6 ms·

I don’t understand take that this is not possible due to disabled people, winter, hills. Climate and city planning is an incremental problem. Just 2 new bike la

by larve 4y ago

I don’t understand take that this is not possible due to disabled people, winter, hills. Climate and city planning is an incremental problem. Just 2 new bike lanes significantly change the way I am able to commute, even far into the winter, and when it’s raining or snowing I switch to car or public transport. I live in a reasonably bike friendly city for us standards, and it’s clear that some overhauls have made the road much more efficient for cars themselves, pedestrians don’t stray out nearly as much into the road, as did the consolidation of parking spots into parking lots. Just go see some European cities for how not only public transport, biking and a more modern street layout make life better for almost everyone. For disabled people, having dedicated parking spots as well as a pedestrian friendly street layout makes life easier than having to navigate a busy street. Make the city better for bike doesn’t mean making it hell for cars.

kybernetyk 4y ago
Our city converts street lanes into bike only lanes like crazy. All under the guise of keeping carbon emissions down. With the result that still no one is using the bike lanes and the traffic is now more condensed and way worse on the remaining car lanes. Bikes sound so good if you live somewhere with an eternal summer (or spring) and where it never rains or snows or gets below 20 C.
- loloquwowndueo 4y ago
  You make it sound like it’s impossible to bike in less-than-perfect weather. Which is false. Makes me think you haven’t really tried to use all those new shiny bike lanes.
  - kybernetyk 4y ago
    Bikes are recreational vehicles. I wouldn't ever swap my car for a bike.
    - loloquwowndueo 4y ago
      You’re wrong on the first take and entitled to your choices on the second - to each their own.
      - kybernetyk 4y ago
  - zardo 4y ago
    It would certainly take some time for the cultural shift and all weather cycling gear investments to take place.
- matsemann 4y ago
  I bike all-year around here in Norway. Studdes tires feels even safer than walking. And on mornings after a big snow storm cars are stuck everywhere while I zoom past on my bike.
- Kim_Bruning 4y ago
  I went to high school in a country where 20C during school season would be exceptional, and where there is a lot of rain. Bicycle was mandatory, and actually pretty useful: it's a great form of transport to get around on when you're a teenager!
- acchow 4y ago
  How does your city accomplish this politically? Sounds impossible to fight the masses if they aren't even using the bike lanes...
iancmceachern 4y ago
There are also lots of options for disabled folks that aren't all the way to a car. My wife and I bike around our city daily, and there are plenty of disabled folks zooming around on all manner of mobility devices, in the bike lane, on sidewalks, at similar speeds to bikes. I'd argue that making a city more bike friendly also makes it more friendly to these types of mobility devices as well. It seems that these two things, bike friendliness and disabled friendliness have the same needs of our infrastructure.
- matsemann 4y ago
  My belief is that the same carbrains pushing the "what about the disabled" argument are the same people parking their huge SUV illegally on the sidewalk, blocking wheelchairs from passing..
Spivak 4y ago
Right but the argument is that it’s not worth investing a lot of dedicated space for a mode of transportation that’s only usable for part of the year, by a subset of the population, and actually utilized by a so few people that you could argue that nobody bikes and after rounding be correct. My city is approaching it differently, instead of bike lanes they are just adding significantly more sidewalk and marking the left side as where bikes should ride. The sidewalk can be fully utilized by everyone all of the time. During big crowded events it’s just sidewalk.
- matsemann 4y ago
  Your first paragraph sounds like you're talking about cars. That's the mode of transportation only a subset of people can use! Young people, old people, poor people, some disabled people etc can't drive. Many more can bike, especially with el assistance / tri-wheels.
  - Spivak 4y ago
    > Your first paragraph sounds like you're talking about cars. Every single person no matter how old, poor, or disabled can utilize roads meant for vehicles year round. There is no "public transportation" for bike lanes. Every single person no matter how old, poor, or disabled can utilize sidewalks even if that means assistive devices like wheelchairs. This is not true of bike lanes at all. My grandmother even with a try-wheel and fully electric would still be unable to use the bike lane. People seem to forget that one of the ways people can become disabled as they age is balance. Infrastructure that accommodates bikes is a good thing, dedicated infrastructure for them isn't.
    - matsemann 4y ago
      Dedicated bike infrastructure is good, because if more people cycle it leaves more room for those disabled that need their car. So being so anxious about providing for them, you surely agree that we should do that and also ban other cars from the roads to make it even easier for them. Right?
