How foreign cyclists see your city/area

Last night I biked over to an evening session that included some local people (academics in urban planning, engineer in traffic management) + a group of Dutch urban planning students with their prof. As part of their major assignment, was to examine and make various recommendations on how to make our city more pedestrian-cycling friendly. A real feat because we have ever-growing suburban sprawl, a downtown area that struggles to be active with people, foot travel after regular workdays and on weekends.

Packed in 2 hrs. of 4 panel speakers, 1 prof. and 3 student presenters from each of the project teams, it was useful just to hear how a group of people from Europe viewed our city. This is partnership between a Dutch university and our city government to learn from each other's experiences on land use planning and transportation planning which contribute to urban and community design.

Since it was students presenting ideas, they would have had no financial hidden agendas and hence, I think some people were more open to their comments. One radical (to us, but not to Europe), was a plan how to pedestrianize a part of our downtown, by shutting off some streets and redirecting traffic....permanently. That was the most radical for our prairie city.

My city has been revamping to become more cycling friendly through urban planning. They recently put marked bike lanes in, which required removal of a car lane, so the busy 2 lane road with a shoulder to ride in is now a one lane road with a wide bike lane. The new design will also make it harder to speed, which has always been an issue on this road. This is a road where a cyclist was killed last year. They've also added sharrows on several other busy streets.

I'm not sure who the consultant on the project was, but they did their homework. It's much better.

The City of Lowell, MA has apparently spent lots of $ on bike lanes and sharrows. They appeared last fall.
However, what they really need is an education campaign to teach the "invisible" cyclists how to use this infrastructure, as well as educating drivers. The drivers in this city are some of the worst I've ever seen, even in Massachusetts, with red lights being routinely run. There is a a large immigrant population from all over the world, where it's probably OK to ride against traffic. Also, a university with college students who also ride against traffic, although I don't see a lot of this population riding. I hate driving here (a good deal of my clients live here), it's where I had my accident last summer (the woman who went through a 4 way stop is still claiming "pain and suffering" and there's a lot of insurance fraud), and I don't think I would ever ride there, even though it's only 15 miles away, with some really good restaurants I go to.
It's like they just didn't plan for this part; it's hard to change behavior and this would be a huge change for both drivers and riders.

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Originally Posted by Crankin

The City of Lowell, MA has apparently spent lots of $ on bike lanes and sharrows. They appeared last fall.
However, what they really need is an education campaign to teach the "invisible" cyclists how to use this infrastructure, as well as educating drivers. .....................It's like they just didn't plan for this part; it's hard to change behavior and this would be a huge change for both drivers and riders.

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+1 Changing behaviour and attitudes is just huge sometimes. The visiting Dutch were very polite about critiquing our city. They felt educating cyclists and car drivers will be major. ABove all, a necessary public campaign that's ongoing about cycling and how unnecessary it is to drive at 40-50 km. per hr. on our downtown streets.

Just to give an idea of very different cultural expectations: we do have a permanent pedestrianized street over 3 city blocks long, that's closed off to cars in the downtown core. It leads up to city hall. The sad thing even when there's hardly anyone walking around, you cannot bike slowly through it. It's against the bylaw. I only do it VERY early in the morning when there is absolutely no one around. Now, in Europe main town plazas, people do it. It's slow cycling because of the crowds. And people don't freak out, because they are used to it.

At public open house session, a few months ago about a separated bike lane that will be installed in our neighbourhood, I chatted up with some people. I was there as a resident like everyone else. One guy in the next building to ours, ranted on about cyclists causing accidents (yea, really...that many??). Then 5 min. later he rambled on how wonderful it was in Germany where he has relatives, the separated bike lanes were wonderful when our councillor joined our conversation. She is bike lane supporter and has pushing hard the pedestrian-cycleable sustainable neighbourhood design concepts for last few years.

Such a jerk, some people. Some people are so insecure that they echo the popular opinion of people around them. They don't care about the issue, they just want to be liked by others they feel will boost their ego.

If the conversations I had with visiting Canadian cyclists this week were any indication, they view Tucson as a fantastic place to visit for spring cycling. I ran into a couple and also a big group of cyclists from Montreal, as well as a couple from western Canada. That was up at Saguaro National Park, one of the most scenic locations for road cycling around Tucson.

And I have encountered a number of visitors from Sonora, Mexico, who were here for road cycling or mountain biking and were enthusiastic.

As far as urban/commuting etc, i don't know people feel, although Tucson does have extensive bicycle lanes for getting around.

On the other hand, the new "modern street car" project, still under construction, is extremely non-friendly to cyclists, with some dangerous tracks and almost impossibly narrow sections of pavement....