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I'm a biker in Boston; I cycle 5 miles to work and 5 miles home on a daily basis. I think the city is doing an amazing job with what they are given but so many

I'm a biker in Boston; I cycle 5 miles to work and 5 miles home on a daily basis. I think the city is doing an amazing job with what they are given but so many of the roads are just too narrow for dedicated bike lanes. Most streets have "sharrows" which is great but honestly what it comes down to is a lack of understanding on how to share the road. I'm constantly honked and shouted at for commanding full use of the driving lane when no bike lane is present, which is perfectly legal but often results in aggression from drivers. I've even had cars tailgate me and hit my back tire with their car.

coldpie 9y ago
It is pretty frustrating to be forced to go 10 MPH on a 30 MPH road. The roads also aren't designed for traffic to go 20 MPH slower than it ought to be, traffic starts to build up, causing more delays and frustration. I think we should be more accommodating of bikers, but asking them to share the road and be treated the same as cars is not the answer.
- Tommyixi 9y ago
  I mean, if we're talking about Boston then the roads weren't originally designed for cars either: they were created for horse drawn carriages. http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dcr/pe/historic-parkways/4d72bd01.pdf http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dcr/pe/historic-parkways/4d72bd... They have been engineered to accommodate cars, so now they're undergoing a renovation for bikes.
  - coldpie 9y ago
    > so now they're undergoing a renovation for bikes. Good! Renovate them to accommodate bikes. That's great, do more of that. But "sharing the road" is a terrible solution, which leads to the honks and dangerous situations the OP described. Neither the biker nor the drivers in the OP's post are in the wrong. It's just a really terrible situation that really should not happen.
    - Jacqued 9y ago
      Wait, you mean drivers deliberately hitting a biker with their car are not in the wrong?
      - coldpie 9y ago
        Heheh, I feel like I'm making my point poorly :) The driver is in a 3000 pound vehicle capable of accelerating from 5 MPH to 60 MPH in a couple of seconds. The biker is an unprotected human capable of traveling 10, maybe 20 MPH as an absolute maximum. My point is that these two objects cannot share traffic on a US street that is designed for cars traveling 30 MPH for more than a brief period of time. If they do share that traffic lane, bad things will happen. Humans will make bad decisions, because humans are dumb and fallible. My point is that situation should not occur in the first place. It's engineered to fail, and sure enough, it does.
        Kluny 9y ago
        Better to leave the car out of it then. After all, Boston's narrow winding streets aren't designed to accomodate them.
        the_gastropod 9y ago
        Maybe speed limits should be reduced to 25 MPH within cities (a la NYC).
        bryanlarsen 9y ago
        20mph is a nice magic number for speed limits. That's the maximum speed where a collision with a pedestrian is highly unlikely to be fatal.
        Ozark 9y ago
        The only people that will make bad decisions are the aggressive angry drivers, which should be removed from the road ways for the benefit of all innocent people.
- fps 9y ago
  In Boston city traffic, bikes move faster than cars. The city speed limit is 25 mph, and most narrow roads with sharrows the typical traffic speed is much lower. Source: Bikes daily in Boston, Cambridge and Somerville on a bike share bike. Passes cars the entire way.
- sidlls 9y ago
  I'd have more sympathy for your position if auto drivers didn't seem to think they owned the road, margins, turn lanes and basically anything else that isn't a building. Shared space doesn't mean "shared with other auto drivers only."
  - coldpie 9y ago
    Okay, so why doesn't it work? You can complain about drivers all you like, but fundamentally car traffic and bike traffic are incompatible. You can't expect a driver traveling at 30 MPH on a 30 MPH road to suddenly and calmly accept that they are now traveling 10 MPH because of the guy in front of them. Swap the biker for a driver going 20 MPH under the speed limit and you're looking at a road rage situation. Sharing the road is a terrible solution. It doesn't work.
