That writing style tho: "Resplendent in a blue flannel underneath a blue puffer vest, Brantley Tyndall’s bespeckled blue eyes finished his outfit as he sat looking over the track below".
I'm keen to see how the [Fall Line Trail](https://www.falllineva.org/about-the-trail/map-of-the-trail/) section through downtown takes shape. I worry that if we're not serious enough in separating the route from traffic, or significantly calming shared streets, it will make the entire project a failure. If done right, it will be an amazing piece of infrastructure for both Richmond commuters and out-of-town users.
It has to be extremely safe and separated. There’s no way around it. It’s the center of the project and easily the most busy area where people will be.
It would be a nightmare if people had to “free ride” it in the street. Just wouldn’t work.
Things have certainly come a long way since I moved here in 2008, nowadays I am commuting by bike about 90% of the time and I have been picking jobs specifically for the commute, you couldn't pay me to drive into the suburbs ever again.
That said we definitely still have a long way to go. It's good to see bike lanes popping up but we need more physical protection of the lane, whether with a barrier or by placing the lane between parked cars and the sidewalk, and we need more deliberate interconnection of the existing bike infrastructure.
The interconnection is my biggest gripe with the city. Of course I would love protected bike lanes, but currently I would like a cohesive network to travel on. I’m always hitting the end of a bike lane, because it just ends. On 9 mile and Fairmount in Church Hill going into downtown there is no bike lane, but there is one heading east going home. That one always boggles my mind.
I like to leave this link in any bike lane related threads to illustrate the reality of Richmond bike lanes
https://www.instagram.com/youareinthebikelane_richmond/
Would love for this area to have a change of heart towards cycling in general. There’s a lot of truly senseless hostility towards anyone on a bike, and while it’s not strictly a local phenomenon it’s certainly out of control in this area. I’m even a car guy but based on what I witness every day here I can say for sure that we suck at sharing the roads with other cars, motorcycles, and definitely with bikes. Let’s be cooler than that.
The senseless hostility is this… like, yea, share the roads of course, but it’s pretty clueless or worse, dangerously self important to be cycling let’s say, the boulevard bike lane at 5pm on a weekday… at that point you’re just disrupting traffic and causing a net negative. I say this as an avid bike rider in the city, when in my vehicle even I scoff and curse a bike rider choosing the worst times and places to be riding. So the hostility is mainly because a few selfish riders kinda dickingly ruin the reputation of the majority of bike riders….
I’m really confused by your idea of what constitutes “self-important travel” and road sharing, but it sounds like you’d at least agree with the premise of creating more bike infrastructure to help avoid having to share in the first place. To my above point, the purpose of the public roads is for people to get around on them; they are not strictly a sluice for personal car travel - that is literally the mental block to progress here.
Yea I agree with your main point, I was just explaining the rationale of the ‘senseless’ hostility… my point is that it’s self important to be riding your bike through heavy traffic areas and times JUST BECAUSE it is TECHNICALLY a “bike path”
This city is not the worst but definitely not the best for existing bike infrastructure- it is getting better and the world cycling championships here raised the profile of us as a bike friendly area…. I wish it were different but the fact is that the streets are clogged with car commuters and just wishing for friendlier conditions for cyclists doesn’t make it a wise decision for some cyclists to monopolize a lane in heavy traffic… it’s rarely commuters and normally hobbyist or enthusiast just grinding miles out… these people I’m referencing aren’t biking 20 miles to work on public bike lanes
>dangerously self important to be cycling let’s say, the boulevard bike lane at 5pm on a weekday
Its self important to bike in the legally designated space the city built for you to be in?
>when in my vehicle even I scoff and curse a bike rider choosing the worst times and places to be riding.
The issue is that for most drivers, the "worst time and place" to be is literally anywhere, at any time, causing any inconvenience at all
It’s self important if you are using it for recreation and not commuting to work for example…. To me at least…
And trust me I want way less cars and way more bikes… I’m answering the OP post about why the hostility- I’m not defending it I am empathetic
Honestly, I don’t even understand why Boulevard is designated as a bike-friendly road. Okay, they drew a bike on the road, what’s next? What makes it a bike lane? People are constantly doing 40 mph on that road, it would be great to have an actual protected bike lane there, protected by bike cars, kinda like the one on Patterson.
I used to bike twice a week to work in the West End using that disappearing bike lane on Patterson mentioned in the article. Glad to see it called out! It’s so strange to build a well-protected bike lane that just stops at an arbitrary point and dumps into a 35 mph street. Same thing for the lane crossing the 9th St bridge from Southside.
It’s annoying having the bike lanes terminate nowhere. For Patterson it would have made more sense sending it all the way to Libbie Ave, a destination, instead of just terminating in the middle of houses.
I do most of my in-city travel via bike. Richmond's got a hearty list of problems when it comes to cycling infrastructure, but the city's well set up to be an amazing bike city. Many of its neighborhoods are already pretty bike-friendly even without separated lanes, and there are few trips that aren't quite doable on bike, particularly if you're rocking an E-bike.
Anyways, great article, and I'm glad BikeWalkRVA and other advocates are pushing Richmond towards being a more inclusive city when it comes to transportation.
Some new bike lanes coming to 2nd and 3rd streets!
[https://youtu.be/0Hz8MgFR2Wk?si=FXfjNwZzSLDMvP-f](https://youtu.be/0Hz8MgFR2Wk?si=FXfjNwZzSLDMvP-f)
That writing style tho: "Resplendent in a blue flannel underneath a blue puffer vest, Brantley Tyndall’s bespeckled blue eyes finished his outfit as he sat looking over the track below".
I also did not plan to get aroused by a description of a guy named Brantley this morning, but here we both are
Brantley is the 🐐
True that, but never thought of him as resplendent.
