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Hello HN, I wrote a longer post here, https://hackernoon.com/cameras-as-traffic-cops-99a85513e1e0 https://hackernoon.com/cameras-as-traffic-cops-99a85513e1e0

Hello HN, I wrote a longer post here, https://hackernoon.com/cameras-as-traffic-cops-99a85513e1e0 https://hackernoon.com/cameras-as-traffic-cops-99a85513e1e0 I also called in to Ask the Mayor this morning to discuss. He was not happy https://soundcloud.com/alex-bell-103/askthemayor-bill-deblasio-on-blocked-bus-stops-and-bike-lanes https://soundcloud.com/alex-bell-103/askthemayor-bill-deblas...

sdhgaiojfsa 9y ago
I can kinda understand why he wasn't happy. Your initial phrasing was very hostile. I am not sure what he would have said if you had phrased your question more neutrally, but your tone definitely gave him the opportunity to partially ignore your (totally valid!) concerns.
- Bellspringsteen 9y ago
  What was the hostile part? The "Dont tell me its a state problem?" I mean the man punts everything to the state, I had to preempt
  - sdhgaiojfsa 9y ago
    But it didn't work, right? He turned your attempt at preemption into a distraction from your point. I don't know how best to handle these things, but what I might have said is something like, "<Why it's important that bus and bike lanes not be blocked.> <What you invented, the results.> <Would the city consider investing in an invention like mine, or else what are we going to do to reduce the rate at which these blockages occur?>" FTR, I'm totally in favor of the automatic enforcement you describe! I'd also like to mostly or entirely remove free parking from the city.
    - Bellspringsteen 9y ago
      Yeah, good point. Maybe I should have tried to be less accusatory.
      - dopamean 9y ago
        Being any amount of accusatory is counterproductive when you want someone to honestly answer a question in any context.
        nemild 9y ago
        From Abraham Lincoln in 1842, speaking about his preferred approach: It is an old and a true maxim, that a "drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall." So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great highroad to his reason, and which, when once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause really be a just one. On the contrary, assume to dictate to his judgment, or to command his action, or to mark him as one to be shunned and despised, and he will retreat within himself, close all the avenues to his head and his heart; and though your cause be naked truth itself, transformed to the heaviest lance, harder than steel, and sharper than steel can be made, and though you throw it with more than Herculean force and precision, you shall be no more be able to pierce him, than to penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise with a rye straw. http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/temperance.htm http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/tempera...
        kolpa 9y ago
        https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4562214/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4562214/ > A common expression would have us believe that ‘you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar’. But this is not true in the case of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster (xkcd, 2007). Yes, NIH cited XKCD https://xkcd.com/357/ https://xkcd.com/357/
        hueving 9y ago
        Missing the forest for the trees.
    - Klinky 9y ago
      Damned if you do, damned if you don't. If the goal was to imply to the audience listening that the mayor likes to pass people's issues onto the state instead of addressing them, then that goal was accomplished successfully. Not bringing it up would have simply resulted in the mayor passing the buck without the audience being aware of that context. Calling a politician on a radio call in show is typically very unlikely to result in any actual action, on any issue, regardless of tact taken. Making the audience aware of the problem, and your distaste for the mayor's proposed solutions ,may be more useful to one's goals. I also don't think pimping your product on a radio call in show is very tactful either.
    - briandear 9y ago
      If we remove free parking from the city does that apply to bikes as well?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - unclesaamm 9y ago
    It's absolutely warranted and you did great. Everyone else on Hacker News is commenting as if perfect communication would have solved this issue. What they don't understand is the political reality of the situation - that in no universe of conversations, would Bill DeBlasio have admitted on recording that he was wrong or whatever. In my experience, when politicians act defensively and cornered, they often go and make changes behind the scenes later. When you let them go without a scuffle they will view you as a non-threat. So great job, and cool project!
  - aidenn0 9y ago
    The "NYPD is unwilling and unable to enforce" part was the hostile part. That comes of as "traffic cops aren't doing their job" when I think you meant "without 100x more traffic cops we can't even make a dent in this"
- markcerqueira 9y ago
  Yeah, he certainly could've been more pragmatic because I'm sure ultimately he wants to see the problem solved, not figure out who to blame.
- dbnoch 9y ago
  In this situation, it is not OPs job to satisfy the mayor. It is this mayor's job to be a representative of the people so IMO the Mayor should have been able to handle hostility and criticism. The mayors opportunity to partially ignore concerns shows their incompetence towards the issue. UPDATE I wanted to mention that I totally agree with what you had said. I do not want to blame OP for being concerned and potentially angry
