As consideration for
bicyclists expands across the city, a missing link resonates.
In the past few years, Philadelphia’s bicycling population has not just blossomed – it’s boomed. But as far as accommodations and enforcement of traffic laws for bicyclists go, the city is lagging far behind.
Campus Safety Services has offered free bike locks for students who register their wheels in the past, which hopefully they can continue, and Temple’s cycling club has opened a bike truck at the heart of Main Campus. Now, Temple hopes to pave bike lanes from Main Campus’ North Broad Street to TUCC, at 15th and Market streets.
The city has also been planning to add bike-only lanes to Spruce and Pine streets in Center City, to be completed sometime this month, working toward a more bicycle-friendly Philadelphia.
But there should be a fair tradeoff. If the university and the city are going to accommodate bicyclists, then bicyclists should accommodate those they share the road with when it comes to following traffic laws.
In Philadelphia, cyclists often get in the way of moving vehicles. Frustrated drivers become aggressive, blowing horns at cyclists, screaming and occasionally even hitting them.
There’s no doubt that some mutual disrespect is going on between two- and four-wheel drivers, but someone needs to take responsibility. Bicyclists who are hit traveling 15 mph while cars speed down 12th Street or up 13th Street should remember they share the road. Some bicyclists maintain a holier-than-thou attitude, purposefully disobeying traffic laws when they are part of traffic themselves.
Bicyclists have the right to bike lanes on as many Philadelphia roads as possible. But they do not have the right to disobey traffic laws just because they aren’t in a motor vehicle.
If Temple plans to make its campus more bike-friendly and the city hopes to make its own streets more accommodating to cyclists, something has to give on the bikers’ end too. Bicyclists can have their lanes, but they should also adhere to traffic laws. It’s not just common courtesy – it can become a matter of life or death.
The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia agrees that bicyclists must obey all traffic laws. In fact our education department is now the largest component of our organization. We manage six seasonal Bicycle Ambassadors who do on street education and we are about to reconstitute the Philadelphia School District’s Bicycle Education and Enhancement program (BEEP). ALthough our program is bold it is not nearly enough to reach all bicyclists.
However Temple News editorial “Rolling Respect” has clearly put the onus of traffic safety on the cyclist alone, rather than encouraging the mutual respect that is needed to bring civility to our streets.
The most disturbing sentence in the article – “In Philadelphia, cyclists often get in the way of moving vehicles. Frustrated drivers become aggressive, blowing horns at cyclists, screaming and occasionally even hitting them.” Bicyclists who are legally claiming their space on the roadway as being in the way. Even more disturbing is justification of motorists who “hit” bicyclists out of “frustation”. Any motorist who maims or kills a bicyclist in this manner should be charged with vehicular assault or homicide.
Let’s remember that scofflaws span the spectrum of road users. Some cyclists blow red lights but so do motorists and pedestrians. Cyclists talk on cell phones but so do… etc. The only solution to taming the asphalt wild west is a serious investment in the education of all road users, blanket enforcement of all traffic laws and bringing those that criminally maim or kill other road users to justice.
The first thing that comes to mind when reading “Rolling Respect” is that the author is not a cyclist. While I agree with most of what John Boyle had to say, I differ in the respect that I am more disturbed by the statement- “Bicyclists who are hit traveling 15 mph while cars speed down 12th Street or up 13th Street should remember they share the road.” Maybe you’re right, next time I am hit by a speeding car on 12th or 13th street I will stop and say to myself, “Oh Well! I guess I should have shared the road. Silly me, I never should have left the six bicycle lanes that our nation’s car culture has so generously alloted us cyclists”. Ok, there are more than six bike lanes in Philadelphia, my point is cyclists are still adapting to a car oriented infrastructure. My advice to the author is to actually ride a bike around Philadelphia before commenting on the ‘unfair treatment of motorists’ by ‘renegade cyclists’. It won’t take long to see that cyclists are not receiving the respect they deserve either.