I like the bike lane protected by parking best. If a car driver yakking or texting on their phone has an accident, then it is two smashed cars, no cyclist or pedestrian fatalities. This also protects all the businesses from a car crashing through and killing people at the business. Clancy is correct, making room for safe transit for those who can’t or won’t pilot a 5,000 pound metal box only adds seconds to a car trip but makes our city a much safer place for everyone.

Imagine this. Two lanes of parking, one lane for bikes leaving two lanes for cars. Except, when a bus pulls over, and they will do that outside of the bus basement, there will be one lane blocked, leaving……..one lane for cars!

Then imagine when Bieter gets his trolley. They want to put it on……Main and Idaho!!!!! So one of the two remaining lanes is taken up by a trolley, leaving how many lanes for cars? One!!!! Which most like will be shared by a bus, which when it stops for a passenger or two (most likely one passenger will be waiting) will leave how many lanes for cars? None!

So in a city that’s supposed to be walkable (remember that tag line and all the money they spent on that Jeff Speck guy) we get a trolley…..so people don’t have to walk. And on roads where the city really doesn’t want cars, they want two lanes of parking?

You can’t make this stuff up if you tried.

They will rig the results just as they did with Emerald Street.
They bike counts on Emerald were done by the bikers themselves.
We live just off Emerald and have for 20 years and the counts are just plain bogus.

Fred – Proof of your accusation??

The “bike counts are rigged” theory was shot down on the post…
ACHD Peddles Bike Survey.
https://boiseguardian.com/2016/03/03/achd-peddles-bike-survey/#comments

Investment in bike infrastructure will only help safety now and the economy in the future. There have been studies showing that people who cycle are more likely to spend money in the immediate vicinity vs. some random place between home and work. Towns like Portland have bike corridors that have suddenly become the ‘hot’ development areas for both housing (gasp) and retail/food establishments.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/business/portland-ore-developments-cater-to-bicycle-riders.html?_r=0

I think another step to support bike infrastructure would be to convert portions of the CCDC garages to paid monthly bike parking. This would help to better utilize existing garages and provide secure parking for cyclist downtown.

Fred – maybe you should volunteer to help with the bike counts to make sure the counts were accurate.

Here you go Tucker:
“In support of our bicycle-friendly city, DPPS offers bicycle lockers for rent. Lockers are located in both the Eastman Garage and the City Centre Garage. Lockers are rented for $5.00/month plus a one-time refundable deposit of $50.00. For more information or to rent a bicycle locker, please contact the DPPS office by emailing [email protected] or calling (208) 368-7944.”

I bike, but not downtown. Sidewalks are for walking, streets are for driving, and bikes should be on, well, bike paths. Why should the default thought to be taking away driving access when cars are registered and licensed for the streets and thus paid taxes to use them?

Either register and license bikes, or put their lane/path on the sidewalk with the free walkers. It is no more an absurd thought than to put the free bikers on the street with the paid autos. And, the damage of a biker hitting a walker is no more than a car hitting a biker.

Biking on low density rural roads is fine, but biking on inner city streets is foolish and we waste time and money with these studies and conversations.

Cheers to Fred! Perfect name.

https://biskey7.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/bicycling-are-you-a-fred/

The city itself is promoting the protected bike lane. I recall (vaguely) that is choice 2. They’re asking employees to buy in on that one.

Let’s not forget that the vast majority of people on bikes have cars at home.. and they do pay fees on those cars.

Weren’t we beating this same dead horse less than two weeks ago? And the wide range of opinions, just here on the Guardian, is evidence that we will NOT arrive at a consensus. I can’t help but wonder if the hearings, surveys, etc., are all P.R., and our all-knowing leaders will ultimately pat us on the head and do what they want to do.

Here are some observations, based on 30+ years of in-the-(bike)-saddle experience:
– Riding a bike can be pretty safe, if you ride legally, visibly, predictably, and defensively. Even in a hostile environment like downtown Boise!
– Nobody (or ‘most nobody) will deliberately run into you, even when they find your presence annoying… if they see you. If they don’t notice you, all bets are off.
– The common PERCEPTION, by motorists and would-be and casual bike riders, is that it’s dangerous. That’s why more people don’t ride bikes (and clamor for dedicated bike infrastructure), and why some motorists declare that bikes don’t belong on the roads.
– The biggest danger inherent in bike-riding on public roads is inattentive drivers. It’s worse now than 10 years ago, on account of handheld electronic gizmos. I wish the law-enforcers would vigorously enforce the inattentive driving law.
– As they add dedicated/separated bike infrastructure, it’s a pretty safe bet that more people will take to bicycling. So, the only question is the cost – in dollars AND to other means of transportation.
– There are far more people transportation-cycling in Boise now, than there were in, say, 2000. But ridership still drops WAY off when the weather turns bad. Dedicated bicycle facilities sit largely unused from November thru March.

(I did the survey and “voted” for bike-laning Jefferson, and leaving Main and Idaho alone. In any case, I believe they should postpone a decision until we get a feel for how the new futuristic transportation depot changes everything. Are the wide bus loading lanes on Main and Idaho slated to go away? That could change everything!)

I think the following public service announcement from England about bicycles is applicable to what we need to do in downtown Boise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCt7T20N07U

Yossarian wrote: “Biking is here to stay. Cars are here for as long as cheap enough gas is here to fuel them.”

So if fuel gets to the point that cars are beyond the average person’s means then what does that mean for all the vast infrastructure that produces aluminum and other light weight alloys used to produce bikes? And ship them from China in huge container ships?

Everyone is missing the most important point. There are far more cars than bikes. More cars are coming. Boise City has no control over this unless they build a Trump Wall at the River.