  - sdhgaiojfsa 9y ago
    What you say is undoubtedly true. In a better world, we'd have a better mayor. That ideal mayor could always give the optimal public-serving answer no matter how they are approached. If the mayor were in the habit of listening to my advice, I'd surely tell him the same. His answer was suboptimal. But for the purposes of this conversation, the only control surface I have is my speech, and the only mayor there is is the one on the other end of the line. So, depending on what kind of result I want, I must modulate my tone.
  - cortesoft 9y ago
    Right, his job is not to 'satisfy the mayor', but his job is to try to accomplish his goal. The poster is saying you are more likely to accomplish your actual goal if you don't start by being antagonistic, which is certainly true.
  - enraged_camel 9y ago
    Tone of delivery is as important as the message itself. You need to treat people with respect if you want the same from them.
  - justin66 9y ago
    Am I the only one who felt like if you filtered out the douchiness of the question and the touchiness of the mayor's answer, it was a worthwhile exchange? Question asked, question answered, and the answer was substantive enough that one could go on and answer follow-up questions (although they'd have to be in writing since the radio format apparently does not allow for that).
Nilef 9y ago
I’m working on this problem now on the UK with a very similiar solution. Let’s get in touch?
- Bellspringsteen 9y ago
  Tweet at me, https://twitter.com/Bellspringsteen https://twitter.com/Bellspringsteen and I will DM you my email
dahdum 9y ago
Given I’m no fan of red light cameras already, your idea of 24/7 automated city wide traffic enforcement sounds dystopic and ripe for abuse through ever more granular infractions and escalating penalties. I’d rather cyclists continue to be annoyed than everyone suffer under that.
- zdw 9y ago
  I think you're redefining "everyone" as "people who drive cars" here, and cyclists as "non-everyone".
  - dahdum 9y ago
    I believe the growth of automated police enforcement affects everyone, but it's true that drivers would feel this impact the most.
  - Spivak 9y ago
    Edit: Since we're talking about NYC someone who replied to me has more specific data. Roughly 2.5% of commuters use bikes in the city. Obviously it's going to be much less in suburbs and rural areas that aren't as densely packed. Some rough napkin calculations: Number of cyclists [1]: 786,000 Number of vehicles [2]: 263,000,000 Does 99.8% of people not count as everyone in a discussion like this? If you could make a change that improved the daily lives of 99% of people wouldn't that be the easiest policy decision in your life? [1] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2014/cb14-86.html https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2014/cb14-86.... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_Unit...
    - dahdum 9y ago
      For NYC in particular there are better stats (2014): "About 86,000 adult New Yorkers, 2.5% of all commuting residents, usually bike to work or school" [1] [1] http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bicyclists/cyclinginthecity.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bicyclists/cyclinginthecity...
lopmotr 9y ago
Good on you. If the mayor can't enforce his own bus lanes, then they're no use and might as well be removed. Just let people park there! If the bus riders complain, tell them the truth - they can't afford to police them and/or the state won't allow cameras.
- woolvalley 9y ago
  SF solves this by putting cameras on the busses themselves. Bus driver sees someone blocking the bus stop or bus lane, presses a button and creates a ticket. You get a live witness, video footage and only enforcing it when a bus needs that space. It works too, uber drivers do not like picking up people in bus stops. You could extended it to citizen cyclists too with some political controversy.
  - CydeWeys 9y ago
    I would love to be able to write tickets on cars illegally parked in bike lanes. Give me a ticket book and I'll work for free. I'll even document every ticket with unimpeachable timestamped video footage.
    - lorenzhs 9y ago
      In some German cities you can email the police a photo along with a description when and where the infraction took place and they will issue a ticket. In other cities you might have to mail it the old-fashioned way.
      - CydeWeys 9y ago
        We've got apps for this in NYC that issues enforcement and TLC driver complaints through the 311 system, and I use 'em.
bogomipz 9y ago
So are you also OK with Camera Traffic Cops catching biking scoflaws who don't stop at lights, go the wrong way on one way streets, ride at dangerous speeds etc?
- robert_foss 9y ago
  Yes, of course.
  - bogomipz 9y ago
    Well ... I was asking the author of the article :) But thanks. I would be OK with it as well but I think lots of people wouldn't. I think the only way to formalize such a system that treated all bad behavior equally in an automated fashion would result in the bikes having visible identification and I think that might be a non-starter for many.
    - oh_sigh 9y ago
      Please don't confuse frequency of hearing a message with the frequency of belief in that message in a population. Sure, there are a tiny fraction of bike riders who don't care about rules and happily flaunt them and defend their 'rights' to do so, but they are far overrepresented in the dialog. Most people who ride bikes follow the rules pretty closely, and don't go home at night posting on city message boards about how it's their right to break the law.
