Liveable communities take away my rights

[Koronin]

IMO, it depends on how the design and layout are. There is a town about an hour and a half from where I live that redid one of it's main roads to add a cycling lane. Great on the surface, but horrible in how they did it. They have angled street parking. They put the cycling lane between the lane of traffic (for vehicles) and the parking spots. Everyone felt the cycling lane should have been between the parking spots and the sidewalk as it would have been less danegerous for the cyclists. (This is a beach city that has many inexperienced vacationers renting bikes).

[crazycanuck]

Shootingstar, do you need some journals to support your argument? Cities is a good one.
Tell him to read Jane Jacobs

I think another one would be the healthy cities program by the Australian Heart foundation..

I'm off swimming but i'll think of a few more.

[shootingstar]

Interesting, Trek about small businesses benefitting from cyclists as customers. They are the ones at least in Vancouver, who strongly have objected to bike lanes running by their stores, ec.

Actually CC, for the first guy I mentioned, who feels his rights are impinged, is a cyclist. Believe it or not. Just so wierd how people can get twisted in their thinking.

I'm disappointed by the senior bureaucrat...he's not that much older than I but obviously in a different planet. been in govn't as he told audience for last 25 yrs. of his career. Hard to listen to dinosaurs in my own age bracket.

[Trek420]

Interesting, Trek about small businesses benefitting from cyclists as customers. They are the ones at least in Vancouver, who strongly have objected to bike lanes running by their stores, ec.

Sorry about that. Those particular business owners may have been misinformed.

http://www.bikeleague.org/blog/2011/...n-mississippi/

"Even with all of this, the greatest economic development impact of the Longleaf Trace is yet to be experienced. Downtown Hattiesburg suffered an exodus of retail businesses in the mid 70’s with the opening of the malls. With most buildings sitting vacant for 2 decades, historic downtown Hattiesburg is beginning to be revitalized with restaurants, art galleries and music venues. Investors have now purchased several of the larger buildings to turn into housing that will cater to the 16,000 university students."

[PamNY]

Sorry about that. Those particular business owners may have been misinformed.

A multi-use trail in Hattiesburg is an entirely different matter from a bike lane in cities. Trust me: I've been to Hattiesburg, and there is plenty of parking.

Some business (mainly small retail) are in fact hurt by bike lanes that take away parking. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have bike lanes; it's just the reality of crowded streets and conflicting needs.

[Mr. Bloom]

I agree with PamNY. There is a philosophy out there that proposes that everything bike/ped oriented is good for business. I think that may be true in certain situations, but I don't think it's proven to be universal.

ETA: withm, I don't think that's a fair assumption. Mom and Pops in my town tend to be specialty oriented and not providing the basic staples of life in a quantity or variety necessary to support the shopping needs of a family. I'm happily going to ride my bike to Kroger and WalMart

Overall, I bristle at arguments in support of cycling being disguised ways of supporting the anti-big box/anti wal-mart debate. Whole Foods and Trader Joes are just another form of big box...they're just perceived differently...

[shootingstar]

Thanks for the link, Pam. Gives some ideas...not just for the strange yahoos, but for other related cycling stuff.

As for cyclists as customers for economic viability. For specialized stores, we have to be abit realistic about this: if the retailer sells small kind of products, then it's not the sort of thing tons of cars are lining up all the time unless it's a bakery or some essential, perishable thing that one visits weekly. I mean shoe store, jewellery store...aren't the type of stores that people buy from several times per month. So there are times, that I think some retailers are just struggling anyway because: they haven't refreshened their marketing strategy, their products are specialized, etc.

For big box stores and big shopping malls, well now about some bike racks. I could never forget the time, we biked up to bike store I think it was in Seattle or was it Portland (?) about 2 yrs. It was at a large shopping mall: No bike racks. So we wheeled in our bikes into the store. I remember this because I did buy 1-2 things from the bike store.

But there were other types of stores for shopping at that mall. Hardly encouraging cyclists to shop even though we will shop at big box stores when we need the merchandise/pricing.

This is an experience I've had quite often at shopping malls..with big chain grocery / other big box stores. Not all, but enough.