Slow Down!?

In an October 2010 post titled When is Motorized 'Okay'?, I wrote about the controversy surrounding people riding power-assisted e-bikes on pathways in the Colorado Front Range region. (Incidentally, here's a new piece of news on that topic.)

Now another potentially divisive issue regarding bike paths is making headlines in Boulder. According to this story from the Boulder Daily Camera, the city council is considering a measure that would require cyclists to enter and negotiate crosswalks at a speed not exceeding 8 miles per hour. Bill Cowern, Boulder's transportation operations engineer, says such a law is needed because a disproportionate number of accidents at the city's fifteen flashing crosswalks involve bicycles.

"In a study conducted a few years ago," reads the Daily Camera article, "the city found that in 70 percent of accidents when a person was hit crossing at a flashing crosswalk, a bicycle was involved. That, the study concluded, was despite the fact that less than half the crossing activity was bicycle-related."

However, Dan Grunig, executive director of Bicycle Colorado, told the newspaper that he has concerns with the city enacting regulations that would trump existing state laws. "Having a patchwork of unique laws that motorists or cyclists are unlikely to learn, it may affect the safety of people on the road," he said.

Eight miles an hour is pretty poky. It's possible to ride that slow and not fall over, but a lot of riders would probably just get off and walk.

What to you think? Deal or no big deal? Has your community addressed this issue?

According to another report I read, the Boulder City Council will vote on the measure today.

The author at a crosswalk on Pennsylvania Bicycle Route S. Photo by Nancy McCoy.

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BIKING WITHOUT BORDERS is posted every Monday by Michael McCoy, Adventure Cycling?s media specialist, and highlights a little bit of this or a little bit of that ? just about anything, as long as it?s related to traveling by bicycle. Mac also compiles the organization's twice-monthly e-newsletter Bike Bits, which goes free-of-charge to some 43,000 readers worldwide.

Source: http://blog.adventurecycling.org/2011/11/slow-down.html

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