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Where are taxis, ride-sharing vehicles, and delivery trucks supposed to stop? I get frustrated when I ride my bike to work and the bike lanes are blocked, but I

Where are taxis, ride-sharing vehicles, and delivery trucks supposed to stop? I get frustrated when I ride my bike to work and the bike lanes are blocked, but I have always just assumed that will be the case when riding in a commercially dense area. This is probably rarely the case, but when cops are instigating something (I'm sure 90% of the time they are just getting coffee) and need to park their car, are they supposed to circle the block, or block traffic? US cities are unfortunately optimized for cars and trucks. It's how stores get resupplied and people get dropped off when not near public transportation. I'm not trying to stir-the-pot, but I find there is a mildly militant tone to biking activism that makes me not take it very seriously. I'm sure I'll get downvoted for this ha. After you have had to sit through critical mass (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Mass_(cycling) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Mass_(cycling)) for the 10th time when you are trying to get home from work or get your car door kicked when trying to make a right turn in the city you develop a visceral reaction to news about cycling outrage. I would love to be able to get around NYC on a bike without having to fear death, but I don't think software engineers writing ticketing software that targets delivery truck drivers is the best solution. Better civic planning is.

psychometry 9y ago
The solution is to turn parking spots into loading zones.
- aarmenante 9y ago
  Yeah. I think you're right. My cousin drives everywhere in NYC and I think it's INSANE. I can't think of many reasons non-commercial vehicles need to be parked on the street. If you live in Manhatten you probably don't need a car to get to your job or have enough money to justify renting a parking space.
  - Bellspringsteen 9y ago
    Totally about parking. https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193... is a great book. Its all about parking in some ways.
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    Sweet, I’m sure the millions of people who live and work there appreciate your breakthrough. There are numerous reasons why people live with the pain of having a car in Manhattan.
Bellspringsteen 9y ago
I think you have some good points in there. I agree that in general i dont like the idea of enforcement as the best solution. Rather good civic planning can make many of these problems go away. I certainly am physically able to ride around cars etc. But if we want the cities of america to evolve in terms of density etc then we need infrastructure designed so that a grandma on a tricycle feels comfortable enough riding to the store instead of taking a taxi. Its certainly done in other countries.
- aarmenante 9y ago
  Grandma is most likely not going to be riding a tricycle to the store. We live in NYC. Let’s focus on making sure she has a store to ride to.
rebuilder 9y ago
From past experiences with different European cities, I'd guess this may be a case of an old city being forced to adapt to motorized traffic. I've lived all my life in young cities, where most of the infrastructure seems to have been designed in the 50's or thereafter. Also almost ridiculously strict regulations about how much space a given type of road requires. Generally speaking, there's very little trouble of the sort being discussed here, but you do get people complaining about delivery trucks parking in the bike lanes - in areas built in the 20's. At the other extreme, go to old towns in a place like Croatia, and there are no bike lanes - delivery trucks park by just stopping in traffic. As far as I could tell, it was just a fact of life. The point being, I suspect this is a result of trying to cram too much traffic into too small a space, and not being willing to accept the consequences. It's very hard to change n old city to suit motorized traffic. After a while, I actually felt more comfortable driving in Croatia than I do in my nordic home town, because everyone seemed to have adapted to the suboptimal roads in towns by being very careful.
mikeash 9y ago
I don’t think this is even a bike-specific thing. It’s common for busses and delivery vehicles to block travel lanes for cars too. Not all streets have places for them to stop out of the way of traffic, so they just stop in a lane and you have to go around. Space is limited. Going around a stopped vehicle is a lot easier on a bike than in a car in many cases. Maybe cyclists should just deal with it the way drivers do.
3pt14159 9y ago