      - bogomipz 9y ago
        >"Please don't confuse frequency of hearing a message with the frequency of belief in that message in a population." To be clear we are talking about NYC here. If we were talking Coppenhagen or Berlin or Amsterdam yes that would be true. I'm not confusing "frequency of message." I'm being informed by actual observation. The overwhelming majority of bicyclists in NYC do not stop at red lights or use hand signals. All you have to do is stand on the stand on the street to confirm this. And yes it's the law: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bicyclists/biketips.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bicyclists/biketips.shtml And I'm speaking as a cyclist.
Spivak 9y ago
> NYPD officers behind a computer screen who could review the footage and issue the ticket Nobody wants this. The people won't want it. The courts won't want to deal with the all the people fighting the tickets out of spite, the police won't want to be essentially call center jockeys. Also, disconnecting the offense with the punishment is a sure way to make your enforcement system ineffective -- people will just treat it as an occasional NYCFU tax. > But I also think that the current methods of enforcement... You do understand that laws which are selectively enforced against the marginalized shouldn't be laws, right? It's terrible how our institutions treat them, and your solution is to treat everyone like them? > Firstly, the camera systems should blur all faces onboard the camera before transmitting to the internet. Anything less than 100% accuracy will never work. It's easy to brush off small error rates when you're designing the system. Not so much when every mistake is used against you by groups trying to take the cameras down. Plus people are identifiable by far more than just their face. A project at my alma mater could clock people by just their walking cadence. > Yes, but these people could already go down and view the street Not even the courts agree with you on that. Just because a passerby could look through my front windows doesn't mean it's not stalking if you do it 24/7. Just because someone could see me in public doesn't mean the police don't need a warrant if they want to tail me 24/7. > People who speed and go through red lights hate those cameras. Everyone hates those cameras. They lasted less than a year in my city. * They reverse the presumption of innocence since the ticketed person winds up with the burden of proving that state is in error. The obvious situation being that they weren't the one driving the car. * They were sold to the people as a safety implement and as a cash grab to municipalities. * They didn't make the roads any safer since almost all instances of running red lights was accidental and people actually went faster on the roads to make up for the slowdown due to the cameras. * Nobody likes being constantly watched. Especially if it's public you can glean a ton of personal information about people with 24/7 footage like this. You're trying really hard to make fetch happen. If more than half the time the bike lane is blocked by cars then it would probably be better off as a vehicle stopping lane. It would probably free up the bus stop too. I guarantee that more people are hailing rides than riding bikes.
- kolpa 9y ago
  Legally speaking , robot-tickets for driver offenses can generally be avoided by simply making an affadavit of non-responsibility, since the robot doesn't have evidence of who is driving the vehicle. The whole system relies on the honor system, so honest people pay and dishonest scofflaws don't. Yay!
apeace 9y ago
Great research, I wish you luck! One of the things the mayor said interested me: > If someone's blocking [a bike lane] for thirty seconds while they get their groceries or drop their kid off, I don't think they should get a ticket for that. Do you agree? And do you have any data on how much of the blocking going on is A) the "thirty second dropoff", B) driving in the lane, and C) stopping and parking for any period of time? Lastly, I'll add that as a walker in NYC (no car, no bike), I have no fear of being struck by cars. I fear bikes. I rarely see bikes obey traffic laws at all, and have frequently come 1-2 feed away from being side-swiped while a bicycle blows through a red light. Since you're so passionate about this I'm sure you follow traffic laws, but maybe you'll be inspired to take a look at bike behavior too!
- tucosan 9y ago
  Bikelanes are for cyclists. Blocking them even for 30 seconds endangers the cyclists, how will have to merge into car traffic. That your mayor does not understand this, is testament to his ignorance of the issue.
  - nostromo 9y ago
    It's not that simple. In most cities cars are supposed to merge into unprotected bike lanes when turning right. This is safer for everyone.
    - StudentStuff 9y ago
      Not sure where your at, but this is generally considered poor road design, and even on 2 lane streets you'll add a bike box to keep drivers separated from bikes. Having 2 ton boxes of metal and glass interact with bikers unpredictably is risky!
      - nostromo 9y ago
