Discussion about bike path/lane/route versus WCL

I sent out an alert about the end of the comment period for the CMPO Ped/Bike plan, including an opinion. Jay Aguilar rose to the bait to champion a different view. Here's a recap and my response: 

=============my original message==========================
>From: 	Bob.Bayn@usu.edu[SMTP:Bob.Bayn@usu.edu]
>Sent: 	Monday, May 17, 1999 3:27 AM
>Subject: 	End of Comment Period on CMPO Ped/Bike plan
>
>Today (May 17) is the last day for comments on the
>draft CMPO Ped/Bike plan, including the final draft
>version just released last week (see the link at:
>   http://n1.net/~cachempo/CMPOhome.htm )
>
>I would encourage you to review the draft and submit comments. 
>Email to cachempo@n1.net works.
>
>Here's the core of the message I'm still trying to have noticed.
>You may have a different message or view that you want to have
>represented.
>
>|In summary, the whole Bike path/lane/route set of alternatives
>|should be rejected as a facility design framework.  Every street and
>|road is a "bikeway". Each one is either "take the lane" narrow or
>|"share the lane" wide.  That works under the law, and no other way
>|of providing for transportation by bicycle is any safer.  The more
>|we spend on paths/lanes/routes, the less we have to spend on
>|educating people about the truth.
>
>  -- from  http://cc.usu.edu/~bob/bike/ped_bike_may99_critique.txt
>
>I also believe that more could be included for pedestrian and
>handicapped mobility issues.

Jay's view with my comments included

>Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 18:04:25 -0600
>From: Jay Aguilar 
>Subject: RE: Another Point of View on  the CMPO Bike Plan
>
>There's only one problem with this hard line approach as advocated by 
>Bob.  It's not true.  The "educational prime directive approach" will 
>fail without distinct physical change.  You can shout at the wind for 
>only so long.  No elected official will support a long term education 
>campaign, not one that is substantial in any way unless it includes 
>tangible measureable results.  Our very limited funding allocations 
>should be used to create the basis for future discussion.  That basis 
>must include tangible visable change.

One tangible, visible change that I hope to see is a continuing increase in the "mode share" of transportation cycling. That means we see more bikes on the streets. I don't want to see empty bike lanes as evidence that we have a bike-friendly community.

I want to see people riding the right (safe) way, according to the same rules of priority and yielding and channelization that they learned in drivers ed. I believe it is disingenuous of us to lure folks onto their bikes with stripes of paint that do not, in fact, improve their safety.

I believe it is useless for us to put up "bike route" signs if those signs do not indicate a commitment to a higher standard of service of that roadway facility for bicycling. The draft document does not make that commitment. 

>I am an avid recreational cyclist and somewhat frequent bike commuter.  
>Having both lived in and visited numerous communities with both 
>dedicated bikeways and shared routes which are marked, I know that such 
>plans and improvements work.  They also create the basis for dialog and 
>in fact education.  In Davis, California, a university town not unlike 
>our own, everything that Bob claims doesn't work continues to be 
>enthusiastically embraced.  Bikes enjoy on street stripping, route 
>signage, underpasses, and bike specific intersection turn lanes and 
>still enjoy full use of the entire street right-of- way.  With a 
>population in Utah heavily weighted towards youth, you would think that 
>we would want to provide safe passage for bicycle users of all ages, if 
>for no other reason than to promote our support for future and extended 
>use of alternate modes of travel.  Bob's program addresses only the 
>needs and fears of higher speed commuters and what  I consider to be an 
>irrational fear of losing full lane/street rights.  There is a place for 
>his discussion, but it is only a part of a much bigger and more vivid 
>picture.

I do not claim that Davis bike lanes don't work. But I'll advance the claim, from some others who've studied the situation, that it hasn't done them any good. Often, an added bike lane means added road width. And it's the shareable width that I want us to provide, where it is lacking or in poor condition.

I want to provide safe passage for bicycle users, young and old. Bike lanes do not contribute to safety. Bike lanes have been around for a quarter of a century in certain parts of the country. It's an experiment that has gone on long enough for us to look at the results and see their value. Others have studied the results, compared data and compared each others studies.

The net result that I see is growing support for the view that bike lanes are a waste of time and money and a diversion from the real issue that needs to be addressed: the popular and misplaced fear of overtaking traffic. The bike lane provides the novice bike rider with a sense of "protection" from the car behind. But the car behind is not a significant hazard. It's the cars in front of you that will "get you" if you aren't riding where they are looking for traffic that they must yield to.

Bike lanes could have a tendancy to encourage the uninformed bike rider to stay out of the search area scanned by conflicting motorist traffic. Now this is not a large risk; that's why the results of decades of bike lanes haven't shown them to be a clear hazard. But, if someone has a scary experience with traffic in a bike lane, which they think is safer, then they might conclude that even with these safety features, biking is pretty dangerous. They might surmise that actually riding on a street without bike lanes would be foolhardy. They would soon be back in their car for those short trips.

You will notice that this argument does not include any claim, made by some, that bike lanes could create a "ghetto effect" for cycling. I am perfectly willing to ride in a bike lane when the stripe happens to be to the left of where I decide to ride. And I'm perfectly willing to get out of the bike lane when that is appropriate for my safety or to follow the rules of the road to get where I want to go. But, I do not believe that novice bike riders, harboring the myth that the bike lane protects them and promotes them, and that the overtaking traffic is their greatest hazard, will get out of the lane when they need to in order to get where they are going with the greatest safety. 

