18 ms·

Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

157 points by duck 10y ago

ph0rque 10y ago
I wonder if these guerillas could paint a fake curb that looks real enough that cars wouldn't want to cross it?
- prawn 10y ago
  This is an idea I have proposed before. A 2D painted kerb that looks 3D when viewed from the perspective of a driver. One response was that it would take a while to adjust road marking standards, etc. I figured it'd be worth a cheap trial with cameras watching car behaviour though.
zo7 10y ago
I don't think non-cyclists realize how much risk you take on when you ride in the city. In my town we really only have bike lanes on the two main roads that go up and down the bulk of the city, and they ride dangerously close to lines of parked cars. I was riding downhill once when someone opened their door in front of me without looking -- luckily I managed to get past, but had they opened it a few moments earlier I would've slammed into it and possibly fallen into traffic. Another time I was riding down a street without a bike lane. There was a row of parked cars on the side so I was rode roughly a door's length away from them, enough to keep me safe but taking on enough of the lane that other drivers wouldn't be able to pass without driving in the opposite lane. I hear a car suddenly rev up behind me and blare their horn as they sped past, sideswiping me and almost knocking me off my bike. I managed to confront the driver at the next intersection, "Hey were you trying to kill me?" "Yeah, I was" (he had two kids in the car too) Cones are a smart way of tricking people into respecting these boundaries, but I wonder how long it'll be until drivers start violating them when they realize they're not official or the city starts removing them. In the meantime I might get my own cones though...
- shard972 10y ago
  As a driver it's the main reason I refuse to ride a bike, I don't want to die. Even here in perth that is generally trying to help bike riders I just don't see how it's safe to ride around at 20-30km when the speed limit is 70km and there isn't enough room to overtake without going into the other lane. I just don't see how you can be safe when people are trying to overtake you in giant utes going twice your speed trying to get home/to work.
  - steveax 10y ago
    How about as a driver, you don't pass cyclists when it's not safe?
    - apathy 10y ago
      Hard to blame non cyclists, they just have no fucking idea. Once you've seen it from the other side of the barrel it's hard to remember how you saw it beforehand.
      - brokenmachine 10y ago
        It is not hard to blame drivers here in NSW because it is illegal to pass within 1m of a cyclist. Nobody ever gets fined though, cyclists still just get killed.
        apathy 10y ago
        Gah. I'm sorry. That sucks.
    - dpark 10y ago
      1) Why do you assume he's passing cyclists when it's not safe? 2) It doesn't help unless all drivers do this, which they don't, which is the problem and the point.
      - 10y ago
Kenji 10y ago
I love this! I feel so uncomfortable cycling on main roads, knowing that if the person behind the wheel of the x-ton vehicle beside me does one small mistake, I end up paralyzed or dead. The bicycle is a really great means of transport that deserves more love (and space on the streets).
sndean 10y ago
Mostly unrelated, but does anyone have (or has seen?) an opinion on self driving cars and how that may impact cyclists on the road? Do you think the shift to autonomous vehicles will make the road safer for people on bikes?
- TulliusCicero 10y ago
  Yes, definitely. But it will be some time before most cars are self driving.
- wwalser 10y ago
  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2015/08/26/how-fixed-gear-bikes-can-confuse-googles-self-driving-cars/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2015/08/2... I can't imagine how autonomous vehicles could make cycling less safe. The only thing I'm coming up with is that the side profile of a bike at night could get "filtered" as noise and ignored. That same scenario must happen just as often with human drivers though. My biggest concern while cycling in Sydney was going through roundabouts at night. Cars in front or behind me with bright blinking lights? Just fine. Cars potentially coming at me from the side where nothing but my own reflective vest to identify me? Terrifying.
  - ygra 10y ago
    At least in Germany reflectors on the spokes are mandatory. And most tyres have a reflective strip built in, so the night-time side profile of a cyclist should usually clearly mark the shape, even if the cyclist isn't reflective.
- Asooka 10y ago
  Autonomous cars will absolutely make bicycle riding safer. The robot doesn't hate cyclists. The robot doesn't prioritise speed over safety. The robot will never swipe you, yell at you, make a U-turn, tailgate you, swipe you again, back over your bike, tell you to die and go to hell and speed off.
vacri 10y ago
Orange cones are a novelty. Put them everywhere and behaviour will eventually return to where it was. The same thing happened with high-mounted brakelights on cars - they significantly reduced rear-end collisions for a few years, but eventually the trend returned to where it was beforehand.
- princeb 10y ago
  > Put them everywhere and behaviour will eventually return to where it was. don't understand this comment - you mean to say vehicle drivers will eventually resume driving on lanes that are separated by traffic cones? i suppose they can... but i assume most drivers will try to avoid knocking/running these things over
  - apathy 10y ago
    Have you looked at a job site in California or New York lately? I guarantee you this is not universal. Unless cones are made of cement people WILL blow through them.
  - bsimpson 10y ago
    Drivers in San Francisco don't hesitate to run over plastic posts that separate some bike lanes from car traffic. Other lanes have cement planters separating them - drivers still manage to park in the bike lane.
Larrikin 10y ago
I don't mind giving up the road to cyclists in cities. I just hope that one day they are finally treated like cars. Bikes on city roads should have to be registered with plates. Bikes in many places in Japan are registered and it makes it a lot easier to figure out when someone is riding a bike they aren't supposed to have. The plates would hopefully go along with police actually enforcing the traffic laws on cyclists so they can't simply blow through traffic lights, stop signs, peddle through pedestrians on the sidewalk, drink and peddle, etc. If cyclists want the same respect as cars on the road, they should be expected to follow the laws just as seriously as someone with a car.
- apathy 10y ago
  Yes because a 20 pound bike does exactly the same damage as a 6000 pound car. Both to driver and victim. Excellent thought process. Also slapping plates on bikes will totally fix the issue of theft. Cars never ever get stolen, because they have plates. I disagree with your underlying assumptions and your suggestions. What you are suggesting would penalize the sorts of people who rely upon their bicycles to get to work each day.
  - Etzos 10y ago
    I think the bigger problem is that people on bicycles don't always obey the laws which are in place to protect both them and motor vehicle drivers. The parent mentioned cyclists who run through traffic lights and similar infrastructure with wanton disregard for the situation (I have witnessed this many times myself). This creates a situation that is dangerous to everyone involved and is quite illegal. However, there is no recourse as there is no easy way to identify them as you would a motor vehicle as there are no plates or identifying items on the bicycle. Ultimately I agree that adding plates is a bit extreme, but I think it's also disingenuous to say there is no problem and ignore them. Edit: I would also like to note that I'm not commenting on motor vehicles disobeying laws in similar situations, they routinely do, however that does not take away from the fact that there is an issue here as well.
