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As both a cyclist and pedestrian, I definitely prefer bikes off the sidewalk. Even conscientious cyclists who call “on your left” or whatever routinely underest

As both a cyclist and pedestrian, I definitely prefer bikes off the sidewalk. Even conscientious cyclists who call “on your left” or whatever routinely underestimate the necessary reaction time and overestimate how far their voice will carry. Even if they get both of those right, they’ve frequently terrified my pup by just being faster and louder and larger than anything on foot she’s ever met. I’ve had to return home and restart our entire morning/evening because of this countless times. I don’t feel as strongly about separated bike infrastructure, mainly because my experience with it is that it’s more dangerous than riding in auto lanes, and that it creates an illusion of separation that both heightens that danger and heightens the dangerous attitudes of drivers trying to navigate it. I’m sure it’s better where the infrastructure is better, but where I live I choose to ride my bike away from those accommodations and right in traffic with the cars and drivers who flow together with me.

crooked-v 4y ago
> separated bike infrastructure > drivers trying to navigate it Well, there's your problem - it's not actually separated.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  Yep, that is exactly my problem.
- michaelt 4y ago
  If you have a T junction, either you're going to have the car path going through the bike path, or you'll need a bridge or tunnel. And the best places for cycle commuting have high density - meaning more T junctions per mile. 'Truly separated' bike infrastructure isn't easy.
snuxoll 4y ago
> I don’t feel as strongly about separated bike infrastructure, mainly because my experience with it is that it’s more dangerous than riding in auto lanes, and that it creates an illusion of separation that both heightens that danger and heightens the dangerous attitudes of drivers trying to navigate it. That's why I specifically said "dedicated infrastructure", painted bicycle gutters are NOT proper bicycle infrastructure either. Bicycles should be at grade with pedestrians, but on dedicated cycling pathways so there's no conflict between the medium-speed traffic from bikes and the low-speed pedestrian traffic (even though they may often run parallel with each other). Ultimately I call it "bike infrastructure", but really it's better to think about it this way - we have three different speed classes that need dedicated rights of way to make sure everyone is safe. High speed / automobiles - It's not just cars and trucks, motorcycles and high end electric scooters belong here as well (I don't share space with bikes when I'm going 40MPH on my eScooter, it's unsafe for cyclists and dangerous for me as well - so I take normal travel lanes because I'm going the speed of traffic anyway). Medium speed / bikes / eBikes / lower end electric scooters / EUCs / etc - Things that have a top speed of 20-30MPH generally speaking. Doesn't need wide lanes, and ideally should have more direct routes with fewer stops to conserve momentum. Low speed / pedestrians / mobility scooters / etc - Obvious, you're going 5-6MPH max here even if you're out taking a run.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  > painted bicycle gutters are NOT proper bicycle infrastructure either To be clear, where I live there are recently installed “dedicated” bike routes which are separated from car traffic by concrete barriers and curbs, and also separated from pedestrian traffic by curbs and intermittent heavy ceramic planters. The problem is that the separations are interrupted to allow turns and deliveries. All of the separation is partial. I feel a ton safer in a painted gutter, and much safer still in the middle of a car-wide lane. To make matters worse, the particular “dedicated” infrastructure I’m thinking of is on the left side of a one-way street and introduced complicated signal timings that surprise even regular riders and drivers. I’ve posted this before here and elsewhere: when I have to go somewhere in that part of the city and have to brave even a stretch of the route, I deliberately choose to be in car traffic even with drivers irrationally yelling at me to get in the bike lane and trying to run me off the road with their cars, because it feels safer than being in the bike space. The theory of dedicated bike infrastructure is interesting to me, but what I’ve seen in practice where I live mostly motivates me to ride on roads with sharrows right in the middle of the road clearly indicating that I’m allowed to be there even if every single driver forgot their driving instruction.
  - snuxoll 4y ago
    Growing pains will be around for decades, unfortunately. Cycling needs to reach a critical mass before cities and regions decide to start de-prioritizing cars to alleviate exactly the issues you have with improved infrastructure. The Netherlands has been working on their infrastructure for over 40 years and keep finding new and unexpected problems that you simply don't discover until you have more bicycles than cars, like parking (when you start down this path you just imagine putting posts everywhere for people to lock up to, eventually you need dedicated parking facilities just to keep bikes from littering the streets like cars already do)! We'll get there someday, every great journey begins with the first step, so until we catch up I wouldn't fault you for continuing to take a travel lane.
    - eyelidlessness 4y ago
      > Growing pains will be around for decades, unfortunately. Cycling needs to reach a critical mass before cities and regions decide to start de-prioritizing cars to alleviate exactly the issues you have with improved infrastructure. No, we’ve been through those growing pains. Riding almost anywhere in the city is delightful and I have no issues with drivers or pedestrians. Walking is only an issue when cyclists take the sidewalk to avoid construction. Literally the only place I fear for my safety riding in Seattle is in or beside the “dedicated” bike lanes which are poorly designed and dangerous. Several steps were taken before I could say this, I’m sure you’re correct that other places need to take them too. But in my city the steps which they took to make shared traffic routes safer have been much more effective at least for my own sense of safety than the hazardous steps they’ve taken getting dedicated infrastructure wrong.
krisoft 4y ago
> Even conscientious cyclists who call “on your left” or whatever routinely underestimate the necessary reaction time and overestimate how far their voice will carry. You are absolutely right. As a cyclist there isn’t really any good way to reliably avoid startling a pedestrian in a mixed environment. Even if you do the even more conscientious thing and you slow all the way down to match speed with them, and then “walk” with their speed for seconds and softly anounce your presence with an “excuse me” there are still some who get startled. I have had people act after all of that as if I tried to murder them. And I totally understand them! From their perspective they were all alone and “all of a sudden” a cyclist poped into existence behind them. And in their subjective reality they have just avoided a collision by jumping out of the way of some “crazy speeding biker”, but that biker only exists in their imagination. An outside observer would see a bike slowly catching up and matching speed with them, with zero chance of collision no matter what they might do, but that is not what they seem to experience.
- toast0 4y ago
  > As a cyclist there isn’t really any good way to reliably avoid startling a pedestrian in a mixed environment. A loud freewheel is probably as close as it gets. I'd guess a loud freehub could work too, but I like my bikes old, so no freehubs. Maybe some sort of jetsons noise generator.
  - abecedarius 4y ago
    Some people are deaf or hard of hearing. In my experience, though, the worst sidewalk speeders are on skateboards or scooters. (I'm not saying you shouldn't skate; rather, when there was a close call or a collision, that's what they were barreling by on.)
  - Gud 4y ago
    Where do you guys live? Here in Sweden we have a small bell on the steering you ring when you want to pass. https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&channel=iphone_bm&q=cykel+ringklocka&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi2i8aujv35AhXNX_EDHT0gAKwQ0pQJegQICxAB&biw=390&bih=664&dpr=3 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&channel=iphone_b...
questiondev 4y ago
bikes honestly should follow pedestrians, a bike is not a car and the person who will be the most amount of injured will be the person on the bike over the person of the car. so maybe have both car and bike be able to see each other in bike lanes, and keep the sidewalks to the cars. there really should be an initiative to expand the shoulders in rural america. lost of places in america are not even walking friendly. america decided to be different and make cars the main focus which is killing us (toxic gas fumes everywhere)

