14 ms·

But it doesn't require major investments. It's really minor investments compared to other infrastructure projects. The issue is taking away even a tiny fraction

by stfp 6y ago

But it doesn't require major investments. It's really minor investments compared to other infrastructure projects. The issue is taking away even a tiny fraction of car space basically triggers some kind of political road rage.

TulliusCicero 6y ago
They're minor investments practically, and major investments politically. As you say, for many motorists, giving up space on even some roads to cyclists is treated like some sort of war crime. There's very much of attitude of, "we can't just have a majority of the road space -- we need nearly all of it!"
- michael1999 6y ago
  It can be a real winner politically, depending on the electoral boundaries. Roads have such limited throughput that a new bike lane might inconvenience only a few hundred people in cars, while opening up the city to thousands of people on bikes. Once politicians figure out that calculation, it can go very quickly.
  - TulliusCicero 6y ago
    That's a fair point. But demographically, often the people most protective of car space are the ones who show up loudly at community meetings. That can have an impact.
  - adamcstephens 6y ago
    Reducing lanes, when combined with other optimizations, can actually _improve_ travel time for cars. The problem is you have to actually implement the changes in order to prove this to people.
    - Someone 6y ago
      Even more so when combined with reducing the number of cars, which adding a bike lane can easily do. If you replace 3 car lanes with n cars/lane/hour by 2 car lanes plus a bicycle lane, car traffic/lane/hour goes down as soon as you have over n cyclists/hour on that bike lane. At that density, that bike lane looks empty (https://www.boredpanda.com/space-required-to-transport-60-people https://www.boredpanda.com/space-required-to-transport-60-pe...)
      - adamcstephens 6y ago
        I couldn’t find it in a quick search, but there aren’t videos comparing similar groups getting going from stopped. Because of the delay between cars getting going it takes significantly longer for an equivalent number of cars to move through a light than the bikes.
  - WorldMaker 6y ago
    An issue in that "political favor" calculus is money: A) Cars have a tall stack of interest groups with money to throw around politically. Manufacturers, Dealerships, Gas corporations. lobbying groups including, especially, but not limited to the AAA all have skin in the game and have thrown money at politics. (In general bicycle groups are rarely as organized, rarely have much in the way of profits or income to burn on political favors.) B) Taxes. Today roads are partly paid for with gas taxes and sometimes vehicle property taxes. A lot of motorists feel so entitled to the roads simply because they see those tax numbers directly on their gas bills and vehicle registration fees and think that they own the roads because they feel like they have the receipts. (Nevermind that there is no state in the US that entirely pays for roads out of such taxes, and the "I paid for it, so I own it" fallacy seems to refuse to ever actually prorate its "ownership" against the actual small percentages any individual contributes to the total budget.)
    - selectodude 6y ago
      > Today roads are partly paid for with gas taxes and sometimes vehicle property taxes. Which is hilarious because road damage squares with the weight of the vehicle and bike lanes would need to be repaved maybe once per century.
      - fooker 6y ago
        Any place with a seasonal temperature variation needs significant road repairs every 2-3 years, if not more often.
        avidiax 6y ago
        Is that because of the cracks formed by heavy vehicles?
        yardie 6y ago
        Those are potholes. A little 2-crew job. We're talking about roadwear. Where the actual asphalt grinds down to the expose the substrate. And in particularly bad cases the substrate breaks down and the road develops ruts. Potholes are a few hundred dollars in repair, roadwear is tens of thousands.
  - autokad 6y ago
    I think you got it backwards mate. your basically asking hundreds of thousands of cars to suffer in favor of a few hundred bicyclists. Most people who bike strangely think most people want to bike but just cant. most dont want to. as an aging nation, most cant.
    - dfgdghdf 6y ago
      We can't all drive though. There is not physically enough space in an urban environment. If you don't provide good alternatives - cycling is one, trains and buses are also key - then everyone will be stuck in traffic.
      - autokad 6y ago
        I didn't say we all should drive. I am just pointing out the backwards logic of the commenter, which I am 100% correct on. Hint: I don't drive, I walk.
    - sergeykish 6y ago
      Imagine if we decided to completely eliminate sidewalk, how would it change traffic? It is not about forcing others, it is about freedom of choice. Bycicle is just one of the modes of transportation. People without choice have to use car.
      - autokad 6y ago
        that's a strawman. and also not very much. A lot of places either have no sidewalk or were already designed with a side walk and street in mind. so given that side walks usually don't even have enough space for a full lane of traffic, it would have 0 impact on traffic. Personally, I think subways should be the backbone of every city transportation system. But surprisingly even very environmentally conscious cities choose to forgo subway systems.
