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let's make walking and biking cool, but not at the expense of fast personal transport (cars). the best solution isn't to try to slow down the cars but rather t

let's make walking and biking cool, but not at the expense of fast personal transport (cars). the best solution isn't to try to slow down the cars but rather to make mixed-use urban areas the default so that walking and biking become the norm. you also get all kinds of other benefits with that (less traffic, healthier air, more fit people, etc) i agree that driving qualifications should be more strict, but probably in a different dimension than you: test drivers on situational awareness and predictive decision making. fail people for both distracted driving and indecision (and lack of follow-through), as well as not communicating intent (e.g, signaling) to other drivers.

adrianN 9y ago
I the city cars are already not much faster than bikes. For distances below 10km or so there is hardly any difference. During rush hours bikes are much faster. I'd wager that you can reduce the top speed cars are allowed to travel significantly before the effective speed goes down by much, especially if you can improve traffic flow by e.g. vehicle-vehicle communication.
- dragonshed 9y ago
  The difference is in the need for a shower and change of clothes afterwards.
  - bluntfang 9y ago
    you really don't need to shower and change your clothes. You can if you want to ride your bike fast and push your physical limits, but generally casual biking won't make you sweat more than if you were walking.
    - frabbit 9y ago
      On some days in a dry, warm climate (e.g. California) it's actually a good deal cooler than walking due to the air flow.
    - mmirate 9y ago
      Generally, casual biking has little average-speed benefit over walking, in which case why bother?
      - btrettel 9y ago
        What do you mean by casual biking? Walking home takes me a half hour or longer. Biking is less than 10 minutes according to my bike computer. Big time difference. Plus if it's hot I spend a lot less time in the sun on the bike, making biking less sweaty than walking. And I can carry a lot more cargo more comfortably.
      - thescriptkiddie 9y ago
        Biking is still at least three times faster than walking for the same energy input. Even near-zero-effort "casual" biking is as fast as a brisk jog.
  - adrianN 9y ago
    Well, that depends on the local climate and the rider's constitution. But my post was not about the relative merits of cycling versus driving. I simply wanted to rebut clairity's point that making cycling and walking safer necessarily makes driving slower.
  - btrettel 9y ago
    Transportation cyclist in Texas here. The need for showering is overstated, I think. Even with the summers here I only know one cyclist who would take a shower after cycling, and they only do so for their training, not their commute as far as I know. If you ride at a comfortable pace and are in good shape, I find that a quick 5 minutes in the bathroom to freshen up is plenty, if it's even necessary. I usually wipe sweat off my head and chest and sometimes will change clothes. Outside of the summer these steps are rarely necessary, by the way. Also, I think I would frequently (perhaps not every time, but at least 25% of the time) beat a driver to the door of my workplace from my apartment because of a combination of cars not actually being much faster than me due to traffic, stop lights, etc. and parking. My parking is so small that it's a lot closer to my building. This obviously depends on where you work, but here it seems to be a major factor. (On second thought this would also depend on which lot the driver would park in. Most would have a long enough walk to make cycling faster or at least about the same. I also haven't done this race, for what it's worth. Anyway, the point stands: travel times for cyclists are not necessarily worse than drivers.)
    - robocat 9y ago
      By your description, your "5 minute freshen up" isn't included in your travel time...
      - emj 9y ago
        Generally it's included, especially in travel time. Generally the bicycle wins if you live in a city, even with if you freshen up at home and at work.
      - btrettel 9y ago
        I had the time in mind. The ambiguity was a consequence of poor writing. I doubt this takes more than a minute or two in reality, and it's only necessary for perhaps a quarter of the year. Averages to around 30 seconds a day if it takes 2 minutes when necessary.