    - steveax 10y ago
steveax 10y ago
Some similar grass roots efforts in PDX after a teen pedestrian was struck and killed by a speeding (~55 in a 35) reckless driver earlier in the week: https://twitter.com/bikeportland/status/767223666014720000 https://twitter.com/bikeportland/status/767223666014720000
bsimpson 10y ago
As a well-traveled cyclist, I yearn for the truely separated roadways my peers ride in other places. In Holland, for instance, their cycletrack treatment is closer to a special sidewalk for bicycles than a repainted stretch of highway. Each mode of transportation (walking, riding, driving, mass transit, etc.) has its own path. This separation of concerns (segmented by both mass and speed) makes getting around safer and easier for everybody. The thing that San Francisco has and Amsterdam doesn't is private garages in most freestanding buildings. For instance, the northern-most section of the Wiggle has the city's most protected bike lane - there are cement planters separating the bike lane from fast-moving car traffic. Unfortunately, to support private garages, there are gaps in these planters enabling homeowners to enter/exit their driveways. Delivery vehicles and private cars frequently idle in the spaces between these planters, trapping cyclists in the bike lane and forcing them to merge into car traffic that isn't expecting them. The city does nothing to stop this, and the drivers are incredibly hostile. I've tried getting off my bike and asking people (as kindly as possible) to move, explaining how parking in the bike path puts me life at risk. The nicest response I've gotten was being told to go fuck myself: even the old man in a bus driver's jacket idling in his car was shockingly violent in his reply. Delivery drivers don't give you the light of day. There's a tow company on this stretch of the Wiggle that frequently has trucks blocking the path. I noticed someone had parked to deliberately keep the path clear one day and earnestly thanked him for doing so. Even he threatened me. San Francisco politicians respond with platitudes everytime once of us dies, but they do fuck-all to actually protect us. Our local transportation board reimagined one neighborhood street as a promenade, prioritizing pedestrians and cyclists and creating a destination for people from all over the city to come patronize local businesses. A handful of shop owners who came of age when the car was the dominant form of transportation raised concerns about parking. Rather than pointing out the plentiful parking on literally every nearby street, offering to construct a garage, or pointing out that users of all forms of transportation would flock to a human-scale shopping district in numbers that more-than made up for the lost parking, the city caved with the mayor scuttling the whole project.
- toomanybeersies 10y ago
  We're just starting to get separated bike lines in New Zealand, where the bike lane is on the other side of the parked cars, so the parked cars essentially make a barrier. It's not perfect, you can still get doored by the parked cars, but at least you aren't going to get run over at the same time.
rootusrootus 10y ago
I would support a true separation of all vehicle modes. As an avid walker, I've had far more run-ins with speeding bicycles nearly hitting me (and a few which did hit me) than I have with cars. If it were easy to create a solid separation that would keep cars and bikes separate, and prevent bikes from using sidewalks, count me in, you have my vote and my tax dollars to make it happen.
sampo 10y ago
I googled for some statistics: USA 1% of all trips is by cycle [1] 743 cyclist fatalities per year (2013) [2] population 320 million. Denmark 17% of all trips is by cycle [3] 33 cyclist fatalities per year (2013) [3] population 5.6 million. Cyclist fatalities per 1 million people: USA: 2.3 Denmark: 5.9 ...per cycling frequency: USA: 232 Denmark: 35 I guess I was expecting worse. American cyclists die only 7x more than Danish cyclists. [1] http://www.bikewalkalliance.org/storage/documents/reports/2014BenchmarkingReport.pdf http://www.bikewalkalliance.org/storage/documents/reports/20... [2] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812151 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... [3] http://www.cycling-embassy.dk/facts-about-cycling-in-denmark/statistics/ http://www.cycling-embassy.dk/facts-about-cycling-in-denmark...
- prawn 10y ago
  I imagine that the more cyclists there are, the better the awareness and appreciation of their choice to ride, and the better the infrastructure. In Australia, there are a lot of people who seriously despise people choosing to ride. They will excuse the attitude in a number of ways ("Some cyclists run red lights to get head starts!"), but the hatred is deeper. Either us vs them, or jealous that others have made a decision they are unwilling to make? It's baffling.
- Someone 10y ago
  "American cyclists die only 7x more than Danish cyclists." reason that this is so 'low' is a difference in the population that cycles. I don't know for Denmark, but in the Netherlands, about 60% of cyclists dying in traffic are over 65 years old (106 out of 185 in 2014).
  - huherto 10y ago
    > I don't know for Denmark, but in the Netherlands, about 60% of cyclists dying in traffic are over 65 years old (106 out of 185 in 2014). I am curious why is that. Reflexes, heart attacks, hip injuries ?
andrewem 10y ago
I don't have time now to write a comment laying out a comprehensive rebuttal of all the foolishness that some people have suggested here (bicyclists need to be licensed! bicyclists should have to follow exactly the same rules as drivers! we shouldn't have bicyclists on many roads because cars go too fast!). Instead, I'll say that just as people walking need physically protected infrastructure on essentially all roadways - these are called sidewalks - so too people on bicycles need physically protected infrastructure on essentially all roadways - these are called protected bike lanes, or cycle tracks, or various other names. For some recent commentary on this topic from Boston, see the following. The first is from a columnist, and the second from the President of the Boston City Council: https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/08/12/bikes/yOFRBYH8zy5jBiVEFYUUVN/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/08/12/bikes/yOFRBYH... https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/07/11/the-road-fear-free-biking-boston/UBnj30slkPwBIzggL70uwJ/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/07/11/the-road-fear...
- lorenzk 10y ago
  You will like this website: http://cyclingfallacies.com/ http://cyclingfallacies.com/
- oarsinsync 10y ago
  > I don't have time now to write a comment laying out a comprehensive rebuttal of all the foolishness that some people have suggested here ... bicyclists should have to follow exactly the same rules as drivers In the UK, all vehicles on the road are required to abide by the highway code. Yep, that means bicycles have to follow the same rules as drivers. In the 1990s, schools in the UK ran cycling courses to ensure that children as young as 9 were already learning the highway code, and would be able to cycle on the roads safely. The London police to this day continue to run cycling courses to provide the same level of training. I can't speak to the rest, nor in other countries, but in the UK, it is absolutely not foolish, but actually required by law, for cyclists to follow the same rules as drivers.
  - Anasufovic 10y ago
    In California, bicycles also must follow the same rules as other vehicles. It is unlikely that is the issue in San Francisco, it is more of a lack of respect for bike lanes and seeing it as an inconvenience. Our culture here is so car oriented that it is showing its ugly side from every angle.