        sergeykish 6y ago
        Yes, that's a strawman. Subways, roads and no sidewalk at all. And your answer is 0... How? Bridges and tunnels between buildings? People evolving to fly? Every person would require door to door taxi — tremendous increase in traffic. Same with bike lanes, take them away from Amsterdam and city would choke. Every Amsterdam driver benefits from less cars on the road.
  - GVIrish 6y ago
    > Roads have such limited throughput that a new bike lane might inconvenience only a few hundred people in cars, while opening up the city to thousands of people on bikes. I think that is massively underselling the disruption to traffic. Depending on the city and the traffic patterns, hundreds of thousands or even millions of people could be commuting into a city on a given day. Reducing the car throughput on a significant portion of roads will cause backups to spread across the road network, affecting thousands. Maybe switching to bike lanes can be a net positive, but it all depends on the commuting patterns of people living and working the city. Then again, maybe if car commuting is made painful enough, it will accelerate shifts in commuting patterns. With careful planning the interests of vehicle commuters and cyclists can be balanced for maximum benefit, but I think in the long term changing zoning and development strategies will be what's needed to really make the shift.
    - sergeykish 6y ago
      Each person that's on a bike is not in a car. And bike path throughtout is much bigger.
      - GVIrish 6y ago
        Potentially. Sometimes a bike commuter is someone who would've taken the bus or subway to get to work. That said, it still depends on commuting patterns, road topography, etc. Some cities have a majority of workers driving in from distances that would be impractical for most people to bike. Making a big shift to bike lanes without making other changes to reroute and accommodate traffic would just cause gridlock and frustration for most. If shifting city centers to being bike centric is done on a longer timeline then capital improvements and redevelopment can be done to support it in a way that makes it more efficient for everyone. Some cities can do that on a shorter timeline based on current constraints, others would take longer. Ultimately I think it's the right direction to go in.
  - u801e 6y ago
    > Roads have such limited throughput that a new bike lane might inconvenience only a few hundred people in cars, while opening up the city to thousands of people on bikes. You can maintain throughput and accommodate even more people on bikes if they just ride on the streets themselves rather than confining them in narrow bike lanes. A general purpose traffic lane can accommodate far more bikes than any bike lanes possibly could.
- moistbar 6y ago
  Spoken like someone who's never driven in a city. City streets are narrow and extremely uncomfortable to drive on as it is.
  - TulliusCicero 6y ago
    That's weird, I don't remember consenting to mind reading. Of course I've driven in big cities. I agree that it's not great...which is why the solution is to make alternative options as viable as possible: walking, biking, transit. Then you don't have to drive in big cities, and more space on roads is freed up for those who do. Cities are defined by their population density, and cars by their nature are geometrically inefficient. The solution is higher efficiency modes, not doubling down on something ill-suited to its environment.
  - alex_g 6y ago
    This reads like you're someone who's never cycled in a city.
    - moistbar 6y ago
      On the contrary, if you act like a car, using the same streets as the cars is quite safe in my experience. I've safely cycled with a cello on my back by simply following the rules most cyclists claim to follow but ignore: stopping at stop lights, signalling when I'm about to turn. You know, looking out for my own safety. EDIT: If following the same rules as everyone else is too much to ask, maybe you should just stay off the road no matter what you're driving.
      - alex_g 6y ago
        If the only way to cycle safely in the city is to pretend you're a full sized motor vehicle, it sounds like you understand how ridiculous it is that the roads are designed for and devoted to cars.
        uoaei 6y ago
SllX 6y ago
The political cost within a democratic society is a reality and a real cost you have to contend with if you want to reshape how public roads are used. So, yes, the cost is high compared to switching cars.
- ErikVandeWater 6y ago
  The political cost is largely from losing lobbying $ from car companies (and possibly construction companies).
  - SllX 6y ago
    Maybe where you’re at. Where I’m at it’s mostly NIMBYs and small business owners. Either way, the source is irrelevant to the fact that it is a real cost.
    - rtlfe 6y ago
      > Where I’m at it’s mostly NIMBYs and small business owners. It's business owners here too. There are many studies showing that bike lanes create more customers than parking spaces, but the owners don't believe it and consistently act against their own interest.
  - refurb 6y ago
    Yeah, clearly the car companies are lobbying cities hard?
luckylion 6y ago
