By Vance Lehmkuhl
Philadelphia Daily News, September 24, 2009
The ever-irascible Stu Bykofsky weighs in today in the Daily News on the new river-to-river bike lanes that have been implemented on Spruce and Pine Streets. You can pretty much infer Stu's position on the matter by the headline, "Bicyclists given too much roadway?"
At first his beef seems to be with the "prime rolling real estate" being reassigned, as he agrees that "the streets are too narrow to give bicyclists an entire lane." Later, though, it seems this is more about a clash of cultures. "I like bicycles. It's bicyclists I hate," Stu says, quickly tempering the last word before listing "bad bicyclist" complaints like ignoring stop signs, running red lights and driving the wrong way down one-way streets.
At first the two concepts - a promising new 'green' initiative by the city and occasional bad behavior by a few cyclists - don't seem to have much to with each other. But the clear link is: Why should bikers be rewarded when they refuse to obey the rules of the road?
Maybe I'm overstating Stu's objection, but it's one I've heard a lot, in one version or another, especially since these bike lanes were announced.
Here's the thing, though. Car drivers (and I should say, I drive a lot more than I bike - hell, I probably bike more on one day a year than the whole rest of the year put together) often complain about how bicyclists disobey "rules of the road" ranging from actual law to common courtesies. But unless they're involved in a specific incident, I never hear these same charges leveled at car drivers in general.
Come on, though - rolling through stop signs? Running red lights? Failing to signal turns and lane changes? From my experience this kind of behavior is very common among car drivers in and around Philly. And I live on a one-way street, where I see as many cars as bikes going "up" instead of "down," if nor more.
But let's go back to the supposed main point here: Cars are being cheated out of an entire lane of Spruce and Pine! That will kill traffic flow!
This makes me laugh, because I wrote and recorded a song in the '90s called "Sittin' in a Lane of Traffic," about people - especially around here - who think driving lanes are for them to park their car in for however long they like. In the song I actually singled out Spruce and Pine streets as the most infamously, reliably double-parked streets in the whole city. In other words, except for perhaps a few hours in the dead of night, there never was a time that these streets had two continuous lanes to drive in!
So congratulations to the Mayor for getting this bike lane to happen, and for riding (part of the way) to work to promote it. I agree with Stu that Nutter probably won't be commuting from Wynnefield anytime soon - until, that is, we get those lanes installed, and then look out!
At first his beef seems to be with the "prime rolling real estate" being reassigned, as he agrees that "the streets are too narrow to give bicyclists an entire lane." Later, though, it seems this is more about a clash of cultures. "I like bicycles. It's bicyclists I hate," Stu says, quickly tempering the last word before listing "bad bicyclist" complaints like ignoring stop signs, running red lights and driving the wrong way down one-way streets.
At first the two concepts - a promising new 'green' initiative by the city and occasional bad behavior by a few cyclists - don't seem to have much to with each other. But the clear link is: Why should bikers be rewarded when they refuse to obey the rules of the road?
Maybe I'm overstating Stu's objection, but it's one I've heard a lot, in one version or another, especially since these bike lanes were announced.
Here's the thing, though. Car drivers (and I should say, I drive a lot more than I bike - hell, I probably bike more on one day a year than the whole rest of the year put together) often complain about how bicyclists disobey "rules of the road" ranging from actual law to common courtesies. But unless they're involved in a specific incident, I never hear these same charges leveled at car drivers in general.
Come on, though - rolling through stop signs? Running red lights? Failing to signal turns and lane changes? From my experience this kind of behavior is very common among car drivers in and around Philly. And I live on a one-way street, where I see as many cars as bikes going "up" instead of "down," if nor more.
But let's go back to the supposed main point here: Cars are being cheated out of an entire lane of Spruce and Pine! That will kill traffic flow!
This makes me laugh, because I wrote and recorded a song in the '90s called "Sittin' in a Lane of Traffic," about people - especially around here - who think driving lanes are for them to park their car in for however long they like. In the song I actually singled out Spruce and Pine streets as the most infamously, reliably double-parked streets in the whole city. In other words, except for perhaps a few hours in the dead of night, there never was a time that these streets had two continuous lanes to drive in!
So congratulations to the Mayor for getting this bike lane to happen, and for riding (part of the way) to work to promote it. I agree with Stu that Nutter probably won't be commuting from Wynnefield anytime soon - until, that is, we get those lanes installed, and then look out!