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> Even Portland and Eugene love to boast how bicycle friendly they are, but neither are really commutable by anything besides a car for most people. Which is wh

> Even Portland and Eugene love to boast how bicycle friendly they are, but neither are really commutable by anything besides a car for most people. Which is why most cyclists are so prolific -- it's hard to be a cyclist by circumstance. Riding your bike inherently comes with crossing a dozen intersections beaming with cars that treat you like you don't belong on the road. I commuted by bike for two years or so in Portland -- for work from North Portland to downtown across the Broadway bridge, and for fun when visiting friends all over south east -- and that wasn't my experience at all, Portland drivers were incredibly courteous to cyclists. You could take the lane when needed and no one batted an eye, people would correctly negotiate right of way with bikes at four way stops, etc. Contrast that to Oakland where I live now where I receive death threats on a daily basis for riding in the bike lane. :)

towelr34dy 8y ago
I would argue this is more to do with Portland culture of nice than anything. I love riding, but I have been run over. No thank you. I will bike for transportation the day we implement Dutch style separated bike lanes (i.e. by an actual physical barrier, even if only a slightly raised bike lane) Other than that, I drive my mountain bike to areas where there are no cars. Edit: in the city I'm in now, we just 'created' a bunch of bike lanes. Which means putting paint on a continuous stretch of asphalt and expect vehicles moving at 10mph that weight 50 pounds to do just fine sharing the road with vehicles weighing 2000+ pounds and going 50+ mph. Ridiculous and a waste of my tax dollars.
- wool_gather 8y ago
  > we just 'created' a bunch of bike lanes. Which means putting paint on a continuous stretch of asphalt Yeah, this kind of thing is really disappointing, but unfortunately predictable. There's a real chicken/egg situation. Few people will bike until there's safe support for it; until lots of people are biking, all the infrastructure just takes space away from the people using cars.
wool_gather 8y ago
Sometimes they're a bit overly quote courteous unquote -- stopping unexpectedly to let you cross, holding up traffic behind them, or waiting too long to turn onto the road you're on so that they end up behind you when they could have easily gone in front and been on their merry way, etc. Not that I want to complain -- I'll take this any, any day over the drivers in certain other northern cities named after 70s rock bands. Just a bemused observation.
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  Peeve: these folks often don't realize there are other sides/lanes of traffic that they aren't able to stop. So the pedestrian still can't cross because of other lanes, but now the good Samaritan is just holding up traffic and slowing everyone down. Including the pedestrian who would normally wait for traffic to clear. Paradoxically, in these encounters I prefer the "rude" drivers that get out of the way as quickly as possible.
  - breatheoften 8y ago
    I think this is a pretty interesting phenomenon and I often struggle with how to handle it. I have pretty severe defensive navigation requirements where I tend to require active perception of velocity change before I trust obstacles are going to behave in the manner I expect ... and I think that mentality often leads to these kinds of outcomes. I was recently in Amsterdam where there are many many bikes and many variations on the scenarios that can cause this to occur. I felt like I started to observe communication on the faces and trajectories around me that tried to convey a message about a kind of conscious morality for influencing the outcomes that results in these scenarios. There seemed to be a kind of social encouragement toward modulating one’s trajectory when possible in advance of where uncertainties could cause delay in order to have the effect of minimizing the required velocity changes — an expression that seemed to say “if you put yourself into a situation where uncertainty about your trajectory is likely to cause a group velocity decrease, you haven’t found the ideal path. Keep an eye out for opportunities to improve the group outcome in the future and have a nice day.” (Edit: Culture in the Netherlands is rather amazing)
guelo 8y ago
I've been biking in Oakland for over 10 years and have never gotten a death threat.
- electricslpnsld 8y ago
  I've had multiple people throw stuff at me from cars, I've had a teenager take a swing at me with a baseball bat from the curb, I've had a car stalk me for eight blocks driving inches from my back tire late at night. This is mostly West Oakland and the parts of of North Oakland along Adeline that gets you up to Berkeley -- I can't really comment on East Oakland or the hills. YMMV, of course.
  - wolco 8y ago
    I've been to your part of the world. The entire area felt unsafe everywhere. I got into a semi-fight on the bus for taking a seat. I've had poets aggressively push there words. It seems like the area is ready to explode. Detriot feels much safer. People mostly leave you alone. Wear the wrong colors could be an issue. The boards over windows is a little bit scarier but in Detriot you feel more prepared, even expect something to happen so it rarely does. In Oakland/SanF things can be very calm but turn really quickly.
    - tomcam 8y ago
      If there’s one thing that gets my goat it’s overly aggressive poets. The media really need to pay attention to this widespread problem. Once in Detroit a 15-line sonnet almost got me into fisticuffs with the so-called poet. Let’s just say I grew up in the mean streets of Anaheim and she didn’t stand a chance.
yellowapple 8y ago
Pretty sure that's less about you being a bicyclist and more about you being in Oakland.