        I'm only familiar with this on the west coast, but yes, you're usually required to merge into the bike lane to turn right. Here's an image: http://www.sfbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Right-Turn.jpg http://www.sfbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Right-Turn.... From CA directly: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/pubs/hdbk/turns https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/pubs/hdbk/turns > To make a right turn, drive close to the right edge of the road. If there is a bike lane, drive into the bike lane no more than 200 feet before the turn. This is also true in Washington State. Not sure about Oregon.
nunyabuizness 9y ago
This is awesome work, and a great example of the kinds of civic analysis and action developers can take to make their cities and communities better, or at least more informed of the reality they operate within. Also, wanted to applaud and state that I wholeheartedly agree with your recommendations for both installing cameras everywhere for this purpose, but also for advocating for the faces to be blurred and for the data to be available to the public. As I see it, the surveillance state is here to stay, and thus our efforts are better geared towards pushing for equiveillance rather than fighting against inevitable surveillance: https://blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/isdyahoofellow/david-brins-the-transparent-society/comment-page-1/ https://blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/isdyahoofellow/david-br...
jedberg 9y ago
While I respect that this sucks for bikers, I gotta side with the Mayor on this one. There is a limited budget for enforcement, and it makes sense to focus that enforcement on crimes that cause loss of life or serious harm first. And frankly, the economy of NYC would come to a screeching halt if people couldn't double park to make quick stops. The cost of delivering anything would go up significantly to account for the cost of parking and time spent circling for legal parking at every drop-off, or the cost of all the fines. Also, you probably should have started with, "And I understand some of this is a state issue, but can you clarify which parts are a state issue and which parts are things NYC could do?". That would have been a lot better than "And don't tell me it's a state issue!!"
- jgust 9y ago
  In your example, double parking sounds like a symptom of a larger problem: too many vehicles on the street and not enough parking. Reform & enforcement should be focused on the root of the issue: more temporary parking & to make it more expensive & less convenient to own and store a vehicle in the city.
  - StudentStuff 9y ago
    There will never be "enough" parking in urban areas, and attempting to force there to be "sufficient" parking is how you end up with suburban sprawl & extremely expensive high density development. Parking can never cover its own cost per square foot, hence why there is so little of it outside what the government provides or mandates. Stronger enforcement via ticketing and towing is the quickest means to clear the bus lanes and bike lanes, after that adding barriers to the most illicitly parked in areas is the next step.
    - discoursism 9y ago
      There are a lot of private parking garages in NYC. Are those all government mandated?
    - Faark 9y ago
      I agree with strong enforcement. Only then will people see the actual value of a parking spot and thus can it cover its own cost. I don't understand the "there will never be enough" part. No one is saying there wont ever be any cases of double parking. But this discussion is about reducing its frequency to some acceptable threshold, something certainly possible. It will certainly cost, just like double parking does.
mentat 9y ago
What do you think the difficulty of doing this for people running stop signs would be? Seems like a different problem as multiple frames would need to be considered.
goblins 9y ago
Don't know anything about the mayor but what he said seems reasonable to me. As a cyclist myself I have no problem merging into traffic if my lane is blocked, my experience though is most cyclists don't like to stop so end up cutting into the live lane putting themselves at risk. Disclosure: not American don't know the rules there.
kchoudhu 9y ago
I love that Bill DeBlasio derides car culture on the call while taking a car every damned day from City Hall to his gym in Park Slope. Politicians...
subpixel 9y ago
I think the movement to radically improve our streets needs to be clear about what an end-goal that will work for all parties looks like. To my mind, the only tenable solution is bifurcation: vehicle traffic over here, everything that is not vehicle traffic over here. Further division within those buckets will be necessary and often contentious, but it's the initial, physical separation of motorized vehicles of a certain class (buses, trucks, cars, motorcycles) and everything else on the road (electric single-person devices, bikes, etc.) that will prove the most impactful and crucial to a changed transportation landscape. I see that happening in my lifetime, but I'm not holding my breath. In terms of political difficulty, making life difficult for Americans in their cars is right up there with controlling their access to guns. As another commenter has correctly pointed out, the streets and regulations are basically working the way they were engineered to work: for the benefit of cars and drivers. We need to change that but we need to be transparent about that being the goal. Ticketing people cannot be the goal and it will not have the desired effect - it will just trigger a backlash. What I love about this story is that it represents a tipping point: it's no longer safe to assume that the person on a bike is socio-economically or politically disadvantaged in relation to the person behind the wheel of their Lexus or Mercedes.

