+1.Originally Posted by 90niner
2012 Yeti SB-95a Black
Obviously you never drive or maybe you are that one perfect human...
I am a mountain biker first and a roady second.
I just think we need a veloway in the north part of Austin or in Cedar Park, Round Rock etc..
If one of these towns had a Veloway just like down south then there would be less people riding their road bikes on the street. There is just not anywhere to ride up north and sidewalks suck on a road bike.
http://veloway.com/
just a reminder- roads (and bikes) have been around longer than automobiles, and both will almost certainly outlive cars too. roads are public rights-of-way- literally, corridors for individual members of the public to travel from point a to point b. in very few cases are public rights-of-way restricted to one certain type of vehicle, and historically throughout human history it has almost never been the case. and, if you think about it, making any public right-of-way the exclusive domain of, say, passenger cars (or horse drawn buggies, or any other contemporarily dominant mode of transportation) would be a completely asinine and myopic decision.
whether this guy was riding recreationally or as his main form of transportation matters not- he was completely within his rights and, by all accounts, safely within the gigantic shoulder that runs virtually the entire length of 360. now, questioning the intelligence of riding 360 may make sense- i've ridden it tons and wouldn't pick it as a preferred route. HOWEVER, that is an entirely separate issue from whether or not you want to come on here with some weakdick argument about shared blame on the roadway. on any roadway.
the truth is that we all are now reaping the results of decades of roadway design that put on blinders for anything other than your internally combusted rolling stereo system. i probably won't live that long, but i can't wait for when cars are no longer a viable means of personal transportation and more people have to either waddle their fat asses onto public transportation, or else get a bike (or a horse). but until then, we're gonna be living with these kinds of things. sucks if it affects you personally, not much more than statistical dust if it never does. but laying any of the blame on a cyclist for exercising his or her rights to use a public right-of-way is weak.
I don't think anyone was blaming the cyclist. I certainly wasn't. He had every right to be on the road and certainly didn't deserve to be run down.
Cyclists have the right to be on the same roads as the cars, i think the discussion at least from my perspective are which roads should be biked and which shouldn't based on safety of all involved.
360 does have a shoulder and thus should be safer than a highway without one. I personally would not feel safe or confident riding on it, but others obviously do.
I feel that just because you can doesn't mean you should.
There is no doubt that more bike lanes would make things safer. If they would make the furthest point out on the shoulders bike lanes, maybe that would help, but like others have said, i see bikers hugging the white line. That would scare the beejesus outta me ridding that close to traffic.
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This is very sad and tragic news. I heard of the accident when it happened. Now I realize I just met Mr. Ginestra the other day. He was such a nice guy. My thoughts go out to him and his family for this loss.
Remembrance / protest ride:
http://www.facebook.com/events/162511800542961/
+1
I can't believe what I'm reading here--from cyclists nonetheless. I see a lot of specious and misdirected arguments here. To those saying (I'm paraphrasing) "everyone drifts across the line once in a while." Probably so, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't punish yourself if you catch yourself doing it once. You must keep control of your vehicle at all times.
To those saying/thinking the bike is going to loose every time so we shouldn't be on the road, well so is a motorcyclist or a mom in a station wagon if you get hit by a 50,000lbs truck. Are you going to say people in under 10000 lbs. vehicles should stay off the road too? Or perhaps we should ban 18-wheelers? How about the cop parked on the shoulder giving a ticket. Is it forgivable if you accidentally drift across the line and hit him? (I bet you go to jail in that case....)
To those saying you don't want to slow down for a bike into a blind turn on a two-lane country road, what about a farmer on a tractor or harvester? What of the livestock? I guess you're free to take your chances not slowing down, but don't say it's the cyclists fault when you're on a road with no minimum speed limit.
I ride my road bike and mountain bike to the trail, for commuting, just for fun or just for exercise. I also occasionally drive a 2400lbs car. I see people in <2000lbs. classic cars driving around and I have several neighbors that ride motorcycles as well. I don't feel safe ever with a bunch of idiots picking up the latte, putting on make-up, texting, messing with the GPS, or jacking-off. For that reason I'm always expecting the worst (even out of cyclists...I think there is a fairly even distribution of idiots amongst all road-users.)
sigh...
I love how people are blaming the cyclist for being on the ride, but not wondering if an 85 year old man should still be driving.
If riding the 8-foot shoulders of 360 is unsafe, which roads <b>are</b> safe to ride on? There's no difference between a
bike lane and a shoulder, they're both just stripes on the road.
Yea, you get some really surprisingly diverse views here. It is good that we are not all like minded and I respect that, but sometimes it does blow your mind.
The on/off ramps are the most dangerous part of 360. I know I've been in some tricky situations with cyclists when exiting or trying to merge into traffic, and I do everything I can to be respectful and aware of them. Most drivers do not.