> The issue is taking away even a tiny fraction of car space basically triggers some kind of political road rage. How do you take "a tiny fraction" away from a street that has one lane in each direction to build a dedicated bike lane? Make it a one-way street and just kill traffic? It's not as simple as you make it out to be. Don't infer motivations, I don't own a car and ride my bike everywhere. It's mostly a money issue, at least where I live. That part of the budget is spent on "climate managers" (for a city of 20k) instead of improving bike infrastructure.
- estebank 6y ago
  In a significant portion of the US "high density" looks like this: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7474901,-122.4878233,3a,75y,356.53h,94.13t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sbF3xFeLraGzkv0h0rUo-GQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DbF3xFeLraGzkv0h0rUo-GQ%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D33.027905%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7474901,-122.4878233,3a,75y,...
  - luckylion 6y ago
    And that looks trivial to work with. I'm from Europe where most towns have grown very organically over centuries, there are fewer multi-lane streets (and it's essentially unheard of in residential areas) and it's crowded. Quite a few people would welcome better bike infrastructure over here, but it's hard to do. The opposite seems to be true in the US.
- megablast 6y ago
  One way streets. Killing traffic is good.
closeparen 6y ago
Cycling is suited to distances of a few miles. Within a few miles of a sprawl house there are only other sprawl houses. The mix and layout of buildings and uses also needs to be overhauled so that putting reasonable numbers of hours/calories into a bike gets you somewhere useful.
- mjevans 6y ago
  In the US we'd be better off refactoring cities with a goal of 'Caves of Steel' (Asimov), which would put far more within biking and walking distance as the core of the city expanded outwards. This seems likely to work better in areas that aren't as geographically constrained. Seattle, for example, has far too much water around it and industrial areas near that. It'd be a good one-shot conversion though.
- upofadown 6y ago
  Walking is only suited to distances of a few miles. People walk at 3 mph. Bikes are 4-5 times faster than walking.
- dublinben 6y ago
  In the US nearly 30 percent of trips are a mile or shorter, 40 percent are two miles or shorter and 50 percent are three miles or shorter.[0] These distances can be easily covered on foot or bike with minimal change in infrastructure. [0] https://www.bikeleague.org/content/national-household-travel-survey-short-trips-analysis https://www.bikeleague.org/content/national-household-travel...
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    Wouldn't those three mile or less trips usually be for transporting cargo that wouldn't fit on a bike?
    - eCa 6y ago
      There are bikes that can take fairly large loads[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freight_bicycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freight_bicycle
moistbar 6y ago
I don't know if you've ever driven in an American city, but those streets can barely fit a single lane of car traffic in some cases. Philadelphia in particular has streets so narrow that the line of parked cars along the side is enough to basically block the whole street. It's already incredibly uncomfortable to drive on those streets, so I don't get why you're so surprised that people would be angry about further increasing their already quite high levels of discomfort.
- papertokyo 6y ago
  The majority of streets in American cities are massive. Single lane streets are generally slower traffic so separated cycle lanes aren't necessary...just some markings to remind drivers that cyclists might use this part of the road. Paris has a lot of those.
  - moistbar 6y ago
    The bike lanes in the east coast cities I've been to aren't safe for cyclists and do nothing but take up breathing room for drivers. It's not uncommon to see a bike lane disappear after 50 feet because there was no space to continue it.
- occz 6y ago
  It should not be comfortable to drive around in a city. You are in a place with lots of people you can harm with your vehicle if you drive around fast, you should be driving slowly and paying close attention to your surroundings. Proper bicycle infrastructure (separated bike lanes etc.) and quality public transportation is the solution - the comfortable option should generally be to take a train/metro/bus/tram/boat.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    If uncomfortable drivers were good drivers tanks and fork lifts wouldn't have seat cushions. Unless cars are different than every piece of heavy equipment and industrial machinery ever (which have been studied into oblivion because there's money at stake) comfortable drivers are safe/effective/better drivers because it reduces cognitive load allowing operators to be more attentive to second order things (mirrors, what the car in front of the car in front of them is doing and so on). I agree we need much more public transit and bike lanes. I think most car commuters would switch to subway at the city outskirts if the value prop was good enough.
jedberg 6y ago
The major investment I’m referring to is tearing down houses and building mixed use buildings. Otherwise in most cities biking is impractical because of a lack of commercial space near residential.
- rtlfe 6y ago
