House of Eratosthenes

Hooray! Something to talk about besides Obama’s dazzling incompetence, the media’s dazzling ass-kissing, or the dazzling hatred and jealousy of liberals who hate Sarah Palin.

Ballard bicyclists are suing in order to make the Burke-Gillman trail safer, and Andy thinks that’s rifle-water-tower messed up. The discussion thread underneath has quickly blossomed into a mash-up about the clock tower metaphor and what towering assholes most bicyclists really are, especially in the Pacific NW.

A large part of this issue is something we see entirely too much of these days – businesses being interfered with for the sake of frivolous agendas. Businesses in the area already successfully sued to stop the trail from being completed because not only would it create a dangerous environment for the cyclists, but it would damage the business’ ability to be successful. None of which matters to the cyclists, who can’t avoid crashing on stationary railroad tracks that they’ve ridden over hundreds of times before, but somehow like their chances against enormous, moving gravel and sand trucks crossing the proposed path.

I’m a veteran of both Burke-Gillman and Jedediah Smith, which meanders within four miles of my current front door and then zips off a dozen miles in one direction and twice as far in the other. However, my familiarity with B-G was just a little bit more sparse than I would have preferred. And I did not see Ballard from that vantage point. Back in the Seattle days I was in the area of 15th Ave. NW, I was not yet fully versed in the discipline of living a low-drama life with high-drama women, and I did not yet have a need to engage the long distance regimen to try to stay skinny. So in those days if I ever made it to Ballard I was usually burning up dead dinosaurs. I’m not familiar with the intersection. I know the megalopolis up there, I know the trail, and I think I understand this community of what WestSoundModern calls the “spandex mafia.” I suppose you could make the argument that I are one.

Yes, we have too many lawyers. Yes, a lawsuit is probably the wrong answer.

I must say, at the same time, a lawsuit over traffic control is probably a better use of the tort system than most others.

To me, bicycling is really all about exploring. That, and finding a way to do my regular errands that’s good for my credit rating and heart health. Therefore, to my way of thinking, a trail that is safe for the seasoned locals but unsafe to newcomers because there’s some thing you have to learn, is an unsafe trail. And by that, I mean within reason; we don’t want to go full-tilt on this. If you don’t want to have to be prepared for the unexpected when you’re “exploring,” then what you are doing isn’t really exploring.

And I must say, I have been supremely annoyed at these liberal-buttwipe-places…by the time I follow Jedediah Smith to its terminus, I’m definitely in one…the spots that like to shout from the mountaintops how green they are, how bike-friendly, how futuristic, how French. And then when you ride there you encounter hazard after hazard after hazard that clearly demonstrates to you that bicycles are an afterthought, if they are any thought.

This is high on my list of peeves: Left-wingers who talk about a green lifestyle, and then use their cars like the egg-people used their little floating pods in Wall-E.

It isn’t a reality I appreciate much, but it is a reality nonetheless: Bicycling has a lot to do with liberalism, and liberalism has a lot to do with talking a good game and not following up. Liberalism also has a lot to do with subsidizing certain lifestyles with general-taxpayer money, while screaming like a banshee if anybody talks about subsidizing anything else with general-taxpayer money. I’m funny like that, I see it all as part of the same plateau. It’s just as legitimate to me to see Jews and Muslims and Atheists forced to pay for Christmas, as it is to see dedicated car-drivers forced to pay for bicycle trails…or non-parents forced to pay for school districts. I disapprove of it all. But it quickly becomes absurd when you try to completely purge any of those practices.

Liberalism, it should be noted, also has a lot to do with being a pussy. Being in a crowd of people who are all doing the same thing. I prefer bike riding solo. It has not escaped my notice that if I do anything just a tiny bit rugged, by which I mean just a teeny tiny bit non-comfy…riding when it is, say, 55 degrees…early in the morning…foggy…solo is exactly what I am. Most bicyclists are out there at a certain time of the year. Even here, on the 38th parallel. I start riding at 4:30 in the morning, eight hours and sixty miles later I’ll see “real” folks start crowding up the trails, when it’s sunny. They’re clocking in as I’m clocking out.

But the fact of the matter is, we spend too much money on bicycle trails. Or maybe we do. Bicyclists should pay for their own. Perhaps it is the close cultural kinship bicycling shares with France, and therefore with socialist lifestyles. But in all my experiences, bicycling resources like this are always bought and paid-fer out of general funds; capitalism and private enterprise are never given a shot to address the demand. I think that is wrong. Being a bicyclist doesn’t mean you’re impoverished. To paint with a slightly broad brush, it means quite the opposite. You wouldn’t believe some of the hardware and apparel I see out there. You think your car costs more than the equipment some of these guys are “driving”? You need to think again, and think again hard.

Many of them are gazillionaires. The trail, to them, is one of their gazillionaire playthings. We offer these playthings the same municipal priority as any homeless shelter. There’s no reason for this. Burke-Gillman, as it is, is something of an engineering masterpiece and the culmination of a significant expenditure of city resources across decades. The city government, which has taxed many citizens who will never even see Burke-Gillman, has done its bit for the bicycling “community.”

I do see the other side of things when I read the details, and quickly reach Old Iron‘s conclusion,

You could set up one of those motion sensor cameras and make one HELL of a bloopers reel.

…and I know Iron’s making a joke, and probably not in favor of doing something about this. But in all seriousness, to me that’s my definition of when things have been taken too far. The “blooper real” standard. If you’re going to have a trail with bicycle logos all over it, there shouldn’t be any candid camera points along that trail. You know that feeling you get in a car, don’t you? That the people who designed the road are trying to fight you? Trust me, it’s no more fun than that when you’re on a bike.

From what I’m seeing here — and I could very well be wrong — a sign would be fine.

We don’t want our lawyers actually designing our roads and our trails. From what I know about this particular pickle, things are starting to cross that line.

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Seattle’s Bicycle ProblemSunday, February 14th, 2010

Seattle’s Bicycle Problem
Sunday, February 14th, 2010