The reality is that there are plenty of places around the world that have transitioned from car-centric to mass-transit centric / self-propulsion-centric cities. Deliveries can happen with bikes and for larger things trucks can use side street. Really, only the elderly or disabled really need to get dropped off right at the door. Others should get fined for blocking traffic. Once you've been to a nice city and you see it all work out like the bike optimists talk of it working you see that they're right about most of it. The only thing I think they get a little wrong is that some of them over-estimate the speed they think they'll be able to bike. Good cities tend to have way more cyclists and this is safer, but slower. Don't get me wrong, I'm a speed demon with my bike, but I'd take a European city over an American one any day of the week.
- bogomipz 9y ago
  >"The reality is that there are plenty of places around the world that have transitioned from car-centric to mass-transit centric / self-propulsion-centric cities." Indeed and I think that is the OPs point. NYC simply has not, that is what I believe is what he meant by saying that "better civic planning" is the answer. NYC simply "bolted on" the promotion of biking in the quickest way possible - using some paint. It's not a holistic solution. Getting mad at violations in the half baked implementations like this seems counter productive. I also don't see much in the way of self-regulating behavior with the biking community. People constantly ignore directional bike lanes on one way street(that's why there's arrow.), run lights at intersections, weave between pedestrian in a cross walk etc. I could walk around with a pedestrian cam and spot just as many violations. My point is that is not productive. The current half-baked system is bad for everyone not just bikers. If NYC wanted to get serious about biking they would adopt permanent bike only streets say a couple in uptown/downtown direction and couple int he cross town direction.
pastage 9y ago
You are basically saying it's ok to park in bicyclist lanes, for some of us that leads to big problems. I choose bicycle lanes because I need them, me and people with cargo bikes, handicaps, kids or just fear of cars. I agree we need better planning but we still need more tickets, there have to be some consequences for endangering other people.
btrettel 9y ago
Cyclist here. Where are people supposed to park? Seems pretty obvious to me: legal parking spots. Having talked to dozens of people parked in the bike lane over the years, it's obvious to me that the vast majority park in the bike lane out of convenience, not necessity. I usually recommend legal spots to park that are nearby, but many drivers are unwilling to walk even an extra 50 feet. People have acted as if my request to park somewhere else was completely unreasonable. (Edited.) So while sometimes I get this argument, it does not work most of the time. Drivers block the bike lane mostly for convenience, not by necessity. (My experience comes from living in Austin, Baltimore, and the DC metro area. I suspect NYC is different, but probably not that much different from Baltimore.)
- closeparen 9y ago
  The nearest open and legal street parking space in a city center would likely take 10+ minutes to find and 30+ minutes to walk back from. While it’s true that all wheeled transportation is a matter of convenience (we did, after all, get around exclusively on foot for millennia) this is a dishonest framing: you are still proposing to effectively wipe out delivery and pickup/drop off services. I’m much more interested in reallocating street parking to loading zones.
  - btrettel 9y ago
    The framing is not dishonest. Your experience seems limited to downtowns. In central Austin, the vast majority of the time someone parks in the bike lane, they could have instead parked very close (minute or less walk) legally. I think that is much more typical. I recall from talking to delivery drivers that many would park in the bike lane even if it saved only a few seconds. It's mostly about convenience to them. They usually have a choice, and they choose to block the bike lane. And if I was unclear, I'll elaborate: I often talk to drivers who park in the bike lane. I am in the habit of highlighting the most convenient alternative parking spot, but in my experience a large fraction of drivers think that a spot even 50 feet away is too far. To be fair, many if not most drivers will move if you ask. But I should not have to ask. (I can recall few times the bike lane was blocked during my time in Baltimore. Baltimore may be a bad example in that case. I do think drivers have less choices downtown, but again, most people don't live or commute downtown.)
rhizome 9y ago
Cars should only block car lanes, it's not complicated. get your car door kicked when trying to make a right turn So you're saying you made a right turn in front of a cyclist close enough for them to touch your car with their foot?
- praneshp 9y ago
  Possibly, the car was way ahead of the cycle, covered the bike lane to make a turn, had to wait for perpendicular traffic, and the cyclist saw them and decided to kick in anger instead of waiting. Edit: Sorry, in my hypothetical scenario, I left out waiting very long for perpendicular traffic and the cyclist showing up legitimately lately. Clearly, I'm just making up this scenario, and most real life complaints are quite legit.
