Jump to content

Bicyclist


Recommended Posts

What good are bike laws if they aren't enforced? I knew a guy who was pulled for running a light (on a bike). Once issued the citation, he went to the court to appeal it. The judge laughed at the ticket and said, "Don't waste my time with this."

Link to comment
Share on other sites


  • Replies 61
  • Created
  • Last Reply

"Also, for those of you saying that cars also break laws, how many cars do you see, in broad daylight at major intersections, stop for a red light, look both ways, then cruise right thru it? I would say slim to none."

How many cyclsits have you seen doing 50+ mph in a 30 mph zone, weaving in and out of traffic with wreckless abandon?

How many people were killed this year by wreckless cyclists?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know the Bike laws and they stink. If they are allowed on the road they should be required to pass a test, get a license AND license their bike. Is that too much to ask? For some of you environment wackos it is.

Yes, because doing the same for motorists has eliminated speeding, wreckless driving, DUI's, and aggressive driving.

:rofl:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know the Bike laws and they stink. If they are allowed on the road they should be required to pass a test, get a license AND license their bike. Is that too much to ask? For some of you environment wackos it is.
I'm sorry to hear that you think the bike laws stink. Just live by them or pay the price.

I'd be happy to see a police officer pull over and ticket a cyclist who runs a red light, or a pack of bicyclists egregiously blocking traffic for miles and miles as you say they're so apt to do. Red lights are definitely a problem, but the vast majority of cyclists that I've ever seen are solo, ride to the right of the road when possible and safe, and allow cars to pass with minimal to no delay.

If you're in so much of a hurry that you can't handle it when a cyclist practicing vehicular cycling and following the rules of the road causes you to slow down to 20mph for 15 seconds around a single blind corner, then you have other issues. (patience, anger, agression, etc) And if you're paranoid enough to think that cyclists are getting a kick out of getting in your way then maybe you'd better see someone about that before you get behind the wheel again - you may a ticking timebomb, a greater danger to society than you realize.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As a (further) south charlotte biker, currently only for fun/errands (with rack/crate sometimes even), but as one that bike commuted from myers park to Matthews for a couple years, I offer the following observations:

1) Drivers in general give adequate clearance to someone riding ~1ft from the edge of the road. City bus drivers are probably the most generous with bike leeway, school bus drivers are by far the worst.

2) probably 3 out of the 5 days a week when commuting, but only rarely now (I'm generally not on the road during rush hour anymore), there would be the driver that would floor it and honk as they pass, or toss coins, or insert other self important action here...

3) On other bikers - I haven't seen many bad examples of riding lately - sure around the Booty loop there are lots of middle aged guys on way too expensive bikes taking up the whole lane, but that's nearly an accepted, year round bike lane at this point - which is good to see.

4) Sugar Creek Greenway - does anyone know when this will be complete? It would be great to have a flat, bikeable path from the south charlotte neighborhoods into downtown - though the light rail will be running well before then, so that will be the preferred commute for me anyway.

Charlotte, while not exactly a walkable city, or even one with many walkable neighborhoods, is actually pretty well set up for bike-culture in most pre-1980's neighborhoods. (that seems to be the point at which sprawl development assumed everyone had a car and things got really spaced out) There are tons of affordable residential properties within an easy 5 min bike ride of groceries and casual restaurants across south and east charlotte - while we recently had bike week (May 5-14) the city council in general should recognize this and try to encourage/grow the idea of a bike based short-trip infrastructure.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4) Sugar Creek Greenway - does anyone know when this will be complete? It would be great to have a flat, bikeable path from the south charlotte neighborhoods into downtown - though the light rail will be running well before then, so that will be the preferred commute for me anyway.

The next section is set to gt underway in a few weeks. All of the contracts have been assigned, and demolition of properties in the way is set to begin this summer. It will take 18 months to complete the Greenway up to 7th st.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Charlotte, while not exactly a walkable city, or even one with many walkable neighborhoods

Boy, ain't that the truth! That is one thing great about where I grew up (Royal Oak - a sub of Detroit) was that you could walk anywhere. In neighborhoods, they had sidewalks on both sides and most main roads had sidewalks. I grew up walking everywhere...Malls, resturants, stores...it was great. It was so nice to walk up to the Dairy Queen on a hot day. Down here in Charlotte, you take you life in your hands many times to walk or there is just no store nearby (due to zoning laws).

I love the idea of neighborhood stores such as Baxter sorta has.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Boy, ain't that the truth! That is one thing great about where I grew up (Royal Oak - a sub of Detroit) was that you could walk anywhere. In neighborhoods, they had sidewalks on both sides and most main roads had sidewalks. I grew up walking everywhere...Malls, resturants, stores...it was great. It was so nice to walk up to the Dairy Queen on a hot day. Down here in Charlotte, you take you life in your hands many times to walk or there is just no store nearby (due to zoning laws).

I love the idea of neighborhood stores such as Baxter sorta has.