  1. If you change the laws to simply allow more density and mixed use, things will start changing soon. Especially in high-cost cities. Governments don't need to invest any money here, just time. 2. People tend to underestimate how far you can easily go on a bike. The house I grew up in on the outskirts of a rural town is 5 miles from the supermarket, which sounds far but should take only about 20 minutes.
vishnugupta 6y ago
> But it doesn't require major investments. Having lived and cycled in Amsterdam to me it did seem like a major investment. Sure if one were to design a greenfield city then it’s not a big deal. But to pivot a car centric city to safely accommodate cyclists is a major change. The city residents have to go through the transition process which isn’t going to be fun. I’ve seen it done half ass way in India and US which end up being deadly for cyclists. I am all for cycling, I absolutely loved my two year stint at Amsterdam. It’s a life changing experience. But let’s not underestimate the costs involved in transition. Also, the city residents have to be onboard with the process, as they are the biggest stakeholders. Otherwise the implementation will get dumped half way through with disastrous results.
- bww 6y ago
  The second part there is the key. Bikes work just fine on roads built for cars and building bike lanes is dirt cheap compared to pretty much any other kind of infrastructure project. You do, however, need the political will to actually take that space from cars and reallocate it to bikes and pedestrians. In urban areas that are already dense this can be done without any significant infrastructue investments by simply changing how the traffic patterns work on existing roads. A good example of this is Barcelona's "superblocks": https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/4/9/18300797/barcelona-spain-superblocks-urban-plan https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/4/9/18300797...
- rtlfe 6y ago
  Amsterdam in the 1960s was just as full of cars as US cities are today. Here's some video: https://www.reddit.com/r/Amsterdam/comments/d3484b/amsterdam_1960_vs_today/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Amsterdam/comments/d3484b/amsterdam... If we start today and incorporate the lessons they've learned, it hopefully won't take us 60 years to get there.
- zip1234 6y ago
  Amsterdam had to figure it out the hard way. When they did it, nobody even knew what to do. Now that they have done the hard work, the patterns can be copied elsewhere. What I am talking about are the junction designs, bike path designs, etc. These need to be taught to every road engineer in the world.
Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
>The issue is taking away even a tiny fraction of car space basically triggers some kind of political road rage. I don't think that's a fair comparison. I live in what many outsiders consider a bike friendly city though in reality it's impractical and unsafe to bike most places. If you're willing to also walk/bus your bike, flout local law on bicycling in pedestrian areas, and bike on major thoroughfares without bike lanes between travel lanes and parked cars then I suppose you'll be happy. That is until you get door checked, run off the road, ticketed, or hit. Redesigning just the main streets and their auxiliaries would require making tough choices like one way roads that you'll cause you to drive considerably further to your destination. Removing on street parking, when our city already has a parking deficit. Removing the verges where they exist to accommodate bike lanes. On the many streets without verges the options are one way traffic or no parking, mixed use lanes for truck traffic and bicycles is unsafe. I suppose the buildings on one side could be seized under eminent domain, but that just balloons the cost and time scale. All this is too say that without widespread infrastructure, especially between cities, biking is facing an uphill climb to widespread adoption. People want to be safe on their commutes. They want their bikes and cars safe while they work and shop. Designing And building infrastructure for bikes in cities that have been maximally developed is an incredibly and wastefully expensive exercise in compromise that does little to meaningfully reduce vehicular traffic.
- rtlfe 6y ago
  > Removing on street parking, when our city already has a parking deficit. Building free/cheap parking spaces creates a dependency spiral where there's never enough. Counterintuitively, the best way to meet parking demand is to start reducing the number of spaces and charge more for them. https://mobilitylab.org/2017/07/19/voxmobility-lab-video-high-cost-free-parking/ https://mobilitylab.org/2017/07/19/voxmobility-lab-video-hig...
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
    I'm not disagreeing with that. What I'm saying, because my city has tried this, is that removing parking pushes people into residential neighborhoods and illegal parking. Despite spending a lot of money of adding bike lanes to a few roads the number of bikers in my city remains flat. To change this we'd need to massively expand public transportation and convert all non-residential roads into dual use vehicle and bike divided roads. It sucks but people don't change easily.
stjohnswarts 6y ago
That's because there are so few people who bike. Around here it's probably 2 or 3% max (Austin) if that. Also drivers here are so aggressive towards bikes (and the USA in general) it's just not safe. Bikes really need dedicated routes as far away from cars as possible.

