hotbike

I think the supervisor is going to get some angry reaction to his statement:

Fairfax supervisors clash over bike plans
By: Brian Hughes
Examiner Staff Writer
February 21, 2010


Read more at the Washington Examiner: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/lo...#ixzz0gBOgoXkY

Transportation or recreation? A debate about the purpose of bicycles will shape how Fairfax County residents reach new Metro stations in coming years.
"I don't believe a bicycle is a transportation device," Supervisor John Cook, R-Braddock District, said during a transportation committee meeting. "I think it's a recreation device. The big problem is people don't want to ride their bike in the rain or get sweaty before work."
Transportation officials have identified $12.7 million in pedestrian and bicycle projects for the Reston area -- intended to improve accessibility to the planned Wiehle Avenue and Reston Parkway Metro stations, part of the transit extension to Washington Dulles International Airport.
Cook categorized bike trails as little more than a weekend diversion, vexing fellow supervisors who have pushed for more bike access.
"I don't agree with him," said Supervisor John Foust, D-Dranesville. "People don't do it now -- not because they don't want to -- but because they can't. It's not safe."
In 2007-2008, 4.5 percent of Fairfax residents older than 16 used a bike on a weekday, about half of whomused off-road bike trails or sidewalks, according to a study commissioned by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.
The Reston plan calls for new trails, more bike crossings and extensions to paths to enhance the bicycle grid in the county...


Read more at the Washington Examiner: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/lo...#ixzz0gBOr0ARk

ahsposo 

This supervisor is typical of the mindset that is forcing people to stay in their cars. Hopefully there will be enough outrage directed at him he will be forced to resign.

CommuterRun

I prove people like this wrong every time I ride a bike to a destination for a purpose. Which, come to think of it, is every time I ride a bike.

RacerOne

For most Americans, the guy is right.

DX-MAN

I'd be interested to know if DC traffic laws define bikes as vehicles; several times, I've checked other states around the country, and some have an actual definition of a bike as a vehicle. If indeed DC does do so, then this fool will have to eat his words, because a vehicle is a transportation device.

I wasn't able to find it for DC; anyone else have better luck?

cyclezealot

If cycling is not transportation, the recreational ride i'd take to work saved the world (according to my estimate) no less than 1000 gallons of gasoline.

PaulH

At rush hour in the Washington, DC area, particularly in Fairfax County, a car is not a transportation device.

Paul

Skivvy9r

It's Virginia, not DC.

Virginia Code § 46.2-100. Definitions.

"Bicycle" means a device propelled solely by human power, upon which a person may ride either on or astride a regular seat attached thereto, having two or more wheels in tandem, including children's bicycles, except a toy vehicle intended for use by young children. For purposes of Chapter 8 (§ 46.2-800 et seq.) of this title, a bicycle shall be a vehicle while operated on the highway.

"Highway" means the entire width between the boundary lines of every way or place open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel in the Commonwealth, including the streets and alleys, and ......."

DX-MAN

Looks like Mr. Cook has a great big sh**burger waiting for him to eat, LOL.

Cyclaholic

"I don't believe a bicycle is a transportation device"

Two immediate thoughts:
1)My dictionary defines Transport as "to carry from one place to another" and my bicycle certainly does that. Perhaps in your own personal language you ascribe some other meaning to the word transport, in which case you have to translate it into English so the rest of us can know what the hell you're talking about.

2) Who cares what you believe? the bicycle it is defined as vehicle under law, and the law trumps your personal opinion every day of the week.

Roody

Clearly a bicycle is a vehicle for transportation. But I wonder about the bike paths the article mentioned. Will they be more suitable for transportation or recreation? I hope that transportation cyclists are involved in planning them to be useful for transportation.

Pedaleur

That's rather laughable, considering that,

whitecat

Well, as some others said, it's interesting that some people have the audacity needed to assume they can speak for every other human being riding a bike. A transportation device is defined as a device that can carry a person from point A to point B, and a bike fits the description. Some may also think water isn't wet, well, the belief itself does not make them right.

Da Tinker

Typical of a transportation engineer. Several years ago, as a member of the Bicycling Committee of the local MPO, I was speaking to a group of Louisiana DOT engineers about designing roads for cycling. One of the older ones stood up & asked 'What are you going to do to get cyclists off MY roads?'

My companion, a consulting traffic engineer, prevented me from pinching the miscreant's head off.

Roughstuff

By any reasonable measure...ton miles, passenger miles, revenue miles, value-added miles, bicycles are an infinitesimally small portion of the transportation matrix, and are likely to remain so well into the future. Even the tour de france, cyclings' premier event, is swarming with cars pursuing the teams carrying equipment and spare parts.

roughstuff

genec

Oh well by that logic we should also eliminate sidewalks... after all the "ton miles etc." of walking humans is so downright miserable.

The supervisor needs to go out and look at the infrastructure in their city, and see what it is geared for... if it is motor vehicles, (is there any doubt...) and consider that perhaps the reason so many motor vehicles are used... Then that supervisor needs to be shown this picture... and see if they can "get it."

sudo bike

I knew it was a big diff, but that's a neat picture. A good way to really bring it home to someone.

chipcom 

Granted, but the fact still remains that a small percentage of our population does use bicycles for transportation, the trend of the last 5 years has that percentage growing and issues like the costs (both monetary and environmental) of fossil fuels will only ensure the trend continues upward.

Roughstuff

.....Well, some communities have done that, though I think sidewalks are for strolls and pedestrian enjoyment, not 'transportation,' so I think they are a good idea. In fact, thats why sidewalks were built...so that pedestrians (transporting little, or nothing) needn't walk in the roadway. And vice versa...transport vehicles don't use the sidewalk.

And as for the bus photo, what bull. Even if the bus was full (which they rarely are, beyond peak periods in densely populated cities), they eliminate the illustrated cars ONLY if their cars would have been

(1) ON that exact street
(2) AT that exact time.

roughstuff

Roughstuff

Correct. And the issue becomes is that small (but growing) percentage in need of any changes (lanes, bike paths, etc) in our transportation infrastructure, or can they be accomodated without such accoutrements? Ask 5 Bikeforums users and you'll get ten different answers.

Nor do I bow the enviroGods of fossil fuel 'costs.' Considering recent discoveries in oil fields, massive discoveries of natural gas, and the nations coal reserves, we have more than enough fossil fuels to cover us during a transition to other sources of production over the next century.

roughstuff

noisebeam

The other angle is that motor vehicles on public roads are sometimes used for recreation alone and very often used for getting to recreation.

parlorbikes

I wonder if they looked up the definition of Transportation?

mondaycurse

I know a bunch of laid-off workers that still rack up 1000-1500 miles a month, so there's a lot of truth in that.

Roody

This statement is just as ignorant as the statement about bikes in the OP.

Actually, far more people walk for transportation than ride bikes, both in the US and worldwide. Walking is the original mode of human transit, and it still has a lot to recommend it.

ItsJustMe

something like 1% of the population of the US thinks he's wrong. The number is higher in other countries.

1% is still a heck of a lot of people.

What he really means is "I don't think a bicycle is a viable transportation device given how crappy and dangerous we've engineered our cities to be to bicycles.