OT: SFBC loses its Executive Director

[Christine Windsor]

Noah's leaving.  So it looks like Jean Fraser is stepping into the role as acting ED. Does this mean she isn't up for re-election to the board again? Or can she be on the board and the ED at the same time? 

How about an SF2G friendly ED next? You know, someone who's a 'vehicular cyclist'? 

 

[Peter Colijn]

Paging murph...

On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 4:36 PM, Christine Windsor <chri...@colijn.ca> wrote:

Noah's leaving.  So it looks like Jean Fraser is stepping into the role as acting ED. Does this mean she isn't up for re-election to the board again? Or can she be on the board and the ED at the same time? 

How about an SF2G friendly ED next? You know, someone who's a 'vehicular cyclist'? 

 

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[Ted Ketai]

Seems like a really good sign that they couldn't keep a director for even a year.  

[John Murphy]

seriously, don't use the exact term "vehicular cyclist". That has a very specific connotation. It doesn't simply mean "i don't ride in the door zone, and I make left turns from the left turn lane, not as a box turn". Unless you are riding the entirety of Skyline in the middle of the lane, you aren't a "vehicular cyclist". Headed up to the big green sign? It is dangerous for you to have to cross the offramp onto CA-1 - you should ride up the hill controlling the middle of the lane so that you don't have to.

 

Contrast to when I got run over on Millbrae Ave, I was in the middle of the lane, but I was in the middle of the left lane because the two right hand lanes are freeway exit only. That's a "strong and fearless" maneuver but does not define me as a "vehicular cyclist"

 

In Pedaling Revolution, Jeff Mapes states that Forester "fought bike lanes, European-style cycletracks, and just about any form of traffic calming", and "saw nothing wrong with sprawl and an auto-dependent lifestyle."^[25] Zack Furness is highly critical of vehicular cyclists in One Less Car: Bicycling and the Politics of Automobility, arguing that their criticism of 'political' cyclists "totally ignores all the relevant socioeconomic, physical, material, and cultural factors that influence—and in most cases dictate—everyday transportation choices."^[26] Critical Mass co-founder Chris Carlsson describes vehicular cycling as a naive, polarizing "ideology" that "essentially advocates bicyclists should strive to behave like cars on the streets of America."

 

For example - there should be no bike lane on Folsom or Harrison. Just ride in the middle of the lane. Dead center.

 

I shake my head at the GGP situation, but I think places like Valencia have been vastly improved by the traffic calming, green wave, etc... In John Forester's world the speed limit in SF is 40 everywhere.

 

 

 

On Tue, Nov 17, 2015, at 04:36 PM, Christine Windsor wrote:

Noah's leaving.  So it looks like Jean Fraser is stepping into the role as acting ED. Does this mean she isn't up for re-election to the board again? Or can she be on the board and the ED at the same time? 

How about an SF2G friendly ED next? You know, someone who's a 'vehicular cyclist'? 

 

 

[Peter Colijn]

Yep, sounds like you're qualified.

[David Goldsmith]

So, what's a better term to describes the type of riders we are?

[Christine Ryan]

Friendly. :)

[Andrew Stadler]

SEXy

[Peter Colijn]

Also kinda interesting because I think Jean Fraser has another full-time job...

On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 4:36 PM, Christine Windsor <chri...@colijn.ca> wrote:

Noah's leaving.  So it looks like Jean Fraser is stepping into the role as acting ED. Does this mean she isn't up for re-election to the board again? Or can she be on the board and the ED at the same time? 

How about an SF2G friendly ED next? You know, someone who's a 'vehicular cyclist'? 

 

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[Peter Colijn]

I'd love to know the back story, whether it was more a Noah decision or a board decision...

[Christine Ryan]

And HEXed!

[Christine Windsor]

Well I am now more informed. Thanks, Murph! I love this, trying to define what type of riders SF2G people are (so incredibly hard). 

Also, Jean Fraser doesn't have her full time job anymore (I snooped), so I guess she has the time. 

