locky63red

My cycling club have been asked to address the local council on our proposal to make an existing walking trail in the city dual use(For all intents and purposes it is already used as a dual use path.) But from an advocacy point of few it is a challenge we thought would be a good small thing to tackle first up.
At the meeting I know that the councillors will go on and on about Bike V Pedestrian clashes. I was wondering if some of the members of this forum could direct me to a webpage with some statistics to back the cyclists case in this argument. My feeling is it is almost negligible because in every other community I go to all the paths are dual use. This council is just so narrow minded its not funny. Thanks Jeff

nova

those statistics will very widly from one site to another. Not a good indicator. You want to becareful in thi. You could end up shooting your self in the foot get it designated as a bike/ped path aka mup and end up with drivers thinking you dont belong on the road at all. Personaly i love the local one here the ohio erie towpath trail. I tend to realy enjoy my rides on it. I can just ride at the same pace for miles at a time meet up with other cyclists and eel more comfortable just kind of zoning out to a ppoint and taking in the veiws or just get lost in my thoughts with a ocasional hi how you doing as i pass another cyclist or person hiking with their kids or bike aware dog/s.

As far as clashes go its realy up to the faster moving person to avoid them in this case cyclists. Get cought up with alot of pedestrian trafic i always just go heya mind if i squeez by you? Generaly they just move over and let me pass no problem at all.

Best part is i still end up getting to where im going a fair bit quicker than over the road way. Instead of having to stop every hundred feet or so i might need to stop every mile or 2.

Realy best way to get this path designated dual use mup is to eplain the benifits not to the cyclists but to every one else. If its called dual use or mup pedestrians will likly be more aare of cyclist trafic with it being offical than it being non offical.

N_C

Try these:

https://www.etsc.be/documents/pedestrian.pdf
https://www.bikeleague.org/index.php
https://www.bikewalk.org/

markf

My community has an excellent network of dual-use paths. At least they're excellent when nobody's on them. There are a good number of serious injuries to cyclists every year, mostly because people don't pay attention to where they're going on a bike path or dual use path. The times that I've gone jogging or walking on the dual use paths around here I've found it really unpleasant to have bicyclists flying past me on all sides. I've had enough close calls while cycling on the dual use paths around here that I feel safer on the roads, and a lot of experienced cyclists feel the same way around here. The problem with using the roads is that too many motorists think we are required to use the bike paths, so I get a certain amount of harassment from motorists yelling at me to get on the bike path.

I would suggest working to make the roads in your area as safe as possible, and educating cyclists and motorists about how to share the road safely, instead of trying to mix cyclists and pedestrians.

bragi

I would suggest working to make the roads in your area as safe as possible, and educating cyclists and motorists about how to share the road safely, instead of trying to mix cyclists and pedestrians.[/QUOTE]

I would agree with this one, up to a point. Cars and cyclists are going the same direction, between the lines, and the speed difference on most city roads is less between cars and bikes than the difference between peds and bikes on a MUP. Roads are way safer than sidewalks for everyone, and if you're using a bike for utility purposes, you're going to spend most of your time on a road in any event; there's no getting around that, so you might as well increase motorists' awareness of bicyclists' rights if you can. That said, I would still encourage you to go forward with your MUP plan, because, realistically, most cyclists subjectively feel safer on paths, away from car traffic, where there's greenery and the birds are chirping, and will use the paths no matter what the official rules are anyway, especially those who only use bikes for recreational purposes.

JRA

You're going to have a hard time finding studies comparing the injury rate on a "Multi-use Trail" to that on a "Walking Trail". Reliable data is hard to come by. For one thing, minor crashes, especially ones not involving either a motor vehicle or a serious injury or death, often go unreported. For another thing, usage and mileage figures for bicyclists is difficult to come by.

My guess is that, in the absence of other changes, changing the designiation from a walking trail to a MUP won't affect the safety of the trail a whole lot.

If bicycling is currently not illegal on the trail, then I'm not entirely sure what the advantage to designating it a MUP really is. The rules on a walking trail or sidewalk are clear: pedestrians have the right-of-way. Rules for a MUP are not well-established, are often confusing and vary from trail to trail. Confusion regarding the rules can lead to problems.

If you were suggesting the designation of a sidewalk as a MUP, then I'd almost certainly be opposed to it. MUP-designated sidewalks (which seem to be popular these days) are evil, the worst of all worlds for bicyclists. They encourage cyclists to travel too fast in the presence of pedestrians and they are often accompanied by the banning of cyclists from other sidewalks (even at pedestrian speed) and, in some cases, attempts to ban cyclists from the road. If MUP-designated sidewalks aren't the worst of all worlds for bicyclists, then I don't know what is.

But I digress.

If the trail in question is wide enough to be a MUP, and if bicycling on it is currently illegal (even if the law is unenforced), then designating it a MUP may be a good idea. Otherwise, I wouldn't be too enthusiastic about the change in designation.