sdhgaiojfsa 9y ago

I can kinda understand why he wasn't happy. Your initial phrasing was very hostile. I am not sure what he would have said if you had phrased your question more neutrally, but your tone definitely gave him the opportunity to partially ignore your (totally valid!) concerns.

Bellspringsteen 9y ago
What was the hostile part? The "Dont tell me its a state problem?" I mean the man punts everything to the state, I had to preempt
- sdhgaiojfsa 9y ago
  But it didn't work, right? He turned your attempt at preemption into a distraction from your point. I don't know how best to handle these things, but what I might have said is something like, "<Why it's important that bus and bike lanes not be blocked.> <What you invented, the results.> <Would the city consider investing in an invention like mine, or else what are we going to do to reduce the rate at which these blockages occur?>" FTR, I'm totally in favor of the automatic enforcement you describe! I'd also like to mostly or entirely remove free parking from the city.
  - Bellspringsteen 9y ago
    Yeah, good point. Maybe I should have tried to be less accusatory.
    - dopamean 9y ago
      Being any amount of accusatory is counterproductive when you want someone to honestly answer a question in any context.
      - nemild 9y ago
        From Abraham Lincoln in 1842, speaking about his preferred approach: It is an old and a true maxim, that a "drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall." So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great highroad to his reason, and which, when once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause really be a just one. On the contrary, assume to dictate to his judgment, or to command his action, or to mark him as one to be shunned and despised, and he will retreat within himself, close all the avenues to his head and his heart; and though your cause be naked truth itself, transformed to the heaviest lance, harder than steel, and sharper than steel can be made, and though you throw it with more than Herculean force and precision, you shall be no more be able to pierce him, than to penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise with a rye straw. http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/temperance.htm http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/tempera...
        kolpa 9y ago
        https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4562214/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4562214/ > A common expression would have us believe that ‘you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar’. But this is not true in the case of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster (xkcd, 2007). Yes, NIH cited XKCD https://xkcd.com/357/ https://xkcd.com/357/
        hueving 9y ago
        Missing the forest for the trees.
  - Klinky 9y ago
    Damned if you do, damned if you don't. If the goal was to imply to the audience listening that the mayor likes to pass people's issues onto the state instead of addressing them, then that goal was accomplished successfully. Not bringing it up would have simply resulted in the mayor passing the buck without the audience being aware of that context. Calling a politician on a radio call in show is typically very unlikely to result in any actual action, on any issue, regardless of tact taken. Making the audience aware of the problem, and your distaste for the mayor's proposed solutions ,may be more useful to one's goals. I also don't think pimping your product on a radio call in show is very tactful either.
  - briandear 9y ago
    If we remove free parking from the city does that apply to bikes as well?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- unclesaamm 9y ago
  It's absolutely warranted and you did great. Everyone else on Hacker News is commenting as if perfect communication would have solved this issue. What they don't understand is the political reality of the situation - that in no universe of conversations, would Bill DeBlasio have admitted on recording that he was wrong or whatever. In my experience, when politicians act defensively and cornered, they often go and make changes behind the scenes later. When you let them go without a scuffle they will view you as a non-threat. So great job, and cool project!
- aidenn0 9y ago
  The "NYPD is unwilling and unable to enforce" part was the hostile part. That comes of as "traffic cops aren't doing their job" when I think you meant "without 100x more traffic cops we can't even make a dent in this"
markcerqueira 9y ago
Yeah, he certainly could've been more pragmatic because I'm sure ultimately he wants to see the problem solved, not figure out who to blame.
dbnoch 9y ago
In this situation, it is not OPs job to satisfy the mayor. It is this mayor's job to be a representative of the people so IMO the Mayor should have been able to handle hostility and criticism. The mayors opportunity to partially ignore concerns shows their incompetence towards the issue. UPDATE I wanted to mention that I totally agree with what you had said. I do not want to blame OP for being concerned and potentially angry
- sdhgaiojfsa 9y ago
  What you say is undoubtedly true. In a better world, we'd have a better mayor. That ideal mayor could always give the optimal public-serving answer no matter how they are approached. If the mayor were in the habit of listening to my advice, I'd surely tell him the same. His answer was suboptimal. But for the purposes of this conversation, the only control surface I have is my speech, and the only mayor there is is the one on the other end of the line. So, depending on what kind of result I want, I must modulate my tone.
- cortesoft 9y ago
  Right, his job is not to 'satisfy the mayor', but his job is to try to accomplish his goal. The poster is saying you are more likely to accomplish your actual goal if you don't start by being antagonistic, which is certainly true.
- enraged_camel 9y ago
  Tone of delivery is as important as the message itself. You need to treat people with respect if you want the same from them.
- justin66 9y ago
  Am I the only one who felt like if you filtered out the douchiness of the question and the touchiness of the mayor's answer, it was a worthwhile exchange? Question asked, question answered, and the answer was substantive enough that one could go on and answer follow-up questions (although they'd have to be in writing since the radio format apparently does not allow for that).