    - Tommyixi 9y ago
      You're insinuating that since the road cannot be shared then bikes should not be allowed on them. It does work when people are respectful of others and aren't always in such a rush all the time.
      - coldpie 9y ago
        Yes, that is the unfortunate truth. Humans are stupid, rushed, and fallible. Expecting them to override 50+ years of cars owning the roads because you put up a street sign is misguided. If it cannot be done safely, it should not be done. If we want more biking, we need to make it safe. "Sharing the road" is stupid and unsafe, like the OP says. We need a different solution.
    - belorn 9y ago
      If we view them as incompatible then the solution is rather obvious but to the disadvantage of the car traffic. The current cooperation between bike traffic and car traffic is to allow bike traffic without disrupting existing car traffic. For roads where there is street parking you simply dedicate that for bike lanes and force car owners to use the more expensive parking houses. This influence the commercial flow a bit unless the space between parking houses is minimal in commercial districts. In proportion to bike ownership you also need to remake roads which are too narrow and make them dedicated bike lanes. The proportionality clause here is really important to balance the interest of both groups if we want to view roads as incompatible to be used by both.
- ehnto 9y ago
  We need to figure out a harmonious scenario, sharing the road is absolutely the answer right now because the road is all we have to work with at the moment. In a perfect for me world the CBD would have zero cars and everyone would be on bikes, foot or mobility devices after they parked on the CBD fringe carparks or caught public transport in. That will never happen. So the next best step for me is dedicated bike lanes separated with enough room for everyone. More likely, but not everywhere is getting this right or has enough space. So what we have to work with until something better arives is what we have now. Cyclists don't want this any more than you do but this is what we have and we would just appreciate some understanding. I try to get out of the way as soon as it is safe and I make sure I am at least trying to keep pace. I have never had cars behind me for more than 30 seconds and I honestly don't think that's much to ask for my safety and ability to get to work. If I were in a car you would be stuck behind me the whole way and then I would take your parking spot.
  - coldpie 9y ago
    I actually take the bus most places, I only drive once or twice a week, to the grocery store or so. I have no real skin in this game. In my experience, and in the OP's experience, "share the road" is a dumb, dangerous solution that leaves everyone unhappy. Bikers should refuse to put up with it. Demand real lanes.
    - auxym 9y ago
      The vast majority of advocacy groups do demand real lanes. The thing, I want to commute to work today. Do I just stay home and yell at politicians until a lane is built? Or do I legally use the existing roadways?
      - coldpie 9y ago
        I'm sorry, I don't have an answer for you. I'm just frustrated that all of these threads end up tilting at the "damn drivers!!!!" windmill instead of blaming the actual problem, which is trying to combine car and bike traffic, which cannot be done on most US roads as currently designed.
- yellowstuff 9y ago
  I think "frustrating" is the key word here. My subjective impression is that in the US drivers hate slowing down for bikes more than they hate slowing down for something else, like a car parking or a garbage truck. I think the perception that bikes are dangerous and slow down traffic exceeds the reality. It's about culture, the feeling that bikes don't belong in the road and shouldn't be accommodated in any way.
Doxin 9y ago
> so many of the roads are just too narrow for dedicated bike lanes If a road is wide enough to drive speeds that are dangerous to cyclists it's wide enough to put a cycle lane. Cycle lanes aren't nearly as wide as people think, and car lanes aren't nearly as narrow as people think.