by stfp 6y ago

TulliusCicero 6y ago

They're minor investments practically, and major investments politically. As you say, for many motorists, giving up space on even some roads to cyclists is treated like some sort of war crime. There's very much of attitude of, "we can't just have a majority of the road space -- we need nearly all of it!"

michael1999 6y ago
It can be a real winner politically, depending on the electoral boundaries. Roads have such limited throughput that a new bike lane might inconvenience only a few hundred people in cars, while opening up the city to thousands of people on bikes. Once politicians figure out that calculation, it can go very quickly.
- TulliusCicero 6y ago
  That's a fair point. But demographically, often the people most protective of car space are the ones who show up loudly at community meetings. That can have an impact.
- adamcstephens 6y ago
  Reducing lanes, when combined with other optimizations, can actually _improve_ travel time for cars. The problem is you have to actually implement the changes in order to prove this to people.
  - Someone 6y ago
    Even more so when combined with reducing the number of cars, which adding a bike lane can easily do. If you replace 3 car lanes with n cars/lane/hour by 2 car lanes plus a bicycle lane, car traffic/lane/hour goes down as soon as you have over n cyclists/hour on that bike lane. At that density, that bike lane looks empty (https://www.boredpanda.com/space-required-to-transport-60-people https://www.boredpanda.com/space-required-to-transport-60-pe...)
    - adamcstephens 6y ago
      I couldn’t find it in a quick search, but there aren’t videos comparing similar groups getting going from stopped. Because of the delay between cars getting going it takes significantly longer for an equivalent number of cars to move through a light than the bikes.
- WorldMaker 6y ago
  An issue in that "political favor" calculus is money: A) Cars have a tall stack of interest groups with money to throw around politically. Manufacturers, Dealerships, Gas corporations. lobbying groups including, especially, but not limited to the AAA all have skin in the game and have thrown money at politics. (In general bicycle groups are rarely as organized, rarely have much in the way of profits or income to burn on political favors.) B) Taxes. Today roads are partly paid for with gas taxes and sometimes vehicle property taxes. A lot of motorists feel so entitled to the roads simply because they see those tax numbers directly on their gas bills and vehicle registration fees and think that they own the roads because they feel like they have the receipts. (Nevermind that there is no state in the US that entirely pays for roads out of such taxes, and the "I paid for it, so I own it" fallacy seems to refuse to ever actually prorate its "ownership" against the actual small percentages any individual contributes to the total budget.)
  - selectodude 6y ago
    > Today roads are partly paid for with gas taxes and sometimes vehicle property taxes. Which is hilarious because road damage squares with the weight of the vehicle and bike lanes would need to be repaved maybe once per century.
    - fooker 6y ago
      Any place with a seasonal temperature variation needs significant road repairs every 2-3 years, if not more often.
      - avidiax 6y ago
        Is that because of the cracks formed by heavy vehicles?
      - yardie 6y ago
        Those are potholes. A little 2-crew job. We're talking about roadwear. Where the actual asphalt grinds down to the expose the substrate. And in particularly bad cases the substrate breaks down and the road develops ruts. Potholes are a few hundred dollars in repair, roadwear is tens of thousands.
- autokad 6y ago
  I think you got it backwards mate. your basically asking hundreds of thousands of cars to suffer in favor of a few hundred bicyclists. Most people who bike strangely think most people want to bike but just cant. most dont want to. as an aging nation, most cant.
  - dfgdghdf 6y ago
    We can't all drive though. There is not physically enough space in an urban environment. If you don't provide good alternatives - cycling is one, trains and buses are also key - then everyone will be stuck in traffic.
    - autokad 6y ago
      I didn't say we all should drive. I am just pointing out the backwards logic of the commenter, which I am 100% correct on. Hint: I don't drive, I walk.
  - sergeykish 6y ago
    Imagine if we decided to completely eliminate sidewalk, how would it change traffic? It is not about forcing others, it is about freedom of choice. Bycicle is just one of the modes of transportation. People without choice have to use car.
    - autokad 6y ago
