[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by fflint

The bicycle is obviously a transportation device, and one that was on our streets before cars were even invented.

Or motorcycles, or buses, or street cars, or of course airplanes. I think the only two forms of transportation that are older than bicycles are boats and trains.

Originally Posted by fflint

I'm generally laissez-faire about urban cycling practices--I average about 15 miles per day, all of it in central SF--but I absolutely detest sidewalk cycling. I never do it, and I refuse to tolerate it in others. Maybe in a city where nobody walks it might--might--be defensible, but not in a city like San Francisco or Chicago.

I have to admit that I used to when I first got back into bike riding, but have since quit. Once I started riding in the street, I never looked back to riding on the sidewalks. It's safer for many, many reasons, and faster. Of course my reason for riding on sidewalks back then in the first place was a habit I formed while I was a teen riding my bike all over the place, even on busy streets, so I just always took to the sidewalk whenever there was one. Ironically, my street doesn't have them, and they're fairly rare on the smaller residential streets in this area. It's funny, but it's actually most of the suburban subdivisions now that have sidewalks everywhere. Of course no one uses them.

Originally Posted by tredici

The guy has a point though, it's not exactly a great choice if you're wearing a suit or dress.

I disagree. I saw a cute girl riding a bike last summer in a sun dress. It was awesome.

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

bikes are invisible to the CPD, i guess they're just too busy contending with real crime to be bothered with writing up traffic tickets to cyclists.

I rode up to the convenience store in my neighborhood last week, and I saw this middle aged guy who looked like Neil Young pushing a beach cruiser with a gasoline engine on it up to the gas pumps. After I came out of the store I rode over to him to ask him about his bike. He said he loves it, it gets 100 miles to a tank, goes 35 mph, and he never gets bugged by the cops. I actually asked him if the police ever give him trouble. He said no, never, and that it was part of the point of having it. All you have to have on your bikes here are lights. And yes, the police do apparently enforce that. They don't bug you about anything else though.

By the way, Austin is in the process of designing a few "bike boulevards" in downtown. They're really just wider bike lanes coupled with some other traffic slowing measures.

If you're interested in reading up on it, here are some articles.

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/conte...eces_bicy.html

http://www.statesman.com/news/local/...et-183748.html

http://www.austin360.com/blogs/conte...logs_road_rash