{"id":133,"date":"2013-06-16T22:36:46","date_gmt":"2013-06-17T03:36:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/safetga.org\/?p=133"},"modified":"2013-12-14T16:08:09","modified_gmt":"2013-12-14T21:08:09","slug":"thoughts-on-cycling-savvy-and-bike-lanes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/safetga.org\/?p=133","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on Cycling Savvy and bike lanes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week I attended a Cycling Savvy course<\/a> taught by Karen Karabell and Gerry Noll (photos\u00a01<\/a>, 2<\/a>).\u00a0 While I am an experienced cyclist — I raced in college and have been commuting regularly for over a decade — revisiting the basics of cycling safety is always a good idea.\u00a0 I also wanted to learn first hand about the diversity of opinions among cyclists about bike lanes and other such infrastructure.\u00a0 It was, on the whole, a positive experience, and I think Cycling Savvy is a class any beginner or intermediate cyclists could benefit from.\u00a0 Still, while I share its goal of making cycling safer, I disagree with some of Cycling Savvy’s prescriptions.\u00a0 Here are some thoughts.
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\nCycling Savvy<\/a> teaches the basics of safe urban cycling. The course consisted of three segments: classroom instruction, a bike handling clinic, and a city bicycle tour.\u00a0 The first part discussed cyclist rights and responsibilities and illustrated various danger scenarios: intersections, the door zone, and blind spots, and how to deal with them.\u00a0 The bike handling clinic focused on skills such as shifting, braking, and emergency maneuvers. \u00a0Finally, \u00a0the city ride (I could stay for only a short part of it) pulled the lessons together to demonstrate safe and confident cycling challenging traffic scenarios, including high volume roads like Kingshighway.\u00a0 A fair amount of emphasis was placed on bike lanes and their drawbacks.\u00a0 The message was that paint alone does not make you safe — cars frequently cross bike lanes, and many of them are poorly designed, placing riders in door zones or misguiding them through intersections.\u00a0 Instead, Cycling Savvy urges riders to ride as traffic and to take a \u201ccar\u201d lane as necessary, even if a bicycle lane exists.<\/p>\n

There is, in fact, a long-standing debate in the cycling community about the wisdom and usefulness of bicycle lanes and related infrastructure, which I won\u2019t dive into here (but see here<\/a> and here<\/a> for some background).\u00a0 For instance, some argue that bike lanes lead to complacency and increase car\/bike conflict, and insist on equal rights for all users of the road (the I Am Traffic Facebook page<\/a> is one example).\u00a0 Others point to statistics showing that bike lanes reduce traffic accidents, increase the number of riders, and have broad public support (for instance, the Green Lane Project<\/a>).<\/p>\n

For me, the issue is ultimately personal.\u00a0 There are many reasons I ride — to exercise, burn less gas, and enjoy the city\u2019s neighborhoods and parks — but in the end I ride because I love it.\u00a0 I believe I could navigate a multi-lane arterial like Kingshighway legally and relatively safely, but there is no joy in it for me.\u00a0 Bike lanes, even the imperfect ones on Tower Grove Avenue, establish clear expectations for both me and other traffic, make me feel safer, and make riding more enjoyable.\u00a0 Based on my conversations with fellow riders, I find most feel the same way.<\/p>\n

My sense is that Cycling Savvy teaches many important skills, and is a reasonable reaction to a car-centric infrastructure often hostile to cyclists.\u00a0 In the end, though, it lacks a coherent vision of how to improve streets to make cycling easier, safer, and accessible to anyone who wants to ride.<\/p>\n

— Matt Wyczalkowski<\/p>\n

Update<\/h4>\n

Read further correspondence<\/a> with Karen Karabell, one of the CyclingSavvy instructors, and her reply<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week I attended a Cycling Savvy course taught by Karen Karabell and Gerry Noll (photos\u00a01, 2).\u00a0 While I am an experienced cyclist — I raced in college and have been commuting regularly for over a decade — revisiting the…<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more ›<\/a><\/div>\n

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