      that's a strawman. and also not very much. A lot of places either have no sidewalk or were already designed with a side walk and street in mind. so given that side walks usually don't even have enough space for a full lane of traffic, it would have 0 impact on traffic. Personally, I think subways should be the backbone of every city transportation system. But surprisingly even very environmentally conscious cities choose to forgo subway systems.
      - sergeykish 6y ago
        Yes, that's a strawman. Subways, roads and no sidewalk at all. And your answer is 0... How? Bridges and tunnels between buildings? People evolving to fly? Every person would require door to door taxi — tremendous increase in traffic. Same with bike lanes, take them away from Amsterdam and city would choke. Every Amsterdam driver benefits from less cars on the road.
- GVIrish 6y ago
  > Roads have such limited throughput that a new bike lane might inconvenience only a few hundred people in cars, while opening up the city to thousands of people on bikes. I think that is massively underselling the disruption to traffic. Depending on the city and the traffic patterns, hundreds of thousands or even millions of people could be commuting into a city on a given day. Reducing the car throughput on a significant portion of roads will cause backups to spread across the road network, affecting thousands. Maybe switching to bike lanes can be a net positive, but it all depends on the commuting patterns of people living and working the city. Then again, maybe if car commuting is made painful enough, it will accelerate shifts in commuting patterns. With careful planning the interests of vehicle commuters and cyclists can be balanced for maximum benefit, but I think in the long term changing zoning and development strategies will be what's needed to really make the shift.
  - sergeykish 6y ago
    Each person that's on a bike is not in a car. And bike path throughtout is much bigger.
    - GVIrish 6y ago
      Potentially. Sometimes a bike commuter is someone who would've taken the bus or subway to get to work. That said, it still depends on commuting patterns, road topography, etc. Some cities have a majority of workers driving in from distances that would be impractical for most people to bike. Making a big shift to bike lanes without making other changes to reroute and accommodate traffic would just cause gridlock and frustration for most. If shifting city centers to being bike centric is done on a longer timeline then capital improvements and redevelopment can be done to support it in a way that makes it more efficient for everyone. Some cities can do that on a shorter timeline based on current constraints, others would take longer. Ultimately I think it's the right direction to go in.
- u801e 6y ago
  > Roads have such limited throughput that a new bike lane might inconvenience only a few hundred people in cars, while opening up the city to thousands of people on bikes. You can maintain throughput and accommodate even more people on bikes if they just ride on the streets themselves rather than confining them in narrow bike lanes. A general purpose traffic lane can accommodate far more bikes than any bike lanes possibly could.
moistbar 6y ago
Spoken like someone who's never driven in a city. City streets are narrow and extremely uncomfortable to drive on as it is.
- TulliusCicero 6y ago
  That's weird, I don't remember consenting to mind reading. Of course I've driven in big cities. I agree that it's not great...which is why the solution is to make alternative options as viable as possible: walking, biking, transit. Then you don't have to drive in big cities, and more space on roads is freed up for those who do. Cities are defined by their population density, and cars by their nature are geometrically inefficient. The solution is higher efficiency modes, not doubling down on something ill-suited to its environment.
- alex_g 6y ago
  This reads like you're someone who's never cycled in a city.
  - moistbar 6y ago
    On the contrary, if you act like a car, using the same streets as the cars is quite safe in my experience. I've safely cycled with a cello on my back by simply following the rules most cyclists claim to follow but ignore: stopping at stop lights, signalling when I'm about to turn. You know, looking out for my own safety. EDIT: If following the same rules as everyone else is too much to ask, maybe you should just stay off the road no matter what you're driving.
    - alex_g 6y ago
      If the only way to cycle safely in the city is to pretend you're a full sized motor vehicle, it sounds like you understand how ridiculous it is that the roads are designed for and devoted to cars.
      - uoaei 6y ago