[djconnel]

In general "vehicular cyclists" like maximizing the barrier to entry of cycling because that reduces frequency they have to deal with novice cyclists.

They also are in denial about rear end collisions, claiming they are exceedingly rare, yet for some reason people keep dying that way in the bay area, including a housemate of mine once (on Trimble on San Jose), and almost John.

They generally supported Brown's two vetos if the three foot passing rule when it still allowed drivers to cross the double yellow to do so. If drivers need to cross the double yellow to pass then the lane is too narrow and the cyclist should take the lane, they say. Try that on hwy 1.

Indeed they oppose any specific treatment of bicycles in the law, viewing them as "segregationist", implicit discrimination.

[Peter Colijn]

So a vehicular cyclist would view the Netherlands as a complete failure?

[Matthew Hiller]

For me, riding in a VC style is a useful thing to have in your toolkit. I do agree with the VC viewpoint that, by-and-large, rear-end collisions are rare; getting hit by a motorist when I'm sitting right in front of them as they travel in a straight line is one of things I worry least about. There's no reason to be a dogmatic "Vehicular Cyclist", all caps, though.

[djconnel]

They are not rare. Someone was just rear ended on Page Mill. Chris Castro, John, Ashley Jackson, Bioc iirc on Canada, Ward on Portola at 280, Ross in Sonoma... Random examples that pop in my mind. Distracted driver veers onto shoulder or doesn't see cyclist in lane. Tragically common. In Ross's case the driver dropped something and was reaching down to get it. With Castro driver veered onto shoulder to avoid another. Christy Gough and Matt Peterson were head on with cop who fell asleep end of shift but they would have been rear ended had they been going that direction. Same deal with Peckham on Old Page Mill: driver head on would have taken him out either way doing 80 on that road. Jeff Steinwedel was killed by a passing truck on Steven's Canyon. Lots of examples just on the top of my head. Some more I'm less sure of.

[djconnel]

Because in the Netherlands cars go slow and cyclists go slow.  Imagine SF2G at dutch bike speed on separated paths.  Also if you establish a precedent that on some roads cyclists should be on a side path than that implies they should stick to routes with side paths.  So they become effectively mandatory.

BTW I think these arguments are terribly flawed, especially for urban routes.  "Implications" should be addressed with education and enforcement, not accepting them as driving engineering.  And in the city top speed is over-rated: smooth and orderly is much more important.  I guarantee a city navigated by "granny-like" self-driving cars would have faster point-to-point travel times than those at present, even with a 20 mph speed limit.  Same on the bike.   20 kph (12 mph) is fine as long as you can keep moving.

Forrester's views came from an era where "bike paths" were meandering, under-maintained things with poor site lines and stacked with pedestrians.  This is still often the case, for example the Panhandle, but you don't develop a dogma based on that history.

[Eric Manuel]

All I want is cycling to be treated as a first class transportation option.  My car commute is 16 miles and my bike commute is 18.   Many days I can ride to work faster than I can drive.  I don't see any reason why a rational, and even marginally intelligent, person can't see that providing transportation options parallel to the automobile (but much in the same vein) is a good idea.   Riding in SF seems okay, especially if you know the routes, mostly I spent a lot of time at red lights.   But the one ride I did in and out had harrowing sections...The long haul bits that have been ferreted out by the sf2g crew are impressive but why does it have to be ferreted?  We have city streets, one ways, access roads, highways.   It strikes me that a grid of transportation for public transportation and cycling should follow much the same pattern as the car.  Given how shit the traffic is here you'd think someone would want to come up with some solutions (other than build more lanes to clog with more cars, oooh but they are electric single occupancy so it's "okay").

VC just sounds like protest to me.  I can appreciate protest as a force for change, but really I'd rather that someone with a half a brain look at the situation and say, "Hmm maybe if we provide viable alternatives people will use them..."

whatevs, now I'm all hopped up on rage. (mostly because today I'm too tired to pedal my ass to MV.)