  - runarberg 9y ago
    You don't need a shower after bike ride on a level surface less then 10 km. Unless maybe you have a heavy headwind.
- landryraccoon 9y ago
  Bikes aren’t faster than cars for the elderly, the vision impaired, handicapped people or small children. I’m all for more bikes and more bike routes, but cars offer more independence for a lot of movement restricted people.
  - adrianN 9y ago
    Sure, but they don't have to go faster than 30km/h in the city.
  - frabbit 9y ago
    The vision impaired and small children should not be driving anyway. And depending on the "handicap" and the age-related abilities they may also be detrimental to safe piloting of a vehicle. The solution is public transport. (Or tandem bicycles).
    - rootusrootus 9y ago
      Except that one of the big upsides of autocars is this demographic of people. And many (most) places in the US are not conveniently served by public transit. Heck, I live in one of the better places (Portland Oregon) and even in the core of the city it's going to be easily 2x as long to take PT anywhere vs a private car. IMO the big promise of autocars is the potential for eliminating mass transit along with all it's annoyances.
    - landryraccoon 9y ago
      They can ride as passengers. You're arguing that tandem bicycles is a serious solution for the elderly or handicapped people? Is there a community where this is common?
  - revelation 9y ago
    I hope the vision impaired and small children aren't driving cars. And all of these groups would be helped much much more by not designing cities around cars, in the 95% of hours in the day where they are not in cars and need to navigate every day life. A $60k retrofitted transporter van isn't exactly the definition of "independence".
pkulak 9y ago
We'll always keep roads with high speed limits just for cars (highways). But this expectation that you should be able to drive within your neighborhood at 50 mph is not sustainable.
sharpercoder 9y ago
The concept of jaywalking is great for busy roads with high speed traffic. 30MPH+ (50KMPH+) roads should become much better and faster by reducing the amount of pedestrian crossing significantly. Slower roads (max 20MPH/30KMPH) should be bicycle and pedestrian-first. Cars there should be "guests" catering to the slower non-motorized traffic. This way we have the best of both worlds: nice & livable urban roads and faster driving in connecting roads.
- clairity 9y ago
  yes, jaywalking laws are ok on higher speed roads. my one pet peeve around that is that most californians don't respect the rule that any intersection of two city streets is a crosswalk, whether marked as such or not, and pedestrians crossing at a corner have the right of way. as soon as they start walking, cars must stop for them, even on larger streets (most drivers don't know/rememeber this and zoom dangerously close by).
- CaptainZapp 9y ago
  That probably won't endear me to the general commentariat, but... Slower roads (max 20MPH/30KMPH) should be bicycle and pedestrian-first. Spot on! 100 points!
  - clairity 9y ago
    i think that would be ok too, but the solution i prefer is to narrow residential street lanes (and on other urban streets as well). all roads, but even residential streets, in car-centric cities like LA seem to be built wide enough to accommodate 747's with ease. my proposal: rather than 12-15 foot widths, make urban residential street lanes 9 feet wide (cars are typically 6-7 feet wide, delivery trucks, 8 feet wide). replace parking lanes with slightly grade-separated (3-4 inches) bike lanes, leaving existing walkways for pedestrians only. and make sure these narrow lanes have shoulder lane markings.
    - ChiliConKanye 9y ago
      So your solution to dangerous streets is to make streets more dangerous. Innovative.
fineng123 9y ago
America is all about revenue. Never in a thousand years would politicians agree to do this. Walking and biking is high on utility and low on revenue.
notatoad 9y ago
>the best solution isn't to try to slow down the cars but rather to make mixed-use urban areas the default so that walking and biking become the norm. hopefully you're not suggesting that cars should be travelling 50km/hr in mixed-use urban areas? Because "slowing down the cars" is a synonym for mixed-use area. That's the same thing, if you continue with car-only roads there's no need to slow down the cars.