To me, the scariest part of riding on the road are the people that somehow think it's funny to try to hurt you. Like the story here about the punch out the window followed by a gun in the face. I've also heard lots of accounts of people throwing thing out the window at cyclist or swerving at them to intimidate. If you run me off the road purely on accident, I can live with that as I took that inherent risk. The thought of being a victim of a random act of violence terrifies me.
i understand this, but have to put it in the perspective of odds- which are fairly low around here, and tend to be lower where cycling is more engrained in the culture and people are more educated about, and tolerant towards, sharing the road with non-cars.
that said, the very first time i rode home from wherever after i'd made the conscious choice to de-car, years ago, i got beaned square between the shoulder blades with a full miller lite while riding down manor road. shit happens. but it happens off the bike too...
I work on 360 and commute by bike at least 3 days a week. The 2222 entrance and exit ramps are not to be messed with. Lots of fast traffic and very few people signal when they exit. My strategy is just to stop and wait for a sizable gap. Trying to get across there with traffic is way too dangerous. When I first heard about this accident I assumed it was at 2222 or Bee Caves, which has similar issues. I was fairly surprised to see it was just a case of someone drifting over and hitting the cyclist.
We all know that people get this odd sense of invincibility in a car. That's why they get road rage and otherwise act like a-holes all the time in a car when they would never do that in line at a grocery store. Cars are extremely hazardous things, but people rarely treat them that way. It's a rather sad fact of life.
Another alternative would be to just exit, go through the green light, then back onto 360. The extra bit of climbing at the 2222 intersection isn't really that much.
Truly unfortunate~regardless of who's the root cause of blame.
I plan on attending Thursday nights peaceful memorial ride. Anyone want to meet at Shoal Creek Trail at 38th to ride in let me know. mcl2@me.com 512.413.4692
Be smart, make good decisions.
Proper protocol for Southbound 360 travelers is to exit at 2222.
\m/ \m/
Ride Strong~Ride Long
Just to add to the discussion about 360 and distracted drivers.
I work in a building at the intersection of great hills trail and 360. In the past 2 months I have had two coworkers have their cars totaled. One was hit from behind while sitting at a red light in the left hand turn lane. The driver who hit him admitted that she was distracted messing with her phone trying to get it to play a song on her car stereo.
The guy who got hit last week was making the same left hand turn across 360 and had the green light. The girl who hit him simply ran the red light and plowed into his passenger side. She did not admit to being distracted by her phone, but he had witnesses who verified with police that she ran the red light. My guess is that she was texting or something similar… He said she just kept saying “I don’t understand what happened”.
These accidents both only resulted in loss of property and some soar necks...but it would have been very different had there been a motor cycle, pedestrian, or cyclist around.
I think the laws need to be more strictly enforced. Austin does have a 3 foot law.
A little good news for balance:
Today's bike commute was uneventful as far as interaction with cars was concerned.
While I was riding north on Bull Creek Rd. just north of 45th street at about 5:40 pm and preparing to turn left into my neighborhood, I saw NO LESS THAN 7 BIKES also heading north within fairly close proximity. Some where in kit, but many were obviously commuting. At that moment there were many more bikes in the traffic flow than cars. Bike Month has begun!. Yea!
"Bicycling is a big part of the future. It has to be. There is something wrong with a society that drives a car to work out in a gym."
- Bill Nye, the science guy
Thanks REI for supporting the Austin Ridge Riders Trails Program: http://www.austinridgeriders.com/
IMBA visits blogs & photos: http://onthetrail.imbatools.com/?p=638
http://onthetrail.imbatools.com/?p=602
I also commute to work on 360 a couple days a week and follow the same entrance/exit ramp strategy. Those will always be dangerous if you don't wait for a big enough gap. But equally concerning is car drift due to driver distraction - especially at highway speeds. An 8' shoulder would feel a lot safer if I knew that a drifting driver would be alerted that they were drifting. It seems that highway rumble strips (the kind that make a lot of noise when you drive over them) would greatly help with this kind of threat. With shoulders this wide, rumble strips would (hopefully) give enough time for the driver to correct their line. Does anyone know any reason why we wouldn't be able to get these put in? I did some quick research, and milled rumble strips are economical to add (apparently cost around $0.20/ft, so the 12 miles of 360 between 183 & MoPac in both directions would cost ~$25k). If we had to, I bet we could raise this much from the local cycling community in no time. Does anyone happen to know if 360 is state-, county- or city-maintained?
360 is a State Highway. If it were city it would probably beeasier to get the rumble strip added.
An 85-year-old man who fatally struck a bicyclist on Loop 360 last month was trying to pass traffic on the shoulder of the roadway, according to a Department of Public Safety report.
Verter Ginestra, a 54-year-old entrepreneur from Austin, was struck about 3 p.m. April 28 just north of Redbank Drive, officials have said.
The driver, Maurice Widener, came upon traffic, moved onto the shoulder and was passing cars at an unsafe speed when he struck Ginestra from behind, the report said. The report said drivers are not allowed to pass on the shoulder.
An investigation is ongoing, and Widener has not been charged, DPS spokesman Tom Vinger said. Results of a blood test taken on Widener are pending, the report said.
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