falcolas 10y ago
As a former bicyclist, and a current motorcyclist and "cager", let me give one piece of advice that has kept me alive to this day. Your safety and protection is entirely up to you. No government, painted lines or traffic cones are going to save you on the road. When you're on the road, the only thing that matters is "the right of weight". If you're hit by a car, and you're not in a protective cage of steel, it's not going to matter if the other person was in the right or the wrong. You're still dead. If anything, these traffic cones are a dangerous placebo; making cyclists feel safer than they actually are in their interactions with cars. Want to actually be safe from cars when on the road? Ride in a cage of steel. Want to survive on two wheels? Ride as if every person in a car is intentionally trying to kill you. Yeah, it's probably overly pessamistic; no, it's not fair. But I'm alive and uninjured.
- DarkTree 10y ago
  > Yeah, it's probably overly pessamistic; no, it's not fair. But I'm alive and uninjured. Don't you think that's a little bit of survivorship bias? I'm sure there are plenty of cyclist who have been killed who 100% agreed and rode in that way, but they obviously can't speak on the matter. Of course it is dangerous and potentially lethal when you get hit by a car, but how can you suggest that it's not beneficial to have measures in place that at least attempt to protect cyclist. It makes cyclist 'feel' safer, because it is in fact safer. Look at countries like the Netherlands that have excellent cycling lanes and safety measures. It makes drivers more aware that there are cyclist around them, and urges them to be more cognizant of their surroundings.
  - falcolas 10y ago
    Would additional space for bikes hurt bikers? I think it depends. If there is enough room to add better bike lanes without affecting car traffic negatively, the it will probably help. But if cars are forced into smaller spaces, I think more cars "in a hurry" will disregard the lines in favor of a clear road. Sure, they will be in the wrong, but it won't help the dead cyclists any. And places like SF, with their already bad car traffic and limited land? They would definitely fall in the latter case in my book.
SomeHacker44 10y ago
As a life-long New Yorker (Manhattan and more recently Brooklyn) I just don't understand why anyone would ever ride a bike in NYC, period. I even stopped rollerblading in NYC when some asshole driving backwards (presumably to get a parking spot) nearly killed me and did knock me silly. I have a motorcycle license I got one summer when I had free time. I learned that cars and pedestrians are your enemy, and that you will probably regret being a motorcyclist eventually. So I quickly stopped. The simple answer is to not bike in NYC, or get rid of cars in NYC. Although I have moved to Brooklyn, I think the "get rid of cars" is in Manhattan is a great idea. But, if we must bike, by all means, let's get segregated bike lanes. I have seen them in Union Square, around Prospect Park, and other places. BUT! That said, bikes are worse than cars IMO in yielding right of way to pedestrians. I was nearly killed by a high speed biker IN A CROSSWALK ACROSS A SEGREGATED BIKE LANE outside the Intrepid museum nearly a month ago, and the moron had the gall to yell at me as he barely missed me to watch where I was going. Literally two seconds later nearly the same thing happens with another biker. Insane. Furthermore, bikes don't remotely follow the rules of the road. Stop lights? Ignored. One way streets - or even one way bike lanes - ignored. No riding on sidewalks? Well, mostly followed. Pfew. As a pedestrian, I fear bikes more than cars. They are silent, they are fearless (if they weren't they would not ride like this), and they don't care about pedestrians. Personally, I'd rather get rid of bikes entirely, or at least put a cop at every corner writing expensive NYC moving violations to each bicyclist when they inevitably break the law. A million citations a day would be fine by me, and would help pay for more shared infrastructure like subways, bus lanes, and, yes, even segregated bicycle lanes.
- Frondo 10y ago
  Heh, just today I was biking down a hill in a segregated lane. Green lights ahead of me, all the way to the waterfront. Some guy in the crosswalk, going against the signal (I have green lights for several blocks), left to right across the street. I'm half a block away but I'm going downhill and going pretty fast. I yell, "Watch out!" He keeps moving, so I start to veer to the left to go around him to the left. THEN he stops, so I yell again, "Keep moving already!" I veer harder left to get around him. I still have green lights, he's going against the signal. He steps backwards!!! Now I'm going to hit him for sure, so I brake hard, skidding down the hill, veering now well out of the segregated lane, into a car lane, barely avoiding a full-on collision. My leg hits his bag, and of course I cuss up a blue streak. I don't get it. I come to a complete stop at stop signs wherever there's any traffic, and I always slow down because cars blow through them constantly. I never cross against lights, and when I cross with lights, I do so with caution because cars blow through those, too. I do see more and more bikes on the roads, though, which makes me happy about cars learning to share the roads a bit. We cyclists pay taxes, too, of course.
brezina 10y ago
If you live in SF and want to help, the team doing this is on Twitter at @sfmtra and looking for volunteers and donations. Safe biking is good for the health of humans,their communities, and the environment
dasil003 10y ago
I've spent most of my life with cycling as my primary mode of transportation, living in Minneapolis, Santa Fe, London and SF/Oakland. I ride fast and generally try to go with the flow to avoid inconveniencing drivers while also being considerate to pedestrians. I think this traffic cone thing is pretty cool, but I have a larger observation to make: Here's the thing about SF: everyone is way too fucking agro. Drivers freak out when they can't drive 50mph down a city street. The cyclists are banging u-locks on hoods because someone cut them off. Everyone is road raging like crazy. I lived in London for 3 years, with all the narrow streets and everything overcrowded to the bursting point. Central London is 10x as crowded as SF in every way, and yet somehow the pedestrians, cyclists and drivers all manage to co-exist. It's not a panacea for sure, it obviously can't compare to Amsterdam, but the whole Keep Calm and Carry On mentality definitely applies to transportation. You know what happens? Buses pass other buses by going into the oncoming traffic lane and oncoming traffic moves over to accommodate them. Pedestrians spill into the streets sometimes, and cars don't kill them. Vans and lorries sometimes drive up onto the pavement (ie. sidewalk) in order to get around an obstruction. Pedestrians pull off to the side of the walk way if they need to pay attention to their phone. Everyone implicitly acknowledges: hey, it's crowded, we have to cooperate to get where we're going. SF could use a lot more of that attitude. I thought the west coast was supposed to be chill.
- Symbiote 10y ago
  > to avoid inconveniencing drivers I used to cycle like that, in London. I moved to Copenhagen, and quickly had to change my behaviour. Drivers are firmly at the bottom of the heap here, and everyone knows it. It's inefficient and confusing to others to disrupt this.
  - PeterSmit 10y ago
    And that is how it should be. Cars are great to go between cities fast, but inside cities they should behave like guests. Ironically, most drivers are guests to a city as well, coming from the suburbs. Pedestrians, cyclists and public transportation are the most efficient mode of transportation inside a city, and should be honored as such. In most medium to big Dutch cities this is the case, although there is always room for improvement.
