Stephan:

Sigurd:

PacMUle:i would LOVE to find out what company Mr. Martin Erzinger works at

Morgan Stanley.

Morgan Stanley didn't do anything wrong in this case. If you want register your anger, contact Bicycle Colorado or the local bike advocacy organization if there is one, and tell them you want to support a campaign to censure the DA who thinks this is how to enforce the law.

They are employing a person of low moral caliber who has used his status and income to avoid jail time. He shouldn't be trusted with client funds.

They should be boycotted until that situation is rectified.

As should the next firm who hires Mr. Erzinger.

HURT HIM. KEEP ON HIM FOR THE REST OF HIS SAD PATHETIC LIFE. THAT WILL SEND A MESSAGE.

And yeah, go after the DA as well.

Stephan:Morgan Stanley didn't do anything wrong in this case. If you want register your anger, contact Bicycle Colorado or the local bike advocacy organization if there is one, and tell them you want to support a campaign to censure the DA who thinks this is how to enforce the law.

Yes they did: they chose to employ that particular person, and, in some way, support the idea that he was too important to be punished as others, if I read the above correctly.

The other logic is, the DA will be swayed on the event if a public entity reacts heavily: that is, if MS decides to let him go, the DA will take note.

But I do agree that the DA has acted in a way that seems to be of extremely poor judgement and it would be great to to find out thier logic behind thier decision, if any.

PacMUle:build fould this a while ago when the story first broke.. .. . *** DA Mark Hurlbert may be reached (970) 393-2600 *** i would LOVE to find out what company Mr. Martin Erzinger works at.... im dieing to leave a comment or two on their site... or maybe e-mail some of their larger clients.... alas, i am not too savvy on how to find these things :face-sad:

Here's a somewhat long article that explains what a complete idiot D.A. Hurlbert is.

http://velonews.competitor.com/2010/12/news/the-explainer-thoughts-on-erzinger-and-why-i-wont-boycott-vail_153394

PacMUle:i wonder even, if this would have gotten the coverage it did without Milo being a well to do doctor?

Probably not.

Proof from Montreal, as if you needed it, that good weather isn't enough,and maybe isn't even necessary:

http://www.montrealgazette.com/travel/build+they+will+ride/4022475/story.html

San Francisco moves forward with bike-share plans

Long Beach bicyclists register their displeasure

Long Beach still has a bike registration law, and the fines are big: $400.

gavilan:I understand the issue for the businesses that could be affected. It is so sad to think that perhaps no parking spaces would need to be eliminated for the creation of a bike lane if only people in cars would be aware of bikes and would share -completely!- the streets. I wouldn't mind not riding on an assigned lane if I knew that the cars behind me were traveling at decent speeds and looking out for me.
If we could only all get along.
...I know. Wishful thinking. :face-plain:

If they aren't going to do bike lanes, It might be nice to have sharrows in one of the lanes there. I haven't ridden in a lane with sharrows yet, but it seems like they would be nice just as a visual affirmation to let cars know that bikes are allowed to use the full lane (since it seems most drivers don't understand this). It seems like business owners would be more open to sharrows vs getting rid of parking spots because sharrows (with bicyclists) would bring in more bikes and slow the overall speed of traffic in that lane.

I saw pictures of the first one on imperial ave, does anybody know if more will be popping up soon? It would be nice to have some on 30th.

http://www.alphabetsigns.com/signs/p/70060SH.html




Just kidding, of course. Just re-watched the Banksy 'documentary' since it's now available on netflix to watch instantly and this conversation reminded me of this:

http://laist.com/2009/12/08/16_fake_sharrows_appear_in_northeas.php

I wouldn't want to get caught painting rogue sharrows, but given how much difficulty the city seems to have with fixing pot holes or even doing a bit of street sweeping, I suspect that rogue sharrows might stick around for a while.

batmick:Maybe I am just too negative about the human race but I don't think sharrows help much. The type of person cyclists need to be protected from barely notice other cars and definitely do not pay attention to non-cars or any form of signage or street markings. And another type of "enemy", the aggressive drivers who don't believe any non-cars should even be on the streets , might actually be more enraged by these calls to share the road.

I think the only thing that would really help are traffic calming measures. Main bike thoroughfares need to have measures to slow down cars like this

I guess I'm not as negative as you (Wow! I didn't think anyone here was more negative than me!)

I don't think that there is any one single ultimate "solution". It's going to be a combination of things and context is always going to be important. Not every place can have separate facilities and separate facilities have their own issues.

