Transportation in Cities
Mar. 11th, 2019 04:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fabrisseThere was a conference of some sort in Crystal City over the weekend. I know about it purely because a young woman who was participating was asked by another participant to record her thoughts on video. They were discussing urban planning, which as you know is catnip to me, and the young woman was very specifically discussing the problems around the American discussions about making cities more bicycle friendly.
I had to leave after listening for a few moments, but one thing that struck me is BIcycles.
I have balance issues. I hate admitting it. I try to convince myself that the cane's not permanent, but a group of friends, including neotoma, pointed out after my last big fall in December that using it prophylactically might prevent more serious injuries. And heaven knows, one concussion -- which I still have some minor issues from -- is enough for one lifetime.
Bicycling is impractical for me. I was ten before I learned how to ride a bike, and I never enjoyed it. Now that I have balance issues? Oh, hell no. But. My grandfather owned an adult tricycle. I loved riding it. During the time I spent with jerminating in Eugene, OR, I noticed that most of the maintenance workers on the University of Oregon campus got around on tricycles, carrying their tools or supplies on the back.
There will always be people with balance issues. The elderly tend that way after awhile, though one man in my building who's probably 70 bikes everywhere with no problems. Tricycles for maintenance workers or food delivery or even the local postman would be a huge help for congestion and city traffic. However, most bike lanes don't accommodate a tricycle.
If we're going to make cities greener with better transportation options, it may be time to start thinking about the people who can't be certain they'll stay balanced for an entire ten mile bike ride and work out ways to accommodate them in parking, by widening the bike lanes, and by treating them as yet another green option.
I had to leave after listening for a few moments, but one thing that struck me is BIcycles.
I have balance issues. I hate admitting it. I try to convince myself that the cane's not permanent, but a group of friends, including neotoma, pointed out after my last big fall in December that using it prophylactically might prevent more serious injuries. And heaven knows, one concussion -- which I still have some minor issues from -- is enough for one lifetime.
Bicycling is impractical for me. I was ten before I learned how to ride a bike, and I never enjoyed it. Now that I have balance issues? Oh, hell no. But. My grandfather owned an adult tricycle. I loved riding it. During the time I spent with jerminating in Eugene, OR, I noticed that most of the maintenance workers on the University of Oregon campus got around on tricycles, carrying their tools or supplies on the back.
There will always be people with balance issues. The elderly tend that way after awhile, though one man in my building who's probably 70 bikes everywhere with no problems. Tricycles for maintenance workers or food delivery or even the local postman would be a huge help for congestion and city traffic. However, most bike lanes don't accommodate a tricycle.
If we're going to make cities greener with better transportation options, it may be time to start thinking about the people who can't be certain they'll stay balanced for an entire ten mile bike ride and work out ways to accommodate them in parking, by widening the bike lanes, and by treating them as yet another green option.
no subject
Date: 2019-03-12 01:58 am (UTC)And I've always felt that a good width for a bicycle lane is a car-width: I started biking in places with no dedicated bike lanes, but they usually had long empty stretches of car-parking lane, and that was about right. These two-foot-wide official bike lanes feel nearly suicidal by comparison.
On the other hand, one big obstacle to re-planning transportation in cities is that anything involving 'make lanes wider' implies 'can we move all the buildings by that much'? Which is why we turn to subways, and elevated hamster-trails.
The other thing about tricycles, instead of bicycles, is cargo capacity: carrying groceries or hardware or whatever on a bike gets dangerous as soon as it changes the balance of weight or the vehicle's width. Trikes would be much more useful.
no subject
Date: 2019-03-12 02:22 pm (UTC)The carrying capacity on a tricycle is really great. And don't get me started on traffic plans. The mayor decided the new soccer stadium needed to be on a peninsula where only one of the six streets could be widened. The closest metro stop is over half a mile away. The closest bus stop is a quarter mile. There's no parking. It's really, really great. @_@