No, they mustn’t.
Like most people, I obey the law, except when I don’t. I follow all the
traffic rules when I’m cycling. I do not ignore stop signs, and I don’t
roll through red lights (and if that’s made me annoying to erstwhile
riding companions, so be it – the whole problem with drivers today is
their absolute sense of entitlement, of a right to the road superior to
everyone else’s rights, and I’m tired of it). I signal my stops and
turns when it’s safe for me to do so (but with the rough pavement we
have, releasing the handlebars isn’t always a good idea). I don’t cut
through parking lots or ride on sidewalks. I even stop for school buses,
not because my bike is going to run over some kindergartener, but
because it’s the law. It’s just what you do.
But I’ll be damned
if I’ll obey the signs on the ramps up to the Dunn Memorial Bridge that
say “Bicyclists must walk on ramp.” There is no reason on earth for this
rule. First, it doesn’t recognize that on that narrow ramp, a cyclist
walking his bike is twice as wide, making it harder for people going in
opposite directions to pass each other. Second, it doesn’t recognize
that it’s nearly impossible to walk that steep ramp in bike shoes.
Third, it would add at least 40 minutes to my commute every day if I
were to actually walk my bike on the ramps. But most importantly, there
is NO REASON for it. Why would I have to get off my bike and walk it? If
I can’t control my bike on a hill, then I couldn’t be riding on that
bridge anyway, because the choice on either side of the bridge is a
hill.
Do we periodically require that drivers get out and push
their cars on a stretch of highway? No. Why not? Because it would be
insane. Same with this. You want to tell me to yield to pedestrians,
fine. You want to set a speed limit, fine. You want to warn me to slow
down on the complete afterthought of an elbow in the ramp where the
homeless drop their crackpipes to the pavement, fine. But you want me to
get off and walk my bike just to make getting across the river on a
nasty, unmaintained, glass-strewn sidewalk just a little less pleasant?
Not fine.
What brings this to mind? Coming home from a hot ride
on Sunday, getting ready for a long slog up the hills to home. There are
hundreds of cyclists along the river because the Bike the Canal ride
was finishing up in Albany that morning. And I get behind a couple of
them with their big cruiser bikes and their packed saddle bags who have
decided to go across the river. And like any good tourists, they are
obeying the sign and walking their bikes up the ramp. They’re so wide I
can’t get around them even on my bike, and if I get off and try to walk
up the ramp in my skittery bike shoes I will be even wider and
completely unable to get past them ,and now I’m stuck spending 10 extra
minutes in the hot sun just slogging across this unfresh hell of a
bridge cursing the bureaucrat (possibly someone I know, I realize) who
decreed that bicycles must be walked on this ramp. When I finally got to
a point in the glass-strewn gardenway where I could squeeze myself
between their depanniers and the chainlink fence and get by, I got to
the down ramp and found another pair of cyclists, dutifully walking
their pack mules down the ramp.
Why do I not obey this sign? Because it is insane.
