{"id":151985581,"date":"2009-10-26T02:13:01","date_gmt":"2009-10-26T02:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=151985581"},"modified":"2009-10-26T02:13:01","modified_gmt":"2009-10-26T02:13:01","slug":"mass-transit-vs-bike-infrastructure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=151985581","title":{"rendered":"Mass Transit vs. Bike Infrastructure"},"content":{"rendered":"

[The following story makes me think can we really have mass transit when there are no sidewalks? Can we really have walking as transportation or an extension of mass transit with poles in the middle of the sidewalk? Can we create great places to live surrounded by car sewers? Are great places to live solely defined by all the things that you have to drive too? The attention to detail for all modes of travel especially biking and walking has to get to the planning table.]<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

From Washington, DC’s K Street to SF’s Van Ness, and East Bay\/Oakland’s
\nTelegraph Ave BRT, it seems like bike infrastructure continues to get cut
\nout of the picture not because it makes any sense to cut it, but because
\nadvocates of all stripes are all too willing to accept that bikes are not,
\nand cannot be, ‘serious transportation’. These are ‘transit corridors’,
\ndontchaknow, and by definition that means stuff that pollutes and makes loud
\nnoises and can reach very high top speeds, if not very high average speeds.
\nOh, and it’s obvious that buses always have and always will move more people
\nthan bikes can\/will.<\/p>\n

Like Le Corbu’s Towers in the Park, there is a certain seductiveness to this
\nJetsons-like vision of high-tech transitways filled with gleaming, zooming
\nbiarticulated buses and shiny new hybrids and e-cars of various types, while
\nrelegating the humans to their rightful refuges — aka ‘sidewalks’.<\/p>\n

But once we move this vision from the vague, happy-faced, brightly-colored,
\nand clean-looking drawing boards out into the real and dirty world of
\neveryday street life in the city, that seductiveness can then be seen as
\nvanity, ego, and frivolity.<\/p>\n

We can have transitways without the required walk and bike infrastructure,
\nbut that will not deliver us decent places to live.
\n
\n
\nI stopped by the San Leandro (one of the East Bay BRT towns) informercial
\nmeeting last night — long enough to ask someone (vice-mayor of San Leandro)
\nwhere the bike lanes were that I’d heard about. Thankfully, a bystander
\nhelped point them out (saving us all from further discomfort), in their
\nmicroscopic glory, on some small western portion of the route through that
\ntown. An existing, if short, bike lane to the east would be cut, apparently.
\nWhen the bike lanes did appear, they did so between moving traffic and
\nparked cars.<\/p>\n

My message would be…don’t be a Democrat. Don’t fold your tents so early.
\nDon’t negotiate away your biggest prize before you even sit down at the
\ntable. And, recognize what your biggest prize is — a walkable and bikeable
\nstreet\/avenue\/corridor. It’s not buses or trains or
\nbuses-that-look-like-trains or any other sort of motorized concoction. Go
\nwith Gehl. Stick with the Green Transportation Hierarchy, or what we might
\nrename it to — the Livable Streets Transportation Hierarchy. Be sweet to
\npedestrians and cyclists, and everything else will work itself out. Let the
\nmotor heads fight it out for the remaining street space. Planners need to be
\ntaught that coming to the table with anything less than the minimally
\nrequired treatment for walkers and bikers is a non-starter — we won’t even
\ndiscuss it — we’re not on board — you can spend the next five years of
\nyour political life, planners\/Mayors\/Councilpersons, and all your political
\ncapital pushing through Scheme X, but it won’t stand a chance of garnering
\nour support until you show us some respect.<\/p>\n

‘$9,000 per ton of emissions abatement’ — not including ‘built-in\/full
\nlifecycle’ construction costs — for one of SF’s BRT corridors. I have no
\nidea if that number is attractive or not, relatively speaking, but I can’t
\nhelp but think what simple buffered bike lanes would do on any corridor that
\ncurrently held ‘traffic sewer’ status.<\/p>\n

$225 million for Geary BRT to shift 7.5% of drivers onto buses. Again, I’ve
\nno idea if those numbers are attractive or not, but I feel like cyclists
\n(and would-be cyclists) are not getting what they require. A recent
\nStreetsblog SF article suggested that one of the SF BRT projects wasn’t
\nlooking like a sure thing because…well, among other things, bike
\ninfrastructure wasn’t part of the deal, so bikers were giving the project a
\ncollective ‘eh’. Good — any project that doesn’t take care of non-motorized
\nfolks first should die a quick death. I say let’s be a bit more explicit
\nabout it.<\/p>\n

I know the Cleveland Healthline BRT got bike lanes for at least part of the
\nroute, and the Orange Line BRT in LA got that separated bike path. The SMART
\ntrain, north of SF, will get a parallel-running multi-use path.<\/p>\n

I guess the same argument applies to LRT lines — don’t throw away cyclists.
\nI think the BRT cases attract more of my ire because I’m, simply put, a BRT
\nhater. Giving away cycling street space to trains almost seems tolerable,
\nbut buses? Not a good deal, imo.<\/p>\n

Pedestrians and cyclists on the most important corridors — especially the
\nmost important corridors.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.livablestreets.com\/projects\/streetsblognet\/lists\/streetsblognet-discussion\/archive\/2009\/10\/1256377803714<\/a>oldId.20091025141301979<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[The following story makes me think can we really have mass transit when there are no sidewalks? Can we really have walking as transportation or an extension of mass transit with poles in the middle of the sidewalk? Can we create great places to live surrounded by car sewers? Are great places to live solely … <\/p>\n

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