ChilliConCarnage
11-08-2007, 08:11 AM
(I hope these links work)
So Seattle has officially approved the new bike master plan:
Seattle's big bike plan gets a green light (http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=bikeplan06m&date=20071106&query=cycling)
And this is how our fellow Seattle citizens are reacting to it (from the Seattle Times letters to the editor section (http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=wedlets07&date=20071107&query=cycling))
Letters to the Editor
This one stood out the most:
Screaming down traffic
I am getting really tired of hearing on TV about the poor, endangered bicyclists, and how the mean car drivers are terrorizing them. Let's get something straight up front: Most car drivers are law-abiding folks. Most bicyclists that I see are scofflaws. They delight in holding up traffic. They cut in front of cars. They totally ignore traffic lights and stop signs. And then they scream in outrage when some motorist cannot avoid their antics.
Yes, it's a tragedy when someone ends up crushed by a car. But let's put the blame where it (usually) belongs: kamikaze bicyclists, playing Russian roulette on public streets. Thank you.
— David Alvar, Edmonds
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editor, The Times:
The city's plan to add more than 136 miles of new bike lanes adds up to almost $2 million per mile ["Seattle"s big bike plan gets a green light," Times page one, Nov. 6].
While supporting alternatives to fossil-fueled transportation makes sense, what you get for the money is always what really matters.
Midwest transplants can quickly become frustrated and ultimately angry drivers in this land where locals can't comprehend the four-way stop, see any point to turn signals or use the accelerator. Cyclists are just as bad, by running red lights, darting across lanes and riding on busy sidewalks. Pedestrians make no attempt to work with traffic flow, often causing intersection gridlock by crossing on a flashing red.
This town is just plain ignorant and therefore rude!
For all that money, the ongoing conflict between cyclists and traffic needs a better alternative to just adding more of the same thing. Due to the speed difference with vehicles, cyclists really need their own separated lanes. Instead of mixing cyclists with the heaviest traffic in the city, lower-volumed parallel streets could become designated bike-lane corridors. The street would become one-way for the curbed bike lanes or a parking lane could be removed. All cross-traffic would meet at a stop sign or stoplight.
It's easier to support spending tax dollars that are better utilized for everyone, and separating cycles and vehicles could solve a safety issue with little or no cost difference.
— David Wright, Seattle
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What streets mean
While visiting and biking in Seattle in September, I saw the city's implementing a Bicycle Master Plan, $240 million over 10 years. My first thought: 240 million bucks is a million bikes — it better be good.
I saw some new bike lanes and Googled the plan. Neither made sense. I was riding in the "door zone" on a new Jackson Street bike lane; bike experts say that's unsafe. The plan is mainly painting bike lanes everywhere (expensive paint?), safety is not a consideration.
I heard of a recent death in a bike lane put to the right of turning traffic south of the University Bridge.
A few drivers want cyclists limited to bike lanes or bike-path sidewalks, dangerous at intersections. But I notice in my current bike commute (faster than by car or bus), 99 percent of traffic impeding is by cars, stopped up to a mile from highway lights.
Safety research, common sense and cost should prohibit such segregation in the city. Bike facilities have been built and work well: They're the city's own streets.
— Patrick Mortell, Chapel Hill, N.C.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An aside to safety
Would it be too much to ask why we can't get a bike path through the Arboretum to prevent drivers from accidentally hitting a cyclist? I suspect it is because the Arboretum Foundation would throw a fit at City Hall. If that is the case, does someone have to die first before action is taken?
These people who are making a contribution by riding their bikes should be rewarded and not put in a death-defying position by the Seattle Department of Transportation.
Bicyclist should be protected and given a set of rules to follow. Right now, they operate without recognizing any rules of the road that I am aware of. Give them a brake!
— Bob Minnott, Seattle
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What we are driving at
I know that all cyclists, like myself, appreciate The Times drawing attention to what is becoming all too common — the death or injury, caused by a motorist, of a cyclist who was following the rules and simply riding a bike.
People need to become much more attentive to the existence of cyclists, and recognize that cycling is a real form of transportation.
Unfortunately, "Bicyclists honor a fallen friend" [Local News, Nov. 4] starts off on entirely the wrong foot: "About 70 cyclists pedaled through Seattle on Saturday — sometimes stretching an entire block and blocking traffic."
Why don't you understand? They were not "blocking traffic." They ARE traffic, and that is what the 10-year Bicycle Master Plan is all about!
