NOPNA joins Helquist to screw up Masonic
| Like Michael Helquist, the folks at NOPNA are trying to legitimize how the city is getting ready to screw up Masonic Avenue on behalf of the city's bike people: 373 people took their survey! 81.8% of the 45 people who actually live on Masonic support screwing up its traffic! Not very impressive numbers considering that Masonic carries more than 32,000 vehicles a day (page 26) and more than 12,000 people (page 27) ride the #43 Masonic bus every day. According to the city's own numbers, there's no evidence that Masonic is unsafe for anyone, but the anti-car bike movement must be served and motorists must be punished here in Progressive Land. |
For his part, Helquist broke his arm again while riding his bike, forcing him to get around on foot, which he evidently found a scary experience:
Pedestrian advocates may counter that my resolution is already the law of the land, but the laws don't seem to be working, not with the pedestrian injury and death statistics as high as they are in San Francisco. A pedestrian first code sets a higher standard, a commitment to do no harm to people who cannot or choose not to travel on wheels. And those of us biking or driving should protect ourselves: do we want to live with the fact that we damaged or ended someone's life because of our distracted, careless, or aggressive behavior? Sometimes we need to adopt our own code of safe behavior.
My recommendation for Helquist: stay home, stay in bed, pull the covers up over your head. Then you'll be safe.
I'm older than Helquist, and I walk on city streets every day without feeling endangered.
Something the city is doing is working, since, contrary to Helqluist's claim, the numbers show our streets are getting safer every year. But the anti-car movement has to keep up the hysteria to justify screwing up city traffic on behalf of the PC minority with the effective political lobby.
Labels: Anti-Car, Cycling and Safety, Masonic Avenue, Michael Helquist, Old Farts on Bikes, Panhandle
posted by Rob Anderson @ 10:21 AM
9 comments
9 Comments:
Rob - I have to disagree with you - as a pedestrian
I frequently find both cars and bikes can be overly aggressive and unthoughtful to (relatively) unprotected pedestrians.
I welcome all efforts to segregate cars, bikes and pedestrians as much as possible. Unfortunately we are limited by the amount of space we have available and are forced to live with some historic road/traffic layouts which were probably ok when they were put in but as traffic/bike/people patterns and volumes have evolved they should now be revised.
My advice for Helquist is same as yours Rob - if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Streets are for cars, not pedestrians. Buy a car or get the hell out of SF.
My actual advice to Helquist and everyone else: you have to be careful out there. Streets are for everyone; I haven't owned a car in 20 years. All the whining about our dangerous streets is only a tactic by the anti-car movement to convince people that cars are the problem, not carelessness and reckless behavior by cyclists, motorists, and pedestrians.
As the latest report from the city tells us---I discuss it in the blog post I link---the streest of SF have in fact been getting safer for everyone over the years. The report can be downloaded from the MTA's website.
"As the latest report from the city tells us---I discuss it in the blog post I link---the streest of SF have in fact been getting safer for everyone over the years."
Due to more people biking, of course. But why would we want to encourage that?
No, the increased safety for everyone has nothing to do with bicycles, except to bike-centric fanatics like you.
Another fact-free comment from Rob!
Look, asshole, you want more facts? Go to the MTA's website and download the last "Collisions" report the city did in December, 2009, with accident numbers for pedestrians, motorists, and cyclists. By the city's numbers, cyclists are the only group that has more injuries, and that's only because more of you PC lemmings are riding bikes on city streets, though you're still a very small minority. Here's another document you should get while you're in the MTA's site: the "San Francisco Transportation Fact Sheet" of November, 2010, wherein you'll learn that only 3% of city residents commute by bike, 46.3% by car, and 31.8% by public transportation.
Another misinterpretation of the facts by Rob!
Can you be specific? No, of course not.
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