Well the city is trying to address that in the new Transit Action Plan. I believe 5% of future transportation dollars over the next 25 years are required to go to pedestrian improvements.

It is a start.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Boy, ain't that the truth! That is one thing great about where I grew up (Royal Oak - a sub of Detroit) was that you could walk anywhere. In neighborhoods, they had sidewalks on both sides and most main roads had sidewalks. I grew up walking everywhere...Malls, resturants, stores...it was great. It was so nice to walk up to the Dairy Queen on a hot day. Down here in Charlotte, you take you life in your hands many times to walk or there is just no store nearby (due to zoning laws).

I love the idea of neighborhood stores such as Baxter sorta has.

Truely. I try as much as possible to walk to get groceries or other places that are within walking distance. I bike too, but I stick to side streets. You couldn't pay me to ride on Park or South Blvd. It's scary enough driving with a steel frame around you, a helmet is just not enough. Unfortunetly people feel the need to speed, dart through traffic and drive aggressevly. If the city would just do more for the main roads. I often walk along Park Rd. between Seneca and Woodlawn. The sidewalk is about 3ft wide and is just an extension of the curb in some sections. One slip, trip or fall and you could be under a truck. I hope that 5% will be enough.

I recently got back from a trip to Germany. I was amazed at the amount of people that ride bikes as commuters over there. It would really be a great model for US cities to look to. R&W, you would have been in biker heaven. Dedicated bike lanes on almost every major road (marked). Where the lane was not on the street it was painted onto the sidewalk in bright red (20ft wide sidwalks help too). And there were actually signals specifically for bikes, complete with red yellow and green. Oh yeah, and parking lots for bikes near the main transit stations and around the center city/shopping district.

Charlotte has alot of work to do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Charlotte is improving.

All urban commercial zoning districts now require bike racks on site, and the new recategorizing of streets will require all new streets to include provisions for bicycles, with the busies of streets (i.e. Harris Blvd) to have separate bike paths set back from the road. Existing streets will have to be updated if the ROW and funding allows.

OFF TOPIC - Has anyone noticed a huge increase in the number of Vespas and other scooters this year?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Charlotte is improving.

All urban commercial zoning districts now require bike racks on site, and the new recategorizing of streets will require all new streets to include provisions for bicycles, with the busies of streets (i.e. Harris Blvd) to have separate bike paths set back from the road. Existing streets will have to be updated if the ROW and funding allows.

OFF TOPIC - Has anyone noticed a huge increase in the number of Vespas and other scooters this year?

Yes, the cycling community has had some great victories in the last few years. I look forward to seeing the city evolve.

Scooter sales are up. The Honda Metropolitan can be found for around 1600$. We plan on buying one next year instead of a car.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OFF TOPIC - Has anyone noticed a huge increase in the number of Vespas and other scooters this year?

Yeah, I have too. I actually came across this little scene walking down Park one day back in May. There were over 50 vespas there, and a very diverse group of riders.

large.jpg

large.jpg

large.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A scooter rider was killed last night just off South Blvd.

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/new...ws/15112883.htm

Cyclists are killed all the time around here.

I actually think this is a direct effect of suburbanization. People live so far from where they need to go, so to avoid impacts on their daily schedule, they drive like a bat out of hell. Maybe I should say "we" as I am guilty of it too. I find, however, that when I'm in and around uptown going to places in and around uptown, I'm just driving normally. For short trips, people don't drive so fast, or worry if a pedestrian is crossing the street, or cyclist is in the lane, or some granny in a Skylark is testing whether she can prolong her life by going as slow as she can.

It is a social and personal consequence of our excessively high vehicle-miles traveled per day.

In Europe, people's worlds tend to be within a few, ahem, kilometers of their homes, so they can ride their bikes, go slower, walk, motorscooter, even ride the tram. They aren't going that far. Meanwhile, it is expected that there will be bicyclists along the streets, so people act accordingly.

There is an example of a major intersection in a town in Holland that used to be a very complicated and busy intersection. It had so many accidents and deaths, with car on car, car on pedestrian, car on cyclist collisions happening daily. Finally they tried an experiment, they removed all pavement markings, all lights, made the sidewalk flush with the roadway, and put in a little roundabout. The accidents now are few and far between. The idea is that people now interact with eachother and figure it out as human beings, and not some sort of machinery system relying on lights and painted lines to solve every possible permutation of movement.

I think we are in that situation right now all over the place. We are in a hurry, because our world is too spread out, and we must use our cars to get there quickly, forgetting the fragility of all the lives we pass by on the way.

But dammit, Reverb, you're in my way! ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good to see the Vespa/scooter meet - I'm in the process of selling my car in favor of one (prob. a brand new LX 150 - silver or black) - so if anyone wants an older volvo...

Back to bikes - while more pedestrian/bike friendly codes cover new development, is there any force or initiative to fix existing roads/developments that are not on the light rail corridor?

