Make Better Use of the Road
- Posted by ryan on August 10th, 2009 filed in Cities
Patrick Appel links to my cycling post and says:
Yes, but the roads for bikes wouldn’t exist without the cars.
But this isn’t true. How do we know? Because, you know, there were roads before there were cars. In Washington, for instance, Pierre L’Enfant set out an entire street system for the capital, despite the fact that there would be no cars at all using those streets for over a century. None! And New York and Boston, and London and Paris also had tons of streets, as far as I can tell, before a motor vehicle ever puttered into those cities.
Meanwhile, I’m not suggesting that pedestrians and cyclists “unite against cars.” I’m suggesting merely that the way we currently use city streets gives too much deference to drivers. There’s nothing antagonistic here; I’m simply suggesting that current policy doesn’t actually use street space all that well.
Meanwhile, commenters in the previous post are all very upset that cyclists might even consider not strictly obeying the rules of the road. This, quite frankly, is dumb. Every time I find myself on an interstate, it seems to me that nearly 100% of the cars and trucks on the road are traveling faster than the speed limit, which, I believe, is against the law. Here in the city, cars routinely speed. They rountinely roll through stop signs. They routinely illegally park in bike lanes and vehicle lanes. I have seen them go the wrong way down one way streets. I have seen them travel in reverse on city streets to go back and make a turn they missed. Drivers are more or less constantly breaking the rules of the road. As are pedestrians. As are those on scooters and segways and rollerblades. I promise to get very angry at stop sign flouting cyclists as soon as drivers agree to accept a full, no tolerance program of speed limit enforcement.
August 10th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Because Andrew Sullivan’s blog doesn’t allow comments, I’ve posted an open letter reply to the “no cars, no roads” trope on my blog. The short version: “If this is the best argument you can muster for the continued existence of cars, I heartily endorse the alternative.”
http://axoplasm.blogspot.com/2009/08/open-letter-to-patrick-appel-writing-on.html
August 10th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
A perspective from an Idaho (I think) attorney who is also a former Olympic and professional cyclist.
http://bicycling.com/blogs/roadrights/2009/06/02/cycling-a-right-or-a-privilege/
August 10th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Man, The Daily Dish gets just awful when Andrew Sullivan takes a break.
Never ever was there ever a road thought of, built, or used before God gave us the goodness of the automobile.
How about we be deal buddies and I get bike lanes on every street and I’ll stop at every stop light (which you pretty much have to do in downtown anyway) and roll through stop signs like every other car.
Until then I’m a free agent, and my riding on sidewalks (which i don’t do) is a form of mostly benign terrorism.
August 10th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Thank you, well put. Patrick’s inanity was really pissing me off. Bikes predate cars, and roads predate both. All the streets being refered to were built for pedestrians and horses, and the relevance of that is exactly squat.
Roads for bikes would exist without the cars. They just wouldn’t have the same restrictive traffic rules cyclists often violate because those rules were designed for cars.
August 10th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Not that Wikipedia can be trusted for everything, but there’s a nice little history of roads at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_road_transport
They put the first roads at like 5000 BC, first paved roads at 4000 BC and first tar paved roads at the end of the 19th century. A movement pushed by cyclists, by the way.
So actually, Andrew and others, without bicycles, cars wouldn’t have tar-paved smooth Good Roads.
August 11th, 2009 at 12:02 am
There’s nothing antagonistic here; I’m simply suggesting that current policy doesn’t actually use street space all that well.
Meanwhile, commenters in the previous post are all very upset that cyclists might even consider not strictly obeying the rules of the road. This, quite frankly, is dumb.
Setting aside the fact that you said you weren’t being antagonistic one paragraph before calling some comments dumb, your argument here, Ryan, is, well, kinda dumb. As best I can tell, it amounts to saying that since drivers of big cars do stupid things, causing large risks to people, operators of smaller vehicles (bikes) should be free to do pretty much whatever and pose smaller but still significant risks to pedestrians and drivers.
Of course there are times when following the rules is unnecessary, but these should be the exceptions because:
1) People wildly overestimate their talents (something like 90% of drivers think they’re above average, for example) so arguments involving some sort of superior knowledge or ability are likely specious.
2) Rules are really there to facilitate common understanding–I know where I want to go, of course, but I don’t have a clue where the person in the car/on the bike/on the sidewalk near me wants to go. But if we all agree to stop at a stop sign, we can proceed reasonably and reduce accidents–which is a nice benefit for everyone trying to share limited urban spaces.