towelr34dy 8y ago

I would argue this is more to do with Portland culture of nice than anything. I love riding, but I have been run over. No thank you. I will bike for transportation the day we implement Dutch style separated bike lanes (i.e. by an actual physical barrier, even if only a slightly raised bike lane) Other than that, I drive my mountain bike to areas where there are no cars. Edit: in the city I'm in now, we just 'created' a bunch of bike lanes. Which means putting paint on a continuous stretch of asphalt and expect vehicles moving at 10mph that weight 50 pounds to do just fine sharing the road with vehicles weighing 2000+ pounds and going 50+ mph. Ridiculous and a waste of my tax dollars.

wool_gather 8y ago
> we just 'created' a bunch of bike lanes. Which means putting paint on a continuous stretch of asphalt Yeah, this kind of thing is really disappointing, but unfortunately predictable. There's a real chicken/egg situation. Few people will bike until there's safe support for it; until lots of people are biking, all the infrastructure just takes space away from the people using cars.

wool_gather 8y ago

Sometimes they're a bit overly quote courteous unquote -- stopping unexpectedly to let you cross, holding up traffic behind them, or waiting too long to turn onto the road you're on so that they end up behind you when they could have easily gone in front and been on their merry way, etc. Not that I want to complain -- I'll take this any, any day over the drivers in certain other northern cities named after 70s rock bands. Just a bemused observation.

mixmastamyk 8y ago
Peeve: these folks often don't realize there are other sides/lanes of traffic that they aren't able to stop. So the pedestrian still can't cross because of other lanes, but now the good Samaritan is just holding up traffic and slowing everyone down. Including the pedestrian who would normally wait for traffic to clear. Paradoxically, in these encounters I prefer the "rude" drivers that get out of the way as quickly as possible.
- breatheoften 8y ago
  I think this is a pretty interesting phenomenon and I often struggle with how to handle it. I have pretty severe defensive navigation requirements where I tend to require active perception of velocity change before I trust obstacles are going to behave in the manner I expect ... and I think that mentality often leads to these kinds of outcomes. I was recently in Amsterdam where there are many many bikes and many variations on the scenarios that can cause this to occur. I felt like I started to observe communication on the faces and trajectories around me that tried to convey a message about a kind of conscious morality for influencing the outcomes that results in these scenarios. There seemed to be a kind of social encouragement toward modulating one’s trajectory when possible in advance of where uncertainties could cause delay in order to have the effect of minimizing the required velocity changes — an expression that seemed to say “if you put yourself into a situation where uncertainty about your trajectory is likely to cause a group velocity decrease, you haven’t found the ideal path. Keep an eye out for opportunities to improve the group outcome in the future and have a nice day.” (Edit: Culture in the Netherlands is rather amazing)

guelo 8y ago

I've been biking in Oakland for over 10 years and have never gotten a death threat.

electricslpnsld 8y ago
I've had multiple people throw stuff at me from cars, I've had a teenager take a swing at me with a baseball bat from the curb, I've had a car stalk me for eight blocks driving inches from my back tire late at night. This is mostly West Oakland and the parts of of North Oakland along Adeline that gets you up to Berkeley -- I can't really comment on East Oakland or the hills. YMMV, of course.
- wolco 8y ago
  I've been to your part of the world. The entire area felt unsafe everywhere. I got into a semi-fight on the bus for taking a seat. I've had poets aggressively push there words. It seems like the area is ready to explode. Detriot feels much safer. People mostly leave you alone. Wear the wrong colors could be an issue. The boards over windows is a little bit scarier but in Detriot you feel more prepared, even expect something to happen so it rarely does. In Oakland/SanF things can be very calm but turn really quickly.
  - tomcam 8y ago
    If there’s one thing that gets my goat it’s overly aggressive poets. The media really need to pay attention to this widespread problem. Once in Detroit a 15-line sonnet almost got me into fisticuffs with the so-called poet. Let’s just say I grew up in the mean streets of Anaheim and she didn’t stand a chance.

yellowapple 8y ago

Pretty sure that's less about you being a bicyclist and more about you being in Oakland.