For example, I notice in that picture that the bike path is directly next to (connected to) the pedestrian path with no separation. Maybe German pedestrians know to stay off the bike path. Not so here. That intersection is also going to be an issue. What percentage of U.S. drivers do you think will slow and/or stop to make sure that they don't collide with a bicycle there? Even if the light ahead is red, they will be wanting to move up to the front, especially if they're looking to make a right turn on red. They will have a tendency to stop in the crossing lines, blocking the bike path. Drivers travelling next to that path are likely to right hook a rider crossing from the path -- never even noticing a bicyclist on the path. Most will claim that the bicyclist crossed their path, rather than the other way around. Even left cross risk is increased because drivers coming from the other direction are less likely to look at the path. I'm not necessarily saying that that facility is bad, but it's far from perfect and you have to watch for that stuff when crossing.

Most collisions occur at intersections and driveways (which are really just a special kind of intersection). Separate paths are generally best when they are truly separate which that path is not. Crossing points are treacherous. We are less seen at the crossing points for those paths than we are on the road. I've only ridden the 56 MUP a few times but I had what could have been scary crossing issues like this while I had the green light. People making right turns do not think that they have to look out for or stop for a bike crossing the road. I had to surrender my legal right of way to idiots who weren't looking for me. I expected them to be idiots and didn't just cross just because I had the green. Otherwise I would have been hit. It happened every time I rode there (though again, I only rode it a few times -- maybe I was just extraordinarily unlucky).

Sharrows may enrage some idiots, but they will get over it. They certainly make sense when you can't really do anything else, which is what it's looking like the politics for India St. are making it turn out to be. There is no space to put in a separate facility. They're screaming bloody murder about the prospect of losing a few parking spaces to put in a bike lane.

Velo Cult:I'm not a fan of separated bike paths that skirt alongside of roadways like that. They force the rider to go really slow and it sets up a situations where drivers feel you should be kept in your place. It's OK if I were still allowed to ride on the street with the cars but is that very likely? I ride way too fast for that type of lane. Watch video's of riders in those lanes and they are all riding the same slower pace. You'll never get American's to do that. Bike Blvds please :-)

I agree with you and bill above. Separate lanes are not for everyone. But having them would encourage a lot of people to ride who now think it is too dangerous to cycle, I believe. In Munich I was also too fast for the different bike lanes in most places and used the city streets. That I could do over most of downtown because traffic calming measures and high volumes of cars reduced their speed to manageable levels for me. Along the main car channels (ring road and several main roads) traffic goes much faster and I was happy to remain in the bike lane. But when I was on my grocery getter and going slow or with frequent stops, the separate lanes were wonderful.
And people definitely do walk into the bike lanes and cars cross your path at intersections and at driveways in Munich. But since there is such widespread bike-infrastructure the majority of people (be it bikes, cars or on foot) have some level of awareness. It is unrealistic to demand a foolproof solution for everybody and personal responsibility should be required although I believe it is mostly dead here and dying back in Europe. Generation ME doesn't play well with others.
I only wish they took a fraction of the money they plan to use for that insane expansion of I5 and put it into developing alternative transportation and bike infrastructure. But again, my hopes for humanity are limited.

They'd also work better with more education. Most of my friends, who are knowledgeable about road markings, don't really know what they are. They only know because of me.

I had a pretty interesting conversation with two people in the news world. One is TV media, the other is a branch of oldstream media (newspapers) moving on to on line news. It seems they source thier local interest stories from scanning web forums and discussion list. they look for trending topics, intrestingly, she said that she watches for forums where discussion were not heated/full of the typical name calling (like seen on the comments sections of many news sites) and reads from there, sourcing people and interview candidates. Kind of funny how the news world has evovled and...how our seemingly innocous conversations become topics for more to read.

William.:

sd_mike:Most of my friends, who are knowledgeable about road markings, don't really know what they are.

So far on my extremely-lacking-in-science-FB-poll-test: no one knows what they are either.

I also did a quick poll at work and around my friends and only one person out of about 30 knew what it meant. Two sort of guessed in the right direction. Most of my friends are avid cyclists so this is even more telling!

Count me to the group that prefers clearly marked bike lanes without mandating people to use them. My thinking is that the more people ride bikes the bigger of an issue this will become and the more public pressure and awareness will lead to changes in street design. But to get people to use bikes in everyday life they need to feel safe and entitled, a feeling that bike lanes encourage (even if it is just perceived safety).

City is broke? We fix, no charge!

^^^^ Well said.

My FB sharrow test has results. I am now deeply concerned about my safety. Not with people I don't know. But with those I work with/used to work with. :face-devil-grin:

billd:Most people don't really know the rules of the road very well and have poor car handling and traffic skills.

I've had a dismal day:

You could take out cars in that context and put in the following:

friendship
financial management
parenthood
"keeping peace in the work place"
leadership
followership

Seems like a lot of people swan dive into fail with several important things.