E

[Ken MacInnis]

Can we talk about the grammar of "one less car" at some point?

[djconnel]

Only a problem if you deny the existence of fractional cars.

[Matthew Hiller]

Not to say that it doesn't happen, and studies seem to vary in the particulars, but the consensus, IME, is that it's a small percentage of crashes/serious-injury-crashes/fatal-crashes.

http://bicyclesafe.com/#rearend2 , for example.

Though otoh, a 2015 bike league report rates overtaking/hit-from-behind crashes as far more deadly than, say, left and right hooks, which is at odds with my previous understanding of the consensus. http://bikeleague.org/sites/default/files/EBC_report_final.pdf Hmm.

The Steinwedel crash was a failed overtake/sideswipe, btw, not a straight-up rear ending. Those kinds of crashes can be forestalled by being more VC rather than less -- moving out further into the lane rather than staying closer to the fog line; on the principle that drivers won't squeeze by if the cyclist clearly isn't leaving them room to squeeze by, tend to pass with as much room as the cyclist is giving between him/herself and the edge of the rideable road, etc. Not that this necessarily applies to the particulars of Steinwedel's case, but in aggregate, VC advocates would point to this as a class of crashes where a VC approach helps on average. Rightfully so, IMO.

[John Murphy]

I agree with your take on Steinwedel, and I am definitely not one to ride like a gutter bunny, but when the option of producing a bike lane quality shoulder, that is even more preferred.

 

My view is "I know how to ride effectively and assertively in current conditions, but that does not imply I like current conditions".

 

There are plenty of places where roadways could be changed counter to (Capital) VC principles and make things much better. My primary example is the bayway stretch from the airport to Coyote Point. We go through there at peak rush, and there is rarely anything resembling congestion. make the roadway 2 lanes with a turn lane, and put in bike lanes. Even some of our very experienced cyclists have been hit there. Lesser experienced cyclists will hug the gutter which is fine until we reach the series of ridiculous potholes there. We go left around the potholes, but if there is a vehicle to your left, sorry charlie.

 

J

[Matthew Hiller]

Yep, +1 to all this.

[djconnel]

I did think a bit before including Steinwedel, since as you note he was caught between the trailers of a dual-trailer gravel truck so wasn't actually rear-ended.  But a bike lane would have saved him, assuming the truck driver didn't drive there.  The case still supports the benefit of bike lanes, which are generally opposed by VCs (aka the DYB crowd).

Jeff was an experienced rider and posted this only days before he was killed:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/ba.bicycles/PuBSTbxLcco/AZEdxaB590UJ

[Matthew Hiller]

Stevens Canyon is a weird case, actually. If the road were simply widened and the extra road width given over to a painted bike lane, I bet the long ungainly gravel trucks would tend to use that extra pavement to make their turns shallower (that is, encroaching on the bike lane) and end up passing riders no more safely than before. :(  This could just be New York talking, though; large trucks especially are bad at staying out of bike lanes here.

I certainly would love a bidirectional bikes-only right-of-way separated slightly from the road, from McLellan or so to the quarry. This would be anathema to the DYB crowd.

[Peter Colijn]

The irony, at least in the Netherlands, is that the bicycle facilities are often better than the car ones. So it's not really a concern to cyclists that they might be unwelcome on a road; the road isn't going to be convenient route anyway.

[Alexandre Passos]

I'd love a bikes-only right-of-way separated thing only if it didn't have more stop signs than the road itself (i.e. why we take the road instead of staying on the bay trail through coyote point on bayway, AFAIK)

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 - Alexandre

[Yvonne Yip]

I was riding around in the Netherlands in September, and I was a bit surprised at the "Dutch bike speed". In Amsterdam people who don't look like tourists are going at Folsom St commuter speed, and you're sharing the bike lane with scooters, e-bikes and those tiny cars that I don't have a name for.

