The Observation Deck

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ss ... cart_river

Or maybe an elevated bike path over the tracks?

Bill

How much do we spend on 4% of the traffic?

Cleveland that is desperately trying to manage their downsizing, and loss of population
needs to fill up dead space with something anything. So I know why they are doing it.
You drive down Detroit at night and traffic is backed up in cars and the 4 bike lanes
are empty or have one or two riders.

This is not a slam on bikers, but taxes should be spent in a fair way.

Riders have great PR but lousy numbers in actuality. It like many things have taken on
a near religious following, where you are with them or against them. Instead of just
looking at numbers and making common sense decisions.

I knew many people that sold their cars to turn to bikes, everyone has bought cars again.

FWIW

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Jim,
Bikes are more like 1-2% of road use, unfortunately.

Should we spend money only on the system that we have now or should we prioritize improvements we want to see to make our community a better place?

Cities all over the country, including Lakewood, are saying that biking is something that they want to see more of in the community for health, economic and environmental reasons. But nothing is free.

The cities that have high bicycle modal share (6-50%) have complete, separate bike networks (cycle tracks/protected lanes) so that bicycling is accessible to everyone without feeling like a car will run them over. If we really want to see more cycling, sustainably, infrastructure is the only thing that has been shown to work. A few million here and there on bikes is still just a drop in the bucket on car-centric planning, too.

Maybe those folks you know who went back to a car (?? I have a car but I still ride my bike to work) did so because the infrastructure wasn't there?

Ben

Ben

I knew I could get you off that nice porch for a moment.

You know it is funny, i see the Bike Movement as good, healthy and certainly a good step
towards the future. But I also see it as taking on "cool" and "religious" followings that
make judgement not based on facts but perceptions. That is fine with people but for cities,
with finite budgets, getting avocado or burnt orange fondue pots makes no sense, unless
its has a bigger payoff than the expense or strain on the rest of the residents.

Bike repair stations. $3,000 total installed for 3, nice positive story for Lakewood, helps
riders, takes up little room. A plus. Bike sharrows for $30,000 on Detroit only, hmmmmm,
maybe. Private lanes with green boundaries, for miles and miles. Only after the lottery win
maybe.

Bike paths interconnected, makes sense. $30,000 a piece bike bridges in Metro Parks, huh?!

"Should we spend money only on the system that we have now or should we prioritize improvements we want to see to make our community a better place?"

Better place for who? is the question. It is always the question. That is why it is best for
cities to stay away from fads, and temporary cool, and build an infrastructure to support
the changes when they happen. You and I have spoken of this. Riders, especially younger
riders believe their are more bikes on the road than ever before. It is simply not true. They
as riders are merely more aware of riders. Bicycle peak, was 1971 I believe. It is growing,
but it has a long way to go to get back to 1971 numbers.

Cleveland has a serious issue as does Cuyahogoa County, there are so many people gone
that they have 6 lanes when they only need 2. Blocks with only one house occupied, the
bleeding continues every day. So anyway possible to fill in the gaps makes sense. Luckily
Lakewood is rocking it in business and housing, so to Bill's question. No.

While I agree more people should bike including myself, whenever I have an 8am meeting
in Parma or Cleveland Heights. I am damn glad I didn't bike to the coffee shop first. The
people I know that got cars again did so for winter, eastside jobs, traveling, and just kind
of started cutting back on bikes as they got busier.

I love the bike action in Lakewood and around town. But let's not loose our heads on it, yet.



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$2million per year lakewood money on roads. millions more some years state and Federal dollars. many millions more some years for big projects like signalization that are designed to get cars through faster but making pedestrian "beg buttons" longer or ineffective. $30K too much for a couple miles of bike lanes and almost 3 miles of sharrows? Yeah, I disagree.

I also don't think building safe places for kids to ride to school and families to ride to parks would be wasting money on a "fad."

The "we only have money for car infrastructure, everything else is luxury and too expensive" type argument is why we only have good car infrastructure. Public transit suffers greatly in this status-quo paradigm too.

I'm not saying spend all the money on bikes and pedestrians, but across the country there are campaigns to get government to spend "20% For People" (public transit, pedestrians, bikes) or even 10%, and that sounds reasonable to me.

In my travels, the places I have seen that have a lot of bike traffic have some things in common.

First, excellent public transportation, as the bicycles are not used when there is inclement weather.

