3 ms·

> The idea that roads exist for cars is pervasive, and anyone who uses it for anything else is assumed to be in the wrong. I feel like I'm often in the minorit

by arkades 10y ago

> The idea that roads exist for cars is pervasive, and anyone who uses it for anything else is assumed to be in the wrong. I feel like I'm often in the minority on HN when I say this, but: roads (in car-heavy areas like the US) exist for cars. I don't say that to mean "and therefore what happens to anyone else is their own fault." I take that to mean: "and therefore proper safety requires building transportation infrastructure that properly separates modes of transportation that differ enormously in their speed, agility, and relative safety." Building bike highways physically segregated from car highways: yes! Painting white stripes on the side of the road that both cars and cyclists have to regularly violate: sadly, no.

bluejekyll 10y ago
I agree with you. But there aren't a ton of options in the short term. So widening roads, or taking away a shoulder, dedicating a lane to bikes, ideally adding at least plastics separators, worst case lines. But this means drivers giving up some of the speed/lanes to bicyclists etc.; there seem to be a lot of people who fight this.
- arkades 10y ago
  I, personally, fight it. I'm a driver. In the past, I've been a cyclist. At other times, a pedestrian. I mean to say, I'm not saying this from the perspective of a guy who drives and has never cycled and can't empathize with people who live a different way. If my current living situation allowed me to resume cycling, I'd be happy to! But- As a driver, in NYC, bikes on the roads are incredibly dangerous to everyone involved (though, admittedly, mostly the bikers). You can't drive in the city for a day without seeing bikers regularly violating the rules of the road: wrong ways up one-way streets, jumping onto sidewalks, etc. Generally, just acting like cars when they want to, like bikes when they want to, like pedestrians when they want to. That's not why I'm against sharing the road with them! That's why I'm in favor of heavily enforcing existing laws on bike usage, with a merciless iron fist until people who ride bikes act like they understand that they're meatbags riding around in a pinball machine of 1-ton iron rockets. I'm not even against sharing a road with them because enough of them exemplify the above that all of them, as a result, are unpredictable, and unpredictability is the most dangerous thing on the road. I kind of imagine the enforcing, iron fist, etc. will take care of that eventually, too, if we actually do it. I'm against it because they're vulnerable little meatbags. A slight hiccough on the road between two iron rockets means someone's paying out an insurance premium and getting some fender repairs. The same accident with a bicyclist ends in a trip to the hospital, if not a funeral home. One person's dead, and the other is carrying the moral (and possibly legal) weight of a murder, because someone thought it was a good idea to play tag in a busy factory. My opinion may not hold across all locales: certainly I've been in cities that had far less busy roads, with far fewer and smaller cars (Europe), where this same statement does not ring true. But in NY it does! I'm sorry. If the cost of removing that ridiculous situation of danger is a short-term lack of bicycle commuting while we build responsible infrastructure, I'm OK with that. But for what it's worth, I'm also OK with kicking in my tax dollars to build that infrastructure. I'm not anti-bike, just anti-this ridiculously unsafe road interaction.
  - CalRobert 10y ago
    So you personally fight giving dedicated infrastructure to cyclists, but you also talk about "...while we build responsible infrastructure..." - which is it?
    - arkades 10y ago
      Painting lines on a road full of cars, that require bikes and cars to intersect in non-bike-exclusive areas every 150m or so isn't dedicated infrastructure: it's throwing bikes amidst the cars and pretending paint will keep people safe. It's irresponsible infrastructure. I made the specifics of my concerns very clear. You ignored the entire post for the sake of superficial contradiction. You look very smart on the internet; kudos.

by arkades 10y ago

bluejekyll 10y ago

I agree with you. But there aren't a ton of options in the short term. So widening roads, or taking away a shoulder, dedicating a lane to bikes, ideally adding at least plastics separators, worst case lines. But this means drivers giving up some of the speed/lanes to bicyclists etc.; there seem to be a lot of people who fight this.

arkades 10y ago
I, personally, fight it. I'm a driver. In the past, I've been a cyclist. At other times, a pedestrian. I mean to say, I'm not saying this from the perspective of a guy who drives and has never cycled and can't empathize with people who live a different way. If my current living situation allowed me to resume cycling, I'd be happy to! But- As a driver, in NYC, bikes on the roads are incredibly dangerous to everyone involved (though, admittedly, mostly the bikers). You can't drive in the city for a day without seeing bikers regularly violating the rules of the road: wrong ways up one-way streets, jumping onto sidewalks, etc. Generally, just acting like cars when they want to, like bikes when they want to, like pedestrians when they want to. That's not why I'm against sharing the road with them! That's why I'm in favor of heavily enforcing existing laws on bike usage, with a merciless iron fist until people who ride bikes act like they understand that they're meatbags riding around in a pinball machine of 1-ton iron rockets. I'm not even against sharing a road with them because enough of them exemplify the above that all of them, as a result, are unpredictable, and unpredictability is the most dangerous thing on the road. I kind of imagine the enforcing, iron fist, etc. will take care of that eventually, too, if we actually do it. I'm against it because they're vulnerable little meatbags. A slight hiccough on the road between two iron rockets means someone's paying out an insurance premium and getting some fender repairs. The same accident with a bicyclist ends in a trip to the hospital, if not a funeral home. One person's dead, and the other is carrying the moral (and possibly legal) weight of a murder, because someone thought it was a good idea to play tag in a busy factory. My opinion may not hold across all locales: certainly I've been in cities that had far less busy roads, with far fewer and smaller cars (Europe), where this same statement does not ring true. But in NY it does! I'm sorry. If the cost of removing that ridiculous situation of danger is a short-term lack of bicycle commuting while we build responsible infrastructure, I'm OK with that. But for what it's worth, I'm also OK with kicking in my tax dollars to build that infrastructure. I'm not anti-bike, just anti-this ridiculously unsafe road interaction.
- CalRobert 10y ago
  So you personally fight giving dedicated infrastructure to cyclists, but you also talk about "...while we build responsible infrastructure..." - which is it?
  - arkades 10y ago
    Painting lines on a road full of cars, that require bikes and cars to intersect in non-bike-exclusive areas every 150m or so isn't dedicated infrastructure: it's throwing bikes amidst the cars and pretending paint will keep people safe. It's irresponsible infrastructure. I made the specifics of my concerns very clear. You ignored the entire post for the sake of superficial contradiction. You look very smart on the internet; kudos.