Probably (hopefully?) my last post in this post…

I think the message needs to stop being “share the road” with cyclists. Car drivers are only the de facto owners of road infrastructure. But under the law all vehicles have a right to be there. The message “share the road” reinforces the perception that drivers own the road and that cyclists should be accommodated if you’re feeling generous.

My perspective is that a bicycle (piloted responsibly) is entitled to the road as much as any car. Drivers don’t “share the road” with other drivers. When a car is using a lane, it is unavailable to the other drivers — no sharing. Cars drive the road until they’re done. Follow behind or go around but there is no sharing.

I was hauling myself into work at 22mph this morning down a two lane, 35mph road with light traffic. A 20 ft long box truck passed me too closely. By the time the rear of the truck was passing me, it’s side panel was less than a rear view mirror’s length from my shoulder. Any sensible driver passed by a big truck at this distance would be irate.

As usual, I caught the driver at the next light. I politely told him he passed me too closely and next time, would he please change lanes when passing cyclists. He rolled down his window, awkwardly apologized and drove off. I really hope he listened.

Indeed – enforcement and education – those should be easy primary priorities, but taking into account how the city is run – they’d hire an expensive advertising agency to “craft” a message that says, “Don’t hit people on bicycles.” – and not remember to save some money for actually getting the message to the citizens. If someone in government were clever, they would talk to CalArts (or another local university) and have students work on crafting an educational campaign as a class project…

I do think that the city would cop the “no money” plea when it came to enforcement – the active enforcement of vehicle violations is pretty much non-existent as far as I can tell, with the city preferring to concentrate on subcontracting the cash cow of parking tickets to roaming ghouls in those little white cars. Periodically I do see cops on bicycles at Fairfax & 3rd. It seems that they mostly ride around a one hundred yard stretch on the east side of Fairfax looking for people without seat belts (and now cell phones?) to pull over – they’ll also ticket the occasional jaywalker. But this is maybe once a month, if that. In the actual intersection there is no enforcement of the left turn lights… As an aside – last week I was crossing the street with a friend and an SUV blew through the left turn light and almost lit an old lady that had started across. When a bunch of us started yelling at the idiot – and I shit you not – he took the phone from his right ear and waved it at us as if to say, “Can’t you see I’m busy talking on the phone!”

I think one of the keys to bettering the cycle situation is just achieving a critical mass of cyclists on a daily basis – what that number might be I don’t know. If our mayor wanted to champion a cause, doing something (for real) to encourage more cycling at a time when gas prices are through the roof could be a winner…

I understand the sentiment that we can’t change driver behavior in a cycling positive way. I just think it’s inaccurate. I believe that the cellphone law will, over the long term, reduce the number of drivers holding cellphones to their ears. Whether or not that makes anyone safer is another question. But we’re eight days in. This will take some time.

And I’m agreeing with you that it would be SOOOOOOOOO awesome to have a network of safe bike streets. And I think we should move in that direction too. I also want to see better public transit and with that, better accommodation for bikes on it.

I’m suggesting we not overlook simple, easy to implement and cost effective measures like enforcement of the current laws which can make a difference nowish. At least, the sooner we start the sooner we change behavior. New well thought out bike infrastructure will take lots of planning, impact assessments, and combating the inevitable pockets of neighborhood opposition to the routing of those sweaty cheapskate cyclists (or whatever form it takes). And bike advocates are working on better infrastructure — I’ve heard about organizing focused turning 4th into a bike street (hooray!).

There are lots of things that can be done and as a commuter cyclist I do want them all now. But considering the obstacles, maybe we can pick the cheap and easy ones first.

All I’m saying is that hedging one’s bets by implementing safer lanes for bikes can only help. It only takes one door opening or a numbskull swerving as they spill their late in their lap to cause a rider to have a very bad day – reducing the potential for unpleasant interaction doesn’t seem like a bad idea.

I’m sorry that my ass and I seem to have a gloomy opinion of Los Angeles drivers and the funds available from the city for continuous pro-cycle projects. We’ll try to be more positive in the future.

I have probably had equal parts good/bad interactions with cops. The good is never stellar (I mean, what do you expect, cops to stop and help you fix your flat?), but cops are not universally against bikes. I find it’s more the idiot cops who make up the laws as they go along. The cops everyone fears anyway.

As for education/enforcement not working, I feel you’re talking out of your ass. Or did you miss that whole “hands free cellphone earpiece thing” campaign? Or seatbelt laws. Or the water saving measures of the late 80s, early 90s (wtf, when are those coming back?). You educate, then you enforce. It’s not perfect but increased enforcement and an advertising campaign is way cheaper and politically viable than city wide infrastructure changes. Ideally, we get both. But my pragmatic side says we can gain a lot using tactics that have been used in California before.

It will generate revenue (which the cities like) it’ll make cycling safer (which the future will like). WeHo, just enforce the California Vehicle Code.

But the problem with every bike lane I’ve ever traveled is they are the width of a car door. So cyclists must ride on the left edge of a bike lane to maintain a safe distance to react to opening doors or avoid the parking tards blocking the bike lane. Then there’s that section of the Venice blvd. bike lane where residents leave their trash cans in the bike lane for collection.

As for sidewalk riding, I guess it’s OK as long as you’re moving the speed of a jogger so everyone has time to react to the unstructured pedestrian traffic.

I can maintain 20 MPH and am FAR safer (for myself and others) as part of the relatively predictable (compared to the sidewalk) street traffic.