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This seems like a good example of the problems with Silicon Valley brain, where we try to solve problems by hacking around them, rather than solving the actual

This seems like a good example of the problems with Silicon Valley brain, where we try to solve problems by hacking around them, rather than solving the actual problem, which is poor cycling facilities, easily solved by installing separated bike lanes.

sinieovercosie 6y ago
But you can't expect every road to have a dedicated bike lane, right?
- jamil7 6y ago
  Why not? It doesn’t have to happen overnight but can be a gradual thing. Other cities have managed it.
- hannob 6y ago
  In Copenhagen or Amsterdam that's just the case. (Not literally every road, they don't have bike lanes in residential areas, but almost every major road with significant traffic has a bike lane in these cities.)
  - flipchart 6y ago
    Not just Amsterdam, the whole of the Netherlands is like that. But more than that, there is the cultural aspect that cyclists and pedestrians are the number 1 priority on the road, then cars. None of these fancy hi-tech solutions work if the drivers don't care, and the laws don't protect cyclists.
- Symbiote 6y ago
  Pretty much, except for small residential (or city centre) roads. A dashed blue edge to the road means a lane separated by a kerb from cars and pedestrians. A solid blue edge means a line of paint on the road. There are also off-road paths with dashed, blue lines. The thick, translucent lines are just signed, long-distance routes; they are likely to be mostly good, but not necessarily. https://osm.org/go/0H54ISC?layers=C https://osm.org/go/0H54ISC?layers=C (Odense, a town in Denmark, just to show it isn't only Copenhagen.)
- jmiserez 6y ago
  In some (few) places in the world that's already the case. Pretty great for getting around and safe.
- eythian 6y ago
  Of course you can. Unless it's low-traffic enough that it's not needed, every road here has a dedicated bike lane, and usually it's a separate path. I think it's a legal requirement to do so. This product feels like attempting to put a technological band-aid over a poor infrastructure planning problem.
  - u801e 6y ago
    >> But you can't expect every road to have a dedicated bike lane, right? > Of course you can. The road has to be wide enough to accommodate a bike lane. The absolute minimum width for a bike lane is 4 feet (not including the gutter adjoining the curb). In my town, they recently restriped a 4 lane road with a concrete raised median and sidewalks on both sides to include bike lanes. They basically narrowed the 2 general purpose traffic lanes from 12 feet to 10 feet in width and added a 4 foot wide bike lane. With the bike lane, if my bike with a 3 foot wide trailer is centered in the bike lane, I have about 0.5 feet to each side of me. A car with a mirror span of 7.5 feet centered in the 10 foot wide general purpose lane has about 1.25 feet on each side. 1.25 + 0.5 = 1.75 feet of clearance between a car in the right lane and a cyclist in the bike lane. With the old configuration, a cyclist centered in the 12 foot wide general purpose traffic lane would have 4.5 feet of space on each side. A car centered in the lane would have 2.25 feet of space on each side. 4.5 + 2.25 = 6.75 feet of space between the car in the left lane and a cyclist in the right lane. In that case, having a bike lane substantially decreased the possible passing distance between cars and bicycles. If they wanted to add the bike lane, then the road should have been at least 2 to 3 feet wider than it is now. > every road here has a dedicated bike lane, and usually it's a separate path. Those lead to issues at intersections where turning vehicles or vehicles entering the road may not see you in time when you're crossing.
    - eythian 6y ago
      I mean, you can say it doesn't work all you like, but the reality is that it does, and there is concrete (well, asphalt) evidence right outside my window and all over the rest of the city and country that it works and works well. It just requires the will to design things properly. Separated paths improve safety, they don't cause issues at intersections that I've noticed (and I've been biking through them every days for years), probably because things were designed well to account for this. It's one of those situations where good design becomes mostly invisible so it's hard to spot.
- rorykoehler 6y ago
  Yes you can. In fact you should demand it. Our survival as a species depends upon it.
bobsil1 6y ago
Nah. Why fixed lane infra? Why foist off on transport agency rather than client-side?
- FridgeSeal 6y ago
  Because at least we know it'll have a lifetime longer than a few years when said company feels like bringing out a new, incompatible version, or gets bought out by someone who then discontinues the product.
- eythian 6y ago
  Improved infrastructure helps everyone in a much more effective manner than a technological solution needing to be reliably used by hundreds of thousands of individuals.
Someone 6y ago
It also is well-intended, but also an example of blaming the cyclist for being there (a lot less blaming the cyclist than saying “people who ride bikes don’t get hit by cars – that they hit the cars.”, but still blaming). Why would cyclists have to buy this kind of hardware to stay alive on the road? I also don’t see how this would do the “prevent accidents” part of “could detect when such collisions were going to occur to take action and prevent accidents”. Who’s going to take action here? If it’s the cyclist, how are they going to tell them what to do, and how are the cyclists going to do the right thing, given, likely, less than a second to act? (If you’re going to warn them earlier, I would hope there will be lots of false alarms for cars that see you, but don’t take action yet. Or am I mistaken in understanding what kind of war zone cyclists live in in the USA? We aren’t talking about cyclists being pumped up with adrenaline all the time, are we?) I would guess a rear-view camera or, way simpler, rear-view mirror would be the better and easier way to increase situational awareness of cyclists?
FridgeSeal 6y ago
I agree, a huge chunk of this problem can be solved with (even slightly) improved driver education and some road facilities for bikes.
u801e 6y ago
> easily solved by installing separated bike lanes. In environment where there frequent intersections, these actually lead to more problems for cyclists at those intersections due to risks of collisions from: 1. right-hooks where traffic makes a right turn and crosses the path of the cyclist 2. left-crosses where left turning traffic crosses the path of the cyclist 3. drive-outs where traffic pulling from a side-street or driveway crosses the path of a cyclist. These are much less of an issue if the cyclist rides in the center of the right-most general purpose lane since motorists will be looking for traffic in those locations.

