The Observation Deck

"If you notice many 3, 4 lane roads have been reduced for bike lanes with no bikes. This reflects something many dying communities are doing to increase the feel of living in a thriving community"

Or maybe to help create a thriving community? Encouraging physical activity is something to be avoided by communities..

Robert Bobik wrote:"If you notice many 3, 4 lane roads have been reduced for bike lanes with no bikes. This reflects something many dying communities are doing to increase the feel of living in a thriving community"

Or maybe to help create a thriving community? Encouraging physical activity is something to be avoided by communities..

Robert

On Detroit and Madison i can almost buy into your comment. On the Shoreway? Not so much. Two blocks on Clifton/Lake, not at all.

Bike lanes have never been proven to be safer, or a way to attract a more vibrant community. Actually the debate rages on in biking communities if in fact they are less safe.

Also we have a real chicken or the egg thing here. Even when biking, I see vast expanses of bike lanes with almost no riders. In the winter it totally falls off here, that makes me ponder, how much of the actual roadway is paid for by bicyclers or riders? In northern climates it is much like open air stadiums, and can be open for discussion over practicality.

I appreciate biking, I appreciate the bicyclers, I underwrote a paper for three years that catered to that section of the community. I get it, I understand it, but to allow it to dictate massive sections of any community seems a bit like catering to a very small section of the population at the expense of many.

I always fall back to, in the past people were encourage not to hit anything in a car. Not a biker, a pedestrian, pole or bush. At bicycling was truly in its heyday in the 70s just by looking at manufacturing numbers. Today, it seems to be more about appealing to millennium voters, than getting people off their asses and enjoying physical activity.

But what do I know, I have just been a rider since 1958.

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There are no bike lanes on the Shoreway. I have never seen a fire truck exit the station on Lake. Does that mean it is not being used? I am very involved with the bicycling community, I’ve read the arguments. Contact Bike Cleveland for more information.

Robert Bobik wrote:There are no bike lanes on the Shoreway. I have never seen a fire truck exit the station on Lake. Does that mean it is not being used? I am very involved with the bicycling community, I’ve read the arguments. Contact Bike Cleveland for more information.

Robert

Bike Cleveland was constant and welcome contributor to the paper, "Great Lakes Courier."

I remember the announcement of Jacob Van Sickle as director. We worked with them, the Velodrome, the monthly rides, etc.

The LO was also instrumental in the start of BikeLakewood whose first director hipped me to the argument on bike lanes being safe or not.

It does not change my views.

The question is not if it is being used or not, when it comes to safety of the community on the whole.

I would argue of the center lanes and on Detroit and their worth being left unused for safety equipment, something the fire chief argues for.

I am not anti bikes or cycling, far from it. I am just looking at the overall pluses and minuses of bike lanes. 15 years from now, with gas at $15 a gallon, they could be more than worth it. In 2017, just another fondue to appeal to a select small group of possible voters. IMHO

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Or healthier citizens. Is it always wise to wait until some deem it is necessary? Get it started, work out the kinks. As you stated though, it is not going to change your beliefs. I'll leave it at that.

You both know that at least for this discussion that the bike lane is a separate paved path along the side of the Shoreway or whatever we're going to be calling it now.

Robert Bobik wrote:Or healthier citizens. Is it always wise to wait until some deem it is necessary? Get it started, work out the kinks. As you stated though, it is not going to change your beliefs. I'll leave it at that.

Bob

I climbed off a ladder I was laughing so hard.

What is "getting started" cycling? No, not even close. Oh riding in the street? No, oh riding to work? Nope.

You are acting like we are talking about splitting atoms or something back in the 30s.

What we are talking about is a fad, and a response to the fad, something that is nowhere near as popular as in the 70s. Check the numbers, nearly twice as many bikes produced and sold each year.

My mind can be changed, but not with emotions or someone thinking biking was just invented.

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WTF are you talking about? I know many people that would disagree heartily with saying bicycle infrastructure is a fad. I think, I could be wrong, that I'm a little older than you. Soo, no, I do not think bicycling was just invented.
Stan, I rode that path, the path that is not on the Shoreway but next to it, to work today. I've heard it's a fad, but I've put 15 years of going back and forth to downtown Cleveland and Lakewood every work day, well, most I will ride it on the way back.
I can site fact after fact Jim.

https://nacto.org/2016/07/20/high-quali ... ing-safer/

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2016/07/20/ ... ets-safer/

https://momentummag.com/cycling-safety-in-numers/

I really don't know where in the world your additional commentary about my reply came from.. emotion?
The "getting started" referred to construction of bicycling infrastructure. It is very cool that you can tell from the 20 or so sentences that I typed that I think bicycling was just invented. Gotta be a cool party trick..

is a survey in order, how many people ride bikes? I don't, that's just me, I see a bike or two but not a lot, but every now and then, I do see a Hugh group, they ride down Madison Ave. it's a club or something planned, an event, and they don't ride in the bike lanes, and that's fine, they take the whole road, it is a leisure time activity, not a necessity,

I would bike to the park or to school, maybe a friends house, but not to work or shopping, not to visit the museum, or the orchestra, a concert, a movie, a restaurant, cycling is a past time, a source of relaxation, pleasure, you wanna bike, go to the park, don't disrupt traffic, in all venues, to accommodate bikers who are heading to the Lake, they will get by with what we had already, sidewalks. the street and responsible drivers & bikers. But to disrupt traffic, hinder business, spend all that money to create barely used, bike lanes, really? That is such an important issue that has to be addressed before so many other pressing issues, that we face?

