Riding around on one of these (including the Panzerfausts), would cut down on car dominance.
A German soldier on the 1944 army bicycle ESKA Cheb equipped with a pair of Panzerfaust 60 m. weapons
Posted on 05/20/2002 2:27:50 PM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
I was hugging the curb with my bicycle, but it didn't matter - the car's sideview mirror smacked my handlebars, spinning my wheel and tumbling me onto the pavement.
I had bloody elbows and knees, but nothing serious. A policeman saw the whole thing and pulled the driver over. I was expecting the driver to apologize, but he just whined that he barely touched me. Still in shock, I let him go.
Philadelphia is not a bike town - largely because cars won't let it be. And the city has done little to change that.
A city that prides itself on being built to a human scale has given its roads wholly over to cars - whose drivers tend to get angry when slower bicycles block their freedom to speed along. Cars blast their horns because of a few seconds' delay - with terrifying effect on the bicyclist, who is afraid of being mauled by the traffic if she slows down or slips.
It can get ridiculous: The faster one pedals, the safer one is - but only by keeping pace with the unrelenting cars. A 20-pound bike, however, is no match for a 2,000-pound car, and so everyday bicyclists face sharing the road with traffic - and the possibility of serious harm.
The city has long since sided with the cars. But helping bicyclists would not require any drastic measures.
There are almost no bike lanes, mostly because cars take two street lanes for driving and one for parking, a tight fit in a town not designed for such vehicles in the first place. Because the streets almost always run in straight lines, cars tend to bowl down the road, not needing to slow down for curves. Cars pick up speed down these chutes, reinforcing their carelessness regarding bikes and pedestrians.
Why not add a bike lane to a few of the roads popular with cyclists, such as Walnut Street and Broad Street? The city could post signs around town directing bikes to such streets. This would help clear the other streets for cars.
Also, the city could encourage more recreational biking by adding signs around town that show the routes of bike trails to the hills and suburbs. Fairmount Park is a great place to cycle. Now, most bikers who prefer speed take to the motorway that runs along the green. Many bike-friendly towns, observing the tendencies of the riders, would block off a lane of such a road on weekends to encourage the cyclers.
It must be said that Philadelphia - despite one of the best urban plans of any major American city, mixing homes with businesses, parks with banks, and hotels with coffee shops, all in a dense but livable cluster - is hardly a bicyclist's favorite town. But cities like Seattle or Amsterdam, or even Berlin and Boston, have these features as well, and are also quite old, yet have also managed to make their cities bike havens. Almost all major European cities have made efforts to bring bikes back into the heart of their cities and cut down on car dominance. Those efforts have added to these cities' beauty and sense of hospitality.
Bringing bikes into the center of Philadelphia would encourage a friendlier and more recreational atmosphere. Strange as it sounds, it might actually relax the town culture, enhancing the city's personality as well as helping it economically - big pluses in attracting people to live here.
Philadelphia once had a bicycle commission, and there are always demands every year for some action to protect cyclists. Yet biking-related injuries and even deaths occur at a steady pace. Why not take a few simple steps to increase bike safety before more life-threatening accidents occur?
I always look at Philly as one of the best soul towns in America. This city has a lot of pride and character. There is no reason why it can't be a bike town as well.
Here’s a suggestion—Tax bikes the same per mile as cars.
Now either shut your pie hole you euro-weenie-socialist, or put your money where you mouth is.
BTW, get the HE__ out of the way and off MY road. I and the other auto drivers paid for it.
Riding around on one of these (including the Panzerfausts), would cut down on car dominance.
A German soldier on the 1944 army bicycle ESKA Cheb equipped with a pair of Panzerfaust 60 m. weapons
When I got my driver's license in 1965, I put my bike in the garage and never rode it again.
But even during my bike days, I never never never never took my bike into downtown Philadelphia. For one thing, bus service to Philly from South Jersey was cheap, frequent and direct. For another, downtown Philly was the hub for a bus, trolley, subway-elevated and commuter rail network that most cities could only envy. Who needed a bike in downtown Philadelphia?
(And of course, I knew that as a skinny white kid with glasses, I'd have my bike all of two minutes in downtown Philly before someone decided he liked it and bikejacked me.)
I've been on both ends of this equasion. When I rode a bicycle I tried to be very courteous of the drivers. When I drive a car I get cutoff by cyclists all the time. If you honk at them they flip you off or beat on your car.
I was recently trying to make a right hand turn. I'd checked the crosswalks carefully, but as I made the turn a bicycle came from behind me on the right to whize out across the street through the ped crossing. Because he was able to move four or five times the speed of a ped, I missed him and nearly killed the guy. Of course I was the bad guy.
I had looked up the street ten to twenty feet to make sure it was clear, but he was able to travel thirty to forty feet in a matter of a couple of seconds.
Cars and bicycles don't mix. Sooner or later they mix it up and the cyclist comes out the loser.
That's my gutt feeling on it. I recognize that there will be ton's of folks fault me on it.
OK, let's work on the basics first, Joshua:
Cars blast their horns because of a few seconds' delay - with terrifying effect on the bicyclist, who is afraid of being mauled by the traffic if she slows down or slips.
Why not add a bike lane to a few of the roads popular with cyclists, such as Walnut Street and Broad Street?
Why not spend a few gazillion of the taxpayers' dollars so that Jonathan can bicycle unimpeded down the streets he regularly travels, you damned bullies? Why not add "Latte Stations" for thirsty and stressed out bicyclers?
Why not reconfigure the entire city so it's more "livable" for Jonathan?
It's not necessarily a conservative vs. liberal thing. However, for some reason, whenever I see the spandex crowd insisting on bicycling on the pavement, rather than the shoulder, of a heavily traveled state highway while cars and trucks zoom by at 60-65 miles an hour, I just have to wonder what's inside their heads. And because I see this sight most frequently near the liberal college town I commute to, I have it pretty much figured out that most of the spandex crowd probably voted for Gore. So.......my point is: others have figured this relationship out between the spandex crowd and socialism, as well. I guess I am practicing "profiling" here; if you don't fit the profile, good for you! (I mean that sincerely; I also hope you don't ride on the pavement of busy state highways and I assume you don't cuz conservatives are smarter than liberals!)
P.S. to DoughtyOne: I loved your comment - forwarded it to my spouse.
And that is the way it should be.
BUMP
Other one I hate out here is the backroad, pot-hole infested area's, which is hilly and sharp turns, you'll catch them everytime..Thank God for ABS...
You're not native to the 'Burgh, are you?
You gotta take care of your shocks & struts.
REAL Pittsburghers don't brake for potholes,
they'd never get anywhere if they did.
,,, in my opinion, a good measure of how civilised a city really is.
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