It never ceases to amaze me when I see someone on a bike riding down a busy car-packed street, hugging the line of parked cars. It’s even more surprising to see when there’s a neighborhood greenway a block away. Why would you want to ride next to a bunch of cars anyway? One of the best things about Portland is being able to get away from them in the beautiful, tree-lined streets of our neighborhoods.
It’s also just plain inconsiderate to the people who, for one reason or another, need to use a car that day. On a street like Chavez, Hawthorne or Division, where there’s no bike lane, you’re forcing car traffic to move at your pace on streets with double yellow lines painted down the middle. Of course there are times when we all need to ride on a busy street for a block or two. No one is saying we can’t all use the same roads. I just wish people would recognize that there are ways we can all do better at this.
Sharing the road also means using the appropriate route for your vehicle. I know I don’t like it when cars are cruising the greenways, using them as cut-throughs to avoid traffic. Why are you making it worse by using the routes that are full of cars? It’s just slowing other people down and pissing them off. I know there are plenty of cyclists who relish in this, but I think most people just want to get where they’re going.
Maybe they have business to do on that street?
I occasionally ride on Division for a few blocks to get to my Chiro appointment or other businesses. The speed limit is 20 and my average speed on flat land is 18. It’s 30 seconds of your day. Get over it.
My favorite instance of this was the FAMILY of cyclists on HWY 30. Mom, Dad, and two kids, to be sure. It’s one thing if you want to put yourself at risk. It’s quite another with the whole fam damily.
Weird. All this time I thought it was all the cars on the streets that caused congestion but now I know it’s the cleft-brained cyclists thanks to phlegmmy!
It’s weird how you keep talking about being in traffic but blame bike riders for slowing you down. Missing the forest for the trees.
“I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally that means they have not a single argument left.”
Margaret Tatcher
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying phlegmmy. Obviously.
If you think that any cyclist would choose to ride on a busy street without a dedicated lane, instead of a safer, quieter one designated for cycling, solely out of wildly uninformed ignorance of the safety merit of the alternative, then you might just be incapable of thinking effectively enough to operate a car safely.