Being bike-friendly

Alan Durning raises a number of interesting points about making urban centres bike-friendly in the environmental blog Grist in a posting from last spring (see it at http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/5/18/12579/3294) .

It is a strange ethos that has city planners put sidewalks in places where few people walk, so that there is a continuity of pedestrian-friendly infrastructure, but seem rarely to consider bicycle lanes in the same light.

Bike lanes on too many roads in our Region begin without a connection to another bicycle route and end without a connection to another bicycle route.

I call it, "starts nowhere and ends nowhere." A "starts nowhere and ends nowhere" bike lane is like a bicycle-route demonstration project. Ride on Strasburg Road in Kitchener or Westmount Road in Waterloo if you want to see what I mean. You skrinch your way through traffic to get to the bike lane, have five minutes of confident cycling in a designated lane -- which in truth, is no more than a space demarcated by white paint, and violated by any motor vehicle that feels like doing so -- and then have to turn back onto some four-lane road jammed with impatient motorists. Yikes!

Even the best separate bicycle trail in KW, the Iron Horse Trail, starts nowhere and ends nowhere. Is this the future of bicycling for our urban areas? If you know a planner, flip her/him a copy of the above link, and ask the question.

Comments

[AlanM]

Okay, Bill, gotta call you on this one. "...violated by any motor vehicle that feels like doing so..."

Let's stop anthropomorphizing motor vehicles. They don't think, they don't feel, they don't decide to cross centre-lines, run red lights, speed, lose control or park in bike lanes. Motorists do. Snow, slippery streets, rain, darkness and other challenges don't cause crashes and other mishaps. Rather, motorists' poor judgement, lack of preparedness, inattention and other acts of irresponsible behaviour in dealing with these challenges do.

Our everyday language serves to create, nurture and sustain patterns of thinking and ways of perceiving and colouring reality.

Every time I hear or read a news or police report that says something like, "the car turned left and hit [whatever]", I cringe. Such language serves to unburden the responsibility and duty of care that vehicle operators have.

Such language also depersonalizes the consequences of our decisions and actions. If I believe that, "The rain hid the cyclist and my car hit her. What was I to do?" I'm not admitting and accepting responsibility for, "I wasn't paying enough attention when rain impaired my visibility. I was going too fast, couldn't slow soon enough, and hit the cyclist. It was my fault."

Please, let's use language that calls it for what it really is. Bike lanes are violated by motorists whenever they feel like it. Motorists are responsible. Their cars go where they steer them.
...alan

[Bill]

You got me on this one, Alan. It is absolutely the responsibility of the motorist to stay in his/her lane and not drift into the bike lane. The car doesn't drive itself.
Perhaps I was caught up in "cop-speak" where cars cross centre lines, and motorists appear to have simply been cargo.

[Jeff]

In a car, people are faceless, both figuratively and physically (especially in big cars). That's the way they look to me from the street, and I'm sure that's how some of the drivers feel. I think it's entirely appropriate to think of cars as entities, since they are literally extensions of the people inside.

[AlanM]

That's the whole point, Jeff. Using language that portrays cars as sentient entities reinforces any lurking tendency to dismiss the driver's responsibilities.

Instead, we need to overcome that tendency by taking every opportunity to reinforce that cars are controlled entirely by their drivers, either directly through hands-on action, or indirectly through inaction, inattention, indecision or misjudgement.

Language is a powerful yet subtle tool. Let's use it in support of more responsible behaviour.
...alan

[Jeff]

I definitely agree that it's up to the drivers to maintain safe control of their vehicles. However, I'm simply theorizing about the way drivers feel in their cars, in an attempt to explain why they act the way they do. Quite simply, *some* people change when they're driving a car. They aren't courteous, they aren't forgiving, and they feel superior to others. They're like... machines.

When I'm out there sharing the road with two-ton steel boxes it's helpful, at least for me, to remember this change in personality. It keeps me safer, but it's also an interesting study in psychology.

Of course I hope that eventually through driver education and increased numbers of cyclists on the road (thanks to higher gas prices, mostly) that the motorhead personality will fade a little, making the roads safer for everyone.