A Real Auto Bailout: Escape Your Car
http://sec.online.wsj.com/article/SB122996650443826683.html

Next they’ll be telling layed off auto workers to move to Cuba to get better health care.

http://www.cyclecraft.co.uk/digest/research.html

Thanks for your explication and elucidation.

I am also a professional advocate for bicycle transportation for the last six years, a Masters of Science in Urban Planning, and a resident of the neighborhood in which the crash occured (as described in The Capital Times, one of Madison’s daily newspapers).

The Capital Times erroneously described the facility the cyclist was riding upon as a bike lane. It is not a bike lane, it is a bike path (a facility separated from the street itself, usually by distance, sometimes by physical barriers), also sometimes called a bike trail).
Furthermore, it is (in that particular location, anyway), a very poorly designed bike path, as it is nearly immediately adjacent to the roadway, which of course creates dangerous conflict points at every cross street.
Those of us in the business call those sidepaths, and they are generally to be avoided (unless there are no or very few cross streets, as in the case of one local sidepath situated between an arterial and a lake).
See the League of Illinois Bicyclists’ excellent worksheet on scoring sidepath designs for suitability:
http://bikelib.org/roads/blos/sidepathform.htm

this is the same design principle that leads traffic engineers to, e.g., detour frontage roads away from the limited access highways they are adjacent to at the cross streets, and to prohibit or discourage curb cuts (drieways) in close proximity to intersections.

If the facility in question had actually been a bike LANE instead of a sidepath, the driver of the truck that (failed to yield as it) turned right into the cyclist’s path would have had a much harder time making the argument that he failed to see the cyclist, since he would have had to pass the cyclist in order to cut him off.

This crash is not, as the blogger asserts, evidence that bicycle lanes are all bad. It IS evidence that this particular bicycle facility (which, again, isn’t a lane at all) is very poorly designed.

Unfortunately, there isn’t really anyplace else for this sidepath to go in this location, so it isn’t likely to be redesigned anytime soon to increase the distance of the sidepath from the adjacent roadway.

Perhaps a better solution is to eliminate the adjacent roadway altogether, as it was originally built as a (one-way, afternoon/outbound) means to allow commuter (motor vehicle) traffic to bypass a local business district. Of course, that was one of the factors in the subsequent death of the local business district. The recent resurgence of this business district would be encouraged if the motor vehicle traffic once again drove past it on the drivers’ way out of the city into the burbs where they park there cars. This is not as outrageous as it sounds, and I am not the only one with this idea: http://www.goodbye-eastwood.org/

Finally, while it is true that there are advocates that are against bike lanes (indeed, some are against any facility specific to bicycles at all), having attended three biannual international conferences of professional bicycle and pedestrian advocates and presented at one, I would hazard the guess that the ranks of advocates who are in favor of WELL DESIGNED bicycle facilities far outnumbers those who are against them. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily make us right; it merely makes us more popular, literally.

Sincerely,

Chuck Strawser
Project Coordinator
Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin
http://www.bfw.org

p.s. I am currently on leave from BFW and probably won’t respond to messages sent to my work address in a timely manner. Posting from my personal address

Living as I do in a place that has very good cycling infrastructure, I can wholeheartedly say that I’d rather live with it than without it.

The effort that Mikael mentions above to mimic Copenhagen’s transportation infrastructure exists as an organized effort in the U.S. too. It’s called Complete Streets, and it could always use a little more popular support… (hint, hint.)

The times they are a’changing. Here in Copenhagen, it’s just a normal part of life. I hope that other cities will invest in the necessary infrastructure and development of bike culture.

http://copenhagengirlsonbikes.blogspot.com/

Indeed, driving is so ingrained in the psyche of most people that there’s just no imagining life without the motor vehicle. Vulgar doesn’t even begin to describe it. Let’s try omnipresent, pervasive and inescapable on for size. The monotony has resulted in swarms of crappy, inattentive drivers, desensitized to the sheer violence, banality and ugliness of motoring.

Today was one of those mercifully rare instances that required me to drive someplace on behalf of my employer. I won’t miss it, not even just a little bit, it when I hop back on the bike tomorrow.