3) We can change rules if we don’t like them. If most people–drivers, bikers, pedestrians–are not stopping at a particular stop sign, we should either consider enforcing the law or we should change it.
4) Minimizing the threats posed by bikes to pedestrians is silly; for example, this past weekend, I was walking my dog with my mother (who is a senior citizen) when a bike shot by us at 20 miles an hour about 1-2 feet from where we were crossing legally in the intersection. This is not nearly the risk posed by a truck to a bike, etc.; that said, it’s a serious risk–my mom, who weighs about 100 pounds, could very easily have been very injured.
More to the point, most people get around in several ways–by public transportation, car, bike, on foot, etc. As someone who drives and gets around on foot, feeling threatened by bikes as a pedestrian makes me less sympathetic to the threats they face from cars; in turn, this probably makes me (consciously or not) less interested in sharing the road with bikers. (Similarly, the hostility really discourages environmentally friendly transportation–since, if everyone’s going to be antagonistic, you should probably get around in a big SUV that will manage a collision.)
None of this is to say that blind faith in following traffic laws is the greatest moral value ever–of course, there are situations where they make no sense (I don’t really care if you roll through a stop sign at 3 a.m.), and of course, people are people, and will break rules. I try my best not to speed too much, but I do from time to time…
But that said, I think it’s reasonable to think that when discussing how to share and use urban streets and spaces, we should want more, not less, shared understanding of how others will be getting around to make sharing that space safer and less antagonistic. And arguing that our focus on planning for cars is absurd–which it is–doesn’t change the need for people to recognize they should try to share spaces with others in thoughtful ways.
August 11th, 2009 at 9:16 am
Ryan,
I think answering criticism of lawless bikers by complaining about rule breaking drivers is kind of ridiculous. I’m an avid biker, but when i drive I speed, I occaisionally change lanes without a signal and out in the rural midwest I’ve done a hell of a lot of rolling stops at stop signs. That said, as a biker when I was living in the city, I stopped at stoplights, stayed off of sidewalks and tried to not weave in lanes. We shouldn’t be copmaring bikes to cars, we should be urging fellow riders to follow rules and become more culturally acceptable and normal. If everyone road their bike sometime on the roads, then we would all understand the difficulties it is of being a biker. If we all followed the rules better while biking, cars would get angry at bikers left often and would better respect the rules of the road.
August 11th, 2009 at 10:01 am
In a city, most streets (around here anyway) are 25 mph or 40 kmh max. That’s maximum–it should be less if there’s traffic or bad weather. That means that most of the time cars shouldn’t be driving faster than bikes (except perhaps on uphills). If they do need to overtake a slow bike, they should wait until there is an appropriate lane, then signal, move over into another lane, and then signal to move back into the original lane.
Just as they would for another vehicle.
If it’s not safe, the car should slow down and follow the bike until there’s an appropriate place to change lanes. But it seems that the minor inconvenience of slowing down until a safe opportunity to pass is worth endangering the lives of cyclists.
There are written rules of the road and cultural rules. It’s important to follow both, and there are inconsiderate idiots using all sorts of modes of transportation.
August 11th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Patrick Appel is quite the tool for not allowing a response to his bogus misinformation. The real fact is Bicyclists were instrumental in roadbuilding in America long before cars were invented.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Roads_Movement
August 11th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Pierre L’Enfant was very forward looking, predicting the arrival of cars but not impeccable or he’d have known that global warming would drain the swamps by itself in a mere 300 years.
August 11th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
The question of whether bikes should have to stop at stop signs has been a divisive issue in the cycling community for the 30 years I’ve been biking.
Some, like Ryan, seem to believe that cyclists should “get theirs”. Others, like Matt Stephens appear to espouse good citizenship.
It’s similar to — although obviously less important than — the Booker T. Washington/ W.E.B. du Bois divide in civil rights. Do cyclists obey every law in order to be seen as responsible vehicles, or do they grow impatient with never be treated as equals and therefore rebel against a majority that disrespects them.
As the price of gasoline rises, there will be more and more pedestrians, cyclists and public transit users. The scattered minorities will become a plurality and we will assert our wishes on the roadways: bike-only streets, raised cross-walks, etc.
