10 ms·
This is big time for America. If our biggest city can’t show leadership on pedestrian and bicyclist safety, we can’t expect any other city to as well. New York
by pwthornton 7y ago
This is big time for America. If our biggest city can’t show leadership on pedestrian and bicyclist safety, we can’t expect any other city to as well.
New York is really lagging behind where it should be. Despite being by far the biggest American city, it is overrun with cars. Protected bike lanes, street improvements to make crossing the street safer, and dedicated bus lanes will improve the city for all New Yorkers. If these changes take off in New York, they will trickle down to the rest of American cities.
New York is marveled at for being such a safe big city from the standpoint of crime, but when you factor in all of the carnage caused by cars, it’s a lot less safe than you might think.
Violent crime has been falling across the country, but pedestrian and bicyclist deaths have been surging. This is a sign of some very bad policy making. Walking should be one of the safest and healthiest things a person can do.
- iamalexm 7y agoThe fact that they have outlawed and happily tweet about confiscating e-bikes is digusting. NYC has a long ways to go.
- nickles 7y ago> The fact that they have outlawed and happily tweet about confiscating e-bikes is digusting. NYC has a long ways to go. e-bikes have been legal in NYC for 1.5 years [0] [0] https://mashable.com/2018/04/04/electric-bicycle-nyc-ban-ends/ https://mashable.com/2018/04/04/electric-bicycle-nyc-ban-end...
- 120photo 7y agoAlso many electric bike riders don't take the extra power into consideration when they speed down those bike lanes. I overheard a conversation at the office recently where the topic was the number of bike deaths this year (I work/live in Manhattan) and they did point out that many of those might actually be electric bike riders.
- CydeWeys 7y agoThey're not. You can find the full details on each and every cyclist fatality in the city from news reports and such, and e-bikes are a small minority of deaths.
- CydeWeys 7y agoIt's more complicated than that. Pedal-assist e-bikes are now legal, but throttle-control e-bikes still aren't (although in theory they're supposed to be legalized soon). The latter constitutes the vast majority of e-bikes on the streets here.
- valley-green 7y ago“Trickle down” get off your high horse New Yorker. Nobody wants to be like your shithole city. Keep your sanctuary to yourself.
- unlinked_dll 7y agonot to go all "blame the victim" here, but one thing I noticed culturally in NYC is that traffic lights are a suggestion to pedestrians. If there isn't a car directly in front of them, they'll cross the street. Compare to LA, where people tend to wait for the signal to cross pretty consistently. That said, LA still has horrible pedestrian death statistics so who knows how much that matters.
- runarberg 7y agoIf people don’t follow traffic signals it is the fault of the signals. That is, if everybody makes the same mistake, it is no individuals fault, but a fault in the system. To give a more concrete example. Say a traffic light has a pedestrian light attached. It will only allow pedestrian crossings when it does not stop the flow of vehicular traffic (say every 3-5 min, and only for 20 seconds at a time). But it does so regardless of actual traffic (no cars are passing the intersection when many pedestrians arrive), you can’t really blame the pedestrians of ruling this system as stupid and opting not to follow it.
- fennecfoxen 7y ago> That is, if everybody makes the same mistake Who says it's a mistake? It has nothing to do with the signals and everything to do with the pedestrians. If you actually want people to respect the signals, place traffic police on every corner in Manhattan and issue jaywalking tickets to absolutely everyone, for months on end, and you'll see it. (You'll also see a backlash.) Other than that, it's not happening.
- selectodude 7y agoGiuliani already tried that. People didn't respect the signals. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/13/nyregion/with-higher-fines-giuliani-hopes-to-hobble-jaywalkers.html https://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/13/nyregion/with-higher-fine...
- fennecfoxen 7y ago
- kansface 7y agoHow popular is biking in New York - eg, do people bike in the winter?
- robbyt 7y agoYes, biking in the winter isn't too bad, as long as there isn't precipitation. The winters here are fairly mild.
- ch4s3 7y agoIt's fairly popular, and many people bike at least some year round. Citibike is quite popular for short trips.
- maximente 7y agokiller is summer imo, where 2-4 months are swamplike so any professional (attire wise) is bringing a change of clothes and/or showering but it's nice 7-8 months out of the year!
- bobthepanda 7y agoWhat‘s nice to help with that are e-bikes, so that you don‘t necessarily have to exert all that much energy.
- lonelappde 7y agoThe city and subway is dirty and hot in general, so dressing at work is just smart.
- crazygringo 7y agoA lot of biking isn't for your commute but rather a quick way to run an errand 5 avenues over using Citibike -- it's a 6 min ride instead of a 20 min walk. For that, super common to bike even in the winter. After all, you're already bundled up and will probably stay warmer just because you'll be outside for less time.