— Gregg Whitcomb, Seattle
So Seattle has officially approved the new bike master plan:
Seattle's big bike plan gets a green light (http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=bikeplan06m&date=20071106&query=cycling)
And this is how our fellow Seattle citizens are reacting to it (from the Seattle Times letters to the editor section (http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=wedlets07&date=20071107&query=cycling))
Letters to the Editor
This one stood out the most:
Screaming down traffic
I am getting really tired of hearing on TV about the poor, endangered bicyclists, and how the mean car drivers are terrorizing them. Let's get something straight up front: Most car drivers are law-abiding folks. Most bicyclists that I see are scofflaws. They delight in holding up traffic. They cut in front of cars. They totally ignore traffic lights and stop signs. And then they scream in outrage when some motorist cannot avoid their antics.
Yes, it's a tragedy when someone ends up crushed by a car. But let's put the blame where it (usually) belongs: kamikaze bicyclists, playing Russian roulette on public streets. Thank you.
— David Alvar, Edmonds
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editor, The Times:
The city's plan to add more than 136 miles of new bike lanes adds up to almost $2 million per mile ["Seattle"s big bike plan gets a green light," Times page one, Nov. 6].
While supporting alternatives to fossil-fueled transportation makes sense, what you get for the money is always what really matters.
Midwest transplants can quickly become frustrated and ultimately angry drivers in this land where locals can't comprehend the four-way stop, see any point to turn signals or use the accelerator. Cyclists are just as bad, by running red lights, darting across lanes and riding on busy sidewalks. Pedestrians make no attempt to work with traffic flow, often causing intersection gridlock by crossing on a flashing red.
This town is just plain ignorant and therefore rude!
For all that money, the ongoing conflict between cyclists and traffic needs a better alternative to just adding more of the same thing. Due to the speed difference with vehicles, cyclists really need their own separated lanes. Instead of mixing cyclists with the heaviest traffic in the city, lower-volumed parallel streets could become designated bike-lane corridors. The street would become one-way for the curbed bike lanes or a parking lane could be removed. All cross-traffic would meet at a stop sign or stoplight.
It's easier to support spending tax dollars that are better utilized for everyone, and separating cycles and vehicles could solve a safety issue with little or no cost difference.
— David Wright, Seattle
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What streets mean
While visiting and biking in Seattle in September, I saw the city's implementing a Bicycle Master Plan, $240 million over 10 years. My first thought: 240 million bucks is a million bikes — it better be good.
I saw some new bike lanes and Googled the plan. Neither made sense. I was riding in the "door zone" on a new Jackson Street bike lane; bike experts say that's unsafe. The plan is mainly painting bike lanes everywhere (expensive paint?), safety is not a consideration.
I heard of a recent death in a bike lane put to the right of turning traffic south of the University Bridge.
A few drivers want cyclists limited to bike lanes or bike-path sidewalks, dangerous at intersections. But I notice in my current bike commute (faster than by car or bus), 99 percent of traffic impeding is by cars, stopped up to a mile from highway lights.
Safety research, common sense and cost should prohibit such segregation in the city. Bike facilities have been built and work well: They're the city's own streets.
— Patrick Mortell, Chapel Hill, N.C.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An aside to safety
Would it be too much to ask why we can't get a bike path through the Arboretum to prevent drivers from accidentally hitting a cyclist? I suspect it is because the Arboretum Foundation would throw a fit at City Hall. If that is the case, does someone have to die first before action is taken?
These people who are making a contribution by riding their bikes should be rewarded and not put in a death-defying position by the Seattle Department of Transportation.
Bicyclist should be protected and given a set of rules to follow. Right now, they operate without recognizing any rules of the road that I am aware of. Give them a brake!
— Bob Minnott, Seattle
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What we are driving at
I know that all cyclists, like myself, appreciate The Times drawing attention to what is becoming all too common — the death or injury, caused by a motorist, of a cyclist who was following the rules and simply riding a bike.
People need to become much more attentive to the existence of cyclists, and recognize that cycling is a real form of transportation.
Unfortunately, "Bicyclists honor a fallen friend" [Local News, Nov. 4] starts off on entirely the wrong foot: "About 70 cyclists pedaled through Seattle on Saturday — sometimes stretching an entire block and blocking traffic."
Why don't you understand? They were not "blocking traffic." They ARE traffic, and that is what the 10-year Bicycle Master Plan is all about!
— Gregg Whitcomb, Seattle