Cycling Master Plan - Page 5

adam · #81 Posted **Jun 29, 2009, 5:12 PM**

I rode my bike down King St this morning doing a couple errands and stopped at the lights at James with 4 other cyclists - One guy was on an e-bike, 3 others were regular bikes. I struck up a convo. with a guy with the electric bike who was taking it to Bike Hounds to get it checked over. Cycling can be a very social activity. There certainly is the demand for a bike lane judging by the number of cyclists who were on the street today. It was also interesting to note that the 4 of us took up the same amount of space on the road as 1/2 an SUV that carried a grand total of ONE person (sorry half a person... the other half of the SUV was completely empty)

rousseau · #82 Posted **Jun 29, 2009, 5:25 PM**

More cyclists = more good. In so many ways. This seems an undeniable fact.

Quote:

Originally Posted by adam

...half a person...

Was he morbid? Was he pale? Maybe he'd spent 6 years on your trail?

Nyuck.

adam · #83 Posted **Jun 29, 2009, 5:30 PM**

For the purpose of the comparison, I divided his body equally between the front and back halves of the vehicle.

And nope he didn't spend 6 years on my trail... there were plenty of other lanes for him to choose! Not that he would have got very far, I think I caught up to the same car at every stop light, I just got there 10 seconds later.. no big deal.

rousseau · #84 Posted **Jun 29, 2009, 6:27 PM**

Heh heh...though you, erm, get the reference, I hope?

adam · #85 Posted **Jun 29, 2009, 7:07 PM**

I looked it up, thanks!

highwater · #86 Posted **Jun 29, 2009, 9:59 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by rousseau

More cyclists = more good. In so many ways. This seems an undeniable fact.

Was he morbid? Was he pale? Maybe he'd spent 6 years on your trail?

Nyuck.

Ahem. Could you please move this to the obscure Smiths references thread?

FairHamilton · #87 Posted **Jun 30, 2009, 2:31 AM**

Regarding those who are seemingly anti-cycling, or at least anti-improving cycling in the City of Hamilton. Has anyone ever wondered (or questioned) when the last time they rode a bike?

I think it would be interesting to know. I'm guessing the vast majority haven't rode (or is it ridden?) in a great many years, some since they were kids.

The old saying is, once you learn to ride a bike you'll never forget, so maybe we need to get the naysayers out for some rides. I'm betting a few will rediscover a joy/love of biking they forgot they ever had and perhaps change their views.

Just a thought.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/650796

omro · #88 Posted **Jun 30, 2009, 2:37 AM**

I've not been regularly on a bike, except a very brief moment in 2004, since I was 11.

FairHamilton · #89 Posted **Jun 30, 2009, 3:16 AM**

^ I also took about a 20 year break. I don't think it's not that uncommon for a great many people being years off a bike.

ryan_mcgreal · #90 Posted **Jun 30, 2009, 2:30 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by highwater

Ahem. Could you please move this to the obscure Smiths references thread?

William, it was really nothing.

ryan_mcgreal · #91 Posted **Jun 30, 2009, 2:41 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by FairHamilton

I don't think it's not that uncommon for a great many people being years off a bike.

In an interview with the Infrastructurist on his book making a conservative case for electric rail and public transit, William Lind says, "most of the people who oppose rail transportation have never ridden on a train."

I suspect the same is true of cyclists - either they have never ridden or haven't ridden since they were children. As Cal famously put it in The Forty Year Old Virgin, "Everyone rides a bike - when they're f***ing six!"

Most opposition to alternative transportation modes (alternative to driving, that is) amounts to straightforward fear of the unknown. Look at all the arguments made against bike lanes or light rail or whatever: it's all stock FUD, unsupported by any actual evidence, meant to prey on people's insecurities.

The multi-modal transportation opponents can't imagine why anyone would use a bike lane or an electric rail vehicle because they haven't used one themselves, can't see what the big fuss is and are afraid that rebalancing the transportation framework would threaten the status quo, which may not be perfect but is at least predictable.

Most of the people in Hamilton I've met who support LRT, for example, are people who experienced it firsthand while traveling to other cities. To them, its potential disruptiveness to the status quo is a feature, not a bug. As Mayor Eisengerger likes to put it, such a change is transformative in a city that desperately needs transformation.

I have yet to meet any opponent of LRT who has acually ridden on a modern LRT system. For them, transformation means a step into an unknown future that may be worse than today.

rousseau · #92 Posted **Jun 30, 2009, 4:42 PM**

Good post, ryan. Fear (of the unknown) and loathing (of any alternative to the almighty private passenger car) in Hamilton.