raarts 10y ago
This is an overview of how the Dutch do it as presented by a city planning guy from Seattle. Lengthy, but I was glued to the screen. https://youtu.be/l0GA901oGe4 https://youtu.be/l0GA901oGe4
staticelf 10y ago
Bike lanes in SF: https://www.google.se/search?q=bike+lanes+SF&safe=off&client=firefox-b-ab&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiYwp75stTOAhWFiiwKHcPGA1IQ_AUICSgC&biw=2048&bih=1043 https://www.google.se/search?q=bike+lanes+SF&safe=off&client... Bike lanes in Stockholm: https://www.google.se/search?q=bike+lanes+stockholm&safe=off&client=firefox-b-ab&biw=2048&bih=1043&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiu5YLostTOAhVJGCwKHQq5BNMQ_AUIBygC https://www.google.se/search?q=bike+lanes+stockholm&safe=off... Bike lanes in Amsterdam: https://www.google.se/search?q=bike+lanes+amsterdam&safe=off&client=firefox-b-ab&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiDjI6Xs9TOAhUGkiwKHdR_A4cQ_AUICCgB&biw=2048&bih=1043 https://www.google.se/search?q=bike+lanes+amsterdam&safe=off... I guess SF / USA have something to learn from Europeans and that is to build some shit between the bike lane and the car lane. Let it be cones, rails or whatever just not a painted line.
- brokenmachine 10y ago
  Don't worry, you're not alone. Australia's bike infrastructure also sucks.
  - staticelf 10y ago
    Well, I do live in Sweden in a city where everyone bikes. So I am happy :) I just like to promote our model of society since it's so much better on so many levels.
cmarschner 10y ago
Here is an outside view, fwiw, the official recommendations for bike lanes in Germany. In German, but lots of pictures! http://www.kompetenzzentrum-radverkehr.de/fileadmin/redakteure/pdf/LGB-ERA_2011.pdf http://www.kompetenzzentrum-radverkehr.de/fileadmin/redakteu... Question: Is there an association like AAA is for cars that represents bikers in the US? That could take on the discussions with the government.
- cerebellum42 10y ago
  After reading some of that, it contains some recommendations that lead to annoying and sometimes dangerous situations for cyclists that I recognize from my everyday cycling experiences in Germany. Just one example: They seem to encourage usage of pedestrian paths with "bikes allowed" signs on medium traffic streets with ~50km/h speed limit, think main road of a small-ish town. These have become waaay too popular, especially in small towns and some areas of bigger cities too. They make the cyclist choose between these two options: * share the pavement with pedestrians, but with barely any separation from the pedestrians; so you're either really really slow or you endanger pedestrians * use the road and share it with drivers who think it belongs solely to them and endanger cyclists So either way, it's a bad experience and potentially dangerous.
warrenmiller 10y ago
In London the cycle super highways are painted bright blue. Seems to work.
tajen 10y ago
Several problems, which could be solved my municipalities, and illustrated by this twitter feed: https://twitter.com/lyoncorrompu https://twitter.com/lyoncorrompu - Cars stop on the bike lane: It may sound reasonable to stop on the rightmost lane, but in fact they obstruct both the bike lane and the car lane. It would be more reasonable for cars to stop on the car lane. - Red lights: It's less dangerous for cyclists to ride the red light than the green light. It's incredible, but there are less accidents, even if the cyclist does it every day and isn't fully aware of his surroundings. But car drivers go crazy when they see a cyclist burning the red light (which isn't surprising because it's a penal infraction in France, like drunk-driving). - Bikes riding in the sidewalk or the wrong lane, sometimes in the opposite direction, by night, when there are other solutions. Most infractions could easily be sorted out by the police, but they're more busy acting like they're fighting terrorism (by stationing under the Town Hall palace with weapons drawn out) than checking for traffic infringements. - Pedestrians walking on the cycle lane, which is prone to injury, often due to cars who park on the sidewalk. - Bikes without lights: That's not much of a risk for the cyclist, because they know very well they may die from their own mistake and get a Darwin Award of stupid deaths. No, I'd rather focus on the risk for the car drivers, who will be considered guilty of killing a cyclist, even though he was in the dark without light, sometimes in the opposite direction than he's supposed to be. Bikers without lights are a jail threat for all car drivers around. - Also note the counter-intuitive feat that not requiring the helmet saves more lives across a country than the compulsory helmet law. All in all, if justice were served, cars should be given the short end of everything because they kill massively in four ways (accidents, immediate pollution, carbon emissions, driver's health) and occupy more space.
sevenless 10y ago
I propose the following modification to HN moderation: Comments that fall along entirely predictable, nonproductive back-and-forth lines: in this case, expressions of hostility between cyclists and non-cyclists, should be deleted. There should perhaps be a link to previous iterations of the discussion, or to neutral resources on how urban planning can integrate cyclists. This comment has been made with the deliberate decision to not read anything else written in this thread. The topic and the fact there are 100+ posts tells me everything I need to know about what's in it.
aquratic 10y ago
I PhD student in Switzerland. Here, we just have a yellow marking for the bike lane, and car drivers are surprisingly considerate towards bikers. I don't know what the penalties are for hitting bikers, but biking here is a bliss. Even in big cities like Zurich and Geneva! Really, god bless this beautiful country :)
koolba 10y ago
> "Orange cones are really a great prototyping tool," says the activist. "They put something on the ground that's visible. Cars really slow down around orange cones—it's really a remarkable feat of psychology." Keep this up and pretty soon it'll be like when CNN prefixes a headline with "BREAKING NEWS: ...".
collyw 10y ago
Wow SF has some shitty looking roads considering how much money is in the area.
dzhiurgis 10y ago
Why not put parking spots (where possible) outside the bike lane, so the cars protect cycle path. Its done in some places in Denmark.
- et-al 10y ago
  It's a good idea in theory, but having ridden this setup in Golden Gate Park[0], I'm constantly worried about getting doored and ride as far away from the cars as possible. I'd argue one's chances of getting doored are higher than an auto rear-ending a biker, so it would take up a lot more space to implement correctly. Also, for passenger in a car, can you imagine (carefully) opening a door, hoping not to door a biker, only to try to cross a stream of bikes to reach the sidewalk? It's a bad scenario for all parties. [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=golden+gate+park+bike+lane&biw=1333&bih=858&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X https://www.google.com/search?q=golden+gate+park+bike+lane&b...
makecheck 10y ago
Cyclists need to follow the rules in order to command respect, frankly. I wish this wasn’t true but I see dozens of cyclists every week (no exaggeration at all) doing things that are blatantly illegal and definitely dangerous. FLYING through stop signs. Deciding to just “go” at a red light when there seems to be no traffic. Turning wherever they want without signaling. Assuming they have the right of way in pretty much any situation. Multiple riders in parallel formations that make them move into the road anyway. The list goes on, and on, and on. I am not kidding. And that kind of behavior just makes me not want to help. I’m sorry, you have to make sure you are at least doing everything possible to help yourself before you expect drivers to make any more concessions.