>Any plan that we advocate for should be comprehensive and should address 
>physical improvements, philosophical direction, and education.

I agree with this 100%. There are physical improvements that are needed for transportation bicycling in our community. Those that come to mind include:

But you'll notice that the plan is not very comprehensive. The prevailing inclination from the consultant is to design facilities and humor some of us with a little vague talk of education and promotion. And they want to dust off an old bag of FHWA tricks and fill our plan with bike lane specifications for various street widths.

I see no reason why our "philosophical direction" should not be to encourage people to be safe, competent and effective cyclists who interact predictably and legally with the motorists who use the same streets. I see no reason to encourage cycling by people who are fearful of imagined risks and oblivious of real risks and clueless about the effective ways to reduce the real risks. 

>Repeated Logan City surveys have demanded trails for bicycles and 
>pedestrians... bicycle education pamphlets isn't going to cut it.  A 
>combination of all available strategies must be available for all 
>communities to use as they see fit.

I have a real problem with the surveys, undemocratic as that sounds. We give them choices they don't understand. The choices appeal to their misunderstandings and "irrational fears." Let me write the survey questions next time. First, lets separate the recreational and transportation needs here. This is supposed to be about transportation. There is lots of interest in recreational trails.

I'm completely in support of any Bonneville Shoreline Trail development that might be put together here. But that trail isn't going to be a useful way for very many people to get where they need to go. If it was a useful route, we'd already have a road there. I'm also in support of a powerline/deerfence recreational trail. And I would support valleybottom recreational trails around the marshes and rivers.

But, when it comes time for someone to decide they want to commute to work, go shopping, go to a meeting, visit a friend, etc. by bicycle, they will need to use the roads and they need to know how to do it safely and efficiently. Even if they decide to pedal "over there" to the nearest bike lane/route and then later pedal back from the route to their destination, they need to know how to ride on regular roads without any special "bikeway" designation. And they need to do it right so they don't scare themselves out of doing it.

The hard part of all of this is that the CMPO is basically an engineering operation. They have funding and resources and technical expertise for project engineering, and engineering problem-solving. Given the "problem" of bike/car interaction, separation of clueless users is the best they've got in their bag of tricks, because engineers don't educate clueless users. Engineers aren't trained to change the "givens" in the story problem.

But this is a community problem and we should be able to look beyond the engineers when a non-engineering solution offers better results. We need to find a way to bring the educators into this, and get them educated so they don't believe the safety myths that we need them to oppose in the public.

The engineering label was a mistake on my part. Let me try it this way: It looks to me like the CMPO is concerned with planning and directing the "built environment" for transportation. I guess I just see engineers at the end of that. ... The CMPO is not, so far as I can tell, concerned with changing the rules (laws) governing the use of the built environment nor concerned with training people in how to use that built environment. So far, those tasks seem to have been automatically entrusted to other existing agencies.

We seem to be presented with a situation where some unmet educational need could help us deal with a situation in a way that appears might have better results than just designing the built environment to cope with the situation. If we were building high traffic roads in days without any Traffic Code or Drivers Ed, we might build roads a lot differently to try to cope with the problems. I can imagine median barriers everywhere, gated intersections, street pavers that are designed to put a speed bump every 50 feet, etc. But somewhere along the line we collectively agreed to teach and enforce some rules, and those tasks were handled by others than those who now design and implement the "built environment". We need to get education agencies back into this loop to find the best integrated solution to this situation. [Just like we need to get land use planning integrated back into the transportation issue. Mobility isn't so much a right as it is a burdensome requirement of our large block, segregated use, landscape.] 

>Bob's ideas are sound, but only to the extent that education is an 
>important aspect of bicycle use in general.  Furthermore, let's not take 
>a giant step backward in bicycle advocacy by in-fighting over 
>philosophical differences.  We should grow together, not apart.

I want us to all grow together with my viewpoint; Jay wants us all to grow together with his. We don't need to call this "in-fighting"; we just need to explore the options and see if we can all recognize a "best" solution. I am not interested in luring people onto bikes if they have misplaced fears, because they will do the wrong thing and expose themselves to greater danger. When that happens, they'll either get hurt or their fear will be increased and they will quit riding and further spread the myth that bicycling is unacceptably dangerous. 

>
>Jay Aguilar, Director
>Community & Economic Dev.
>Avid Recreational Cyclist and Commuter

If you think I've cooked this up myself, I'm not that smart. Others have done the research and reached the conclusions. But the conclusions mesh pretty well with the way I see it from my bicycle seat. Here are some other resources:

Not on the web:

Followup, after some time to cool down

So, towns in the LUA have the final decision about what sort of bike accommodations are actually approved for implementation within their bounds. I've attempted to provide a more thorough enumeration and description of bikeway options as a draft alternative to the final draft discussion in section 7.B. We could work together to get everybody's choices and views about the pros and cons included in text like this, so that towns have some reference material to make an informed decision about what facilities and accommodations to implement. See:
http://cc.usu.edu/~bob/bike/alternate_7_b.html