crooked-v 4y ago

> separated bike infrastructure > drivers trying to navigate it Well, there's your problem - it's not actually separated.

eyelidlessness 4y ago
Yep, that is exactly my problem.
michaelt 4y ago
If you have a T junction, either you're going to have the car path going through the bike path, or you'll need a bridge or tunnel. And the best places for cycle commuting have high density - meaning more T junctions per mile. 'Truly separated' bike infrastructure isn't easy.

snuxoll 4y ago

> I don’t feel as strongly about separated bike infrastructure, mainly because my experience with it is that it’s more dangerous than riding in auto lanes, and that it creates an illusion of separation that both heightens that danger and heightens the dangerous attitudes of drivers trying to navigate it. That's why I specifically said "dedicated infrastructure", painted bicycle gutters are NOT proper bicycle infrastructure either. Bicycles should be at grade with pedestrians, but on dedicated cycling pathways so there's no conflict between the medium-speed traffic from bikes and the low-speed pedestrian traffic (even though they may often run parallel with each other). Ultimately I call it "bike infrastructure", but really it's better to think about it this way - we have three different speed classes that need dedicated rights of way to make sure everyone is safe. High speed / automobiles - It's not just cars and trucks, motorcycles and high end electric scooters belong here as well (I don't share space with bikes when I'm going 40MPH on my eScooter, it's unsafe for cyclists and dangerous for me as well - so I take normal travel lanes because I'm going the speed of traffic anyway). Medium speed / bikes / eBikes / lower end electric scooters / EUCs / etc - Things that have a top speed of 20-30MPH generally speaking. Doesn't need wide lanes, and ideally should have more direct routes with fewer stops to conserve momentum. Low speed / pedestrians / mobility scooters / etc - Obvious, you're going 5-6MPH max here even if you're out taking a run.