157 points by duck 10y ago

ph0rque 10y ago

I wonder if these guerillas could paint a fake curb that looks real enough that cars wouldn't want to cross it?

prawn 10y ago
This is an idea I have proposed before. A 2D painted kerb that looks 3D when viewed from the perspective of a driver. One response was that it would take a while to adjust road marking standards, etc. I figured it'd be worth a cheap trial with cameras watching car behaviour though.

zo7 10y ago

I don't think non-cyclists realize how much risk you take on when you ride in the city. In my town we really only have bike lanes on the two main roads that go up and down the bulk of the city, and they ride dangerously close to lines of parked cars. I was riding downhill once when someone opened their door in front of me without looking -- luckily I managed to get past, but had they opened it a few moments earlier I would've slammed into it and possibly fallen into traffic. Another time I was riding down a street without a bike lane. There was a row of parked cars on the side so I was rode roughly a door's length away from them, enough to keep me safe but taking on enough of the lane that other drivers wouldn't be able to pass without driving in the opposite lane. I hear a car suddenly rev up behind me and blare their horn as they sped past, sideswiping me and almost knocking me off my bike. I managed to confront the driver at the next intersection, "Hey were you trying to kill me?" "Yeah, I was" (he had two kids in the car too) Cones are a smart way of tricking people into respecting these boundaries, but I wonder how long it'll be until drivers start violating them when they realize they're not official or the city starts removing them. In the meantime I might get my own cones though...

shard972 10y ago
As a driver it's the main reason I refuse to ride a bike, I don't want to die. Even here in perth that is generally trying to help bike riders I just don't see how it's safe to ride around at 20-30km when the speed limit is 70km and there isn't enough room to overtake without going into the other lane. I just don't see how you can be safe when people are trying to overtake you in giant utes going twice your speed trying to get home/to work.
- steveax 10y ago
  How about as a driver, you don't pass cyclists when it's not safe?
  - apathy 10y ago
    Hard to blame non cyclists, they just have no fucking idea. Once you've seen it from the other side of the barrel it's hard to remember how you saw it beforehand.
    - brokenmachine 10y ago
      It is not hard to blame drivers here in NSW because it is illegal to pass within 1m of a cyclist. Nobody ever gets fined though, cyclists still just get killed.
      - apathy 10y ago
        Gah. I'm sorry. That sucks.
  - dpark 10y ago
    1) Why do you assume he's passing cyclists when it's not safe? 2) It doesn't help unless all drivers do this, which they don't, which is the problem and the point.
    - 10y ago

Kenji 10y ago

I love this! I feel so uncomfortable cycling on main roads, knowing that if the person behind the wheel of the x-ton vehicle beside me does one small mistake, I end up paralyzed or dead. The bicycle is a really great means of transport that deserves more love (and space on the streets).

sndean 10y ago

Mostly unrelated, but does anyone have (or has seen?) an opinion on self driving cars and how that may impact cyclists on the road? Do you think the shift to autonomous vehicles will make the road safer for people on bikes?

TulliusCicero 10y ago
Yes, definitely. But it will be some time before most cars are self driving.
wwalser 10y ago
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2015/08/26/how-fixed-gear-bikes-can-confuse-googles-self-driving-cars/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2015/08/2... I can't imagine how autonomous vehicles could make cycling less safe. The only thing I'm coming up with is that the side profile of a bike at night could get "filtered" as noise and ignored. That same scenario must happen just as often with human drivers though. My biggest concern while cycling in Sydney was going through roundabouts at night. Cars in front or behind me with bright blinking lights? Just fine. Cars potentially coming at me from the side where nothing but my own reflective vest to identify me? Terrifying.
- ygra 10y ago
  At least in Germany reflectors on the spokes are mandatory. And most tyres have a reflective strip built in, so the night-time side profile of a cyclist should usually clearly mark the shape, even if the cyclist isn't reflective.
Asooka 10y ago
Autonomous cars will absolutely make bicycle riding safer. The robot doesn't hate cyclists. The robot doesn't prioritise speed over safety. The robot will never swipe you, yell at you, make a U-turn, tailgate you, swipe you again, back over your bike, tell you to die and go to hell and speed off.

vacri 10y ago

Orange cones are a novelty. Put them everywhere and behaviour will eventually return to where it was. The same thing happened with high-mounted brakelights on cars - they significantly reduced rear-end collisions for a few years, but eventually the trend returned to where it was beforehand.

princeb 10y ago
> Put them everywhere and behaviour will eventually return to where it was. don't understand this comment - you mean to say vehicle drivers will eventually resume driving on lanes that are separated by traffic cones? i suppose they can... but i assume most drivers will try to avoid knocking/running these things over
- apathy 10y ago
  Have you looked at a job site in California or New York lately? I guarantee you this is not universal. Unless cones are made of cement people WILL blow through them.
- bsimpson 10y ago
  Drivers in San Francisco don't hesitate to run over plastic posts that separate some bike lanes from car traffic. Other lanes have cement planters separating them - drivers still manage to park in the bike lane.

Larrikin 10y ago

I don't mind giving up the road to cyclists in cities. I just hope that one day they are finally treated like cars. Bikes on city roads should have to be registered with plates. Bikes in many places in Japan are registered and it makes it a lot easier to figure out when someone is riding a bike they aren't supposed to have. The plates would hopefully go along with police actually enforcing the traffic laws on cyclists so they can't simply blow through traffic lights, stop signs, peddle through pedestrians on the sidewalk, drink and peddle, etc. If cyclists want the same respect as cars on the road, they should be expected to follow the laws just as seriously as someone with a car.

apathy 10y ago
Yes because a 20 pound bike does exactly the same damage as a 6000 pound car. Both to driver and victim. Excellent thought process. Also slapping plates on bikes will totally fix the issue of theft. Cars never ever get stolen, because they have plates. I disagree with your underlying assumptions and your suggestions. What you are suggesting would penalize the sorts of people who rely upon their bicycles to get to work each day.
- Etzos 10y ago
  I think the bigger problem is that people on bicycles don't always obey the laws which are in place to protect both them and motor vehicle drivers. The parent mentioned cyclists who run through traffic lights and similar infrastructure with wanton disregard for the situation (I have witnessed this many times myself). This creates a situation that is dangerous to everyone involved and is quite illegal. However, there is no recourse as there is no easy way to identify them as you would a motor vehicle as there are no plates or identifying items on the bicycle. Ultimately I agree that adding plates is a bit extreme, but I think it's also disingenuous to say there is no problem and ignore them. Edit: I would also like to note that I'm not commenting on motor vehicles disobeying laws in similar situations, they routinely do, however that does not take away from the fact that there is an issue here as well.
  - steveax 10y ago

