I enjoyed watching the city council meeting last night (FF: 44:30) when members of FAB showed up to promote bicycling and safety. While I agree with most said, especially when it comes to more bike lanes, etc. I have felt for awhile that there needs to be more bicycle safety training and awareness by the city.
I have been commuting on the roads and bike trail ever since I moved here in 1991. You have to learn how to be a defensive rider. As a car centric community it is hard to change the mentality of drivers when they rule the roost. We also need to build new roads more accommodating to bikes and pedestrians. I think we missed an opportunity on North Minnesota Ave recently when building the medium in the center. We could have easily made that a bike lane. I have seen it in other cities and it works pretty good.
Okay, I am going to cause some trouble here. If motorcyclists don’t get their own lane, then why should ebikers? 😉
I would agree, even if you are being snarky. I learned thru my years of riding the safest place for a bicyclist is in the road and NOT on the sidewalk. People can see you. Sure, they honk, yell at you, but they don’t run you over. You have to vigilant. But I also think bicyclists don’t pick the best routes. For example, I used to get frustrated that I couldn’t drive to my favorite Sunday afternoon bitch fest at Barnes and Noble on 41st street during the holiday shopping season, so I started taking 37th street (which BTW would be an awesome bike corridor) It took me a quarter of the time. As I have been riding thru neighborhoods this summer I noticed that there are tons of safe, scenic ways to go from one side of the town to the other. You can literally ride north to south from 26th street to 60th street thru neighborhoods without seeing car traffic. The biking community needs to put together an alternative bike path system thru residential neighborhoods. There is also many shortcuts if you cut thru these residential streets. Bikes are NOT cars, you don’t have to take the main thoroughfare and you shouldn’t.
Yes, 37th Street is a nice quiet secret, but let’s not let anyone else know about it. Because, you are talking about my neighborhood. 😉 AND, there’s a reason as to why I don’t own a motorcycle, and that same reason causes me to stay away from our city streets with a bicycle as well. I am pretty much a bike trail cyclist and only once have I seen a car on it, when some teenagers drove a Plymouth Duster on it down by the Yankton Trail soccer fields.