bad Sentence #1: The longer commutes have meant less time at home for many commuters and their families, estimated by the Council of Governments to be about 80 percent of the 700,000 people who work in the city.
How does the longer commute limit their family's time at home? And this sentence is just hard to understand. Is he saying that 80% of DC workers live outside the District? Maybe that's a factor in their long commute.
Bad Sentence #2: Granted, those who commute from Maryland, Virginia and other surrounding states have no electoral vote but they do contribute a lot to the city's economy by spending money at DC shops, restaurants, and parking facilities.
Again, I'm left to guess what he's trying to say. I guess he means that people in MD and VA have no vote in DC. OK. And if they spend money in DC their voice should count? Does that mean tourists should be able to tell DC residents how their roads should be built. I'd bet Johnson is a states-rights kind of guy, so it's hard to understand how his argument that DC should bow to the needs of non-residents over those of residents fits in with that. And many of these people he talks about arrive by transit and bicycle as it turns out.
I love how parking facilities is one of the three businesses that non-residents support. Great point. Because I'd cry myself to sleep every night if any of my favorite parking facilities closed down. "DC, you'll come for the monuments, but you'll stay for the parking garages."
Bizarre Claim #1: Cycling is a good thing, but like everything else, it goes from good to bad with excess and immoderation.
And at 2% mode share, he thinks we've moved into the realm of excess?
He also shares a story about an incident his daughter recently had with a very badly behaved cyclist. The cyclist yelled at her, banged on her car and scared her pretty badly (though I'd guess the cyclist might have a different story). That guy behaved like a jerk and probably deserved a ticket or worse. But if that's the wost example of bad cyclist behavior you have, allowed me to introduce you to a few bad drivers. That someone you know had an encounter with a cyclist who demonstrated some road rage is hardly an argument that we're doing too much to encourage cycling.
The sad thing is that Mr. Johnson's pointless, rambling, disjointed, inaccurate and badly written opinion piece was actually published.
Does this guy have an email address?
Posted by: TurbineBlade | June 28, 2010 at 07:07 AM
Nice to see this one taken apart.
The disconnect between driver perception and what many cyclists see out there is part of the reason I ended up getting a helmet camera and have been recording my commute in to work every day. I'm fortunate that about half of my commute is either on the CCT or on Water st, where (at least betwenn the CCT and Wisconsin) things are pretty light.
The recording is somewhat reassuring when things get dicey, but more generally, there's just plenty of footage of drivers doing stupid things - much of it the very same behavior that they call cyclists out on. AND, I catch plenty of stupid behavior by cyclists too. ALSO - I'm not taking the holier than thou stance here either, I do my fair share of Idaho stops and half-assed hand signals too - all of it caught on tape.
So short of doing what the one guy profiled on CNN a couple weeks back did (recording a year's worth of riding and then uploading all the videos where he was almost hit) - I'd like to do something constructive with the footage that I'm capturing.
I don't want to just upload videos of drivers almost hitting me - for one, there are some crazy people out there that probably wouldn't take kindly to that. And just posting video of drivers boulevard stopping along K st. all day every day wouldn't be particularly helpful.
Anyone have any thoughts on a good thing to do with street-riding video footage to help encourage better driving/riding all around?
Posted by: Bilsko | June 28, 2010 at 08:46 AM
"The sad thing is that Mr. Johnson's pointless, rambling, disjointed, inaccurate and badly written opinion piece was actually published."
I'd say the sad thing is that the majority of area residents would probably agree with at least one of the claims. We probably need a comprehensive strategy for addressing this perception. Setting the record straight is often not enough--almost half the public doubts global warming after $billions of research.
Posted by: Jim Titus | June 28, 2010 at 09:10 AM
TurbineBlade, not that I know of.
Posted by: washcycle | June 28, 2010 at 09:35 AM
The point I always make about commuting times within the region is that Arlington County residents have commute times that are slightly below the national average, and DC residents have commute times slightly above the national average, but most of the rest of the jurisdictions have commute times significantly above the national average.
But that isn't DC's fault. Partly this is an issue of jobs/housing balance, partly it's an issue of people's choices. But it isn't DC's duty to accommodate bad choices. DC prioritizes its transportation investments to meet its transportation priorities. That doesn't mean widening 14th Street (as suggested by Congressman Jim Moran) to accommodate more car traffic...
