» Ballard Bikes Get Respect

I hate to say it, but there’s a dichotomy on the road forming between bikers and drivers. Every day, I witness a biker outraged by a car that doesn’t see them, or a driver clenching their steering wheel after a biker disregards a red light.

Any ideal notion of ’sharing the road’ isn’t being practiced. As both a biker and a driver, I will admit to finding myself on both sides of the frustration. Time and time and again though, I keep siding with the bikers on this argument for earning more road rights. We have many major problems with our current transportation system, and I view bikers as heroes who have taken it upon themselves to do something about it. When I see people out there risking their lives to take one for the team (and by that I mean globally) it causes me to reason with the human-powered pushers.

There’s no written law that allows bikers to use the shoulder to zip past stop sign obeying cars, but should there be? A lot of the controversial shortcuts bikers make stem from how they perceive their entitlement to the road. If you felt like you were doing something to reduce traffic, greenhouse gas emissions, and in the process get an endorphin-induced stoke, wouldn’t you find yourself pedaling past those frustrated drivers honking at each other out of sync to the ‘5 o’clock traffic jam‘?

There have been a lot of half-assed bike lanes (I should say arrows) put in the streets of Seattle lately as a part of the new plan to improve biking access between neighborhoods and raise the visibility of bikers to drivers. I’ve witnessed a little backlash from local drivers who feel their lanes have been shrunk to side-mirror threatening widths.

One effort being made in Ballard to increase respect for bikers on the road is to install bike racks in previously zoned parking spots for cars. I’m curious to see what happens when the public sees their parking spots taken up for bikes. Craig Benjamin, of Sustainable Ballard is spearheading the effort to get bikes in their deserved parking spaces. Portland has had success in getting bikes off of sidewalks and on the street. Here’s a recent article on WorldChanging.com that covers the effort.

Hopefully the visibility of a bike rack full of twenty bikes parked directly next to one car will expose the passerby to certain spatial and energy inefficiencies.

My only fear is: What happens when somebody parallel parks a Hummer without being able to see over the hood?

Portland Bike Rack / Photo from www.bikeportland.org