BIKE: Re: Small but significant error in "Seeing the beauty of a thinner Shoal Creek"

[Mike Dahmus]

Lane Wimberley wrote:

>My reply to Patrick's... sorry for any duplicates.  -Lane
>
>
>And, just to be even more clear (sorry if I'm contributing to a long,
>drawn-out argument), "activist bicyclists" had little or nothing to do
>with the debacle initially.  The cyclists I know would have been
>perfectly happy with the original city plan of allowing parking on
>only one side of the street, giving bicyclists obstacle-free bike
>lanes.  It was a few noisy neighborhood residents who raised a stink.
>Then, cyclists would have been happy with the proposed (and
>almost-tested) so-called "neighborhood alternative," which allowed
>parking to alternate sides, again providing cyclists with an
>obstacle-free bike lane.  Again, neighbors complained (although I
>believe that the official reason that the idea was rejected was that
>it failed the "test," which is ludicrous since the plan that is now
>being implemented fails against the same criteria).
>
>Finally, five cars over a four-mile (not five) stretch of SCB is a
>drastic exaggeration.  I don't remember my car counts from a few years
>ago at the moment, but I want to say it was typically more like 30 or
>40, and at times could range up to 80-100.
>
>But, that's not really the issue.  All we wanted was a dedicated,
>obstacle-free bike space in the interest of safety.  What we got was
>(all together now!) ... parking in bike lanes.
>
>-Lane
>  
>
Carl Tepper (the commissioner who responded to Patrick) is coming from 
the position that the original lanes (7ish feet wide which allowed 
parking) were fine, and that the bike/ped coordinator should have never 
tried to have parking-free bike lanes on that street.

While I disagreed (and still do) with Carl, he at least has some 
experience in the corridor in both modes, unlike many of the neighbors 
and Gandy's crew. It's perhaps more useful when speaking to people like 
Carl to point out the potential liability problems in the old (and 
especially new) design which will eventually be a problem for the city 
(and are why the city is not posting any new "Bike Lane" signs in the 
corridor or painting the bike lane symbol on the street). Carl has heard 
all of the arguments from me and others about the potential conflict 
problems with passing parked cars while at the same time being passed by 
a moving car, but has not agreed with our opinion of their magnitude or 
frequency. When liability enters into it, however, even an infrequent 
conflict (which he supposes is the case) might be more significant.

Carl's a good guy, in other words - he just doesn't agree on this case.

- MD