Saturday, August 9, 2014

Cleveland's New Bicycle Showpiece

Cleveland has unveiled a new center median bike path plan:




No doubt this is a major step for the 'cradle of car culture' and is being championed as a progressive magnet attraction.

I walk or ride to work everyday. Often, I'm a very lonely soul in the depths of winter, though that is slowly changing. Doing both, I have come to primarily support walking access and/or public and private mass and shared transit, over any further vehicle infrastructure accommodation. I also support and use non-motorized vehicles, (bikes, trikes, skates, skateboards, scooters, etc) as a partial solution to the environmental, social, and funding model destruction that is automobile culture. I also retain a proudly underused automobile.


Cycling culture has presented the first serious and worthy challenge to motorized vehicle hegemony. All reasonable means should be employed to encourage its continued growth.


However, as an active walker and cyclist, I directly witness some of the same attitudes of automobile culture creeping into my fellow cycle drivers: namely desire for speed, and an assumption of segregated use rights, both major psychological components of automobile arrogance.

Every segregated lane built reinforces this belief among both user groups.


"Bicycle Expressway." Think about that.


Also, let's consider that there are innovations such as the "Copenhagen Wheel" that add motorized power to a bicycle, improvements over the old "Whizzers" you still see occasionally. Where do these fit in this new infrastructure? How will it serve wider and slower three and four wheeled, pedaled vehicles such as the "ELF," (also motor assisted) or trikes and electric scooters for the elderly? Will younger faster cyclists be 'rear-ending' slower pedaled vehicles from behind as they pass? It's almost happened to me.


How might expanded bicycle "Expressway" infrastructure interfere with mass transit? Some of my fellow bike lane enthusiasts also complain about the reductions in bus stops.


I support bike lanes as a temporary measure to reduce and slow automobiles as long as pedestrians are not any more burdened than they already are. Cleveland's proposal makes some bold claims about pedestrian accommodation. I find them lacking. One of the accepted facts cited by opponents of cars and bike lanes is the increased complication of crossing zones and signaling.

Bike Lanes Not Safer

And aren't we tired of this attitude?:



When bike lanes are designed properly, they should reduce the amount of available space in a public right of way that was systematically and deliberately stolen from humans and given to automobiles by their manufacturers, sellers, and driving clubs over the last 100 years. That space should be granted back to pedestrians and various static street use, (such as dining and innovative retail,) first, other vehicles second.


Yes, while nothing compares to the conditioned arrogance of your average automobile driver, a narrow, (pun intended) POV is now becoming evident in the cycling community.


Aside from further marginalizing walkers and slower cyclists, when such expensive transformations of a street are pursued, what is often left out is the ongoing dedication to, and costs of maintenance. Concerns regarding winter conditions are valid. Already, the existing dedicated cycling  infrastructure, (shared with pedestrians,) on bridges over the Cuyahoga river are infrequently cleared of snow and ice, usually only after appeals are made to the city. The remainder of bridge sidewalks in the city, which the city has a duty to clear, are either untouched or worse, serve as receptacles for snow from the automobile lane. I also expect this path to collect much of the same detritus as the outside edge.


While street redesign is necessary, rather than introduce more design and maintenance costs, it is "revenue positive" to simply reduce 6 lanes to 5, 4 lanes to 3, widen pedestrian access and other static use, reduce speed limits to 25 MPH in urban settings, consider whether curbside parking is really necessary, (Cleveland insists on preserving it everywhere, along the entire extent of a street,) and aggressively pursue traffic law violators. 
This can be done mostly with paint and pen.


For stepped up enforcement, we can expand and continue to use camera technology, and/or better yet, a proposed "traffic enforcer corp" in the police department as a way to train new officers in their people management skills. In Cleveland there exists a "Traffic Controller" department to ticket parking meters. This should be expanded to mobile traffic violations as well. They carry cameras already.


Along with design and law enforcement, existing traffic laws that make all forms of transportation secondary to the  "maximum speed and flow" of automobile drivers, such as ORC 4511.55....




...should be repealed and rewritten to provide equitable rights to those without the $10,000 a year for your average private automobile.


Also a system of "Strict Liability" for motorized vehicle drivers should be introduced into the civil code as it has been in the Netherlands.


Read this excellent piece in the Guardian regarding Britain's approach to bike infrastructure, taking Holland and Germany's years of experience and differing approaches into account:



The concluding point of the article is the absolute necessity of additional legal and behavioral principles beyond bike lanes in both Holland and Germany to create a truly effective system:

Speed and Behavioral control and enforcement
A system of assumed liability for the more powerful road users

Without dedication to these more fundamental components, any urban special infrastructure will fail in its core mission. While NYC is a special case, and bike tracks are doing well, complete transformation of attitude is the ongoing, hard, lasting work that needs to be done for the 95% of urban roads which will not be redesigned.

Can these same principles  be achieved in the US without segregated infrastructure? Can special infrastructure help?

This is a proper bike intra-urban expressway: