John Forester is dead

John Forester, "the father of vehicular cycling" died in 2020. 

Right now, his legacy is 'controversial'. I suspect in a generation his perspective will be more analogous to the miasma theory of disease. Research is pretty clear that many fields fail to move forward while their founding 'big man' continues to live, publish, and advocate. 

I understand where Forester came from -- I was a 3% 'confident and assured' cyclist playing chicken with cars basically up until the moment I started cycling with my wife. But 'vehicular cycling' functionally limited cycling participants to a tiny portion of the population, which limited its political support, which limited infrastructure development, which leads to our present mess. 

"You aren't a real cyclist unless you can ride in traffic" is bunk and always has been. "You aren't a real X unless you can do Y" is exclusionary gatekeeping. Vehicular cycling is a motorism--the idea that other modes can reach parity with cars by pretending to be cars.

Maybe vehicular cycling made sense when Forester was a teen, when the default car was the Morris Minor and there was a nationwide 30 mph speed limit. But in America, the most popular cars is a Ford F-150 with much higher mass, much better acceleration, and traveling at much higher speeds. 

Bike like someone is trying to kill you

They aren't. (Probably). But pretending someone is will probably save your life. Because it forces you to be cautious and aware. When you get hit, it's going to be an accident, but you are still going to hurt, maimed, or killed. And the driver will say "Oh! I'm so sorry, I didn't see you!" I've been that driver and I've been the "I-need-to-sit-down-for-a-moment---I-almost-just-died" cyclist. 

It's not like the drivers are trying, or that they don't care. But it is a hard reality that our transportation system barely considers the safety of non-automobile users, and discounts their existence as a matter of practice, to shave fractions of sections at traffic signals. So vulnerable users are constantly at risk. It's like swimming with whales, great beast that might accidentally crush you in a moment of inattention. So, cycling in that context requires a certain amount of devil-may-care vitality, that only young men can fully enjoy.  So, when they are the only cyclists on the road, it's not by accident--it's selective pressure. 

Concordantly, the inevitable effect of being willing to bike in a context where every car might kill you is that you become a very aggressive cyclist. It's a natural consequence of living embedded in traffic violence. As a cyclist, the suggestion that traffic laws exist is absurd. Enforcement is, at best, nominal. Traffic violations are endemic. Everyone speeds, and people regularly run red lights, make illegal turns, ignores signs, violates crosswalks, fails to yield. It's a jungle out there. 

Certainly, there are customs, there are norms, there are signs and signals which are generally followed. But there is absolutely zero certainty of that happening, and the violations will happen suddenly, without notice. If we were sitting in a therapist's office, the therapist would nod now and say "Yes, is the very essence of abusive". 

If you do the legal thing, cross at the crosswalk, is there any safety in assuming that someone will come to a complete stop at the red light, before making their right-turn-on-red? Of course not. So you learn to bike in ways which are safe, in the same way people learn to hold a knife safely--make it impossible to get hurt and forget anything else. So you bike on the wrong side of the street (so no one can hit you from behind). You bike on the sidewalk (so you are protected by the curb). You cross the street before the crosswalk timer starts, before the light turns green. You wait for the light ahead of the stop line. 

Don't take anyone who talks about cyclists violating laws seriously. They are upset about cyclists behaving with the same level of privilege and immunity that drivers do, and that upsets their sense of the natural hierarchy of things. 

Owl line, pt 2

A ways back, I posited an 'Owl line' from the Airport to the University. Had a long talk with George Chapman a few months back, who suggested that the Owl Line was kind of a waste of time.

This summer, my step-son is commuting to the Airport from my house (by the U of U). It takes over an hour to reach the airport. And I suddenly realized why I never take TRAX to the airport (it takes too bloody long). Indeed, I once had a professor who would bike(!!) to the airport. But it's only about 10 miles, and a bike travels about 10 miles an hour...so in good weather, pretty feasible. 

I know that for short distances, bikes and buses travel about the same speed (it's a toss-up whether I take the bus or bike from my house to Sugarhouse). But it's kind of bleak to realize the same is true over longer distances, and not through a dense, walkable area. 

But what makes the TRAX trip so long is not actually the trip--it's the transfer. Rule of thumb is that a transfer requires time equal to half the headway (or 10 minutes if it's a 15+ minute bus). But my step-son tells me that the red line departs (within sight) from courthouse station, right before the Green arrives. So he gets to wait 7.5 minutes to board the Green, and another 15 minutes to board the Red.

Why do people not ride transit? Because it's slow.  I recall one city who long-range transit plan was to have a transit trip be no slower than twice a car trip. Which seemed like a ridiculously low standard (at the time). But it's one that that TRAX between University and Airport is clearly not meeting. And the reason for that is clearly the transfer. 

Cycling lanes in SLC

I grew up biking in a context where urban biking was dangerous, drivers indifferent and sometimes hostile. Being killed by being hit behind from a careless/inattentive driver was continual worry. (Which is why I often bike on the wrong side of the road--at least I can see someone coming). Three yeas ago, I didn't care--the risk was an inherent part of the activity. But now...

I want separate bicycle lanes, I want them everywhere, and I  don't care what it does to traffic speeds. When I bike, I bike with family, with vulnerable people. So the separated bike lanes are really nice. Having a lane of parked cars between you and traffic is an enormous comfort--distracted drivers get to crash into a parked car, instead of someone you love. The painted lines are crap, and I sneer that them. Sure, they are better than nothing...but not much. Most were put in place as part of road diets, as an excuse to narrow the road--the bike lanes on 700 East and 300 West most notably.

I think SLC should take a lane off the whole of 3rd South and give me a continuous protected route from Downtown to University. The traffic volumes don't justify the pavement width, anyway. 100 South cars, 200 South for Streetcar, 300 South for bikes and 400 South for TRAX.