In fact, the greenbelt tunnels at Fairview and Main— my sources tell me that they are actually foundations for future car blockades.

Not putting bike lanes on Main and Idaho is not discouraging bike ridership. But putting them in is the plan to discourage automobile reliance.

Why can’t the proponents simply admit this? I’d have a lot more respect for them.

It still ignores the point that Boise can not plan and zone outside its own city limits. Far flung car places like Eagle, Meridian, Kuna, Star, Nampa, Caldwell are adding cars every day. A certain percentage of those come downtown frequently, some every week day.

Boisecynic – No big conspiracy here.

Yes, it is good to discourage automobile dependency and encourage bike ridership. Make it safe and easy to ride a bike, and let all the fat, sick car dependent people who get zero excersize get an eyeful of the healthy, happy people in the bike lanes who are combining travel and excersize, while saving money.

Maybe we should charge a LOT more for parking, like is happening in London…

“…A parking space in London has been put on the market for £350,000, making it more than one and a half times more expensive than the average UK house price…”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/news/london-parking-space-goes-on-sale-for-350000/

American workers are very productive relative to the rest of the world. We American’s produce widgets with a bottom line of only 4% more expensive than China! One of the many reasons is the liberty multiplier known as the personal automobile. Another is the individual house and spacious yard in the suburbs. These are easy to find economic and sociological facts. I invite you all to discover the American dream coming true right under your feet.

However, communist dipsticks like our mayor go to places like China and Europe and somehow get impressed by people and places less productive than the city he leads. Dipsticks like our mayor are at war with the automobile and personal liberties because he wants to emulate in China and Europe. Perhaps he’s attracted to the greater power of the leadership in those societies?

We must make drastic changes to local governments. Agencies like the City of Boise, ACHD, and Ada County have become self-centric. After all the workers and well taken care of they’ll reach out for additional tax monies to partially perform the public services in their charters. Like our schools, they’ve become primarily a secure jobs program and unable to effectively perform for the public good.

Automobiles are the coolest thing ever. And the newest are like something from the aerospace industry. The fact that they are affordable to the common man is just amazing.

I do argue we need to make a change in motor fuels. We have so much natural gas in North America that we are burning it at the wellhead for lack of market. It is often found in the process of extracting liquid oil. Liquid petrol is problematic in a number of ways. I propose influential people like our mayor move the compressed gas technology of the personal automobile forward. The technology has made great strides and simply needs leadership to force the switch from liquid fuels. Buses and trucks are already making the transition to efficiency gains and drastically reduced emissions.

All that pavement is expensive you say? No, it is not. All those government workers and pensions are expensive. The government worker is over compensated and under productive. America does not need to choke out the automobile and it supporting infrastructure, American needs fewer communist leaders and less job security in government.

Liberalism is a mental disease. The primary symptom is a fear of individual liberties.

James H Kunstler, an expert speaking on our suburban (car dependent) civic design…

“…Our suburbs will prove to be a huge liability. (As energy depletion becomes problematic) They represent the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world…”

“…Because they have no future, our suburbs entail a powerful psychology of previous investment that will prevent us from even thinking about reforming them or letting go of them…”

“…There will be a great battle to preserve the supposed entitlements to suburbia and it will be an epochal act of futility, a huge waste of effort and resources that might have been much better spent in finding new ways to carry on an American civilization…”

Here’s a short TED Talk by Kunstler on the topic which is fascinating and very entertaining.
https://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia?language=en#t-1169130

Liberty –
~1960:Global oil discoveries peak, and begin to diminish.
1970: American oil production peaks, and has fallen ever since, just as predicted by geologist M King Hubbert in 1956. First American oil crisis occurs.
2005: Oil prices soared because global oil production peaked.
2008: Global financial crisis due to the high costs of energy killing the economy.
2008 – 2016: Gas fracking fraud extracted more gas, but at a higher than market cost, and the depletion rates make it a very temporary short term scheme. Shale oil scam has produced small quantities of very expensive, very low quality oil that can not scale up production. Both of these are hailed as miracles that will save our American lifestyle.
2106: Low energy costs because economy is still depressed, because the smart money knows that when the economy tries to recover, oil prices will soar again, once again killing the economy. Massive debt generated by governments to temporarily hold off a massive global economic reset to a much lower consumptive paradigm.

Below is a link to help you understand what the popular media doesn’t dare talk about…
http://www.resilience.org/primer

Kunstler is an author, not an actor. He’s written several highly acclaimed books on civic design and energy depletion.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Howard_Kunstler

Liberty – Spot on.

J Smith – London is a very poor example. Their business situation is nearly exactly opposite of ours. When we build a business location we must provide for adequate parking. There, due to the density of London and their public transportation lifestyle they are prohibited from providing the parking we would provide.

The American west is more than a location, it is a lifestyle and culture. And while I could bike from my house to Oregon and back, I wouldn’t bike in downtown Boise. And while others may bike downtown, I don’t wish the culture of the town changed to something we (collectively) are not.

And, your “shale oil scam” is simply ill-informed, but please don’t reply with any websites.

Some see things as they could be and say “why not?”

As someone who has suffered two life threatening bike vehicle accidents in the past 40 years I can attest that mixing vehicle and bicycle traffic is a bad idea.

In places where the two coexist it has taken generations of experience and fatal and nonfatal interaction to evolve into a workable situation.

Idaho lacks sensible bicycle regulations or training. Most bicyclists I see in Boise represent Darwin at work: little regard for or fear of motorists or pedestrians, no sense of self-preservation.

In an ideal world mixed transportation would be great. This is not an ideal world. We are inviting mayhem.

to create a

Hmmmmm…is a “I told you so” inappropriate?