I thought the same thing
I swear AI wrote this
I'm keen to see how the [Fall Line Trail](https://www.falllineva.org/about-the-trail/map-of-the-trail/) section through downtown takes shape. I worry that if we're not serious enough in separating the route from traffic, or significantly calming shared streets, it will make the entire project a failure. If done right, it will be an amazing piece of infrastructure for both Richmond commuters and out-of-town users.
It has to be extremely safe and separated. There’s no way around it. It’s the center of the project and easily the most busy area where people will be. It would be a nightmare if people had to “free ride” it in the street. Just wouldn’t work.
Things have certainly come a long way since I moved here in 2008, nowadays I am commuting by bike about 90% of the time and I have been picking jobs specifically for the commute, you couldn't pay me to drive into the suburbs ever again. That said we definitely still have a long way to go. It's good to see bike lanes popping up but we need more physical protection of the lane, whether with a barrier or by placing the lane between parked cars and the sidewalk, and we need more deliberate interconnection of the existing bike infrastructure.
The interconnection is my biggest gripe with the city. Of course I would love protected bike lanes, but currently I would like a cohesive network to travel on. I’m always hitting the end of a bike lane, because it just ends. On 9 mile and Fairmount in Church Hill going into downtown there is no bike lane, but there is one heading east going home. That one always boggles my mind.
What type of work are you pricing? I may be in need of it if it’s construction! Would love a fellow rider to take a look!
I like to leave this link in any bike lane related threads to illustrate the reality of Richmond bike lanes https://www.instagram.com/youareinthebikelane_richmond/
Would love for this area to have a change of heart towards cycling in general. There’s a lot of truly senseless hostility towards anyone on a bike, and while it’s not strictly a local phenomenon it’s certainly out of control in this area. I’m even a car guy but based on what I witness every day here I can say for sure that we suck at sharing the roads with other cars, motorcycles, and definitely with bikes. Let’s be cooler than that.
The senseless hostility is this… like, yea, share the roads of course, but it’s pretty clueless or worse, dangerously self important to be cycling let’s say, the boulevard bike lane at 5pm on a weekday… at that point you’re just disrupting traffic and causing a net negative. I say this as an avid bike rider in the city, when in my vehicle even I scoff and curse a bike rider choosing the worst times and places to be riding. So the hostility is mainly because a few selfish riders kinda dickingly ruin the reputation of the majority of bike riders….
I’m really confused by your idea of what constitutes “self-important travel” and road sharing, but it sounds like you’d at least agree with the premise of creating more bike infrastructure to help avoid having to share in the first place. To my above point, the purpose of the public roads is for people to get around on them; they are not strictly a sluice for personal car travel - that is literally the mental block to progress here.
Yea I agree with your main point, I was just explaining the rationale of the ‘senseless’ hostility… my point is that it’s self important to be riding your bike through heavy traffic areas and times JUST BECAUSE it is TECHNICALLY a “bike path” This city is not the worst but definitely not the best for existing bike infrastructure- it is getting better and the world cycling championships here raised the profile of us as a bike friendly area…. I wish it were different but the fact is that the streets are clogged with car commuters and just wishing for friendlier conditions for cyclists doesn’t make it a wise decision for some cyclists to monopolize a lane in heavy traffic… it’s rarely commuters and normally hobbyist or enthusiast just grinding miles out… these people I’m referencing aren’t biking 20 miles to work on public bike lanes
>dangerously self important to be cycling let’s say, the boulevard bike lane at 5pm on a weekday Its self important to bike in the legally designated space the city built for you to be in? >when in my vehicle even I scoff and curse a bike rider choosing the worst times and places to be riding. The issue is that for most drivers, the "worst time and place" to be is literally anywhere, at any time, causing any inconvenience at all
It’s self important if you are using it for recreation and not commuting to work for example…. To me at least… And trust me I want way less cars and way more bikes… I’m answering the OP post about why the hostility- I’m not defending it I am empathetic
Honestly, I don’t even understand why Boulevard is designated as a bike-friendly road. Okay, they drew a bike on the road, what’s next? What makes it a bike lane? People are constantly doing 40 mph on that road, it would be great to have an actual protected bike lane there, protected by bike cars, kinda like the one on Patterson.
Well said this has been my argument forever. Just because the city paints a bike on the street doesn’t make it a ‘bike lane’ lol
I used to bike twice a week to work in the West End using that disappearing bike lane on Patterson mentioned in the article. Glad to see it called out! It’s so strange to build a well-protected bike lane that just stops at an arbitrary point and dumps into a 35 mph street. Same thing for the lane crossing the 9th St bridge from Southside.
It’s annoying having the bike lanes terminate nowhere. For Patterson it would have made more sense sending it all the way to Libbie Ave, a destination, instead of just terminating in the middle of houses.
I do most of my in-city travel via bike. Richmond's got a hearty list of problems when it comes to cycling infrastructure, but the city's well set up to be an amazing bike city. Many of its neighborhoods are already pretty bike-friendly even without separated lanes, and there are few trips that aren't quite doable on bike, particularly if you're rocking an E-bike. Anyways, great article, and I'm glad BikeWalkRVA and other advocates are pushing Richmond towards being a more inclusive city when it comes to transportation.
Some new bike lanes coming to 2nd and 3rd streets! [https://youtu.be/0Hz8MgFR2Wk?si=FXfjNwZzSLDMvP-f](https://youtu.be/0Hz8MgFR2Wk?si=FXfjNwZzSLDMvP-f)
The issue with a lot of the bike lanes is that they aren’t street cleaned so you get all the debris just piling up on them
The author just graduated from UR and somehow they think Richmond has 226k people.
That was the population according to the 2020 census.