Nilef 9y ago

I’m working on this problem now on the UK with a very similiar solution. Let’s get in touch?

Bellspringsteen 9y ago
Tweet at me, https://twitter.com/Bellspringsteen https://twitter.com/Bellspringsteen and I will DM you my email

dahdum 9y ago

Given I’m no fan of red light cameras already, your idea of 24/7 automated city wide traffic enforcement sounds dystopic and ripe for abuse through ever more granular infractions and escalating penalties. I’d rather cyclists continue to be annoyed than everyone suffer under that.

zdw 9y ago
I think you're redefining "everyone" as "people who drive cars" here, and cyclists as "non-everyone".
- dahdum 9y ago
  I believe the growth of automated police enforcement affects everyone, but it's true that drivers would feel this impact the most.
- Spivak 9y ago
  Edit: Since we're talking about NYC someone who replied to me has more specific data. Roughly 2.5% of commuters use bikes in the city. Obviously it's going to be much less in suburbs and rural areas that aren't as densely packed. Some rough napkin calculations: Number of cyclists [1]: 786,000 Number of vehicles [2]: 263,000,000 Does 99.8% of people not count as everyone in a discussion like this? If you could make a change that improved the daily lives of 99% of people wouldn't that be the easiest policy decision in your life? [1] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2014/cb14-86.html https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2014/cb14-86.... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_Unit...
  - dahdum 9y ago
    For NYC in particular there are better stats (2014): "About 86,000 adult New Yorkers, 2.5% of all commuting residents, usually bike to work or school" [1] [1] http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bicyclists/cyclinginthecity.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bicyclists/cyclinginthecity...

lopmotr 9y ago

Good on you. If the mayor can't enforce his own bus lanes, then they're no use and might as well be removed. Just let people park there! If the bus riders complain, tell them the truth - they can't afford to police them and/or the state won't allow cameras.

woolvalley 9y ago
SF solves this by putting cameras on the busses themselves. Bus driver sees someone blocking the bus stop or bus lane, presses a button and creates a ticket. You get a live witness, video footage and only enforcing it when a bus needs that space. It works too, uber drivers do not like picking up people in bus stops. You could extended it to citizen cyclists too with some political controversy.
- CydeWeys 9y ago
  I would love to be able to write tickets on cars illegally parked in bike lanes. Give me a ticket book and I'll work for free. I'll even document every ticket with unimpeachable timestamped video footage.
  - lorenzhs 9y ago
    In some German cities you can email the police a photo along with a description when and where the infraction took place and they will issue a ticket. In other cities you might have to mail it the old-fashioned way.
    - CydeWeys 9y ago
      We've got apps for this in NYC that issues enforcement and TLC driver complaints through the 311 system, and I use 'em.

bogomipz 9y ago

So are you also OK with Camera Traffic Cops catching biking scoflaws who don't stop at lights, go the wrong way on one way streets, ride at dangerous speeds etc?