  - rhizome 9y ago
    How does that allow space for the cyclist to be beside the car door as the turn is being attempted?
    - UncleEntity 9y ago
      People don't look right while making a right turn, they just concentrate on cross traffic and run pedestrians over in the crosswalks all the time. Good luck on a bike. Where I live there's not a whole lot of bike lanes so you mostly have to ride the sidewalks on the major streets if you don't want to die. I just reach down and thump the side of their car as hard as I can when they do that to me -- probably left some impressive dents.
      - rhizome 9y ago
        It's called a "right hook" in cycling for a car to turn right into a bike without looking.
  - cimmanom 9y ago
    The cycle lane needs to be considered as part of that perpendicular traffic. The fact that so few drivers recognize bike lanes as traffic to be considered when turning is a significant contributor to cycling still being unsafe and mixing zones in particular (where cars turn across bike lanes) prone to cyclist casualties.
switchbak 9y ago
I've been a part of a few of those critical mass protests, at first glance it appears like a good thing to participate in - increasing awareness of cycling as an option to people that might not be familiar with it. But the combative mindset that seems to be a core part of the tradition only seemed to polarize people and actually put us further back from our (supposed) goal of increasing accessible cycling infrastructure. At the last one I was almost embarrassed to be there. And some people do legitimately need to get somewhere on time, to take liberties with that is unnecessarily off-putting. I now think it's much more about feeling like you're part of an in-group, a persecuted and rebellious one at that. I'm now much more a fan of the (boring?) folks calmly working for greater cycling access, and having much more success at it.
notatoad 9y ago
>Where are taxis, ride-sharing vehicles, and delivery trucks supposed to stop? taxis, ride-sharing vehicles, and delivery trucks should stop in the car lane. if that's not acceptable, roads should be designed with a designated stopping lane. The majority of the lanes on the road are already dedicated to private motor vehicles, and there's only one bus or bike lane. They shouldn't block a different (and more efficient) mode of transportation that has less road space dedicated to it when they want to stop. If there isn't a bus lane or bike lane, that's what they do. Why does it suddenly becomes unacceptable to block a private vehicle lane just because there is a bus lane you could block instead?
- dalore 9y ago
  More so it's dangerous when you get out in the middle of the street vs closer to the curb. Because of people pulling into the bus/cycle lane. But also a bus would be scary (and dangerous) if it hit whilst you trying to walk to the curb (or trying to dodge a storm of cyclist).
- mnarayan01 9y ago
  > The majority of the lanes on the road are already dedicated to private motor vehicles IME, having any lanes dedicated to private motor vehicles is extraordinarily rare. I'm not sure I've ever even seen it, though I do have a vague sense of something like that happening on the NJ Turnpike or one of the interstates going into NYC.
- guelo 9y ago
  Yes! I don't understand the drivers that think "oh I better not block car traffic so I'll just block bus and bike traffic". And cops are complicit, if you block the car lanes you're much more likely to get a ticket than if you block the bike and bus lanes.
- mikeash 9y ago
  You stop as far right as possible. It just so happens that the bike lane is often placed as far right as possible as well. It’s not about blocking the bus or bike lane so you don’t block a private vehicle lane, it’s just about getting as far over as possible.
jackconnor 9y ago
Why would you spend all that money to make Bus and Bike lanes that are useless? And why are bike/bus lanes supposed to cover this lack of planning? Figuring out where the taxis and cops are supposed to stop should've been done before any of this was implemented. For them to just say "we don't have room, so we'll take yours" is disrespectful and clearly causing a major traffic issue. So to answer your question of where cops and taxis are "supposed to stop" the answer is "anywhere else that's legal", and not just assume that bus riders should eat their time cost for being lazy.
- UncleEntity 9y ago
  I know in Phoenix (and maybe all of Arizona) a taxi/limo/livery vehicle can load and unload anywhere it isn't specifically prohibited. Driving lane, bike lane, whatever. The cops just stop wherever they want blocking traffic during rush hour or not they don't care. Hell, they closed down one of the highways for a couple hours in the middle of the week around lunchtime for a funeral procession for some fallen officer just because they can.
driverdan 9y ago
> or get your car door kicked when trying to make a right turn in the city How about you pay attention instead of nearly running someone over? You could kill someone doing that.