eyelidlessness 4y ago
> painted bicycle gutters are NOT proper bicycle infrastructure either To be clear, where I live there are recently installed “dedicated” bike routes which are separated from car traffic by concrete barriers and curbs, and also separated from pedestrian traffic by curbs and intermittent heavy ceramic planters. The problem is that the separations are interrupted to allow turns and deliveries. All of the separation is partial. I feel a ton safer in a painted gutter, and much safer still in the middle of a car-wide lane. To make matters worse, the particular “dedicated” infrastructure I’m thinking of is on the left side of a one-way street and introduced complicated signal timings that surprise even regular riders and drivers. I’ve posted this before here and elsewhere: when I have to go somewhere in that part of the city and have to brave even a stretch of the route, I deliberately choose to be in car traffic even with drivers irrationally yelling at me to get in the bike lane and trying to run me off the road with their cars, because it feels safer than being in the bike space. The theory of dedicated bike infrastructure is interesting to me, but what I’ve seen in practice where I live mostly motivates me to ride on roads with sharrows right in the middle of the road clearly indicating that I’m allowed to be there even if every single driver forgot their driving instruction.
- snuxoll 4y ago
  Growing pains will be around for decades, unfortunately. Cycling needs to reach a critical mass before cities and regions decide to start de-prioritizing cars to alleviate exactly the issues you have with improved infrastructure. The Netherlands has been working on their infrastructure for over 40 years and keep finding new and unexpected problems that you simply don't discover until you have more bicycles than cars, like parking (when you start down this path you just imagine putting posts everywhere for people to lock up to, eventually you need dedicated parking facilities just to keep bikes from littering the streets like cars already do)! We'll get there someday, every great journey begins with the first step, so until we catch up I wouldn't fault you for continuing to take a travel lane.
  - eyelidlessness 4y ago
    > Growing pains will be around for decades, unfortunately. Cycling needs to reach a critical mass before cities and regions decide to start de-prioritizing cars to alleviate exactly the issues you have with improved infrastructure. No, we’ve been through those growing pains. Riding almost anywhere in the city is delightful and I have no issues with drivers or pedestrians. Walking is only an issue when cyclists take the sidewalk to avoid construction. Literally the only place I fear for my safety riding in Seattle is in or beside the “dedicated” bike lanes which are poorly designed and dangerous. Several steps were taken before I could say this, I’m sure you’re correct that other places need to take them too. But in my city the steps which they took to make shared traffic routes safer have been much more effective at least for my own sense of safety than the hazardous steps they’ve taken getting dedicated infrastructure wrong.

krisoft 4y ago

> Even conscientious cyclists who call “on your left” or whatever routinely underestimate the necessary reaction time and overestimate how far their voice will carry. You are absolutely right. As a cyclist there isn’t really any good way to reliably avoid startling a pedestrian in a mixed environment. Even if you do the even more conscientious thing and you slow all the way down to match speed with them, and then “walk” with their speed for seconds and softly anounce your presence with an “excuse me” there are still some who get startled. I have had people act after all of that as if I tried to murder them. And I totally understand them! From their perspective they were all alone and “all of a sudden” a cyclist poped into existence behind them. And in their subjective reality they have just avoided a collision by jumping out of the way of some “crazy speeding biker”, but that biker only exists in their imagination. An outside observer would see a bike slowly catching up and matching speed with them, with zero chance of collision no matter what they might do, but that is not what they seem to experience.

toast0 4y ago
> As a cyclist there isn’t really any good way to reliably avoid startling a pedestrian in a mixed environment. A loud freewheel is probably as close as it gets. I'd guess a loud freehub could work too, but I like my bikes old, so no freehubs. Maybe some sort of jetsons noise generator.
- abecedarius 4y ago
  Some people are deaf or hard of hearing. In my experience, though, the worst sidewalk speeders are on skateboards or scooters. (I'm not saying you shouldn't skate; rather, when there was a close call or a collision, that's what they were barreling by on.)
- Gud 4y ago
  Where do you guys live? Here in Sweden we have a small bell on the steering you ring when you want to pass. https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&channel=iphone_bm&q=cykel+ringklocka&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi2i8aujv35AhXNX_EDHT0gAKwQ0pQJegQICxAB&biw=390&bih=664&dpr=3 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&channel=iphone_b...

questiondev 4y ago

bikes honestly should follow pedestrians, a bike is not a car and the person who will be the most amount of injured will be the person on the bike over the person of the car. so maybe have both car and bike be able to see each other in bike lanes, and keep the sidewalks to the cars. there really should be an initiative to expand the shoulders in rural america. lost of places in america are not even walking friendly. america decided to be different and make cars the main focus which is killing us (toxic gas fumes everywhere)