steveax 10y ago

Some similar grass roots efforts in PDX after a teen pedestrian was struck and killed by a speeding (~55 in a 35) reckless driver earlier in the week: https://twitter.com/bikeportland/status/767223666014720000 https://twitter.com/bikeportland/status/767223666014720000

bsimpson 10y ago

As a well-traveled cyclist, I yearn for the truely separated roadways my peers ride in other places. In Holland, for instance, their cycletrack treatment is closer to a special sidewalk for bicycles than a repainted stretch of highway. Each mode of transportation (walking, riding, driving, mass transit, etc.) has its own path. This separation of concerns (segmented by both mass and speed) makes getting around safer and easier for everybody. The thing that San Francisco has and Amsterdam doesn't is private garages in most freestanding buildings. For instance, the northern-most section of the Wiggle has the city's most protected bike lane - there are cement planters separating the bike lane from fast-moving car traffic. Unfortunately, to support private garages, there are gaps in these planters enabling homeowners to enter/exit their driveways. Delivery vehicles and private cars frequently idle in the spaces between these planters, trapping cyclists in the bike lane and forcing them to merge into car traffic that isn't expecting them. The city does nothing to stop this, and the drivers are incredibly hostile. I've tried getting off my bike and asking people (as kindly as possible) to move, explaining how parking in the bike path puts me life at risk. The nicest response I've gotten was being told to go fuck myself: even the old man in a bus driver's jacket idling in his car was shockingly violent in his reply. Delivery drivers don't give you the light of day. There's a tow company on this stretch of the Wiggle that frequently has trucks blocking the path. I noticed someone had parked to deliberately keep the path clear one day and earnestly thanked him for doing so. Even he threatened me. San Francisco politicians respond with platitudes everytime once of us dies, but they do fuck-all to actually protect us. Our local transportation board reimagined one neighborhood street as a promenade, prioritizing pedestrians and cyclists and creating a destination for people from all over the city to come patronize local businesses. A handful of shop owners who came of age when the car was the dominant form of transportation raised concerns about parking. Rather than pointing out the plentiful parking on literally every nearby street, offering to construct a garage, or pointing out that users of all forms of transportation would flock to a human-scale shopping district in numbers that more-than made up for the lost parking, the city caved with the mayor scuttling the whole project.

toomanybeersies 10y ago
We're just starting to get separated bike lines in New Zealand, where the bike lane is on the other side of the parked cars, so the parked cars essentially make a barrier. It's not perfect, you can still get doored by the parked cars, but at least you aren't going to get run over at the same time.

rootusrootus 10y ago

I would support a true separation of all vehicle modes. As an avid walker, I've had far more run-ins with speeding bicycles nearly hitting me (and a few which did hit me) than I have with cars. If it were easy to create a solid separation that would keep cars and bikes separate, and prevent bikes from using sidewalks, count me in, you have my vote and my tax dollars to make it happen.

sampo 10y ago

I googled for some statistics: USA 1% of all trips is by cycle [1] 743 cyclist fatalities per year (2013) [2] population 320 million. Denmark 17% of all trips is by cycle [3] 33 cyclist fatalities per year (2013) [3] population 5.6 million. Cyclist fatalities per 1 million people: USA: 2.3 Denmark: 5.9 ...per cycling frequency: USA: 232 Denmark: 35 I guess I was expecting worse. American cyclists die only 7x more than Danish cyclists. [1] http://www.bikewalkalliance.org/storage/documents/reports/2014BenchmarkingReport.pdf http://www.bikewalkalliance.org/storage/documents/reports/20... [2] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812151 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... [3] http://www.cycling-embassy.dk/facts-about-cycling-in-denmark/statistics/ http://www.cycling-embassy.dk/facts-about-cycling-in-denmark...

prawn 10y ago
I imagine that the more cyclists there are, the better the awareness and appreciation of their choice to ride, and the better the infrastructure. In Australia, there are a lot of people who seriously despise people choosing to ride. They will excuse the attitude in a number of ways ("Some cyclists run red lights to get head starts!"), but the hatred is deeper. Either us vs them, or jealous that others have made a decision they are unwilling to make? It's baffling.
Someone 10y ago
"American cyclists die only 7x more than Danish cyclists." reason that this is so 'low' is a difference in the population that cycles. I don't know for Denmark, but in the Netherlands, about 60% of cyclists dying in traffic are over 65 years old (106 out of 185 in 2014).
- huherto 10y ago
  > I don't know for Denmark, but in the Netherlands, about 60% of cyclists dying in traffic are over 65 years old (106 out of 185 in 2014). I am curious why is that. Reflexes, heart attacks, hip injuries ?

andrewem 10y ago

I don't have time now to write a comment laying out a comprehensive rebuttal of all the foolishness that some people have suggested here (bicyclists need to be licensed! bicyclists should have to follow exactly the same rules as drivers! we shouldn't have bicyclists on many roads because cars go too fast!). Instead, I'll say that just as people walking need physically protected infrastructure on essentially all roadways - these are called sidewalks - so too people on bicycles need physically protected infrastructure on essentially all roadways - these are called protected bike lanes, or cycle tracks, or various other names. For some recent commentary on this topic from Boston, see the following. The first is from a columnist, and the second from the President of the Boston City Council: https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/08/12/bikes/yOFRBYH8zy5jBiVEFYUUVN/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/08/12/bikes/yOFRBYH... https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/07/11/the-road-fear-free-biking-boston/UBnj30slkPwBIzggL70uwJ/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/07/11/the-road-fear...

lorenzk 10y ago
You will like this website: http://cyclingfallacies.com/ http://cyclingfallacies.com/
oarsinsync 10y ago
> I don't have time now to write a comment laying out a comprehensive rebuttal of all the foolishness that some people have suggested here ... bicyclists should have to follow exactly the same rules as drivers In the UK, all vehicles on the road are required to abide by the highway code. Yep, that means bicycles have to follow the same rules as drivers. In the 1990s, schools in the UK ran cycling courses to ensure that children as young as 9 were already learning the highway code, and would be able to cycle on the roads safely. The London police to this day continue to run cycling courses to provide the same level of training. I can't speak to the rest, nor in other countries, but in the UK, it is absolutely not foolish, but actually required by law, for cyclists to follow the same rules as drivers.
- Anasufovic 10y ago
  In California, bicycles also must follow the same rules as other vehicles. It is unlikely that is the issue in San Francisco, it is more of a lack of respect for bike lanes and seeing it as an inconvenience. Our culture here is so car oriented that it is showing its ugly side from every angle.

falcolas 10y ago

As a former bicyclist, and a current motorcyclist and "cager", let me give one piece of advice that has kept me alive to this day. Your safety and protection is entirely up to you. No government, painted lines or traffic cones are going to save you on the road. When you're on the road, the only thing that matters is "the right of weight". If you're hit by a car, and you're not in a protective cage of steel, it's not going to matter if the other person was in the right or the wrong. You're still dead. If anything, these traffic cones are a dangerous placebo; making cyclists feel safer than they actually are in their interactions with cars. Want to actually be safe from cars when on the road? Ride in a cage of steel. Want to survive on two wheels? Ride as if every person in a car is intentionally trying to kill you. Yeah, it's probably overly pessamistic; no, it's not fair. But I'm alive and uninjured.

