{"id":2375,"date":"2009-03-23T13:34:36","date_gmt":"2009-03-23T17:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2009\/03\/there_arent_wid\/"},"modified":"2009-03-23T13:34:36","modified_gmt":"2009-03-23T17:34:36","slug":"there_arent_wid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2009\/03\/there_arent_wid\/","title":{"rendered":"There Aren’t Wider Roads For Cyclists"},"content":{"rendered":"

As someone who frequently rides the roads, I’m interested in driver’s attitude toward cyclists. After all, I’m continually at the mercy of the next vehicle coming up behind me.
\nAnd thus I read Ms. Newman’s thoughtful letter published in the Knoxville News Sentinel<\/em>: “Citizen’s Voice: Cyclists need to find some wider roads<\/a>.” Ms. Newman argues that cyclists should keep off her secondary roads and stick to roads that have a wide shoulder.
\nI agree with Ms. Newman’s premise, that in an ideal world cyclists should ride somewhere other than in traffic lanes. But in the real world that’s simply not realistic.
\nMs. Newman suggests riding on emergency lanes along highways. That’s obviously an alternative to secondary roads, but not a satisfactory one.
\nFirst, It severely limits where you can ride. There simply aren’t many roads like this in the area. Road builders seemingly didn’t even contemplate non-vehicular traffic until the 1990s. Who wants to drive several miles across town just to ride the same stretch of highway all the time? Furthermore, such lanes aren’t well maintained and are frequently littered with glass shards and other hazards which can puncture bike tires. Even with a wide side lane, it’s not very pleasant riding a bike when you are continually being blown by with vehicles traveling at 50 or 60 mph. Finally, it’s worth noting that a cyclist was recently been killed along this supposedly “safe” alternative.
\nThe fact is that if cyclists are going to be out on the roads in East Tennessee, they’re going to have to share traffic lanes with vehicles. Drivers and cyclists must coexist.
\nFor cyclists, that means obeying traffic laws, not doing any crazy stunts, and not riding two or three abreast in high-traffic areas. For motorists, that means heeding Ms. Newman’s advice to “be kind, slow down and keep an eye out for our friends on the bicycles.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As someone who frequently rides the roads, I’m interested in driver’s attitude toward cyclists. After all, I’m continually at the mercy of the next vehicle coming up behind me. And thus I read Ms. Newman’s thoughtful letter published in the Knoxville News Sentinel: “Citizen’s Voice: Cyclists need to find some wider roads.” Ms. Newman argues […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}