Stirrin' up S&!#

As noted in a recent post, Louisville Metro has installed a couple of bike boxes--on Spring at Mellwood and on Adams at Story (Adams becomes Spring when it crosses Story, or Spring becomes Adams as one crosses Story, depending on one's travel direction). I've not been overly delicate in expressing my opinion of this move, citing, among other things, that bike boxes:

1. create right-hook crash hazards as cyclists follow a bike lane that is situated to the right of a lane from which motorists may make a right turn
2. teach unwary cyclists that "queue-jumping" is acceptable practice, in violation of the basic traffic principle of "First-come, first-served."
3. teach unwary cyclists that being off to the right of traffic is somehow a safe place to be (despite all evidence to the contrary showing that cyclists are far safer in the center-left of the travel lane).

To offer a quick review of what a bike box supposedly does for cyclists, the original intent was to enable cyclists who wished to make left turns to get ahead of the queue and get across the main travel lane (presumably from a right-edge bike lane). In practice, cyclists were not using the boxes as intended, so the goal post got moved and the current claim is that bike boxes allow cyclists to get to the head of the line and leave the intersection first AND somehow avoid right-hook conflicts. The mechanism for prevention of right-hook conflicts is the farcical notion that motorists making right turns will grow eyes in the backs of their heads the better to notice a cyclist approaching in what would otherwise be the motorist's blind spot. There is a recent video from Portland Oregon from a bicycle user who, despite the motorist making a right turn, rode right in to a right-hook conflict and had the audacity to blame the motorist when the cyclist could easily have avoided the conflict by slowing a bit.

Several friends have noted that significant numbers of the folks who advocate for such majick painte solutions as door-zone bike lanes, gutter-zone bike lanes, and bike boxes are in fact advocating for abdication of the personal responsibility of cyclists to manage their own safety. They are holding everyone BUT cyclists responsible, and making complicated demands on all involved.

Anyway, as noted in the title to this blog entry, my sharp tone and numerous comments didn't go unnoticed. A subset of my three or four readers likely read LEO, the Louisville Eccentric Observer, a weekly printed paper that at least used to have a decidedly progressive take on things AND offered some great commentary (LEO used to carry a column from the late Molly Ivins, a wonderful voice for many years). Apparently advertising revenues no longer support such things as a weekly dose of This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow or other similar comics, nor national columns on par with the aforementioned one from Molly Ivins (who, as noted, is no longer among the living and thus no longer publishing her column).

A writer from the LEO contacted me a bit more than a week ago, asking for an interview. She and I met over some form of refreshment at a Heine Brothers' location, chatted for a while, and bade each other a good afternoon. I didn't expect I would be the only one interviewed, and was not surprised to see comments from a friend in the resulting article.

As I read the article, I noted that Mayor Fischer apparently used the Geller Taxonomy for classifying cyclists. In short, this classification system tells us that a tiny percentage of cyclists are "strong and fearless," a small (~7%) percentage are "Enthused and Confident," a much larger percentage (~60%) are "Interested but Concerned," and the remaining 33% or so say, "No way, no how."

I rankle at the notion that my thought processes involved in self-preservation by riding with my safety in mind are somehow "fearless," or that I am some sort of superman on a bike. I ride the way I ride BECAUSE I am risk-averse.

And, anyway, the classification is hokum. Pure hogwash. It's far more productive to consider riding behaviors, since personal safety is, first and foremost, a product of one's own behavior. A friend put forth that the behavior classes could be called "pedestrian behavior," "edge-riding behavior," and "bicycle-driving behavior," where the first refers to using a sidewalk or path at mostly walking speeds, the second to riding against the curb or fog line in attempts to "stay out of the way of (presumed) more important traffic," and the last means "integrating into the traffic system by controlling one's travel lane and releasing faster traffic to pass as safety allows."

I hasten to mention that I have over-simplified the descriptions a bit.

One reason the behavioral model is helpful is that a given cyclist may exhibit each of the three types of behavior at various points in a single trip, depending on circumstances. An example: If I am in St. Matthews, my most common route home includes using a sidewalk that links the back side of a Kroger parking lot to a neighborhood, then using the neighborhood streets to avoid some of the Westport Road bike lane. Once on Westport Road, I am all but compelled to use the gutter bike lane (or face harassment from motorists and/or law-enforcement officers who have read some of 601KAR 14:020 (9) (2)). When I leave Westport Road by turning onto Washburn Avenue, I again resume my preferred bicycle-driving behavior pattern.

In other words, I don't fit into any one category of Geller's model.

And, because I was really following meaningless numbers for a while, this is my 567th blog post.