Second, extremely high gasoline cost, so most people cannot afford to drive, or at least drive a lot.

Third, very limited parking with steep fees.

We have none of those, and I'm not confident that we will have the courage to effect them.

Interestingly, not all of these places have separate lanes for bicyclists. In Amsterdam, they do; in Paris they don't. The autoers and cyclers just manage to get around without killing each other.

Ben VanLear wrote:$2million per year lakewood money on roads. millions more some years state and Federal dollars. many millions more some years for big projects like signalization that are designed to get cars through faster but making pedestrian "beg buttons" longer or ineffective. $30K too much for a couple miles of bike lanes and almost 3 miles of sharrows? Yeah, I disagree.

I also don't think building safe places for kids to ride to school and families to ride to parks would be wasting money on a "fad."

The "we only have money for car infrastructure, everything else is luxury and too expensive" type argument is why we only have good car infrastructure. Public transit suffers greatly in this status-quo paradigm too.

I'm not saying spend all the money on bikes and pedestrians, but across the country there are campaigns to get government to spend "20% For People" (public transit, pedestrians, bikes) or even 10%, and that sounds reasonable to me.

Ben a reasonable stance, but...

Should we not be getting rid of bike lanes then for wider roads for SUVs? Trucks and SUVs
are still the things selling. Though I have no idea why. To me it seem like anti-gun control.
Criminals have guns so I need one, or Everyone drives big cars and I need one to be safe.

I have no problem with making roads safer for all, but prefer education. It seems simpler
and less costly to make sure drivers understand, IT IS ILLEGAL TO HIT ANYTHING. While
the Great Lakes Courier existed, I was writing story on bikes now, bikes then. It seemed to
me that there were more bikes, and more cars on the road in Lakewood in 1971, than now.
Population at 71,000, and the largest year for bike sales ever. Plenty of big cars from the
60s and 72 luxury cars had abnormally large front ends/engine compartments. But it did
not seem that we had the problem we have now, militant drivers and militant riders. Again
I favor education over separation.

Also of those numbers you quote, are you saying that only $30K was spent on Bicycles? It
seems that the 30K was on top of the roads that were maintained for riders too. At the
same time, some of this is great brand building/defining exercises for the community.

Will Brown raises some interesting points.

I am proud Lakewood is bike friendly.

I am proud Lakewood is friendly.


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Hi Will,
I've been to Paris and Amsterdam as well, and the difference in infrastructure is reflected in the overall number of riders. In Paris there is a decent network of protected bike lanes and bike lanes, and 3% of traffic is bicycles - that is still impressive for a big city and is higher than all but a handful of US cities. In Amsterdam the bicycle network is basically complete and in the city and almost 50% of traffic is bicycles.

In Lakewood, current cyclists mostly utilize the roads, but many people can't or won't ride on the road. There is a reason only 1-2% of people ride bikes to get around and it is that the paved roadways do not feel safe. Those roadways are statistically relatively safe and "bike friendly" for cyclists now, but those who feel comfortable riding with the elephants (as a clever blogger put it) are overwhelmingly young and male and small in number. Some others ride on the sidewalks, but this can only be done very slowly and, statistically, is actually less safe than riding on the roads. The infrastructure under consideration in the original post in this thread is not for existing cyclists, it is for what the League of American Cyclists calls the "interested but concerned" people who make up 60-70% of the population who would bicycle more if it were more accessible.

I read and enjoyed the Courier, but it was targeted to the existing cycling community - i.e. those who already feel comfortable on the roads, and it didn't have an advocacy bent. I'm interested in advocacy, and when Bike Lakewood did a survey earlier this year over 70% of our Lakewood resident respondents preferred protected bike lanes or cycle tracks to standard bike lanes or sharrows/nothing (riding with the elephants). So that is what we are advocating for.

And I've said this before, Jim, but education hasn't been shown to do what I'm talking about doing - making cycling safer and more accessible to everyone sustainably. It is still an important part of the cycling equation, but by itself I don't think it would do much. I tend to think people already know they aren't allowed to hit anything with their cars - especially living things - and there is just a ton of data out there that shows that protected infrastructure makes people feel safer, makes them actually a lot safer, and dramatically increases the number of people who use bikes to get around. Not overnight, but consistently and sustainably.

Jim, are you against bicycle infrastructure or are you against Lakewood spending any of its own money on it? trying to get a feel...