@voiceofunreason My reading of that approval requirement says that the mayor could propose this as an ordinance tomorrow (well, at least at the next council session). I'm so tired of hearing how their hands are tied.
@sam wonders how to respond after a bad driver interaction:
Q6. When you have a dangerous interaction with a driver that doesn't involve a crash (drivers throwing things, pulling in front of you and getting out of their car and attempting to stop your bike, etc.) do you call the police, file a report later, get away and then do nothing, or something else? What factors go into making your decision?
@rowdypixel@Brownian_motion@ascentale@sam@bikenite there's a stretch of Naito where it splits off of Barbur Blvd that's got no bike lane and the right car lane frequently backed-up at a standstill for the Ross Island bridge (#ODOTGTFOpdx), one day I'm riding down the left lane (posted speed 40mph or so) and there are two ladies with a guidebook at the unmarked crosswalk stairway peeking from between the cars, so I slow, like are you going to cross, hear screeching tires behind me (nobody...
... nobody was in my mirror when I started stopping) and my reaction was to come off the brake, but then driver doesn't stop for them so I stop and give this person an earful (apparently these ladies decide it's not the place to cross) and ride off at a much more leisurely pace than necessary, after the bridge ramp, there's a cop parked there and he PA's at me something about "obstructing traffic is a violation", clueless about the FTY bit
#BikeNite A6 @cainmark@sam@moira@ascentale I keep a chronological list of license plates / descriptions and info about the incident (usually a traffic law violation) with video for most of them. I would report it to insurance companies if they would let me, have logged some on sites like nearlykilled.me, but not found a productive outlet for #DriverAccountability info. Oregon law allows civilian citations but it's an onerous process, probably starts with the driver learning your address 😟
@xtaran asks about terms discussed enough BikeNites ago for me to forget somewhat 😅
Q5. I remember that someone said you should not use the word "cycling" but "riding" instead. Or was it the other way round? And I also forgot why. I vaguely remember it was something political. And what about "biking"?
(Generally, how do you prefer to refer to the act of riding a cycle, and someone who rides one? And why? Do some of the terms have confusing or undesirable meanings?)
A5 @ascentale@xtaran I'm happy to be a person riding a bike but please don't refer to me as "a cyclist", since that's not my profession or identity and I don't do sports. Maybe if you're in England it's cycling and you get a biscuit. #BikeNite
Next question is from @meganL about national cycling advocacy organizations:
Q3. What advocacy item would you like the League of American Bicyclists (or whatever your national/local cycle advocacy group is) to add to their lobbying agenda?
A3 #BikeNite it seems like every politician and even most drivers "support bicycling" but what's lacking is the connected low-stress infrastructure to get people of all ages and abilities from all points A to all points B by bike. DOTs' bike plans are being built on like a 200-year timeline and #CompleteStreets are never going to happen before the climate extincts us unless we do #TacticalUrbanism and network-level reprogramming of space that's effectively reserved for cars
It doesn't have to be expensive, just trim cut-thru car traffic out of segments of the 10x-redundant carway network until there's finally 1.0+ bikeway network that actually works for kids riding to school, moms biking to groceries and errands, grandmas on trikes, bankers on the way to a meeting, and whatever other "indicator species" you can imagine of biking-as-normalcy that's missing from the current ridership.
Vadim Mozyrsky spamming the city's neighborhood email list infrastructure with his campaign crap is so very on-brand. 🙄 Wannabe Sam Adams LoL at least it goes straight to the spam folder.
I blocked that OddOpinions5 person a while back. Highly recommended. They seem reasonable until they do the concern trolling about bikes thing ("what about rain??")
I was reflecting yesterday on how many cyclists on the UC Davis campus I saw doing the same self-centered, unsafe things I see drivers do.
And I know it's because most are drivers who are self-centered, and reckless.
I reflected on how, if we want more people to leave cars at home, we're going to be dealing with exactly this unless we find a way to educate, carrot & stick safer, more community-minded culture in new cyclists. #BikeTooter#Cycling
@meganL probably needs to be done primarily with infrastructure, if the education and enforcement we've done for drivers is any indication of how well those work.
@meganL AOL was infrastructure, like a freeway offramp into your neighborhood, and before that the drivers were different people, the culture was a different context. The bikeway network is infrastructure, whether people have a nice fast way to get where they're going or they're forced to choose between a painted bike lane on a stroad vs cutting through a park on the sidewalk. Induced Demand operates at multiple levels of granularity, infrastructure shapes behavior, desire lines etc.
@meganL it's not that I think it's the only possible tool, it's that we design the environment so very poorly and then try to educate or enforce upstream against human nature / social dynamics that are caused by improper design. I hear so often "don't try to solve people problems with technology" but constantly see wasted effort to solve technology problems with people. It's probably a cultural problem, maybe we could teach people to do better 😂
@meganL you're doing great, keep up the good work. Infrastructure is not something most people can do alone, ironically, that's a thing for organizing and educating people. We all do what we're able to contribute. Sorry if what I wrote seems to say otherwise.
Is there a better time of day to pick leafy greens? Or a different part of the life-cycle? Maybe they need more water or nutrients or something, the ones I'm growing always seem to be thin and floppy, not great to chew, like the leaves could be crunchier, crisp? #gardening#foraging
I guess the thing is if you're worried what's going to happen to speeding drivers who hit the bollards, you should be worried about what happens when parents have to take these matters into their own hands. 😡
@tk repeated inability to avoid hitting stationary objects should at least raise their premiums. The important thing to me is filtering out drunk drivers before they hit someone.