Bikers, cyclers, 2 wheelers, drive to the metro parks, get on your ride and enjoy the scenery, you can ride for miles and miles and miles, some song from the 70's.

Don't get me wrong, I want bikers to be safe and to abide by the rules of the rode, but to change and create traffic problems to accommodate bikers, we are not in Key West or Tampa Florida, we are a part time biker city, who rides their bike in the winter? 6 months, ?

am I living in the dark? Was there a meeting that took place, where everyone could voice their opinions, did I miss that meeting? Who proposed this directive> Mr. Schwinn? Did he contribute 2k for someone's vote. I'm just asking, things are done round the city, and I ask myself, how did this come to be??

Traffic controlling devices, what?

Robert Bobik wrote:WTF are you talking about? I know many people that would disagree heartily with saying bicycle infrastructure is a fad. I think, I could be wrong, that I'm a little older than you. Soo, no, I do not think bicycling was just invented.
Stan, I rode that path, the path that is not on the Shoreway but next to it, to work today. I've heard it's a fad, but I've put 15 years of going back and forth to downtown Cleveland and Lakewood every work day, well, most I will ride it on the way back.
I can site fact after fact Jim.

So if you are older than I do, you remember the tons of bikes everywhere thanks to the baby boomers? So yes it was everywhere, even on roads.

Are you saying that there is not an almost religious take on the bike movement now? Are you saying that bike lanes, are not a great way for politicians to get buy in, even when not needed? I to can find hundreds of welders that think I need welding, carpenters that think I need carpentry. So to find people getting paid to develop bike programs to say they are anything but needed would be strange indeed if not almost impossible to find. This is my point. Pay a person to bike, and a disciple they will become.

I am sure there are millions from the 60s that never thought fondue or the colors avocado or burnt orange were fads, at the time, but history has proven them wrong. My point is, instead of thinking you and the bike community are on some great and noble crusade into the future. You said is it wrong to start early?... Of course not, until it is overstated and becomes an emotional argument and discussion of some higher calling. Look at the PR releases that have followed Sharrows cost $30,000 or more in Lakewood. They are all overstated filled with hyperbole, which cause me to always wonder $30,000 for sharrows that have already worn out on Detroit or $30,000 to educate high school students to not hit anything in a car? Bikes belong in the street and riders need to be protected, but at what cost to everyone else is what I am getting at. Riders have rights, but for half the road at this point and time? In Northern Ohio?

At the same time the bike lanes on Detroit heading downtown are confusing and somewhat over the top. As you have stated you have been riding downtown for years, but one might ask themselves, reading your comments, how could that even be possible without bike lanes? Because you were careful and it is illegal to hit riders. So in communities, with every dwindling budgets and service crews, is it necessary right now? What outside of the bike movement has caused this dire need right now? The answer is simple, people getting paid to advocate them like Bike Cleveland, Bike Lakewood, Cleveland Foundation, and politicians desperate to play to anyone's emotional needs to get votes.

I'll never forget covering Mike Gill's ride to Peninsula on a special constructed bike to deliver the bike 500 papers to prove it could be done. He proved it, but the papers were delivered by cars from that point on. An emotional point proven for what? That is all I am saying. Yeah it all makes sense when gas hits $15 a gallon, it all makes sense with a shower in your office, so that you can go to meetings refreshed, but does it make sense for most? Right now today? I think not.

And as you admit, roads, bikes and sharrows are not new inventions, and the technology is easy to master and implement, why act like it is some remarkable first step for mankind on our march to the future?

Simple discussion about simple things, sorry I did not think worthy of a WTF moment.

The WTF was for you stating that I said something that I did not say. Simple. I disagree with you. Not in an emotional way. But it really isn’t worth the discussion, as you already obviously know that in your mind you are right. I gots a couple wheels to spin, which is an emotional thing, ina good way. Enjoy your day.

I was going to start a new topic from this one, then I remembered I was able to move posts, so I did.
This shoreway topic got derailed pretty quickly into the bike lane issue, which is a very good point of discussion right now.
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My thought is that after some time of implementation, the bike lanes need to be revisited, but not removed. Changes may be needed, especially to the Clifton/Lake Bike Lane to Nowhere.
Also some thought should be given to seasonal bike lanes. As the snow flies, there's less (maybe zero) demand for bike lanes and more need for car maneuvering room.

http://benefitshub.ca/entry/the-economi ... vestments/

Note the northern cities/states mentioned. Yes, the number of riders drop in the winter. So do the number of people walking. Minneapolis and Toronto get snow. They are cold in the winter. They have invested in bicycle infrastructure. People there, and here, ride in the winter. Stats and citations would work well for this conversation, regardless of the year a person started riding..