- philwelch 7y ago
- wefarrell 7y agoI commute on my bike in NYC daily and I am far more terrified of pedestrians and other cyclists than I am of cars. Cars for the most part pay attention and obey traffic rules. Cyclists less so and pedestrians ignore rules entirely and frequently aren't even aware of cyclists.
- TulliusCicero 7y agoYou're probably more likely to hit cyclists or pedestrians, but they're a lot less likely to kill you.
- guelo 7y agoI've never heard another cyclist express this sentiment. Most of us are scared of speeding cars grazing us or parked car doors suddenly opening up in front of us.
- gameswithgo 7y agobeen a cyclist for a long time, know hundreds of cyclists, you are the first person I've heard say this. If you collide with a pedestrian or cyclist the likely result is an injury, with a car death becomes very likely. Statistics certainly back this up as the vast majority of cyclist deaths are due to vehicle collisons not bike-bike or bike-pedestrian collisions. Are you literally "far more terrified" of pedestrians than cars, or are you looking for a way to appear clever and different than everyone?
- maaaats 7y agoIt's just a fake "as an X" to try to make the arguments have more weight.
- wefarrell 7y agoDo you cycle in Manhattan?
- yellowstuff 7y agoI bike for about 60 minutes in Manhattan most days. I'd guess that I have to slam on my brakes or swerve away from a pedestrian maybe 2-3 times per day on average, usually because they stepped into the bike lane from the sidewalk while looking down at their phones. It's so common it barely registers. While I am very aware of cars, they rarely do anything surprising besides occasionally opening a door into my lane. I've certainly never seen a car go from a dead stop to suddenly darting into my lane against the light, the way pedestrians do. So while I acknowledge that I'm much more likely to be killed by a car, I spend a lot time avoiding pedestrians.
- bravoetch 7y agoNo. NYC isn't some reference point for what other cities should do. Making a city bike friendly is available to all cities, and has been for decades. There's no trickle down bike policy, as other cities in the US are already showing.
- jacobreg 7y agoIt's not ridiculous to say the urbanest area should try to set an example for other urban areas
- edmundsauto 7y agoNYC faces problems at a scale that make it much more difficult to get done than in a lot of cities. It's not ridiculous to suggest they try, but it also doesn't naturally follow: NYC and Des Moines are not solving the same problem.
- objektif 7y agoWhy muct we accomodate the needs of bikers? Why do they hold a special place? Can we instead invest in subway?
- asteli 7y agoThis is about transit safety. Cyclists are in a lot more danger than pedestrians, because unlike peds, they don't have special infrastructure set aside from them for the most part.
- TulliusCicero 7y agoHow is it a special place to expect decent infrastructure, when NYC of all places has it for driving, walking and public transit? The cumulative investment in each of those has gotta be 100x as much as for biking, and you're accusing bikes of getting special treatment? For the cost of a mile of new subway, you could probably coat most of NYC's arterials with protected bike lanes across the whole damn city. Not that I'm opposed to subways, but bike infrastructure is extremely cost-effective, redirecting money away from it is ridiculous.
- downrightmike 7y agoTrickle down never works.
- shaboi 7y agoChicago has been doing a pretty good job of building out bike lanes. But it needs to be taken further still, and more quickly. However, the initiative needs a more robust implementation, with more consideration of driver behavior and parking needs. This is evident as many delivery trucks, Ubers etc. park in the lane (albeit, with emergency blinkers on, but it's a moot measure regardless) and push bicyclists into traffic. So while the bike lanes probably improve safety and reduce deaths overall, it can and does introduce a new, very real hazard: the necessity of bicyclists to suddenly merge into traffic. And this abuse is pretty rampant. The hanging fruit is simply implementing stiffer penalities for such violations but this seems lacking. Coupling this with more temporary parking zones might be a solution. Then again, I'm not a civil engineer, just my observations and half-baked thoughts concerning the matter.
- selectodude 7y agoProtected bike lanes implies a curb between the road and the lane. While a delivery truck could jump the curb, technically, it "curbs" a lot of that behavior.
- mumblemumble 7y agoIn Chicago it's largely been implemented by placing the bike lane in between on-street parking and the sidewalk, with soft posts and paint separating the parking lane from the bike lane. I've watched people put an impressive amount of effort into delicately navigating between those posts so that they can parallel park their car next to the curb. i.e., in the bike lane.
- bluejekyll 7y agoSo more signage and education is needed?
- javagram 7y agoEducation probably doesn’t matter. Convenience will always trump education. What would work would be enforcement, if you’re fairly likely to get slammed with a $500 ticket for blocking the lane that will actually stop the behavior.
- mitchdoogle 7y agoThe number of pedestrian and cyclists deaths by themselves cannot be used to signal worsening public policy. We have to know how the total number of cyclists and pedestrians has changed over time as well. I suspect that there are more people using bicycles and/or walking now than ever, with bike sharing, scooters, better public transportation, etc.