sinieovercosie 6y ago

But you can't expect every road to have a dedicated bike lane, right?

jamil7 6y ago
Why not? It doesn’t have to happen overnight but can be a gradual thing. Other cities have managed it.
hannob 6y ago
In Copenhagen or Amsterdam that's just the case. (Not literally every road, they don't have bike lanes in residential areas, but almost every major road with significant traffic has a bike lane in these cities.)
- flipchart 6y ago
  Not just Amsterdam, the whole of the Netherlands is like that. But more than that, there is the cultural aspect that cyclists and pedestrians are the number 1 priority on the road, then cars. None of these fancy hi-tech solutions work if the drivers don't care, and the laws don't protect cyclists.
Symbiote 6y ago
Pretty much, except for small residential (or city centre) roads. A dashed blue edge to the road means a lane separated by a kerb from cars and pedestrians. A solid blue edge means a line of paint on the road. There are also off-road paths with dashed, blue lines. The thick, translucent lines are just signed, long-distance routes; they are likely to be mostly good, but not necessarily. https://osm.org/go/0H54ISC?layers=C https://osm.org/go/0H54ISC?layers=C (Odense, a town in Denmark, just to show it isn't only Copenhagen.)
jmiserez 6y ago
In some (few) places in the world that's already the case. Pretty great for getting around and safe.
eythian 6y ago
Of course you can. Unless it's low-traffic enough that it's not needed, every road here has a dedicated bike lane, and usually it's a separate path. I think it's a legal requirement to do so. This product feels like attempting to put a technological band-aid over a poor infrastructure planning problem.
- u801e 6y ago
  >> But you can't expect every road to have a dedicated bike lane, right? > Of course you can. The road has to be wide enough to accommodate a bike lane. The absolute minimum width for a bike lane is 4 feet (not including the gutter adjoining the curb). In my town, they recently restriped a 4 lane road with a concrete raised median and sidewalks on both sides to include bike lanes. They basically narrowed the 2 general purpose traffic lanes from 12 feet to 10 feet in width and added a 4 foot wide bike lane. With the bike lane, if my bike with a 3 foot wide trailer is centered in the bike lane, I have about 0.5 feet to each side of me. A car with a mirror span of 7.5 feet centered in the 10 foot wide general purpose lane has about 1.25 feet on each side. 1.25 + 0.5 = 1.75 feet of clearance between a car in the right lane and a cyclist in the bike lane. With the old configuration, a cyclist centered in the 12 foot wide general purpose traffic lane would have 4.5 feet of space on each side. A car centered in the lane would have 2.25 feet of space on each side. 4.5 + 2.25 = 6.75 feet of space between the car in the left lane and a cyclist in the right lane. In that case, having a bike lane substantially decreased the possible passing distance between cars and bicycles. If they wanted to add the bike lane, then the road should have been at least 2 to 3 feet wider than it is now. > every road here has a dedicated bike lane, and usually it's a separate path. Those lead to issues at intersections where turning vehicles or vehicles entering the road may not see you in time when you're crossing.
  - eythian 6y ago
    I mean, you can say it doesn't work all you like, but the reality is that it does, and there is concrete (well, asphalt) evidence right outside my window and all over the rest of the city and country that it works and works well. It just requires the will to design things properly. Separated paths improve safety, they don't cause issues at intersections that I've noticed (and I've been biking through them every days for years), probably because things were designed well to account for this. It's one of those situations where good design becomes mostly invisible so it's hard to spot.
rorykoehler 6y ago
Yes you can. In fact you should demand it. Our survival as a species depends upon it.

bobsil1 6y ago

Nah. Why fixed lane infra? Why foist off on transport agency rather than client-side?

FridgeSeal 6y ago
Because at least we know it'll have a lifetime longer than a few years when said company feels like bringing out a new, incompatible version, or gets bought out by someone who then discontinues the product.
eythian 6y ago
Improved infrastructure helps everyone in a much more effective manner than a technological solution needing to be reliably used by hundreds of thousands of individuals.

Someone 6y ago

It also is well-intended, but also an example of blaming the cyclist for being there (a lot less blaming the cyclist than saying “people who ride bikes don’t get hit by cars – that they hit the cars.”, but still blaming). Why would cyclists have to buy this kind of hardware to stay alive on the road? I also don’t see how this would do the “prevent accidents” part of “could detect when such collisions were going to occur to take action and prevent accidents”. Who’s going to take action here? If it’s the cyclist, how are they going to tell them what to do, and how are the cyclists going to do the right thing, given, likely, less than a second to act? (If you’re going to warn them earlier, I would hope there will be lots of false alarms for cars that see you, but don’t take action yet. Or am I mistaken in understanding what kind of war zone cyclists live in in the USA? We aren’t talking about cyclists being pumped up with adrenaline all the time, are we?) I would guess a rear-view camera or, way simpler, rear-view mirror would be the better and easier way to increase situational awareness of cyclists?

FridgeSeal 6y ago

I agree, a huge chunk of this problem can be solved with (even slightly) improved driver education and some road facilities for bikes.

u801e 6y ago

> easily solved by installing separated bike lanes. In environment where there frequent intersections, these actually lead to more problems for cyclists at those intersections due to risks of collisions from: 1. right-hooks where traffic makes a right turn and crosses the path of the cyclist 2. left-crosses where left turning traffic crosses the path of the cyclist 3. drive-outs where traffic pulling from a side-street or driveway crosses the path of a cyclist. These are much less of an issue if the cyclist rides in the center of the right-most general purpose lane since motorists will be looking for traffic in those locations.