robert_foss 9y ago
Yes, of course.
- bogomipz 9y ago
  Well ... I was asking the author of the article :) But thanks. I would be OK with it as well but I think lots of people wouldn't. I think the only way to formalize such a system that treated all bad behavior equally in an automated fashion would result in the bikes having visible identification and I think that might be a non-starter for many.
  - oh_sigh 9y ago
    Please don't confuse frequency of hearing a message with the frequency of belief in that message in a population. Sure, there are a tiny fraction of bike riders who don't care about rules and happily flaunt them and defend their 'rights' to do so, but they are far overrepresented in the dialog. Most people who ride bikes follow the rules pretty closely, and don't go home at night posting on city message boards about how it's their right to break the law.
    - bogomipz 9y ago
      >"Please don't confuse frequency of hearing a message with the frequency of belief in that message in a population." To be clear we are talking about NYC here. If we were talking Coppenhagen or Berlin or Amsterdam yes that would be true. I'm not confusing "frequency of message." I'm being informed by actual observation. The overwhelming majority of bicyclists in NYC do not stop at red lights or use hand signals. All you have to do is stand on the stand on the street to confirm this. And yes it's the law: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bicyclists/biketips.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bicyclists/biketips.shtml And I'm speaking as a cyclist.

Spivak 9y ago

> NYPD officers behind a computer screen who could review the footage and issue the ticket Nobody wants this. The people won't want it. The courts won't want to deal with the all the people fighting the tickets out of spite, the police won't want to be essentially call center jockeys. Also, disconnecting the offense with the punishment is a sure way to make your enforcement system ineffective -- people will just treat it as an occasional NYCFU tax. > But I also think that the current methods of enforcement... You do understand that laws which are selectively enforced against the marginalized shouldn't be laws, right? It's terrible how our institutions treat them, and your solution is to treat everyone like them? > Firstly, the camera systems should blur all faces onboard the camera before transmitting to the internet. Anything less than 100% accuracy will never work. It's easy to brush off small error rates when you're designing the system. Not so much when every mistake is used against you by groups trying to take the cameras down. Plus people are identifiable by far more than just their face. A project at my alma mater could clock people by just their walking cadence. > Yes, but these people could already go down and view the street Not even the courts agree with you on that. Just because a passerby could look through my front windows doesn't mean it's not stalking if you do it 24/7. Just because someone could see me in public doesn't mean the police don't need a warrant if they want to tail me 24/7. > People who speed and go through red lights hate those cameras. Everyone hates those cameras. They lasted less than a year in my city. * They reverse the presumption of innocence since the ticketed person winds up with the burden of proving that state is in error. The obvious situation being that they weren't the one driving the car. * They were sold to the people as a safety implement and as a cash grab to municipalities. * They didn't make the roads any safer since almost all instances of running red lights was accidental and people actually went faster on the roads to make up for the slowdown due to the cameras. * Nobody likes being constantly watched. Especially if it's public you can glean a ton of personal information about people with 24/7 footage like this. You're trying really hard to make fetch happen. If more than half the time the bike lane is blocked by cars then it would probably be better off as a vehicle stopping lane. It would probably free up the bus stop too. I guarantee that more people are hailing rides than riding bikes.

kolpa 9y ago
Legally speaking , robot-tickets for driver offenses can generally be avoided by simply making an affadavit of non-responsibility, since the robot doesn't have evidence of who is driving the vehicle. The whole system relies on the honor system, so honest people pay and dishonest scofflaws don't. Yay!

apeace 9y ago

Great research, I wish you luck! One of the things the mayor said interested me: > If someone's blocking [a bike lane] for thirty seconds while they get their groceries or drop their kid off, I don't think they should get a ticket for that. Do you agree? And do you have any data on how much of the blocking going on is A) the "thirty second dropoff", B) driving in the lane, and C) stopping and parking for any period of time? Lastly, I'll add that as a walker in NYC (no car, no bike), I have no fear of being struck by cars. I fear bikes. I rarely see bikes obey traffic laws at all, and have frequently come 1-2 feed away from being side-swiped while a bicycle blows through a red light. Since you're so passionate about this I'm sure you follow traffic laws, but maybe you'll be inspired to take a look at bike behavior too!

tucosan 9y ago
Bikelanes are for cyclists. Blocking them even for 30 seconds endangers the cyclists, how will have to merge into car traffic. That your mayor does not understand this, is testament to his ignorance of the issue.
- nostromo 9y ago
  It's not that simple. In most cities cars are supposed to merge into unprotected bike lanes when turning right. This is safer for everyone.
  - StudentStuff 9y ago
    Not sure where your at, but this is generally considered poor road design, and even on 2 lane streets you'll add a bike box to keep drivers separated from bikes. Having 2 ton boxes of metal and glass interact with bikers unpredictably is risky!
    - nostromo 9y ago
      I'm only familiar with this on the west coast, but yes, you're usually required to merge into the bike lane to turn right. Here's an image: http://www.sfbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Right-Turn.jpg http://www.sfbike.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Right-Turn.... From CA directly: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/pubs/hdbk/turns https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/pubs/hdbk/turns > To make a right turn, drive close to the right edge of the road. If there is a bike lane, drive into the bike lane no more than 200 feet before the turn. This is also true in Washington State. Not sure about Oregon.