DarkTree 10y ago
> Yeah, it's probably overly pessamistic; no, it's not fair. But I'm alive and uninjured. Don't you think that's a little bit of survivorship bias? I'm sure there are plenty of cyclist who have been killed who 100% agreed and rode in that way, but they obviously can't speak on the matter. Of course it is dangerous and potentially lethal when you get hit by a car, but how can you suggest that it's not beneficial to have measures in place that at least attempt to protect cyclist. It makes cyclist 'feel' safer, because it is in fact safer. Look at countries like the Netherlands that have excellent cycling lanes and safety measures. It makes drivers more aware that there are cyclist around them, and urges them to be more cognizant of their surroundings.
- falcolas 10y ago
  Would additional space for bikes hurt bikers? I think it depends. If there is enough room to add better bike lanes without affecting car traffic negatively, the it will probably help. But if cars are forced into smaller spaces, I think more cars "in a hurry" will disregard the lines in favor of a clear road. Sure, they will be in the wrong, but it won't help the dead cyclists any. And places like SF, with their already bad car traffic and limited land? They would definitely fall in the latter case in my book.

SomeHacker44 10y ago

As a life-long New Yorker (Manhattan and more recently Brooklyn) I just don't understand why anyone would ever ride a bike in NYC, period. I even stopped rollerblading in NYC when some asshole driving backwards (presumably to get a parking spot) nearly killed me and did knock me silly. I have a motorcycle license I got one summer when I had free time. I learned that cars and pedestrians are your enemy, and that you will probably regret being a motorcyclist eventually. So I quickly stopped. The simple answer is to not bike in NYC, or get rid of cars in NYC. Although I have moved to Brooklyn, I think the "get rid of cars" is in Manhattan is a great idea. But, if we must bike, by all means, let's get segregated bike lanes. I have seen them in Union Square, around Prospect Park, and other places. BUT! That said, bikes are worse than cars IMO in yielding right of way to pedestrians. I was nearly killed by a high speed biker IN A CROSSWALK ACROSS A SEGREGATED BIKE LANE outside the Intrepid museum nearly a month ago, and the moron had the gall to yell at me as he barely missed me to watch where I was going. Literally two seconds later nearly the same thing happens with another biker. Insane. Furthermore, bikes don't remotely follow the rules of the road. Stop lights? Ignored. One way streets - or even one way bike lanes - ignored. No riding on sidewalks? Well, mostly followed. Pfew. As a pedestrian, I fear bikes more than cars. They are silent, they are fearless (if they weren't they would not ride like this), and they don't care about pedestrians. Personally, I'd rather get rid of bikes entirely, or at least put a cop at every corner writing expensive NYC moving violations to each bicyclist when they inevitably break the law. A million citations a day would be fine by me, and would help pay for more shared infrastructure like subways, bus lanes, and, yes, even segregated bicycle lanes.

Frondo 10y ago
Heh, just today I was biking down a hill in a segregated lane. Green lights ahead of me, all the way to the waterfront. Some guy in the crosswalk, going against the signal (I have green lights for several blocks), left to right across the street. I'm half a block away but I'm going downhill and going pretty fast. I yell, "Watch out!" He keeps moving, so I start to veer to the left to go around him to the left. THEN he stops, so I yell again, "Keep moving already!" I veer harder left to get around him. I still have green lights, he's going against the signal. He steps backwards!!! Now I'm going to hit him for sure, so I brake hard, skidding down the hill, veering now well out of the segregated lane, into a car lane, barely avoiding a full-on collision. My leg hits his bag, and of course I cuss up a blue streak. I don't get it. I come to a complete stop at stop signs wherever there's any traffic, and I always slow down because cars blow through them constantly. I never cross against lights, and when I cross with lights, I do so with caution because cars blow through those, too. I do see more and more bikes on the roads, though, which makes me happy about cars learning to share the roads a bit. We cyclists pay taxes, too, of course.

brezina 10y ago

If you live in SF and want to help, the team doing this is on Twitter at @sfmtra and looking for volunteers and donations. Safe biking is good for the health of humans,their communities, and the environment

dasil003 10y ago

I've spent most of my life with cycling as my primary mode of transportation, living in Minneapolis, Santa Fe, London and SF/Oakland. I ride fast and generally try to go with the flow to avoid inconveniencing drivers while also being considerate to pedestrians. I think this traffic cone thing is pretty cool, but I have a larger observation to make: Here's the thing about SF: everyone is way too fucking agro. Drivers freak out when they can't drive 50mph down a city street. The cyclists are banging u-locks on hoods because someone cut them off. Everyone is road raging like crazy. I lived in London for 3 years, with all the narrow streets and everything overcrowded to the bursting point. Central London is 10x as crowded as SF in every way, and yet somehow the pedestrians, cyclists and drivers all manage to co-exist. It's not a panacea for sure, it obviously can't compare to Amsterdam, but the whole Keep Calm and Carry On mentality definitely applies to transportation. You know what happens? Buses pass other buses by going into the oncoming traffic lane and oncoming traffic moves over to accommodate them. Pedestrians spill into the streets sometimes, and cars don't kill them. Vans and lorries sometimes drive up onto the pavement (ie. sidewalk) in order to get around an obstruction. Pedestrians pull off to the side of the walk way if they need to pay attention to their phone. Everyone implicitly acknowledges: hey, it's crowded, we have to cooperate to get where we're going. SF could use a lot more of that attitude. I thought the west coast was supposed to be chill.