psychometry 9y ago

The solution is to turn parking spots into loading zones.

aarmenante 9y ago
Yeah. I think you're right. My cousin drives everywhere in NYC and I think it's INSANE. I can't think of many reasons non-commercial vehicles need to be parked on the street. If you live in Manhatten you probably don't need a car to get to your job or have enough money to justify renting a parking space.
- Bellspringsteen 9y ago
  Totally about parking. https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193... is a great book. Its all about parking in some ways.
- Spooky23 9y ago
  Sweet, I’m sure the millions of people who live and work there appreciate your breakthrough. There are numerous reasons why people live with the pain of having a car in Manhattan.

Bellspringsteen 9y ago

I think you have some good points in there. I agree that in general i dont like the idea of enforcement as the best solution. Rather good civic planning can make many of these problems go away. I certainly am physically able to ride around cars etc. But if we want the cities of america to evolve in terms of density etc then we need infrastructure designed so that a grandma on a tricycle feels comfortable enough riding to the store instead of taking a taxi. Its certainly done in other countries.

aarmenante 9y ago
Grandma is most likely not going to be riding a tricycle to the store. We live in NYC. Let’s focus on making sure she has a store to ride to.

rebuilder 9y ago

From past experiences with different European cities, I'd guess this may be a case of an old city being forced to adapt to motorized traffic. I've lived all my life in young cities, where most of the infrastructure seems to have been designed in the 50's or thereafter. Also almost ridiculously strict regulations about how much space a given type of road requires. Generally speaking, there's very little trouble of the sort being discussed here, but you do get people complaining about delivery trucks parking in the bike lanes - in areas built in the 20's. At the other extreme, go to old towns in a place like Croatia, and there are no bike lanes - delivery trucks park by just stopping in traffic. As far as I could tell, it was just a fact of life. The point being, I suspect this is a result of trying to cram too much traffic into too small a space, and not being willing to accept the consequences. It's very hard to change n old city to suit motorized traffic. After a while, I actually felt more comfortable driving in Croatia than I do in my nordic home town, because everyone seemed to have adapted to the suboptimal roads in towns by being very careful.

mikeash 9y ago

I don’t think this is even a bike-specific thing. It’s common for busses and delivery vehicles to block travel lanes for cars too. Not all streets have places for them to stop out of the way of traffic, so they just stop in a lane and you have to go around. Space is limited. Going around a stopped vehicle is a lot easier on a bike than in a car in many cases. Maybe cyclists should just deal with it the way drivers do.

3pt14159 9y ago

The reality is that there are plenty of places around the world that have transitioned from car-centric to mass-transit centric / self-propulsion-centric cities. Deliveries can happen with bikes and for larger things trucks can use side street. Really, only the elderly or disabled really need to get dropped off right at the door. Others should get fined for blocking traffic. Once you've been to a nice city and you see it all work out like the bike optimists talk of it working you see that they're right about most of it. The only thing I think they get a little wrong is that some of them over-estimate the speed they think they'll be able to bike. Good cities tend to have way more cyclists and this is safer, but slower. Don't get me wrong, I'm a speed demon with my bike, but I'd take a European city over an American one any day of the week.