This is not a diss on the bike infrastructure there BTW. I was pretty amazed I rode almost 200 miles and I was never not on a perfectly smooth  bike path, except when I'm on horrible cobblestones.

[Brett Lider]

Back to the topic of Noah and the SFBC directorship - what the hell happened?

[John Schlag]

there's something very strange going on, with the disenfranchised BikesOnBoard folk staging a board takeover attempt. kind of like when the animal-rights activists tried to take over the sierra club. thing, they may be right. i don't have enough info to know. anyone?

[John Murphy]

If by animal-rights activists you mean white supremacists...

 

 

On Thu, Nov 19, 2015, at 03:41 PM, John Schlag wrote:

there's something very strange going on, with the disenfranchised BikesOnBoard folk staging a board takeover attempt. kind of like when the animal-rights activists tried to take over the sierra club. thing, they may be right. i don't have enough info to know. anyone?

[Ken MacInnis]

I don't even know if that episode is any less ridiculous than the current apprehension of the SC by the YIMBY crowd, directly after it had been coöpted by the 'progressives' for a perfectly diametrical reason.

[Jenny Oh Hatfield]

Here's an article from KQED News, but it doesn't add much info about his resignation, aside from this: In an email to KQED, Budnick said, “I’m ready for my next challenge — not to mention that my wife and I are working through training to be foster parents,” he said.

Cheers, 

Jenny

[Jenny Oh Hatfield]

And SFist has this with a bit more gossip and speculation...

Cheers,

Jenny

[Darrin Ward]

there was no way he (noah) was sticking around after the board fiasco.  regardless of whether or not he quit on his own accord or whether he was asked to leave.  that was well a disaster and as the executive director he is responsible for being the public face of the sfbc.

reading between the lines he sounded pretty upset.

to be honest though,  i could care less about whether or not i get to vote for the board or not, i find the whole thing quite fucking silly.  just like the bike lane in golden gate park and the raised bikeway on market street.  if i honestly do not like what the sfbc stands for them i am going to stop being a member and send my money to other organizations that are doing good for biking.

i am still a member cause overall i believe the sfbc i think does good even though i might disagree with the pet projects cause there are more pressing needs.

maybe my money should go to bike east bay or the scbc.  both of them seem to be doing good things and not fighting this much.

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[John Murphy]

Flattering mention of SCBC but don't forget Marin.

 

tomorrow MCBC is channeling their inner Rob Anderson and suing SMART. SMART is the new train from San Rafael to Santa Rosa Airport. Not quite to my house but close.

 

SMART is cobbling together the money for the last critical section (Healdsburg would be nice but...) from San Rafael to (almost) Larkspur Ferry. When originally designed this included a separated path from ferry to downtown San Rafael. Half of this path is done including the $25M cal park tunnel which rocks. But then you end up on Andersen and DuBois which sucks. 

 

SMART has changed the plan to remove the path, without altering the EIR. Bad mojo. And once the train starts rolling the path is dead because construction would be along a live railroad = $$$++

 

Murph

[Darrin Ward]

i am in fact already a mcbc member along with a cascade bike member even though i don't live anywhere in washington.  

thats not really channeling their inner rob anderson.  rob was the jackass who demanded an eir because he hated bikes.  ironically his suit helped bicyclists more than anyone could possibly imagine including him and his lawyer.

mcbc has a legitimate suit against smart.

even though i am fierce advocate for public transportation, i still question smart (even though its the perfect murph transportation system).  marin and sonoma would never allow building stuff that makes public transportation actually really useful.  rail lines/public transportation is only actually useful if you know you allow density.  marin is desperately trying to not look classist to lucas's fuck you of affordable housing but they you know are pretty anti growth even for rich people trying to build.  sonoma is roughly similar in anti growth which is why i got to pay 600 fucking dollars a night for a hotel room in healdsburg that isnt a motel 6. 

[Darrin Ward]

that should be "why you got to pay 600 fucking dollars a night for a hotel room in healdsburg that isnt a motel 6. "

when i saw that i said hell no.