There are times when riding on the shoulder can indeed be a life-saver.

Not always to the swift from John Allen on Vimeo.

Build it and they will come.

Accepted truism: Building bicycle infrastructure creates bicycle riders. It's a complicated issue that isn't easily dis-proven... but neither has it been easily proven.

In most cases, the bicyclists came first, with the infrastructure following as a traffic control device to keep cyclists out of the way of 'real' traffic. Whether one chases the other, or they chase each other circularly, hasn't been clearly shown. Infrastructure investment hasn't been shown to increase the bike mode-share in Austin, or in Corvallis, Oregon. It's debatable if infrastructure development has done it in Portland, too. All three cities (all three heavily university-influenced towns with centralized bicycle activity around the campus sites) experienced a surge in bicycle activity prior to major infrastructure construction, with a mode-share gain considerably lower than predicted after the investment.

What has been clearly shown is a channelization effect, where cyclists who otherwise used streets of their own choosing (or sidewalks) use the facilities because they feel they A) feel safer using them, B) think they should use them, C) get harassed by motorists for not using them. Before and after bike-counts of streets that get bike lanes show a significant increase, but screening bike-counts that take in parallel streets don't show an overall increase.

But, for fun, let's apply the accepted logic that "build it and they will come" to other facility types. Say for example, prisons. The more we build, the more they fill up with criminals. So if we didn't build prisons, we would obviously have fewer criminals, and therefore less crime.

Does that make sense to you?

This is a mobility lesson.

Traffic in Frenetic HCMC, Vietnam from Rob Whitworth on Vimeo.


Gee. What if we'd won?

Occupy the Lane... or ride in the gutter.

More wisdom from Commute Orlando.

We have power to change the street

See a problem?

Dan Gutierrez

See a problem here? Do you realize every driveway, curb cut, and minor intersection is exactly the same (but without stop signs). What if it said "HOV Lane" instead? Or "Carpool Lane"? Or "Motor Scooter Lane"?