adrianN 9y ago

I the city cars are already not much faster than bikes. For distances below 10km or so there is hardly any difference. During rush hours bikes are much faster. I'd wager that you can reduce the top speed cars are allowed to travel significantly before the effective speed goes down by much, especially if you can improve traffic flow by e.g. vehicle-vehicle communication.

dragonshed 9y ago
The difference is in the need for a shower and change of clothes afterwards.
- bluntfang 9y ago
  you really don't need to shower and change your clothes. You can if you want to ride your bike fast and push your physical limits, but generally casual biking won't make you sweat more than if you were walking.
  - frabbit 9y ago
    On some days in a dry, warm climate (e.g. California) it's actually a good deal cooler than walking due to the air flow.
  - mmirate 9y ago
    Generally, casual biking has little average-speed benefit over walking, in which case why bother?
    - btrettel 9y ago
      What do you mean by casual biking? Walking home takes me a half hour or longer. Biking is less than 10 minutes according to my bike computer. Big time difference. Plus if it's hot I spend a lot less time in the sun on the bike, making biking less sweaty than walking. And I can carry a lot more cargo more comfortably.
    - thescriptkiddie 9y ago
      Biking is still at least three times faster than walking for the same energy input. Even near-zero-effort "casual" biking is as fast as a brisk jog.
- adrianN 9y ago
  Well, that depends on the local climate and the rider's constitution. But my post was not about the relative merits of cycling versus driving. I simply wanted to rebut clairity's point that making cycling and walking safer necessarily makes driving slower.
- btrettel 9y ago
  Transportation cyclist in Texas here. The need for showering is overstated, I think. Even with the summers here I only know one cyclist who would take a shower after cycling, and they only do so for their training, not their commute as far as I know. If you ride at a comfortable pace and are in good shape, I find that a quick 5 minutes in the bathroom to freshen up is plenty, if it's even necessary. I usually wipe sweat off my head and chest and sometimes will change clothes. Outside of the summer these steps are rarely necessary, by the way. Also, I think I would frequently (perhaps not every time, but at least 25% of the time) beat a driver to the door of my workplace from my apartment because of a combination of cars not actually being much faster than me due to traffic, stop lights, etc. and parking. My parking is so small that it's a lot closer to my building. This obviously depends on where you work, but here it seems to be a major factor. (On second thought this would also depend on which lot the driver would park in. Most would have a long enough walk to make cycling faster or at least about the same. I also haven't done this race, for what it's worth. Anyway, the point stands: travel times for cyclists are not necessarily worse than drivers.)
  - robocat 9y ago
    By your description, your "5 minute freshen up" isn't included in your travel time...
    - emj 9y ago
      Generally it's included, especially in travel time. Generally the bicycle wins if you live in a city, even with if you freshen up at home and at work.
    - btrettel 9y ago
      I had the time in mind. The ambiguity was a consequence of poor writing. I doubt this takes more than a minute or two in reality, and it's only necessary for perhaps a quarter of the year. Averages to around 30 seconds a day if it takes 2 minutes when necessary.
- runarberg 9y ago
  You don't need a shower after bike ride on a level surface less then 10 km. Unless maybe you have a heavy headwind.
landryraccoon 9y ago
Bikes aren’t faster than cars for the elderly, the vision impaired, handicapped people or small children. I’m all for more bikes and more bike routes, but cars offer more independence for a lot of movement restricted people.
- adrianN 9y ago
  Sure, but they don't have to go faster than 30km/h in the city.
- frabbit 9y ago
  The vision impaired and small children should not be driving anyway. And depending on the "handicap" and the age-related abilities they may also be detrimental to safe piloting of a vehicle. The solution is public transport. (Or tandem bicycles).
  - rootusrootus 9y ago
    Except that one of the big upsides of autocars is this demographic of people. And many (most) places in the US are not conveniently served by public transit. Heck, I live in one of the better places (Portland Oregon) and even in the core of the city it's going to be easily 2x as long to take PT anywhere vs a private car. IMO the big promise of autocars is the potential for eliminating mass transit along with all it's annoyances.
  - landryraccoon 9y ago
    They can ride as passengers. You're arguing that tandem bicycles is a serious solution for the elderly or handicapped people? Is there a community where this is common?
- revelation 9y ago
  I hope the vision impaired and small children aren't driving cars. And all of these groups would be helped much much more by not designing cities around cars, in the 95% of hours in the day where they are not in cars and need to navigate every day life. A $60k retrofitted transporter van isn't exactly the definition of "independence".

pkulak 9y ago

We'll always keep roads with high speed limits just for cars (highways). But this expectation that you should be able to drive within your neighborhood at 50 mph is not sustainable.

sharpercoder 9y ago

The concept of jaywalking is great for busy roads with high speed traffic. 30MPH+ (50KMPH+) roads should become much better and faster by reducing the amount of pedestrian crossing significantly. Slower roads (max 20MPH/30KMPH) should be bicycle and pedestrian-first. Cars there should be "guests" catering to the slower non-motorized traffic. This way we have the best of both worlds: nice & livable urban roads and faster driving in connecting roads.

clairity 9y ago
yes, jaywalking laws are ok on higher speed roads. my one pet peeve around that is that most californians don't respect the rule that any intersection of two city streets is a crosswalk, whether marked as such or not, and pedestrians crossing at a corner have the right of way. as soon as they start walking, cars must stop for them, even on larger streets (most drivers don't know/rememeber this and zoom dangerously close by).
CaptainZapp 9y ago
That probably won't endear me to the general commentariat, but... Slower roads (max 20MPH/30KMPH) should be bicycle and pedestrian-first. Spot on! 100 points!
- clairity 9y ago
  i think that would be ok too, but the solution i prefer is to narrow residential street lanes (and on other urban streets as well). all roads, but even residential streets, in car-centric cities like LA seem to be built wide enough to accommodate 747's with ease. my proposal: rather than 12-15 foot widths, make urban residential street lanes 9 feet wide (cars are typically 6-7 feet wide, delivery trucks, 8 feet wide). replace parking lanes with slightly grade-separated (3-4 inches) bike lanes, leaving existing walkways for pedestrians only. and make sure these narrow lanes have shoulder lane markings.
  - ChiliConKanye 9y ago
    So your solution to dangerous streets is to make streets more dangerous. Innovative.

fineng123 9y ago

America is all about revenue. Never in a thousand years would politicians agree to do this. Walking and biking is high on utility and low on revenue.

notatoad 9y ago

>the best solution isn't to try to slow down the cars but rather to make mixed-use urban areas the default so that walking and biking become the norm. hopefully you're not suggesting that cars should be travelling 50km/hr in mixed-use urban areas? Because "slowing down the cars" is a synonym for mixed-use area. That's the same thing, if you continue with car-only roads there's no need to slow down the cars.