Bicycles on pedestrian sidewalk ► Open

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  redline (Guest)

  I see a lot of cars driving through pedestrian crosswalks in Adams Morgan, often at high speeds. This poses a danger to pedestrians. I witnessed a car strike an elderly pedestrian in a crosswalk on 16th St a few months ago.

  Not arguing bicyclists aren't wrong, but let's be realistic here-bicycles stand to injure people for sure, and better enforcement needs to be applied, but the injury done by a bicycle at any speed will never match the injury done by a car at all but the most trivial speed. There are no bike lanes on 16th St and 16th St is a major vehicular artery, making bicycling on the road a particularly daunting idea. If people need to reach a destination on 16th St, they are likely to bike on the sidewalk for the last few blocks of their journey. Slow cars down on 16th, better enforce drivers being more tolerant of bicyclists and you'll end up with less bicyclists endangering pedestrians on sidewalks. It's 'trickle-down economics' at its best :)

  2011-12-02 · Flag Flagged
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  Douglas Kingsbury

  The accident I witnessed was on 16th Street, which has no bike lane, but I see just as many bicycles tooling down crowded sidewalks on streets with designated bike lanes - on Columbia Road, between 16th and Calvert, and on Calvert between Columbia Road and Connecticut Avenue. So I don't think the availability of bike lanes is the issue.

  2011-12-04 · Flag Flagged
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  A (Guest)

  I recently was hit by a biker while walking on on the sidewalk on Irving from the Columbia Heights metro. The man did not apologize, simply got on and went on his way.

  2011-12-09 · Flag Flagged
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  Douglas Kingsbury

  Redline, the point isn't that bicyclist would inflict less harm to pedestrians than cars. I agree with you that we need to make our streets more bicycle friendly. If I had my way, urban streets would be the domain of bicycles. But the solution is not to put pedestrians in danger for the convenience of bicyclists until the streets are safer. Drivers and planners will not become more sensitive to bicycles if the bicycles abandon the street for the sidewalks. As far as they're concerned that solves the problem. Bicycles simply should not be rode on the sidewalk. Sidewalks are pedestrian territory. If a bicyclist wants to use the sidewalk, s/he should dismount and walk their bicycle on the sidewalk. In the rush hours the sidewalks of Adams Morgan are crowded with pedestrians of all ages, who do not - and should not - follow the rules of the road or the bike path, they are apt to be walking on the left, two abreast, stop, and change direction without warning. This makes it hard for a faster moving vehicle to successfully avoid them. A sidewalk should be a "safe zone," where a person should not have to be afraid of being struck by a moving vehicle.

  2012-03-01 · Flag Flagged

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