coldpie 9y ago

It is pretty frustrating to be forced to go 10 MPH on a 30 MPH road. The roads also aren't designed for traffic to go 20 MPH slower than it ought to be, traffic starts to build up, causing more delays and frustration. I think we should be more accommodating of bikers, but asking them to share the road and be treated the same as cars is not the answer.

Tommyixi 9y ago
I mean, if we're talking about Boston then the roads weren't originally designed for cars either: they were created for horse drawn carriages. http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dcr/pe/historic-parkways/4d72bd01.pdf http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dcr/pe/historic-parkways/4d72bd... They have been engineered to accommodate cars, so now they're undergoing a renovation for bikes.
- coldpie 9y ago
  > so now they're undergoing a renovation for bikes. Good! Renovate them to accommodate bikes. That's great, do more of that. But "sharing the road" is a terrible solution, which leads to the honks and dangerous situations the OP described. Neither the biker nor the drivers in the OP's post are in the wrong. It's just a really terrible situation that really should not happen.
  - Jacqued 9y ago
    Wait, you mean drivers deliberately hitting a biker with their car are not in the wrong?
    - coldpie 9y ago
      Heheh, I feel like I'm making my point poorly :) The driver is in a 3000 pound vehicle capable of accelerating from 5 MPH to 60 MPH in a couple of seconds. The biker is an unprotected human capable of traveling 10, maybe 20 MPH as an absolute maximum. My point is that these two objects cannot share traffic on a US street that is designed for cars traveling 30 MPH for more than a brief period of time. If they do share that traffic lane, bad things will happen. Humans will make bad decisions, because humans are dumb and fallible. My point is that situation should not occur in the first place. It's engineered to fail, and sure enough, it does.
      - Kluny 9y ago
        Better to leave the car out of it then. After all, Boston's narrow winding streets aren't designed to accomodate them.
      - the_gastropod 9y ago
        Maybe speed limits should be reduced to 25 MPH within cities (a la NYC).
        bryanlarsen 9y ago
        20mph is a nice magic number for speed limits. That's the maximum speed where a collision with a pedestrian is highly unlikely to be fatal.
      - Ozark 9y ago
        The only people that will make bad decisions are the aggressive angry drivers, which should be removed from the road ways for the benefit of all innocent people.
fps 9y ago
In Boston city traffic, bikes move faster than cars. The city speed limit is 25 mph, and most narrow roads with sharrows the typical traffic speed is much lower. Source: Bikes daily in Boston, Cambridge and Somerville on a bike share bike. Passes cars the entire way.
sidlls 9y ago
I'd have more sympathy for your position if auto drivers didn't seem to think they owned the road, margins, turn lanes and basically anything else that isn't a building. Shared space doesn't mean "shared with other auto drivers only."
- coldpie 9y ago
  Okay, so why doesn't it work? You can complain about drivers all you like, but fundamentally car traffic and bike traffic are incompatible. You can't expect a driver traveling at 30 MPH on a 30 MPH road to suddenly and calmly accept that they are now traveling 10 MPH because of the guy in front of them. Swap the biker for a driver going 20 MPH under the speed limit and you're looking at a road rage situation. Sharing the road is a terrible solution. It doesn't work.
  - Tommyixi 9y ago
    You're insinuating that since the road cannot be shared then bikes should not be allowed on them. It does work when people are respectful of others and aren't always in such a rush all the time.
    - coldpie 9y ago
      Yes, that is the unfortunate truth. Humans are stupid, rushed, and fallible. Expecting them to override 50+ years of cars owning the roads because you put up a street sign is misguided. If it cannot be done safely, it should not be done. If we want more biking, we need to make it safe. "Sharing the road" is stupid and unsafe, like the OP says. We need a different solution.
  - belorn 9y ago
    If we view them as incompatible then the solution is rather obvious but to the disadvantage of the car traffic. The current cooperation between bike traffic and car traffic is to allow bike traffic without disrupting existing car traffic. For roads where there is street parking you simply dedicate that for bike lanes and force car owners to use the more expensive parking houses. This influence the commercial flow a bit unless the space between parking houses is minimal in commercial districts. In proportion to bike ownership you also need to remake roads which are too narrow and make them dedicated bike lanes. The proportionality clause here is really important to balance the interest of both groups if we want to view roads as incompatible to be used by both.
ehnto 9y ago
We need to figure out a harmonious scenario, sharing the road is absolutely the answer right now because the road is all we have to work with at the moment. In a perfect for me world the CBD would have zero cars and everyone would be on bikes, foot or mobility devices after they parked on the CBD fringe carparks or caught public transport in. That will never happen. So the next best step for me is dedicated bike lanes separated with enough room for everyone. More likely, but not everywhere is getting this right or has enough space. So what we have to work with until something better arives is what we have now. Cyclists don't want this any more than you do but this is what we have and we would just appreciate some understanding. I try to get out of the way as soon as it is safe and I make sure I am at least trying to keep pace. I have never had cars behind me for more than 30 seconds and I honestly don't think that's much to ask for my safety and ability to get to work. If I were in a car you would be stuck behind me the whole way and then I would take your parking spot.
- coldpie 9y ago
  I actually take the bus most places, I only drive once or twice a week, to the grocery store or so. I have no real skin in this game. In my experience, and in the OP's experience, "share the road" is a dumb, dangerous solution that leaves everyone unhappy. Bikers should refuse to put up with it. Demand real lanes.
  - auxym 9y ago
    The vast majority of advocacy groups do demand real lanes. The thing, I want to commute to work today. Do I just stay home and yell at politicians until a lane is built? Or do I legally use the existing roadways?
    - coldpie 9y ago
      I'm sorry, I don't have an answer for you. I'm just frustrated that all of these threads end up tilting at the "damn drivers!!!!" windmill instead of blaming the actual problem, which is trying to combine car and bike traffic, which cannot be done on most US roads as currently designed.
yellowstuff 9y ago
I think "frustrating" is the key word here. My subjective impression is that in the US drivers hate slowing down for bikes more than they hate slowing down for something else, like a car parking or a garbage truck. I think the perception that bikes are dangerous and slow down traffic exceeds the reality. It's about culture, the feeling that bikes don't belong in the road and shouldn't be accommodated in any way.

Doxin 9y ago

> so many of the roads are just too narrow for dedicated bike lanes If a road is wide enough to drive speeds that are dangerous to cyclists it's wide enough to put a cycle lane. Cycle lanes aren't nearly as wide as people think, and car lanes aren't nearly as narrow as people think.