Date: Fri, 2 Oct 2009 14:40:41 -0400
Reply-To: mcneely4@COX.NET
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Dave Mcneely <mcneely4@COX.NET>
Subject: Re: metropolitan cycling was Vanagon emissions
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed; delsp=no
On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 1:01 PM, Don Hanson wrote:
> On the other hand, one would not long survive trying to get around
> the LA
> area by bicycle..Nope! Imagine riding through the normal gridlock on
> any of
> the freeways on your bike...doing 20-25mph (a easy sustainable pace
> for a
> fit road cyclist) past literally hundreds of thousands of fuming and
> stationary drivers...You would very soon be a victim of road rage..
> "If I am
> stuck here in this traffic, that frikken' lycra-clad bike f-- is not
> gonna
> go anywhere either" And on the rare occaisions where traffic is not
> stalled, the drivers are so exhuberent that they could give a crap
> about
> some cyclist on the shoulder...No Mercy for bikes there..and no public
> transportation either.
> Happy friday
> Don Hanson
Can't really speak for LA concerning utility of using a bike from
personal experience, but two friends who live there use bikes for most
day to day trips. I haven't asked them, but I doubt that they ever get
on a freeway with a bike. Fact is, in most jurisdictions it is illegal,
as well as downright stupid behavior. To bring in California's more
northern metropilis, my daughter commuted between Oakland and Berkeley
by bicycle for a couple of years, and didn't use the freeway there.
Like I have learned the surface streets of the cities I navigate most
often, bicyclists learn them as well. In most cities, most folks who
are not long-distance commuters can get by for most day to day
excursions within 5 miles of home, and who needs a freeway for that?.
Even suburbanists like myself can mostly do that. When I have been in
LA, I've seen more bikes on the streets than I do here in Oklahoma,
including Oklahoma City. For myself, I do a lot of walking to the
library, shops, and so on. Oklahoma drivers seem to see a target on
bicyclists, and there are no bike paths in most Oklahoma cities,
including my suburban one.
My wife was flabbergasted when a coworker said she could not get home
from work in a snowstorm because the freeway would be clogged and
dangerous. Bonnie asked the woman why she didn't take an alternate
route, and she said she didn't know any. She lived a quarter mile off a
through surface street that runs between the suburb where they worked
and her city neighborhood. Every day, not just in snowstorms, that
freeway clogs with folks driving from the city to the suburb and
vice-versa, while reaching either takes half the time on the streets.
David Mc
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