Here's my list of fix-its requested:

- Bike lanes on all the 'secondary' arteries into downtown - while Providence/Park/South are to varying degrees a lost cause for bike/human traffic, the smaller roads - Central, Kings, Davidson even, could be modified to be more of a pedestrian corridor in their last couple of miles before coming into downtown.

- Bike Boxes: while racks are nice, coming out of work to see a frame with no wheels or seat illustrates the problem with that technology. Fully enclosed boxes in parking garages downtown and at transit stops for a small fee ($.50/day or whatever) would make bike commuting that much easier.

- More no turn on red intersections - I can't count the number of drivers that see that as no-stopping-on-red either. It makes intersections that even have nice crosswalks and signage rather dangerous for pedestrians.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good to see the Vespa/scooter meet - I'm in the process of selling my car in favor of one (prob. a brand new LX 150 - silver or black) - so if anyone wants an older volvo...

Back to bikes - while more pedestrian/bike friendly codes cover new development, is there any force or initiative to fix existing roads/developments that are not on the light rail corridor?

Here's my list of fix-its requested:

- Bike lanes on all the 'secondary' arteries into downtown - while Providence/Park/South are to varying degrees a lost cause for bike/human traffic, the smaller roads - Central, Kings, Davidson even, could be modified to be more of a pedestrian corridor in their last couple of miles before coming into downtown.

- Bike Boxes: while racks are nice, coming out of work to see a frame with no wheels or seat illustrates the problem with that technology. Fully enclosed boxes in parking garages downtown and at transit stops for a small fee ($.50/day or whatever) would make bike commuting that much easier.

Well the TAP calls for the addition of bike lanes whenever possible during any road resurfacing/widening.

As for bike boxes: I have been arguing for them for many months. Parking garage owners have claimed that they are terrorism risks since someone could put a bomb in them. They couldn't answer me how a bike box is any different than the trunk of a car or van. :angry:

It is in the works. We have made progress with the city and several companies building large projects in the city. Hopefully you will see some more info soon.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Excellent post, dubone.

I think you're exactly right, and it's unfortunate that many people (myself included) don't realize how inconsiderate and selfish "driving like a bat out of hell" to maintain reasonable schedules can be. Perhaps this partly explains why cul-de-sacs are so popular because people have so far to drive that we are prone to drive too fast, trampling anything in the way between origin and destination. If we didn't have so far to drive we wouldn't need to drive so fast, and streets with thru-traffic wouldn't be 'undesirable'.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wonder if Charlotte will ever get to a point where bikes can be shared on an honor system. Kind of similar to Zipcar at Chapel Hill except even less pricey for users. Many people want to use bicycles but purchasing a new roadworthy and safe bicycle can be very expensive. A program like this could widen the option to more people.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In Europe, people's worlds tend to be within a few, ahem, kilometers of their homes, so they can ride their bikes, go slower, walk, motorscooter, even ride the tram. They aren't going that far. Meanwhile, it is expected that there will be bicyclists along the streets, so people act accordingly.

Ahh, but Europeans are willing to make sacrifices on property rights that we find unpalatable here. In the scheme of things Europeans are not building cities where there are a few expensive highrises surrounded by hundreds of square miles of suburban low density development. That has been going on here for 100 years and there is not yet a politican on the Charlotte city council that is willing to put a stop to it.

Even along the transit lines, you have groups such as the Dilworth HOA that wants to put the kabosh on higher density development because they feel the highrises will ruin their neighborhood of suburban houses.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ahh, but Europeans are willing to make sacrifices on property rights that we find unpalatable here.

I feel we have already made too many concessions to property rights. The Supreme Court keeps taking away the greatest right that man has that being property.

If people want to live out in the "burbs" in a nice big house with a big yard, why is that wrong?

I also don't like comparing us to the Europeans. That is what we were trying to get away from 200 years ago, not conform to them.

A great read is "This Land Is Our Land: How to End the War on Private Property" by Richard Pombo and Joseph Farah.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I feel we have already made too many concessions to property rights. The Supreme Court keeps taking away the greatest right that man has that being property.

If people want to live out in the "burbs" in a nice big house with a big yard, why is that wrong?

I also don't like comparing us to the Europeans. That is what we were trying to get away from 200 years ago, not conform to them.

A great read is "This Land Is Our Land: How to End the War on Private Property" by Richard Pombo and Joseph Farah.

I find it odd how on one hand you can long for more government in terms of making cities more walkable, but then lament the very tactics required to make that happen.

If people want complete control over their land, then they should move out into the deep country. In the city's urban core, you have to concede alot of control in order to maintain a functioning and sustainable city.

The city took 20 feet off the back of my property last year for a creek restoration. I know the city will eventually want another 4-6 feet off the front in order to make the sidewalk better. Such is life in a city.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I find it odd how on one hand you can long for more government in terms of making cities more walkable, but then lament the very tactics required to make that happen.

That is a fair point. I was referring to more developers though and the way the make neighborhoods these days with only one or no sidewalks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.