Good luck getting to games...

[hm.grwn.grizfan]

Well if you hate bikers so much, then leave. Move somewhere like Wyoming where you'll probably fit in better. Missoula might not be the place for you.

 

[billings_poke]

People who ride bicycles are dangerous scumbags. Who knew? :shock:

 

[billings_poke]

Well if you hate bikers so much, then leave. Move somewhere like Wyoming where you'll probably fit in better. Missoula might not be the place for you.

I know four wyoming towns putting in a lot of bike trails. it is spreading

 

[Jerry Punch]

Well if you hate bikers so much, then leave. Move somewhere like Wyoming where you'll probably fit in better. Missoula might not be the place for you.

I have no problems with bikers in general. I have problems with bikers who actively disregard traffic laws and feel that regular rules do not apply to them. This risks their own safety and the safety of others on public streets. Many bikers in Missoula do not stop for lights or signs, nor do they yield when a car in front of them is turning to the right. A classic traffic rule is to never pass to the right, especially when someone is turning. This seems common sense to the trained driver, but it is completely foreign to the classic Missoulian biker.

 

[first11]

Jesus f***[*] christ...this is nothing but this town trying to lower property values and make it nothing but pedestrian/bicyclist traffic. This city council and mayor and everyone else needs to go.

...end of civilization as we know it

 

[MrTitleist]

I think it's a great, progressive idea.... Makes driving less convenient and walking or biking more convenient. It encourages alternative transportation.

Alternative transportation is not exactly convenient for everyone, especially considering how much commuter traffic Missoula receives. This town swells during the day. Plus, biking and walking isn't exactly pleasant from about November to February.

 

[poiuyter]

This will just cause more accidents, then the home owners can bitch and complain about that until the streets are closed to all traffic. In the end that is what they really want.

 

[GrizMusician]

You guys think Missoula is terribly run? hahahaha........ :lol:

This. :lol:

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Grisly Fan]

You guys think Missoula is terribly run? hahahaha........ :lol:

I have no idea. I grew up there but haven't lived there in 32 years. I only know (because most of my family still lives there) that if you choose to live there then be prepared to make substantially less than you would in many other places. If that is fine with you then great. I also know that making it more difficult to get around by car will do nothing to improve the business climate and therefore wages. If you like that fact then fantastic for you. It reminds me of the Tom McCall Oregon of the early 70's. His slogan on signs at the borders was "Come visit, don't stay".

 

[BWahlberg]

Being someone who widely supports most progressive/liberal ideals however also being in an industry that fights to protect private property rights I find that I struggle a lot with the planning and development of our city. I find myself torn a lot. Yes we need to save agricultural land, but no we shouldn't steal land away from developers to do so. Yes sidewalks, curbs, and boulevards are nice and appealing, but no the developers and builders should not shoulder all of that cost.

With this proposal I'm indifferent. First of all I drive those streets a lot. They're not incredibly busy as it is. Every now and then it's nice to pass some idiot going 20 mph on them but that's common with every street. There's 3rd street as well right there so you've got 3 streets going east/west practically right next to each other so it seems there really isn't much of a need there for all of those lanes. Furthermore those streets are incredibly tight, you're within a foot of parked cars when driving down and anyone else on the road (bicyclists) make it an impossible fit sometime.

That said I think if the city is going to make all sorts of accommodations for cyclists then they need to share the costs that are associated with road use. As a motorist I'm taxed quite a bit (license plates, gas tax, etc) for the use of the roads, however I think a bicyclist pays a small 1-time license fee and that's even optional. There should be yearly licenses that are mandatory which would also go to road maintenance/repair. Share the road, share the costs.

 

[MrTitleist]

3rd St doesn't run you all the way across town though, you get to Higgins then it dead-ends.

 

[GrizMusician]

When I lived in Zootown... the best part of living downtown was the accessibility to nearly everything via bicycle.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

 

[hokeyfine]

Lets all get out of our bubble. Minneapolis/st Paul has great bike paths and a great economy. You can get anywhere on your bike in those cities and surrounding areas. Biking doesn't equate to a bad business environment. That's all up to the business owners.

 

[Grizbeer]

I think it's a great, progressive idea.... Makes driving less convenient and walking or biking more convenient. It encourages alternative transportation.

Honestly this is the biggest problem with all of these ideas - they are not about improving safety, traffic flow, or making it easier to walk or bike somewhere - they are about making it more difficult to drive. It isn't about making life better for citizens, it is about making life so miserable that the populace will bend to the wishes of the fringe. We could easily improve both vehicle flow and pedestrian/bike access and safety, but that isn't the goal here.

Eliminating 2 lanes of traffic is another step towards a car free Missoula, and not at all about safety at all, but about imposing a lifestyle on everyone else. it is not enough for alternative transportation advocates to have options, they need to also bend everyone else to their way of life. It isn't about safety, the environment or health, it is about control.

