🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <80338-816412885@mindlink.bc.ca>,
Helen Warn <Helen_Warn@mindlink.bc.ca> wrote:

>Some posters to this NG have evinced an
>unfortunate tendency to assume that anyone who questions any aspect of
>Effective Cycling cannot be a competent traffic cyclist, and that the first
>thing he/she should do is take a CAN-BIKE course. I have watched with
>amusement as this happened first to Michel Desrochers, and then to Roy
>Smyth, both of whom I know from personal experience are in fact very
>competent traffic cyclists.

Whether or not they are competent traffic cyclists is actually
beside the entire point. (Though one wonders why a competent traffic
cyclist would be promoting something that will endanger people who
wish to cycle in a vehicular style--thus the assumption, perhaps,
that someone proposing a dangerous roadway design may not be a
competent traffic cyclist.)

I don't recall the specifics of the argument with Roy Smyth, but
I do recall my argument with Michel Desrocher quite well, and so
I will remark on that here.

When we started discussing the Burrard Bridge, I made clear that
there were several design parameters I felt were necessary for the
safety of cyclists. One of these was a minimum 250 m zone to merge
across two to four lanes of traffic in order to be able to make a
left turn coming across the bridge. Michel never argued that this
was not necessary, yet he made it very clear that he supported a
plan that would not allow this. When I pressed this point, he
refused to answer whether this 250m distance was too much, or
sufficient, or not enough, or not required at all. He simply ignored
this point entirely. Nor did he explain how, without the ability
to merge to the left lane, cyclists were to make left turns (or go
straight through, in the case of Burrard southbound).

Michel never stated his aims explicitly (how can you plan a traffic
design without making explicit the problems you're trying to solve?),
but he did seem to make an implicit claim that physical separation
of cyclists on high-volume, medium-speed bridges was necessary. He
then presented statistics showing that there were other bridges in
Vancouver with similar speeds and *higher* volumes of traffic. One
of these bridges happens to be one commonly used by cyclists (the
Arthur Liang). I asked Michel what problems this bridge was having,
and why he was not promoting steps to reduce these problems. He
did not reply to this query.

Michel also apprently seemed to believe that if a lane were removed
to make a wide curb lane for cyclists, a cyclist would have to move
out into the next lane to pass a cyclist ahead of him on the bridge,
yet if the same space were used for a raised `sidewalk', the cyclist
would be able to pass without moving out. I have never figured why
a cyclist requires so much less room to pass another cyclist when
the two are raised eight or ten inches above a road deck rather
than being level with it. (Does this mean we'd have room for *three*
cyclists side by side if we raised the cycling path by twenty
inches?) I raised this point many times, yet Michel refused to
address it.

It is pretty clear that the resolution of these three points have
nothing to do with Michel's cycling ability. The third point is
nonsense whether it comes from someone who doesn't even know what
a bicycle is or from John Forrester himself. Michel simply did not
have a coherent plan to present, argument to state, or data to back
either up.

cjs
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Curt Sampson    curt@portal.ca		Info at http://www.portal.ca/
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Vancouver, BC   (604) 257-9400		De gustibus, aut bene aut nihil.