nunyabuizness 9y ago

This is awesome work, and a great example of the kinds of civic analysis and action developers can take to make their cities and communities better, or at least more informed of the reality they operate within. Also, wanted to applaud and state that I wholeheartedly agree with your recommendations for both installing cameras everywhere for this purpose, but also for advocating for the faces to be blurred and for the data to be available to the public. As I see it, the surveillance state is here to stay, and thus our efforts are better geared towards pushing for equiveillance rather than fighting against inevitable surveillance: https://blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/isdyahoofellow/david-brins-the-transparent-society/comment-page-1/ https://blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/isdyahoofellow/david-br...

jedberg 9y ago

While I respect that this sucks for bikers, I gotta side with the Mayor on this one. There is a limited budget for enforcement, and it makes sense to focus that enforcement on crimes that cause loss of life or serious harm first. And frankly, the economy of NYC would come to a screeching halt if people couldn't double park to make quick stops. The cost of delivering anything would go up significantly to account for the cost of parking and time spent circling for legal parking at every drop-off, or the cost of all the fines. Also, you probably should have started with, "And I understand some of this is a state issue, but can you clarify which parts are a state issue and which parts are things NYC could do?". That would have been a lot better than "And don't tell me it's a state issue!!"

jgust 9y ago
In your example, double parking sounds like a symptom of a larger problem: too many vehicles on the street and not enough parking. Reform & enforcement should be focused on the root of the issue: more temporary parking & to make it more expensive & less convenient to own and store a vehicle in the city.
- StudentStuff 9y ago
  There will never be "enough" parking in urban areas, and attempting to force there to be "sufficient" parking is how you end up with suburban sprawl & extremely expensive high density development. Parking can never cover its own cost per square foot, hence why there is so little of it outside what the government provides or mandates. Stronger enforcement via ticketing and towing is the quickest means to clear the bus lanes and bike lanes, after that adding barriers to the most illicitly parked in areas is the next step.
  - discoursism 9y ago
    There are a lot of private parking garages in NYC. Are those all government mandated?
  - Faark 9y ago
    I agree with strong enforcement. Only then will people see the actual value of a parking spot and thus can it cover its own cost. I don't understand the "there will never be enough" part. No one is saying there wont ever be any cases of double parking. But this discussion is about reducing its frequency to some acceptable threshold, something certainly possible. It will certainly cost, just like double parking does.

mentat 9y ago

What do you think the difficulty of doing this for people running stop signs would be? Seems like a different problem as multiple frames would need to be considered.

goblins 9y ago

Don't know anything about the mayor but what he said seems reasonable to me. As a cyclist myself I have no problem merging into traffic if my lane is blocked, my experience though is most cyclists don't like to stop so end up cutting into the live lane putting themselves at risk. Disclosure: not American don't know the rules there.

kchoudhu 9y ago

I love that Bill DeBlasio derides car culture on the call while taking a car every damned day from City Hall to his gym in Park Slope. Politicians...

subpixel 9y ago

I think the movement to radically improve our streets needs to be clear about what an end-goal that will work for all parties looks like. To my mind, the only tenable solution is bifurcation: vehicle traffic over here, everything that is not vehicle traffic over here. Further division within those buckets will be necessary and often contentious, but it's the initial, physical separation of motorized vehicles of a certain class (buses, trucks, cars, motorcycles) and everything else on the road (electric single-person devices, bikes, etc.) that will prove the most impactful and crucial to a changed transportation landscape. I see that happening in my lifetime, but I'm not holding my breath. In terms of political difficulty, making life difficult for Americans in their cars is right up there with controlling their access to guns. As another commenter has correctly pointed out, the streets and regulations are basically working the way they were engineered to work: for the benefit of cars and drivers. We need to change that but we need to be transparent about that being the goal. Ticketing people cannot be the goal and it will not have the desired effect - it will just trigger a backlash. What I love about this story is that it represents a tipping point: it's no longer safe to assume that the person on a bike is socio-economically or politically disadvantaged in relation to the person behind the wheel of their Lexus or Mercedes.