Like I wrote in my blog last week, how Arlington's decision to oppose HOT Lanes derives logically from their Master Transportation Plan, which does not prioritize single occupant vehicle trips, DC's transportation priorities should and do support "millions of s.f. of development" but in terms of transit, walking, and biking trips primarily, rather than single occupant vehicle trips.
Posted by: Richard Layman | June 28, 2010 at 12:34 PM
P.S. hopefully this piece will do some good. I wrote an entry the other week about the Examiner writings of Markham Heid, and how his writings frequently use misleading or "charged" words/wording. I've noticed since then, including an article in today's paper on Alexandria rate and tax increases, that his pieces have been more measured. Hopefully this will help too.
Posted by: Richard Layman | June 28, 2010 at 12:36 PM
C'mon guys be reasonable! All the folks in the suburbs are asking for is that we just widen all our roads into freeways, flatten the downtown neighborhoods to provide plenty of free surface parking, and be a little more gracious for the 40 cents tax they pay on their $4 latte.
Posted by: JeffB | June 28, 2010 at 12:43 PM
Michael Johnson likes the cliched catchphrases: renegade bicyclists, cycling obsession, slow burn, social engineering. What is this he's describing, Mad Max on bikes? I guess I must not be that observant since I haven't seen a resemblance between downtown D.C. and post-apocalyptic dystopia.
Maybe he's getting paid for each charged/loaded word. Or this is all in response because of the admitted jerk who scared his daughter. I'm all for punishing people who intimidate others on the roads and elsewhere but there are far more drivers who act aggressively. Plus they have a far more deadly weapon at their disposal, namely 3000 lbs.+ of metal with an engine to move it fast.
I can see where he would be upset about the incident with his daughter but he is going way overboard in generalizing his frustration to include all cyclists and going after the Penn. Ave. bike lanes in retaliation. It doesn't add up.
Posted by: Michael H. | June 28, 2010 at 03:06 PM
I think you guys got it exactly. You can't judge all cyclists based upon the actions of a few (or possible just one).
If I did that I would have already tried to take revenge on many, many motorists.
Posted by: TurbineBlade | June 28, 2010 at 06:05 PM
You missed one false claim:
DC has added insult to injury by turning loose on the city streets a band of renegade bicyclists who, thanks to the example set by the Mayor (WTOP.com November, 9, 2009), disobey traffic laws with reckless abandon, endangering both motorists and pedestrians.
WTOP never showed the mayor disobeying traffic laws, certainly not "with reckless abandon, endangering both motorists and pedestrians."
Posted by: Contrarian | June 28, 2010 at 07:36 PM
Thank you for addressing this screed so thoroughly!
Posted by: Tim H | June 29, 2010 at 12:09 AM
Whatever useful commentary Johnson might have provided here was rendered ridiculous when he started his "renegade" diatribe. A few bad cyclists, sure. But really, people aren't "cyclists" or "drivers" or "pedestrians". They are just people who happen to be in that kind of vehicle. In cars we're all pretty good about obeying laws (except speed limits of course). But when on foot, almost everyone ignores signals and don't walk 30 feet out of the way to use a crosswalk. And as bicyclists most people improvise rather than follow the laws that were written for drivers. People who I call "rare" cyclists, who get out of their cars and ride once a year, are at least as "renegade" as those who bike every day, and more dangerous about it. It's whenever I ride with friends who just dug their dusty bike out of the basement that I see the most law-breaking - by my friends. It's not cyclists who break laws, it's people.
Posted by: Jack | June 29, 2010 at 10:22 AM
20th and L, road rage central, who knew. I was once nearly run over at that intersection (or the next one) by a cab driver who turned right from the middle lane. Drivers honk, cyclists yell or rap on the fender, so that's what I did. The driver chased after me (I admit I let him reach me so I could tell him off, since no driver can catch a cyclist downtown) and then he got out and grabbed me by the shirt and started yelling. Fortunately another cyclist came up and we outnumbered him. Clearly that incident proves that cars and bikes can't share the road... and since the driver was at fault, it's cars that should be banned from city centers, right? That is Johnson's logic. Fortunately you know he's going to get 300 emails on this!
Posted by: Jack | June 29, 2010 at 10:27 AM