<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br><div><div>On Nov 1, 2007, at 15:55, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">"Serge Issakov" <<a href="mailto:serge@issakov.org" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; ">serge@issakov.org</a>></span> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(20, 79, 174); -webkit-text-stroke-width: -1; ">I don't think whether parking is legal in that bike lane is very important.</span></div></span></blockquote><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>Agreed.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: -1; ">My bias against bike lanes is well-known on this list, and this tragedy exemplifies one of my main objections to them: that they instill a false sense of security in cyclists, that they induce a cycling-nirvana-mindlessness that might be appropriate on an empty bike path or maybe even a very quiet country road, but not on a surface street shared with motor vehicles.</span></blockquote><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>You lost me there. I cannot look at a stretch of road with a bike lane, and without, and imagine that the riding on the one without could possibly be "safer" than riding on the one with—all else equal. If only to give motorists a boundary to at least try (perhaps subconsciously) to guide their vehicle through.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>That some riders might let their guard down because they feel the lane boundary is impenetrable is secondary at best and the motivation for cyclist and motorist education, not doing away with bike lanes. This tragedy says nothing about bike-lane/no-bike-lane pros and cons as you pointed out that a car could just as easily be parked in a street without a bike lane.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>I would love to have the road all to myself all the way along my multi-mile bike ride, but that will never happen. Next best thing: bike lanes that allow cars to pass with a full lane width, and from which I can "take the lane" when the situation warrants.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>Regards,</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>Bill.</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>(Serge: If you have expressed your bias on this topic through the list before, and want to discuss it in more detail off the list, please feel free to e-mail me directly—I do want to understand your thinking on the topic.)</div></div></body></html>