SllX 6y ago

The political cost within a democratic society is a reality and a real cost you have to contend with if you want to reshape how public roads are used. So, yes, the cost is high compared to switching cars.

ErikVandeWater 6y ago
The political cost is largely from losing lobbying $ from car companies (and possibly construction companies).
- SllX 6y ago
  Maybe where you’re at. Where I’m at it’s mostly NIMBYs and small business owners. Either way, the source is irrelevant to the fact that it is a real cost.
  - rtlfe 6y ago
    > Where I’m at it’s mostly NIMBYs and small business owners. It's business owners here too. There are many studies showing that bike lanes create more customers than parking spaces, but the owners don't believe it and consistently act against their own interest.
- refurb 6y ago
  Yeah, clearly the car companies are lobbying cities hard?

luckylion 6y ago

> The issue is taking away even a tiny fraction of car space basically triggers some kind of political road rage. How do you take "a tiny fraction" away from a street that has one lane in each direction to build a dedicated bike lane? Make it a one-way street and just kill traffic? It's not as simple as you make it out to be. Don't infer motivations, I don't own a car and ride my bike everywhere. It's mostly a money issue, at least where I live. That part of the budget is spent on "climate managers" (for a city of 20k) instead of improving bike infrastructure.

estebank 6y ago
In a significant portion of the US "high density" looks like this: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7474901,-122.4878233,3a,75y,356.53h,94.13t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sbF3xFeLraGzkv0h0rUo-GQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DbF3xFeLraGzkv0h0rUo-GQ%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D33.027905%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7474901,-122.4878233,3a,75y,...
- luckylion 6y ago
  And that looks trivial to work with. I'm from Europe where most towns have grown very organically over centuries, there are fewer multi-lane streets (and it's essentially unheard of in residential areas) and it's crowded. Quite a few people would welcome better bike infrastructure over here, but it's hard to do. The opposite seems to be true in the US.
megablast 6y ago
One way streets. Killing traffic is good.

closeparen 6y ago

Cycling is suited to distances of a few miles. Within a few miles of a sprawl house there are only other sprawl houses. The mix and layout of buildings and uses also needs to be overhauled so that putting reasonable numbers of hours/calories into a bike gets you somewhere useful.

mjevans 6y ago
In the US we'd be better off refactoring cities with a goal of 'Caves of Steel' (Asimov), which would put far more within biking and walking distance as the core of the city expanded outwards. This seems likely to work better in areas that aren't as geographically constrained. Seattle, for example, has far too much water around it and industrial areas near that. It'd be a good one-shot conversion though.
upofadown 6y ago
Walking is only suited to distances of a few miles. People walk at 3 mph. Bikes are 4-5 times faster than walking.
dublinben 6y ago
In the US nearly 30 percent of trips are a mile or shorter, 40 percent are two miles or shorter and 50 percent are three miles or shorter.[0] These distances can be easily covered on foot or bike with minimal change in infrastructure. [0] https://www.bikeleague.org/content/national-household-travel-survey-short-trips-analysis https://www.bikeleague.org/content/national-household-travel...
- nitrogen 6y ago
  Wouldn't those three mile or less trips usually be for transporting cargo that wouldn't fit on a bike?
  - eCa 6y ago
    There are bikes that can take fairly large loads[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freight_bicycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freight_bicycle

moistbar 6y ago

I don't know if you've ever driven in an American city, but those streets can barely fit a single lane of car traffic in some cases. Philadelphia in particular has streets so narrow that the line of parked cars along the side is enough to basically block the whole street. It's already incredibly uncomfortable to drive on those streets, so I don't get why you're so surprised that people would be angry about further increasing their already quite high levels of discomfort.

papertokyo 6y ago
The majority of streets in American cities are massive. Single lane streets are generally slower traffic so separated cycle lanes aren't necessary...just some markings to remind drivers that cyclists might use this part of the road. Paris has a lot of those.
- moistbar 6y ago
  The bike lanes in the east coast cities I've been to aren't safe for cyclists and do nothing but take up breathing room for drivers. It's not uncommon to see a bike lane disappear after 50 feet because there was no space to continue it.
occz 6y ago
It should not be comfortable to drive around in a city. You are in a place with lots of people you can harm with your vehicle if you drive around fast, you should be driving slowly and paying close attention to your surroundings. Proper bicycle infrastructure (separated bike lanes etc.) and quality public transportation is the solution - the comfortable option should generally be to take a train/metro/bus/tram/boat.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  If uncomfortable drivers were good drivers tanks and fork lifts wouldn't have seat cushions. Unless cars are different than every piece of heavy equipment and industrial machinery ever (which have been studied into oblivion because there's money at stake) comfortable drivers are safe/effective/better drivers because it reduces cognitive load allowing operators to be more attentive to second order things (mirrors, what the car in front of the car in front of them is doing and so on). I agree we need much more public transit and bike lanes. I think most car commuters would switch to subway at the city outskirts if the value prop was good enough.

jedberg 6y ago

The major investment I’m referring to is tearing down houses and building mixed use buildings. Otherwise in most cities biking is impractical because of a lack of commercial space near residential.