As a passionate cyclist, I get annoyed when I hear comments in the media or elsewhere disparaging cycling as something for kids only. Brings to mind this awful TV commercial for an auto parts shop: a teenaged kid buys auto parts at said shop one at a time, riding his bike back and forth to the car to install the parts. Eventually he gets the car running, and "doesn't have to ride his bike anymore." Twats.

Predictably, I rode a bike up until the age of 16, when I got my driver's licence. I only got back on a bicycle in Taiwan at the age of 27, and I rode there for one year (and probably did irreparable damage to my lungs due to the pollution--seriously) until I got a motorcycle like everyone else. Then, at the age of 40 I got back into cycling for exercise, and have been riding almost every day over the past few years. It's amazing getting on a bicycle after being off it for a long time. I think the motto of the former owner of one of the bike shops here in Stratford said it best: "Ride a bike, change your life."

Most Canadians dismiss cycling as a viable form of transportation for three reasons: the elements, the comparative inconvenience and the perceived danger. Unfortunately, these are tough obstacles to getting more people on bikes. Only the hardiest of the hardy will ride in January or in the rain; people who want to go to the box mall will drive; and they know what the roads are like, so they couldn't ever imagine being out there on a bike.

Part of the answer is critical mass (not the counter-productive, antagonistic and self-righteous circus of nutbars that is "critical mass," which I really detest), which can be induced by better infrastructure, i.e. cycling lanes. My impression is that things are on the right track, if moving far too slowly. Portland seems like a good model, as far as I can tell. We'll never be Amsterdam, but then, nowhere will.

highwater · #93 Posted **Jun 30, 2009, 4:42 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by ryan_mcgreal

William, it was really nothing.

You're making me miserable now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ryan_mcgreal

...it's all stock FUD...

Canada Day-related thread hijack alert: In FUD's defence, it did save Canada in the 1995 Quebec referendum, and will likely be the only thing standing between separation and a united Canada should there be another referendum. Let's all raise a glass to FUD tomorrow. My Canada includes FUD!

Jon Dalton · #94 Posted **Jun 30, 2009, 5:03 PM**

I rode every day until that magical day I turned 16. Car culture worked until I started my school internship in Burlington. That first time I got on the 403 expecting an easy 20 minute drive was probably a life changing event. It turned out the teenage love affair with cars doesn't translate well into adult life, where the open road of the car ads spits you out into endless suburbs and traffic jams. Needless to say, that got old quick, and now I ride every day.

adam · #95 Posted **Jun 30, 2009, 5:22 PM**

I think the only time I didn't ride a bike was during my undergrad degree. If I had, I probably would have been in better shape, in a better mood and felt less lethargic all the time. In high school it was whenever I missed the bus, in my grad degree I was close enough to bike every single day! During my first job I lived 5km away from work so biked all the time. Now I live quite a bit further from work but am in better shape than I've ever been - thanks to cycling (aka my free gym membership)

highwater · #96 Posted **Jun 30, 2009, 5:38 PM**

Take your calcium, boys.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb...h/he-cycling16

rousseau · #97 Posted **Jun 30, 2009, 5:53 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by highwater

Take your calcium, boys.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb...h/he-cycling16

The risk is overblown: a half hour of walking per day will take care of any problems related to bone density.

ryan_mcgreal · #98 Posted **Jun 30, 2009, 8:32 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by highwater

You're making me miserable now.

Please, please, please let me get what I want.

adam · #99 Posted **Jul 1, 2009, 3:49 AM**

This guy's bones look pretty healthy (i guess)

bigguy1231 · #**100** Posted **Jul 1, 2009, 7:10 AM**

I am sitting hear laughing reading all of these ridiculous posts.

I have been accused of being opposed to bike lanes, which I am not, I even suggested some streets that may be appropriate to start with. Unfortunately, for you cyclist you have a one track mind. Your insistance on putting bike lanes on King St. and Main St. It's not going to happen for the reasons I outlined in previous posts.

As for these supposed facts and statistics that you keep citing, there are facts on both sides of the arguement and statistics can be skewed anyway you want, depending on where you stand on the issue.

We live in a city with a car culture, bad or good that is reality. We have an aging population, older people vote, young people don't. Older people use their cars and do not want to be stuck in traffic with an empty bike lane next to them. Older people will complain to politicians in numbers large enough to have an effect.

I realize that some of you just can't comprehend that. All I am trying to do is point out what you are up against. It is not going to be an easy process. It's true city council approved of the idea of bike lanes. The problem is it was referred to the budgetary process where it will be placed at the bottom of the list of priorities. At the present time there are just too many other items that are a higher priority.