Pasadena is stepping up.
I was reminded of our feat in LB.
“It’s not a bicycle master plan – it’s a roadmap toward a people-prioritizing city. You should support it even if you swear you’ll never ride a bike.”
Today’s dose of Advocacy
Posted March 10th 2010 at 6:04 pm by bmckeever
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I liked Jen’s piece on the whole, especially “…a good bike plan rewards cyclists where they already travel in high volume… Safe bike lanes are essential in low-income neighborhoods with high rates of public transit use and bike dependence. ” I want to see Long Beach spend much more attention and effort in areas like Long Beach Blvd, where we see lots of bike travel, mostly on sidewalks…
But this part is more problematic for me: “The plan we need would build bike lanes that look and feel safe to even the most timid. They’d be buffered from cars by a physical barrier, as in Holland and New York. Where not buffered, bike lanes would run next to the sidewalk, with parked cars protecting them from moving cars, rather than the reverse.”
I think there’s a place for infrastructure like this, but it is really, really expensive, and there are lots of ways it can be implemented poorly and end up creating risks for cyclists at the inevitable areas where protected lane ends and meets street and sidewalk and driveway, etc… With the same amount of money, you can fund tons of Vehicular Cycling classes in every school and at large employers (in Pasadena, places like JPL come to mind), plus put down things like Sharrows that are powerful in their impact but don’t require putting down concrete. I think the idea of replicating Amsterdam in the US is untenable, and puts the emphasis on hoping government does something, when all we really need is education.