Annette found this mildly amusing video about stupid bike lanes. Just the thing to waste a few minutes on a Friday afternoon.
And here is Part 2.
25 April, 2008
Stupid Bike Lanes
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7 comments:
May I suggest that those who enjoyed those shorts Google "guerilla bike lanes" and check out the great comics at yehudamoon.com
Ah, the splendid civic planning in El Lay. Not shown: comedic videos showing the muggings and robberies of cyclists along the Los Angeles River and Long Beach bike paths. Good Humor!
Great! I live near and use the bike lane near Silver Spring, MD...alas, Montgomery County, MD and Wash. DC are clueless when it comes to bicycles...
Im glad to see Velo Orange return to bicycling issues in its Blog...
The Amazing Chicago Roosevelt Road Appearing-Disappearing-Teleporting Bridge Bike Lane:
http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&q=Chicago,+IL+60606,+USA&ll=41.867456,-87.633704&spn=0.001374,0.002492&t=h&z=19
Back in 1973 right after the oil embargo there was much cry to establish bike lanes as the bicycle boom of the early 1970's got started. It seemed baby boomers started riding bicycles and there was political attention put forth by city governments to get Federal money to basically paint bicycle lanes. The more bicycle lanes the more Federal transportation dollars the local community could acquire.
But some communities challenged the idea of allowing hordes of bicyclists to come down their streets and created political action committees to stop the implementation of bicycle lanes. One of the more notorious of these groups was the Marin County Board of Realtors in Marin County just north of San Francisco. They stated that bicycle lanes would lower their property values and basically destroy the value of their neighborhoods. And to some degree at least at first they were able to stop the bicycle lanes in certain parts of southern Marin.
However over the years the political climate changed in Marin county. And from what I've been told it has one of the best networks of bicycle accommodation in the country. And despite the fears of the Marin County Board of Realtors Marin county has some of the highest property values in the US. And may top most lists.
One would think that there would be a political movement to get more people onto bicycles now that gas in California is over $4 per gallon and will be over $5 per gallon by early 2009. However it seems most of those baby boomers of the early 1970's are now too fat and old to hop on a bicycle. Most ride in the comfort of a huge SUV and are now the problem.
It's funny how times have changed. Luckily for me I have always ridden my bicycles and still have my 1974 Motobecane Grand Record that I rode on the streets of Marin back in the day. But it seems most of my contemporaries of the early 1970's don't ascribe to the values of their youth. And that may be the problem here.
Phillip
I think the public will remain clueless @ $6-7 gasoline. Even @ $3.50 the juvenile males with new licenses are still mocking me...but I'm too busy having fun
http://picasaweb.google.com/DFWarn
I think the public will remain clueless @ $6-7 gasoline. Even @ $3.50 the juvenile males with new licenses are still mocking me...
I don't think you can reliably pick a single price that will be the tipping point that will change people's behavior. I think what really changed people's behavior back in '73 and '79 was availability, i.e. gas lines.
Right now, the vast majority of drivers in the US can pretty much buy as much fuel as they want to whenever they want to - and this universal 24/7 availability is taken completely for granted. The prospect of not being able to do this - and especially the follow-on realization that the new state of affairs won't be some temporary aberration - will shock people much more than another pick-some-arbitrary-percentage increase, IMHO.
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