Sigurd:Much more important than drivers knowing the definition of the term "sharrow" is that they innately grasp what it means when they see one in the "wild" - I bet many drivers would get the gist of it when they do:



PS! Poignantly, my browser underlines the word "sharrow" when I type it as though I made a typo or using a non-existent word.

That is a poorly placed sharrow. The left edge of it is where the right edge of it should be. That placement tends to make drivers and bicyclists think that bicyclists should be riding dangerously close to the parked cars. That's not the idea behind a sharrow. The sharrow should be reinforcing the idea that bicyclists can control the lane, as they should in that situation.

I looked up that site and found the text below that picture:

A sharrow is a pavement marking installed on streets popular with bicyclists but too narrow for conventional bike lanes [1]. The sharrow is installed 11 feet from the curb, or approximately 4 feet from parked cars. It is intended to indicate where bicyclists should ride to avoid traveling within the door zone of parked cars. It also alerts motorists to share the road with bicyclists and conveys that the street is a preferred bike route.

There is no way that the right edge of that sharrow is 4 feet from the parked cars. It's maybe 2 feet at most. It's also setting the rider up for dangerously close passes on the left.

billd:
I looked up that site and found the text below that picture:

A sharrow is a pavement marking installed on streets popular with bicyclists but too narrow for conventional bike lanes [1]. The sharrow is installed 11 feet from the curb, or approximately 4 feet from parked cars. It is intended to indicate where bicyclists should ride to avoid traveling within the door zone of parked cars. It also alerts motorists to share the road with bicyclists and conveys that the street is a preferred bike route.

There is no way that the right edge of that sharrow is 4 feet from the parked cars. It's maybe 2 feet at most. It's also setting the rider up for dangerously close passes on the left.

Bill, the standard for these markings says, "shared roadway bicycle markings shall be placed so that the centers of the markings are a minimum of 3.3 m (11 ft) from the curb face or edge of paved shoulder." Don't know where the pictured marker is, but 11 feet from the center is how it's measured. The standards are here.

Stephan:Bill, the standard for these markings says, "shared roadway bicycle markings shall be placed so that the centers of the markings are a minimum of 3.3 m (11 ft) from the curb face or edge of paved shoulder." Don't know where the pictured marker is, but 11 feet from the center is how it's measured. The standards are here.

I'm not certain that that one even does have its center 11 feet from the curb. Assuming that's a standard sharrow marker, then it is 3'3" wide. If its center is exactly 11' from the curb, then its right edge would be 9'4.5" from the curb.

11 feet may be the minimum, but it is inadequate when there are parked cars. If you figure a 6'6" width car, parked 6" from the curb, that's 7 feet from the curb into the road way. Figure another 3'6" for a door swinging out and you've got 10'6", or 6" from the center of the sharrow marker placed at the minimum distance from the curb and 1'1.5" left of the right edge of the sharrow marker. That placement is a disaster waiting to happen. Have a wider vehicle or parked further from the curb or a longer door or a combination of those and it gets even worse. Even having the right edge of the sharrow marker at 11 feet from the curb when there are parked cars would be inadequate in my opinion.

The point of the sharrow is to make things safer -- not more dangerous. It should be placed in such a way to let riders know that they can take the lane and drivers know that bicyclists can take the lane. The placement in that picture encourages bicyclists to ride in the door zone AND drivers to pass them closely. It's lose-lose. Bicyclists with proper training will ride to the left of the marker and will be fine. My concern is for people who don't really know what they're supposed to do in this situation. They will tend to guess (incorrectly) that they are supposed to ride where the marker is. Drivers will also tend to think that that's where bikes are supposed to be and may get belligerent towards bicyclists who are correctly riding to the left of the marker.

We need to do better than the minimum.

Oregon poised to do something incredibly stupid:

House bill 2228 would make it illegal for a child younger than six be carried on a bike or in a bike trailer even if he or she wears a helmet or is strapped in . Violation would be a $90 fine...

http://bikeportland.org/2011/01/12/oregon-house-bills-would-prohibit-wearing-headphones-carrying-kids-under-six-while-biking-45860

Velo Cult:I hope everybody has their waterproof bags and fenders...

At least we have an early warning...Gotta make space in the garage for all the bikes...scour CL for inflatable kayaks or paddleboard w/ paddle...This is why we keep beater bikes around the house

It's just a sad state of affairs. My wife used to work with an anaesthesiologist at Scripps who is also a an avid cyclist. He mentioned that it's part of the sport, a lot of pro-cyclists (and athletes) use performance enhancing drugs (banned or not) to get an edge. Why wouldn't they? Their body is the engine or tool to which they attempt the impossible. So it boils down to "how to increase performance, quick recovery, and prevent illness." This company uses performance enhancing vitamins and world athletes use them with a $1M guarantee that's legit. And yes, I take the supplements and other ones from natural sources.