Until then, take it easy, because a bike never wins an argument with an SUV.
August 11th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Maybe in historic, high-population cities there would be roads without cars, but in Tupelo, Mississippi or Ogden, Utah there would never be a road or more than a few hundred visitors without cars to get there. I think Patrick’s point was you need to get out more often and see how the non-DC/New York set live. If you used a car perhaps you could do this. Or if you had children. This reminds me of an Yglesias post except you didn’t fit in a Scandinavia reference.
And seriously can you not see the difference between breaking the speed limit with everyone else by 10mph and running stop signs?
August 11th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
I cycle to work everyday, and at worst I roll through stop signs, just as I would in a car. What I don’t do in a car, nor on my bike, is zip through a stop sign regardless if other cars made it there before me, or a pedestrian is crossing. My blood boils when I see cyclists pass through a stop sign at full speed without even so much as acknowlegding the presence of other vehicles or pedestrians.
August 11th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Leave Segways out of this; they’re perfectly safe to have on the sidewalks and people would realize this if it weren’t for the bikes serving as a bad example. Or if more than a tiny fraction of people out there had ever tried them or knew anything about them.
August 11th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Pre-auto streets weren’t for bicycles either so it isn’t clear how your insight refutes Appel’s point. People had horse-drawn carriages and then horseless carriages.
I’m a cyclist. I live in one of places in the country where ‘alternative’ transportation actually is significant. But I would never be so vain as to think that anyone would pay the taxes they do for roads (roads, not paved bike paths) if we weren’t so heavily reliant on vehicles both for commuting but also for the movement of all the various goods we rely upon. (How many pallets of lettuce or shampoo can you fit on a bicycle?) Appel is quite correct.
August 11th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
I’m with Matt Stevens on this.
I live in Chicago, have a car that I drive to the grocery store/out of town, frequently bike, and take public trans to work, which involves walking to the office. Behind the wheel I have never come close to hitting anyone on foot or on a bike. Walking, yes, cars make right hand turns to jump the light in front of you all the time. I’ve had bikes try and get through an yellow light and have to swerve as I’m walking in the crosswalk since the white light came on. And lets not talk about the men in my neighborhood who think it’s ok to ride their bikes on the sidewalk…
One point that needs to be made to cyclists (at least here): never, EVER, ride up on the left side of a vehicle. Not only are they not expecting you to, but you *shouldn’t* be there — this either puts you between two vehicles going the same direction or two vehicles in opposite directions (you are riding on the center line). I’ve never understood the difficulty in waiting behind a car in a lane at a light; they’re going to get going faster than you and if you jump out front you’re holding up traffic worse than if you’re a whopping two car lengths back.
August 11th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
james asks: And seriously can you not see the difference between breaking the speed limit with everyone else by 10mph and running stop signs?
No, I can’t really see the difference between speeding by 10 mph and a ‘boulevard stop’ or its bicycle equivalent. They’re both routine, minor, and usually harmless infractions.
August 11th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
jen: One point that needs to be made to cyclists (at least here): never, EVER, ride up on the left side of a vehicle.
Two situations, among many, where this is necessary, proper, and legal: 1) passing a car making a right turn, 2) when the cyclist is preparing to make a left turn. And one more explanation–a cyclist sitting in traffic is breathing in everything the cars ahead spit out, unfiltered. It’s much pleasanter for my aveoli if I skip the line.
While I’m sure it can annoy drivers, I’ve never had close call due to passing cars on the left. I have had some crashes while riding on the right margin, with drivers turning through me or cutting me off. Strange as it may seem, the middle is generally safer.
August 11th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Here in Montreal, the City had invested heavily in accommodating cyclists - there is now a vast network of dedicated bike lanes and a pick up/drop off ‘public’ bike system (the Bixi programme), etc. These are wonderful and worthwhile achievements. However,some cyclists - by far not the majority but still a considerable number - deliberately eschew the bike paths and insist on riding in the more fast paced 50 km roads within the city. It seems that there will always be a certain contingent of cyclists who believe that cars are evil period. Sigh.
August 11th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Ben (#18), one more situation where bikes can pass cars on the left (an expansion of #3):
When overtaking another bicycle or vehicle. At least in California (CVC s.21202). One of the advantages of commuting on a bike is that very often you are able to bypass auto traffic that is stopped or slow. Bicycles (or any vehicle) should only pass other vehicles on the left (again, in CA — space and safety permitting).
