This is a rebuttal to an earlier comment I made on the WFP site here. My handle, in case it's too hard for you to figure out, is rck.
paket: The notion that the road is more yours because you pay for gas and licensing is ridiculous. First of all a lot of cyclists own cars and therefore pay for licensing (which in any case is used to pay for the bureaucracy of licensing and MPI, not, as far as I know, for infrastructure). As far as gas taxes go, some of them do pay for roads, but keep in mind that your vehicle is much heavier and therefore creates significantly more wear and tear than a bike. Cyclists are also tax payers and have the same rights to the road that you enjoy--the extra amount you pay for the privilege of driving is your choice, but does not entitle you to more of the road. If you are in a single passenger vehicle and I am one man on a bike we are, in my view, equals. I will do my best to speed you on your way, but I'm not willing to put my life at risk so you can beat me to the next stop light.
Like Diskdoctor I believe bike paths should be cleared year-round on a fairly regular basis. There are more and more Winnipeggers out there every winter who realize that it's not as impractical as it first appears to ride year-round (unless it is during or just after an intense snowfall). I've been doing it for years and see no reason to stop. Encouraging this behavior lessens the pressure on car traffic and crowded transit routes. An extended river trail would make particularly good (and cheap) sense because it is entirely free of traffic (and a wonderful ride!)
T-Rev: I too hate to see cyclists abusing the rules of the road because it gives people like you justification for taking my life lightly. Just try and remember that we are all people, but when we are on bikes we are especially vulnerable people. The games you play out of vengeance may end-up killing or mauling someone who was a courteous cyclist or otherwise innocent human, someone who may have children, or at the very least other living people who love them as much as you love the people in your life. Next time you feel the need to aggressively cut someone off to teach bike-rider-kind a lesson please ask yourself if it is really worth risking that person's life for.
Also: Bikes on sidewalks are much more likely to collide with vehicles because they don't stop at every street crossing and cars don't always either—it's a very dangerous and impractical solution, even in the absence of pedestrians. Bikes belong on roads, and until this city gets its act together to make safety a priority we are going to have to learn to live with each other.
2 comments:
Reading your comment, I'm glad that I haven't been reading the FP lately. The people you're responding to piss me off.
The past while, I've seen almost as many cyclists that piss me off as drivers (scratch that, maybe a quarter, just more than usual!) but I'm not going to try to do anything about it while I'm cycling. (Hello grown adults riding on the sidewalk!) And I try and ignore the rude drivers (okay, I call them assholes but they can't hear).
And I totally agree with you about sidewalks being unsafe for cycling. Crashes with pedestrians can be very bad - maybe not death causing, but definitely causing bad injuries. And cars (and other bikes, pedestrians) are not looking for such a fast moving thing on a sidewalk, so they pull out and get hit more easily.
I have to say on the winter cycling, I am not too excited to cycle 24km in a day. It's okay for shorter trips but I haven't found anything that will actually keep my feet and hands warm. I just end up with frigid ice blocks that are entirely unusable after a few kms.
See you at FFest!
Thanks for your response Dalila! You are totally right about the extremities in winter, I have yet to find the perfect solution for that (fingers especially), and 12k would probably be a mega-bitch in a bad wind (although the 12 k back, wah-hoo!)
Sometimes I say stuff to cyclists who annoy me, sometimes I say stuff to drivers, but almost universally I'm told to fuck off even if I try and say my piece nicely, so pretty much it's a waste of breath and the potential for a conflict I don't really want.
And yeah those posters on the WFP site are some bent-up folk aren't they? What a bunch of small-minded whiners. I want to write the Free Press and insist that everyone provide their full names when posting so that they won't be so tempted to fill the boards with the hateful, petty tripe that predominates. But to me it's like an accident I can't turn my head away from. I love opinions, even nasty ones I guess.
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