bogomipz 9y ago
>"The reality is that there are plenty of places around the world that have transitioned from car-centric to mass-transit centric / self-propulsion-centric cities." Indeed and I think that is the OPs point. NYC simply has not, that is what I believe is what he meant by saying that "better civic planning" is the answer. NYC simply "bolted on" the promotion of biking in the quickest way possible - using some paint. It's not a holistic solution. Getting mad at violations in the half baked implementations like this seems counter productive. I also don't see much in the way of self-regulating behavior with the biking community. People constantly ignore directional bike lanes on one way street(that's why there's arrow.), run lights at intersections, weave between pedestrian in a cross walk etc. I could walk around with a pedestrian cam and spot just as many violations. My point is that is not productive. The current half-baked system is bad for everyone not just bikers. If NYC wanted to get serious about biking they would adopt permanent bike only streets say a couple in uptown/downtown direction and couple int he cross town direction.

pastage 9y ago

You are basically saying it's ok to park in bicyclist lanes, for some of us that leads to big problems. I choose bicycle lanes because I need them, me and people with cargo bikes, handicaps, kids or just fear of cars. I agree we need better planning but we still need more tickets, there have to be some consequences for endangering other people.

btrettel 9y ago

Cyclist here. Where are people supposed to park? Seems pretty obvious to me: legal parking spots. Having talked to dozens of people parked in the bike lane over the years, it's obvious to me that the vast majority park in the bike lane out of convenience, not necessity. I usually recommend legal spots to park that are nearby, but many drivers are unwilling to walk even an extra 50 feet. People have acted as if my request to park somewhere else was completely unreasonable. (Edited.) So while sometimes I get this argument, it does not work most of the time. Drivers block the bike lane mostly for convenience, not by necessity. (My experience comes from living in Austin, Baltimore, and the DC metro area. I suspect NYC is different, but probably not that much different from Baltimore.)

closeparen 9y ago
The nearest open and legal street parking space in a city center would likely take 10+ minutes to find and 30+ minutes to walk back from. While it’s true that all wheeled transportation is a matter of convenience (we did, after all, get around exclusively on foot for millennia) this is a dishonest framing: you are still proposing to effectively wipe out delivery and pickup/drop off services. I’m much more interested in reallocating street parking to loading zones.
- btrettel 9y ago
  The framing is not dishonest. Your experience seems limited to downtowns. In central Austin, the vast majority of the time someone parks in the bike lane, they could have instead parked very close (minute or less walk) legally. I think that is much more typical. I recall from talking to delivery drivers that many would park in the bike lane even if it saved only a few seconds. It's mostly about convenience to them. They usually have a choice, and they choose to block the bike lane. And if I was unclear, I'll elaborate: I often talk to drivers who park in the bike lane. I am in the habit of highlighting the most convenient alternative parking spot, but in my experience a large fraction of drivers think that a spot even 50 feet away is too far. To be fair, many if not most drivers will move if you ask. But I should not have to ask. (I can recall few times the bike lane was blocked during my time in Baltimore. Baltimore may be a bad example in that case. I do think drivers have less choices downtown, but again, most people don't live or commute downtown.)

rhizome 9y ago

Cars should only block car lanes, it's not complicated. get your car door kicked when trying to make a right turn So you're saying you made a right turn in front of a cyclist close enough for them to touch your car with their foot?

praneshp 9y ago
Possibly, the car was way ahead of the cycle, covered the bike lane to make a turn, had to wait for perpendicular traffic, and the cyclist saw them and decided to kick in anger instead of waiting. Edit: Sorry, in my hypothetical scenario, I left out waiting very long for perpendicular traffic and the cyclist showing up legitimately lately. Clearly, I'm just making up this scenario, and most real life complaints are quite legit.
- rhizome 9y ago
  How does that allow space for the cyclist to be beside the car door as the turn is being attempted?
  - UncleEntity 9y ago
    People don't look right while making a right turn, they just concentrate on cross traffic and run pedestrians over in the crosswalks all the time. Good luck on a bike. Where I live there's not a whole lot of bike lanes so you mostly have to ride the sidewalks on the major streets if you don't want to die. I just reach down and thump the side of their car as hard as I can when they do that to me -- probably left some impressive dents.
    - rhizome 9y ago
      It's called a "right hook" in cycling for a car to turn right into a bike without looking.
- cimmanom 9y ago
  The cycle lane needs to be considered as part of that perpendicular traffic. The fact that so few drivers recognize bike lanes as traffic to be considered when turning is a significant contributor to cycling still being unsafe and mixing zones in particular (where cars turn across bike lanes) prone to cyclist casualties.

