Re: BCGP and Bike Lanes

[Rick Miller]

could i please be removed from this list?
thanks
rick miller

Dennis Winters wrote:

> Mr. Wisdom (no pun intended!) holds no office in the Bicycle Coalition of
> Greater Philadelphia nor does he in any way speak for the Coalition.
>
> Dennis R. Winters, Secretary & Board Member
> BCGP
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>
> Clean Air Council
> 135 S. 19th Street, Suite 300
> Philadelphia, PA  19103-4219
> 215.567.4004, x233      215.567.5791 fax
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://www.cleanair.org
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> "I do not call one greater or one smaller, that which fills its period and
> place is equal to any."
>
> Walt Whitman
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> _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Peter Rosenfeld" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2002 1:47 PM
> Subject: Re: BCGP and Bike Lanes
>
> >
> > >
> > > On Tuesday, July 23, 2002, at 09:33 AM, Peter Rosenfeld wrote:
> > >
> > > > Where I draw the lines are facilities that increase or reinforce
> > > > excessively dangerous activities. Due to the high potential of
> > > > dooring in city areas, I feel that door zone bike lanes fit into
> > > > this category. In such a case, I would call the facility an
> "attractive
> > > > nuisance" in the legal sense. I also feel there are ethical issues
> > > > in knowingly designing a facility that gives a false sense of
> security.
> > >
> > > Let's put it into numbers. How many dooring deaths, linked to use of
> > > bike lanes, do you consider excessive? I think the benefits of bike
> lanes
> > > would be worth 10 deaths per state per year. So 500 deaths per year;
> less
> > > than one in a million. Can you make the case that there are anywhere
> near
> > > that many dooring deaths linked to bike lanes?
> > >
> > > Robert
> > >
> >
> >
> > Why would you think bike lanes are worth 500 excess deaths a year?
> > Do you really mean this? Are you ready to go public with this statement?
> Do you
> > have an official capacity with BCGP or any other planning organization?
> >
> > Dooring deaths are hard to estimate due to the rarity of all bike deaths.
> The
> > example you gave of 500 excess deaths a year would be increasing the
> number of
> > deaths from around 800 to 1300, a 63% increase. If you think the political
> aims
> > of lanes are worth such a large number of deaths, I have nothing to say to
> you
> > and recommend that all planning organizations disassociate themselves from
> you.
> >
> > Serious accidents are much more common. Recent studies indicate that in
> urban
> > areas with parallel parking, dooring injuries account for a significant
> fraction
> > of all car/bike collisions. In Santa Barbara such bike lanes seem to be
> > associated with an increase of doorings from 7.4% of all car/bike
> collisions to
> > 16%. Other studies have indicated that dooring deaths are just as serious
> as
> > other car/bike collisions. So we are talking about a very significant
> number of
> > serious injuries.
> >
> > However, because nationally most bicyclists are not exposed to situations
> that
> > can result in dooring, they are not a common accident, accounting for
> about 0.8%
> > of all car/bike accidents.
> >
> > So for death numbers: Nationally, assuming doorings cause deaths in
> proportion
> > to their injury rate ( which seems reasonable given the injury severity)
> you
> > would expect dooring to result in less than 1 percent of deaths, on the
> order of
> > 8 deaths. Very low down in the noise.  In places like Santa Barbara,
> Boston, and
> > Philadelphia, maybe 7 to 16% of deaths. Since a place like Philadelphia
> has,
> > what, maybe 6 or 7  bike deaths a year, this would translate into one
> extra
> > death every 1 to 2 years if I worked the numbers correctly.
> >
> > -Peter Rosenfeld
> >
> > ----
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>
> ----
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