And of course this is just another step. MIST (who developed this plan) also has plans to turn all of Higgins and Broadway into lane roads, and to put brooks on a "diet" between Miller Creek road and Rose park. the MIST master plan for downtown is to create a pedestrian plaza on Higgins/Broadway intersection, completely eliminating cross town traffic downtown.

Reducing speeds on Brooks between Dore Lane and 39th street is a step in implementing this plan (under the guise of safety because 4 people died - all the people who died were involved in crashes where speeds exceeded 80 mpg and drugs alcohol were involved, and all deaths could have been prevented by using barriers to only allow right turns at the Dore lane Brooks intersection). MIST also fights vehemently against Bike paths separated from the roadway, because their goal is not to increase pedestrian or bike safety, but to reduce vehicle traffic.

While it might be fun to make fun of Missoula because of this, just remember Helena you get everything a couple years after Missoula, and Great Falls and Billings after that. MIST is already lobbying in Helena for changes there, and when all Missoula roads are turned into 1 lane each direction their offices will move their to focus efforts on creating a car free Helena to go along with car free Missoula.

 

[Grizbeer]

Lets all get out of our bubble. Minneapolis/st Paul has great bike paths and a great economy. You can get anywhere on your bike in those cities and surrounding areas. Biking doesn't equate to a bad business environment. That's all up to the business owners.

i think most people would support creating separate paths that allow people to get anywhere easily and safely without conflict with drivers. that is not the goal here, the goal is to reduce road space for vehicles to make it less convenient to drive. If Missoula's advocates focused on cars and pedestrians/bikes instead of cars or pedestrians/bikes we could have a great transportation city.

 

['68griz]

I think it's a great, progressive idea.... Makes driving less convenient and walking or biking more convenient. It encourages alternative transportation.

That's precisely why we always take the bus from Paradise Falls.

 

[GrizMusician]

While it might be fun to make fun of Missoula because of this, just remember Helena you get everything a couple years after Missoula, and Great Falls and Billings after that. MIST is already lobbying in Helena for changes there, and when all Missoula roads are turned into 1 lane each direction their offices will move their to focus efforts on creating a car free Helena to go along with car free Missoula.

So... that means Butte will get it in another 20 years? :lol:

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

 

[billings_poke]

While it might be fun to make fun of Missoula because of this, just remember Helena you get everything a couple years after Missoula, and Great Falls and Billings after that. MIST is already lobbying in Helena for changes there, and when all Missoula roads are turned into 1 lane each direction their offices will move their to focus efforts on creating a car free Helena to go along with car free Missoula.

Billings has bike paths all over the place and has been putting them in place for quite a while.

 

[Grizbeer]

While it might be fun to make fun of Missoula because of this, just remember Helena you get everything a couple years after Missoula, and Great Falls and Billings after that. MIST is already lobbying in Helena for changes there, and when all Missoula roads are turned into 1 lane each direction their offices will move their to focus efforts on creating a car free Helena to go along with car free Missoula.

Billings has bike paths all over the place and has been putting them in place for quite a while.

That is good. Has Billings also been doing road diets, or are they separating bike paths from roads? To be clear Missoula has bike paths, bike lanes, bike sharrows and even green lanes. Now the focus is more on road diets, which is what this 5th/6th project is - eliminating vehicle traffic lanes. Bike paths are great. Bike lanes on arterial lanes create conflict and accidents, reducing respect and cooperating from the auto and bike communities. Bike sharrows just seem dangerous, and green lanes are idiotic (let's move all the slow moving bike traffic up to the front of the intersection so the vehicle traffic has to pass them again - nothing bad can happen there). road diets are the bike activist wmd.

 

[brian s]

I think it's a great, progressive idea.... Makes driving less convenient and walking or biking more convenient. It encourages alternative transportation.

Walking and biking are "progressive"? That is what people did before the invention of the automobile therefore it is by definition "regressive". Or is the progressive agenda just the next episode of "Back to the Future"?

A progressive concept in my opinion would be one that accommodates the reality that people need jobs and so businesses need customers with reasonable access to them while doing its best to limit the impact on he environment, i.e., promotes sustainability. I think the progressives would like to turn Missoula into a big park where everyone works for the government and walks or bikes to their jobs. All of the greedy capitalists can just take their degenerate businesses elsewhere. Now THAT is a vision of Missoula's future and why I will not have a realistic chance to live there again until after I retire.

Any time the word "progressive" is used to describe something, it means that the person or movement is rooted in idiocy, and caters only to minorities. It is time that mainstream Americans stop this mindless B.S., and take back our country. This 5th-6th street thing does not surprise me, considering Missoula has become California North.