switchbak 9y ago

I've been a part of a few of those critical mass protests, at first glance it appears like a good thing to participate in - increasing awareness of cycling as an option to people that might not be familiar with it. But the combative mindset that seems to be a core part of the tradition only seemed to polarize people and actually put us further back from our (supposed) goal of increasing accessible cycling infrastructure. At the last one I was almost embarrassed to be there. And some people do legitimately need to get somewhere on time, to take liberties with that is unnecessarily off-putting. I now think it's much more about feeling like you're part of an in-group, a persecuted and rebellious one at that. I'm now much more a fan of the (boring?) folks calmly working for greater cycling access, and having much more success at it.

notatoad 9y ago

>Where are taxis, ride-sharing vehicles, and delivery trucks supposed to stop? taxis, ride-sharing vehicles, and delivery trucks should stop in the car lane. if that's not acceptable, roads should be designed with a designated stopping lane. The majority of the lanes on the road are already dedicated to private motor vehicles, and there's only one bus or bike lane. They shouldn't block a different (and more efficient) mode of transportation that has less road space dedicated to it when they want to stop. If there isn't a bus lane or bike lane, that's what they do. Why does it suddenly becomes unacceptable to block a private vehicle lane just because there is a bus lane you could block instead?

dalore 9y ago
More so it's dangerous when you get out in the middle of the street vs closer to the curb. Because of people pulling into the bus/cycle lane. But also a bus would be scary (and dangerous) if it hit whilst you trying to walk to the curb (or trying to dodge a storm of cyclist).
mnarayan01 9y ago
> The majority of the lanes on the road are already dedicated to private motor vehicles IME, having any lanes dedicated to private motor vehicles is extraordinarily rare. I'm not sure I've ever even seen it, though I do have a vague sense of something like that happening on the NJ Turnpike or one of the interstates going into NYC.
guelo 9y ago
Yes! I don't understand the drivers that think "oh I better not block car traffic so I'll just block bus and bike traffic". And cops are complicit, if you block the car lanes you're much more likely to get a ticket than if you block the bike and bus lanes.
mikeash 9y ago
You stop as far right as possible. It just so happens that the bike lane is often placed as far right as possible as well. It’s not about blocking the bus or bike lane so you don’t block a private vehicle lane, it’s just about getting as far over as possible.

jackconnor 9y ago

Why would you spend all that money to make Bus and Bike lanes that are useless? And why are bike/bus lanes supposed to cover this lack of planning? Figuring out where the taxis and cops are supposed to stop should've been done before any of this was implemented. For them to just say "we don't have room, so we'll take yours" is disrespectful and clearly causing a major traffic issue. So to answer your question of where cops and taxis are "supposed to stop" the answer is "anywhere else that's legal", and not just assume that bus riders should eat their time cost for being lazy.

UncleEntity 9y ago
I know in Phoenix (and maybe all of Arizona) a taxi/limo/livery vehicle can load and unload anywhere it isn't specifically prohibited. Driving lane, bike lane, whatever. The cops just stop wherever they want blocking traffic during rush hour or not they don't care. Hell, they closed down one of the highways for a couple hours in the middle of the week around lunchtime for a funeral procession for some fallen officer just because they can.

driverdan 9y ago

> or get your car door kicked when trying to make a right turn in the city How about you pay attention instead of nearly running someone over? You could kill someone doing that.