An article in today’s paper http://thechronicleherald.ca/Opinion/1210738.html reports proposed amendments to increase cycling safety, but no mention of any consultation with known organized cycling groups.
The NS govt website news release http://www.gov.ns.ca/news/details.asp?id=20101104013 says they consulted members of the cycling community. Who? Sounds good, but let’s have some details: what is the wording of the amendments? Which members of the cycling community were consulted? Why is there nothing about it on hfx cycling coalition website http://www.cyclehalifax.ca/ or in The Coast? Aren’t there other cycling groups in NS? Cycling safety is a hot topic. It’s good to see some action, but where are the details? —pop-cycle
This article appears in Nov 4-10, 2010.
Maybe the ones they wanted to consult got hit by a car on route to being consulted.
why do you waste your time reading the horrid o.p., it isn’t real there.
If anyone asked my opinion, I’d say it should be mandatory to put rearview mirrors on bikes. For fuck’s sake bikers, would it hurt you to look behind you once in a ride!?
i was just watching cwd and they were showing them the head swivel. a crucial element in driving, riding, walking. that show scares me because i multiply
It would be nice if the critical mass riders obeyed traffic laws and didn’t run red lights.
I’m with Pop. because I’ve seen C/M do that.
From what I’ve seen some of these new rules will be virtually unenforceable, just like the ban on cell phone use while driving.
Vehicles will be required to keep at least one metre from cyclists at all times. Presumably this would also apply to cyclists staying at least one metre from motor vehicles. It sounds like a good idea, but I believe it will be enforced only sporadically, if at all. I don’t think police will act on complaints after the fact. Can you imagine? Both drivers and cyclists would be calling in complaints constantly – cyclists complaining about drivers running them off the road and drivers complaining about cyclists squeezing up along the curb beside them less than a metre from their right rear fender. The police have better things to do (I hope).
I see cell phone users wandering all over the road, rolling through red lights and sitting stationary at green lights which they haven’t noticed while chatting away on the phone. I’d like to know how many tickets get handed out for driving while using a cell phone. Not many I’d guess.
Still it’s good to see some action on the bike file. This isn’t a very bike friendly city, but maybe that’s because it’s just a fucked up city to drive in anyway. Narrow streets, poorly marked pedestrian corridors every fifty feet, and of course a lot of folks driving who obviously can’t drive but apparently took the drivers exam from their uncle at DMV and got licensed anyway.
Commandante, the police do periodically release the number of tickets handed out for cell phone usage; and they do hand out these tickets. Virtually any law around driving is tough to enforce (i.e. speeding, running red lights, etc…). Just because not everyone gets caught doesn’t mean the law shouldn’t be in place.
I heard about the new law about cars having to stay a metre away from cyclists, but I just don’t see how that’s going to work either… Don’t cyclists bike about a metre from the curb already, meaning we have to drive into the other lane to get around them or just get stuck going 20 behind them, causing every car behind you to go at a crawl? I’m all for making it easier for cars and cyclists to just be around each other but this just doesn’t make sense to me. In the city, it’s not really an option to just drive into on-coming traffic to get around a cyclist who is in the middle of the lane. So I guess we’ll all be going 20 from now on.
@Plastic Diver Guy, I find a rear-view mirror on my bike or helmet to not be very effective- I find it disorienting, and motorists are more aware of my wanting to do something if they see me shoulder check.
@sodeypop, that’s why I never do the Critical Mass ride.
What a fucking lame ‘let’s make a half-assed law to make them think we give a fuck’ law this is. Can’t wait to read the Letters to the Editor in the CH over this one.
Oooh… an old guy on a bicycle cut across me the other day on the sidewalk – it makes me Sooooo grouchy, I was going to push him. Sigh. I’m too nice. And it was a one way street with little traffic!!! Little kids on the sidewalk, I can tolerate, but FFS, if you’re able, get on the street where you belong!!
I strongly support making this city more bike friendly, but I don’t like half-measures like the many ‘bike lanes to nowhere’ that you see in various parts of the city. I guess the bike rider is supposed to levitate to where the bike lane starts and then three blocks later levitate out of traffic.
I would take a bolder approach. I would build (at a fraction of the cost of a new convention centre) actual bike corridors as part of a bike transportation system that was separate from the roadways used by motor vehicles. I think far more people would commute to work on bikes if they could do so on dedicated bike thoroughfares (NOT BIKE LANES) that were part of a bike transportation infrastructure that included bike parking facilities and connected to an improved mass transit system that ran out to the suburban regions of the HRM. There are other cities around the world where bike lanes are physically separated and the result is more bike riders and fewer vehicles.
In many cities throughout North America the electric street car systems were bought up by the automobile conglomerates and then dismantled primarily to force people off public transit and into automobiles. Governments have been heavily subsidizing the automobile industry for decades with expensive to construct and maintain highways and street systems. I think it’s long past time for governments to shift some of that subsidy to a transportation method that is affordable for most citizens, would improve the health of the population overall, sustainable in that it uses far less of a increasingly scarce commodity (oil) and would actually move us along the path to reducing CO2 emissions.
What about winter riding? I have some ideas for that, too.
I think what a lot of pro-commuting people fail to realize is that ‘bike lanes’ are not the answer to the ‘why don’t people commute by bike’ question. I think a greater problem keeping most people from riding is the ‘WTF do I do with my bike and dirty bike clothes when I get to where I’m going?’ I know lots of cyclists but very few of them are actual commuters, so it isn’t the lack a biking infrastructure keeping them off the roads.