rtlfe 6y ago
1. If you change the laws to simply allow more density and mixed use, things will start changing soon. Especially in high-cost cities. Governments don't need to invest any money here, just time. 2. People tend to underestimate how far you can easily go on a bike. The house I grew up in on the outskirts of a rural town is 5 miles from the supermarket, which sounds far but should take only about 20 minutes.

vishnugupta 6y ago

> But it doesn't require major investments. Having lived and cycled in Amsterdam to me it did seem like a major investment. Sure if one were to design a greenfield city then it’s not a big deal. But to pivot a car centric city to safely accommodate cyclists is a major change. The city residents have to go through the transition process which isn’t going to be fun. I’ve seen it done half ass way in India and US which end up being deadly for cyclists. I am all for cycling, I absolutely loved my two year stint at Amsterdam. It’s a life changing experience. But let’s not underestimate the costs involved in transition. Also, the city residents have to be onboard with the process, as they are the biggest stakeholders. Otherwise the implementation will get dumped half way through with disastrous results.

bww 6y ago
The second part there is the key. Bikes work just fine on roads built for cars and building bike lanes is dirt cheap compared to pretty much any other kind of infrastructure project. You do, however, need the political will to actually take that space from cars and reallocate it to bikes and pedestrians. In urban areas that are already dense this can be done without any significant infrastructue investments by simply changing how the traffic patterns work on existing roads. A good example of this is Barcelona's "superblocks": https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/4/9/18300797/barcelona-spain-superblocks-urban-plan https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/4/9/18300797...
rtlfe 6y ago
Amsterdam in the 1960s was just as full of cars as US cities are today. Here's some video: https://www.reddit.com/r/Amsterdam/comments/d3484b/amsterdam_1960_vs_today/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Amsterdam/comments/d3484b/amsterdam... If we start today and incorporate the lessons they've learned, it hopefully won't take us 60 years to get there.
zip1234 6y ago
Amsterdam had to figure it out the hard way. When they did it, nobody even knew what to do. Now that they have done the hard work, the patterns can be copied elsewhere. What I am talking about are the junction designs, bike path designs, etc. These need to be taught to every road engineer in the world.

Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago

>The issue is taking away even a tiny fraction of car space basically triggers some kind of political road rage. I don't think that's a fair comparison. I live in what many outsiders consider a bike friendly city though in reality it's impractical and unsafe to bike most places. If you're willing to also walk/bus your bike, flout local law on bicycling in pedestrian areas, and bike on major thoroughfares without bike lanes between travel lanes and parked cars then I suppose you'll be happy. That is until you get door checked, run off the road, ticketed, or hit. Redesigning just the main streets and their auxiliaries would require making tough choices like one way roads that you'll cause you to drive considerably further to your destination. Removing on street parking, when our city already has a parking deficit. Removing the verges where they exist to accommodate bike lanes. On the many streets without verges the options are one way traffic or no parking, mixed use lanes for truck traffic and bicycles is unsafe. I suppose the buildings on one side could be seized under eminent domain, but that just balloons the cost and time scale. All this is too say that without widespread infrastructure, especially between cities, biking is facing an uphill climb to widespread adoption. People want to be safe on their commutes. They want their bikes and cars safe while they work and shop. Designing And building infrastructure for bikes in cities that have been maximally developed is an incredibly and wastefully expensive exercise in compromise that does little to meaningfully reduce vehicular traffic.

rtlfe 6y ago
> Removing on street parking, when our city already has a parking deficit. Building free/cheap parking spaces creates a dependency spiral where there's never enough. Counterintuitively, the best way to meet parking demand is to start reducing the number of spaces and charge more for them. https://mobilitylab.org/2017/07/19/voxmobility-lab-video-high-cost-free-parking/ https://mobilitylab.org/2017/07/19/voxmobility-lab-video-hig...
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
  I'm not disagreeing with that. What I'm saying, because my city has tried this, is that removing parking pushes people into residential neighborhoods and illegal parking. Despite spending a lot of money of adding bike lanes to a few roads the number of bikers in my city remains flat. To change this we'd need to massively expand public transportation and convert all non-residential roads into dual use vehicle and bike divided roads. It sucks but people don't change easily.

stjohnswarts 6y ago

That's because there are so few people who bike. Around here it's probably 2 or 3% max (Austin) if that. Also drivers here are so aggressive towards bikes (and the USA in general) it's just not safe. Bikes really need dedicated routes as far away from cars as possible.