Symbiote 10y ago
> to avoid inconveniencing drivers I used to cycle like that, in London. I moved to Copenhagen, and quickly had to change my behaviour. Drivers are firmly at the bottom of the heap here, and everyone knows it. It's inefficient and confusing to others to disrupt this.
- PeterSmit 10y ago
  And that is how it should be. Cars are great to go between cities fast, but inside cities they should behave like guests. Ironically, most drivers are guests to a city as well, coming from the suburbs. Pedestrians, cyclists and public transportation are the most efficient mode of transportation inside a city, and should be honored as such. In most medium to big Dutch cities this is the case, although there is always room for improvement.

raarts 10y ago

This is an overview of how the Dutch do it as presented by a city planning guy from Seattle. Lengthy, but I was glued to the screen. https://youtu.be/l0GA901oGe4 https://youtu.be/l0GA901oGe4

staticelf 10y ago

Bike lanes in SF: https://www.google.se/search?q=bike+lanes+SF&safe=off&client=firefox-b-ab&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiYwp75stTOAhWFiiwKHcPGA1IQ_AUICSgC&biw=2048&bih=1043 https://www.google.se/search?q=bike+lanes+SF&safe=off&client... Bike lanes in Stockholm: https://www.google.se/search?q=bike+lanes+stockholm&safe=off&client=firefox-b-ab&biw=2048&bih=1043&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiu5YLostTOAhVJGCwKHQq5BNMQ_AUIBygC https://www.google.se/search?q=bike+lanes+stockholm&safe=off... Bike lanes in Amsterdam: https://www.google.se/search?q=bike+lanes+amsterdam&safe=off&client=firefox-b-ab&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiDjI6Xs9TOAhUGkiwKHdR_A4cQ_AUICCgB&biw=2048&bih=1043 https://www.google.se/search?q=bike+lanes+amsterdam&safe=off... I guess SF / USA have something to learn from Europeans and that is to build some shit between the bike lane and the car lane. Let it be cones, rails or whatever just not a painted line.

brokenmachine 10y ago
Don't worry, you're not alone. Australia's bike infrastructure also sucks.
- staticelf 10y ago
  Well, I do live in Sweden in a city where everyone bikes. So I am happy :) I just like to promote our model of society since it's so much better on so many levels.

cmarschner 10y ago

Here is an outside view, fwiw, the official recommendations for bike lanes in Germany. In German, but lots of pictures! http://www.kompetenzzentrum-radverkehr.de/fileadmin/redakteure/pdf/LGB-ERA_2011.pdf http://www.kompetenzzentrum-radverkehr.de/fileadmin/redakteu... Question: Is there an association like AAA is for cars that represents bikers in the US? That could take on the discussions with the government.

cerebellum42 10y ago
After reading some of that, it contains some recommendations that lead to annoying and sometimes dangerous situations for cyclists that I recognize from my everyday cycling experiences in Germany. Just one example: They seem to encourage usage of pedestrian paths with "bikes allowed" signs on medium traffic streets with ~50km/h speed limit, think main road of a small-ish town. These have become waaay too popular, especially in small towns and some areas of bigger cities too. They make the cyclist choose between these two options: * share the pavement with pedestrians, but with barely any separation from the pedestrians; so you're either really really slow or you endanger pedestrians * use the road and share it with drivers who think it belongs solely to them and endanger cyclists So either way, it's a bad experience and potentially dangerous.

warrenmiller 10y ago

In London the cycle super highways are painted bright blue. Seems to work.

tajen 10y ago

Several problems, which could be solved my municipalities, and illustrated by this twitter feed: https://twitter.com/lyoncorrompu https://twitter.com/lyoncorrompu - Cars stop on the bike lane: It may sound reasonable to stop on the rightmost lane, but in fact they obstruct both the bike lane and the car lane. It would be more reasonable for cars to stop on the car lane. - Red lights: It's less dangerous for cyclists to ride the red light than the green light. It's incredible, but there are less accidents, even if the cyclist does it every day and isn't fully aware of his surroundings. But car drivers go crazy when they see a cyclist burning the red light (which isn't surprising because it's a penal infraction in France, like drunk-driving). - Bikes riding in the sidewalk or the wrong lane, sometimes in the opposite direction, by night, when there are other solutions. Most infractions could easily be sorted out by the police, but they're more busy acting like they're fighting terrorism (by stationing under the Town Hall palace with weapons drawn out) than checking for traffic infringements. - Pedestrians walking on the cycle lane, which is prone to injury, often due to cars who park on the sidewalk. - Bikes without lights: That's not much of a risk for the cyclist, because they know very well they may die from their own mistake and get a Darwin Award of stupid deaths. No, I'd rather focus on the risk for the car drivers, who will be considered guilty of killing a cyclist, even though he was in the dark without light, sometimes in the opposite direction than he's supposed to be. Bikers without lights are a jail threat for all car drivers around. - Also note the counter-intuitive feat that not requiring the helmet saves more lives across a country than the compulsory helmet law. All in all, if justice were served, cars should be given the short end of everything because they kill massively in four ways (accidents, immediate pollution, carbon emissions, driver's health) and occupy more space.

sevenless 10y ago

I propose the following modification to HN moderation: Comments that fall along entirely predictable, nonproductive back-and-forth lines: in this case, expressions of hostility between cyclists and non-cyclists, should be deleted. There should perhaps be a link to previous iterations of the discussion, or to neutral resources on how urban planning can integrate cyclists. This comment has been made with the deliberate decision to not read anything else written in this thread. The topic and the fact there are 100+ posts tells me everything I need to know about what's in it.

aquratic 10y ago

I PhD student in Switzerland. Here, we just have a yellow marking for the bike lane, and car drivers are surprisingly considerate towards bikers. I don't know what the penalties are for hitting bikers, but biking here is a bliss. Even in big cities like Zurich and Geneva! Really, god bless this beautiful country :)

koolba 10y ago

> "Orange cones are really a great prototyping tool," says the activist. "They put something on the ground that's visible. Cars really slow down around orange cones—it's really a remarkable feat of psychology." Keep this up and pretty soon it'll be like when CNN prefixes a headline with "BREAKING NEWS: ...".

collyw 10y ago

Wow SF has some shitty looking roads considering how much money is in the area.

dzhiurgis 10y ago

Why not put parking spots (where possible) outside the bike lane, so the cars protect cycle path. Its done in some places in Denmark.

et-al 10y ago
It's a good idea in theory, but having ridden this setup in Golden Gate Park[0], I'm constantly worried about getting doored and ride as far away from the cars as possible. I'd argue one's chances of getting doored are higher than an auto rear-ending a biker, so it would take up a lot more space to implement correctly. Also, for passenger in a car, can you imagine (carefully) opening a door, hoping not to door a biker, only to try to cross a stream of bikes to reach the sidewalk? It's a bad scenario for all parties. [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=golden+gate+park+bike+lane&biw=1333&bih=858&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X https://www.google.com/search?q=golden+gate+park+bike+lane&b...

makecheck 10y ago

Cyclists need to follow the rules in order to command respect, frankly. I wish this wasn’t true but I see dozens of cyclists every week (no exaggeration at all) doing things that are blatantly illegal and definitely dangerous. FLYING through stop signs. Deciding to just “go” at a red light when there seems to be no traffic. Turning wherever they want without signaling. Assuming they have the right of way in pretty much any situation. Multiple riders in parallel formations that make them move into the road anyway. The list goes on, and on, and on. I am not kidding. And that kind of behavior just makes me not want to help. I’m sorry, you have to make sure you are at least doing everything possible to help yourself before you expect drivers to make any more concessions.