August 12th, 2009 at 8:57 am
I argued with my girlfriend about this recently so when I went out for a bike ride on Monday night, I decided to stop at red lights. On two occasions that night I was stopped next to a car at a red light waiting for it to turn green when the car got sick of waiting and just drove through the red light. On one occasion it was a police car that couldn’t even be bothered to turn on its sirens to at least pretend it was on its way to an emergency.
August 12th, 2009 at 10:50 am
It’s funny to talk about bikers, pedestrians, and automobile drivers as though they were different classes of people. I can look at a guy on a bike and tell you what kind of car he drives & how he drives it because, behaviorally, you aren’t going to see differences. I could be wrong about the pedestrians; living in the midwest, one sees few of them.
Bikers in Kansas City right now tend to be pretty conscientious & do a lot to educate one another about rights/responsibilities. We have a lot of quiet roads from which to select our routes. It’s also a very small community, and if you live here you likely are only one degree of separation from any person on any block, which in theory should create a lot of empathy for strangers and accountability for one’s acts.
I think, though, that the empathy tends to go in the wrong direction and we have become too tolerant of negligence.
Often, I wonder whether the biker is suspect because the culture of charging through barely-red lights, veering, clipping corners, and speeding through residential streets whilst chatting blithely on a cell phone is already there, and the person on the bike is seen as having made the decision to put him or herself on a probable path toward martyrdom in order to change the status quo. Seriously, who likes a martyr? It’s the essence of passive aggression. I don’t know any biker who doesn’t go to great lengths to avoid getting struck by a car, although I know that’s not a good statistical sample. Still, I’d be willing to bet against it.
At any rate, that’s not why I ride. Biking creates a buffer between home and work & makes me feel thrillingly alive. I also think it’s the right thing to do, since I’m strong and healthy and live only 5 quiet miles from where I work.
I agree with Jimo that the roads are important/funded for transporting goods, but they also need to work for transporting people, and we should be thinking about sustainability. It takes few resources to keep a bike in good shape and on the road.
August 12th, 2009 at 11:05 am
I live in DC, and travel through a combination of bus, car, and walking.
I don’t particularly dislike bikers as a driver, but as a pedestrian, I actively HATE them. As in, would be happy to witness a fatal accident involving any random biker and a large truck.
I have been run down by a biker while crossing in a crosswalk with the light. I have had many, many near misses.
Bikers are terrorists and should be banned from city streets where people are walking. Either that, or they should simply learn to stop for stop lights like drivers of other vehicle.s
August 12th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Excellent point on the rampant lawbreaking of drivers and cyclists.
I will follow your moral lead on this issue. Let one ‘group’ begin strictly obeying / respecting the rules and only then will I provide my outrage at others transgressions. Until all others are sufficiently holy, I will make no effort to be so myself. They were probably (who can know at this point!) wrong first, so I shall be wrong last.
August 12th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
And seriously can you not see the difference between breaking the speed limit with everyone else by 10mph and running stop signs?
Sure, running stop signs on a bicycle is pretty much completely safe, so long as you stop first, and make sure no traffic is coming. Breaking the speed limit by 10mph (with everyone else) is markedly more dangerous to everyone else who’s not in a car.
While we’re on the subject of arrogant, entitled douchebaggery:
I live in DC, and travel through a combination of bus, car, and walking….As in, would be happy to witness a fatal accident involving any random biker and a large truck….I have been run down by a biker while crossing in a crosswalk with the light. I have had many, many near misses.
Hey, no problem, you got your wish last year, when Alice Swanson got run down. You must have walked around smiling for a week.
August 14th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
There is, indeed, a highly reasonable proposal that stop signs by treated as yields by cyclists and red lights as stop signs.
In this town in outer suburban NE Ohio, I often do what is called a “California stop” locally, which is prepare to stop while looking both ways. And, yes, I know that its not legal and, no, I don;t go through a stop sign without stopping if there’s traffic.
But I don’t pass stopped cars on the right. That’s both illegal and stupid … it ranks right up there on the list of ways a cycle commuter can get hisself kilt. The comment regarding “never pass on the left” is absurd … always pass on the left. Its insane to expect that any of the drivers out there have learned special habits just for coping with cyclists … its far, far safer to cycle in ways that trigger their “coping with cars” reflexes.