ryukafalz 4y ago
> Make the city better for bike doesn’t mean making it hell for cars. It doesn’t, but it does mean that you can’t dedicate 100% of street space and 75% of space for businesses to cars. And some drivers seem to interpret losing any sliver of their dominance over the streets as “hell for cars,” making this a tough battle.
- Kim_Bruning 4y ago
  The opposite is true of course. Bike lanes and pedestrian sidewalks can transport more people per minute than the car lane(s). So if/when you do need to use a car, you'll actually find less people in your way.
  - ryukafalz 4y ago
    Yep. If everyone’s only reasonable option for getting around is to drive, then everyone will drive, and there will be a lot of cars on the road.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  > making this a tough battle. well, they have some strong arguments. In my Country cars are worth 77 billion euros in taxes every year. If my country was a free market utopia like US, people would be screaming that they paid for those roads and it's their right to use them exclusively. Bikes aren't worth that much, unfortunately.
  - tremon 4y ago
    Cars also cause a lot more road wear than bikes do, and they require a lot more road surface area than bikes. It makes perfect sense that car users pay for the majority of road maintenance.
  - uavals 4y ago
    Its not so simple as “I paid I, so I do what I want”. Are roads funded exclusively from tax collected from car taxes? Aren’t bicycle and public transport users also funding roads also? Even if indirectly, by going to a shop that use those roads for supplies. As far as I heard, roads cost a LOT to maintain (and more to build). 77 billion might be a small bucket in the ocean depending on the country. This is public space, your freedom to drive a car impacts my commute time by bus.
wonder_er 4y ago
cities are already hell for cars. This is a piece I don't know how to explain coherently - cities function _as poorly_ for passenger vehicles as they do for bicyclists. Tons of queueing time, low reliability, noise, hassle, expense, lack of perception of progress. I think a good city engineer would: 1. start gathering benchmarks for travel time by mode across the city, at various times of day. 2. Start counting intersection vehicle through-put 3. Start counting intersection "vehicle dwell time" (an intersection that has 15 cars stopped waiting for a light to change is wasting an incredible amount of time) And then with this data, start modifying how the intersections are laid out, run experiments. There's 50 things someone could experiment with, some of which would be worth retaining and expanding. American traffic 'planning' is so boring and so openly ineffective. It's a traumatizing institution to be a part of, if you have a sense of awareness and responsibility and agency.
- ackfoobar 4y ago
  Yet another video from NJB on this topic. https://youtu.be/d8RRE2rDw4k?t=402 https://youtu.be/d8RRE2rDw4k?t=402 Chuck Marohn measured his average speed at rush hour, and found it was about 16km/h ... So despite the roads having a speed limit of 50 km/h or more, his average speed was less than 16, because of all the traffic lights. And this was in a tiny town of only 14,000 people. Incidentally, 16 km/h is the average speed of a cyclist in Amsterdam
  - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
    > So despite the roads having a speed limit of 50 km/h or more, his average speed was less than 16, because of all the traffic lights. > Incidentally, 16 km/h is the average speed of a cyclist in Amsterdam Unfortunately this only says that removing traffic lights would drive cars' average speed up and many bikers aren't actually stopping at traffic lights. Maybe average speed is not that important as a metric and we should not optimize for it. I would prefer a 15km/h average speed for cars, but to avoid any intersections with other users and flow interruptions: people should not cross streets, they should pass over them on bridges. Crossroads should not exist, only roundabouts. Etc. Anyway, in most of Amsterdam the average speed of cars is between 15 and 30km/h [1], while bikes on average go at 14.9km/h. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-of-average-traffic-speeds-in-central-Amsterdam-Source-Spotzi_fig5_332660949 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-of-average-traffic-s...
deleted 4y ago
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acchow 4y ago
Car-dependent Americans have such myopic vision that they can't see that investment to improve cycling and mass transit infrastructure actually improves the driving experience dramatically.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  From my grandparents village to the district capital in a Portuguese countryside region, there is a bus coming twice a day, once in each direction. If you don't want to lose a whole day just to go to town, either own a car or better be wealthy enough to pay for a 20km taxi ride (X2). Most people won't cycle in a mountain region where temperatures in August are 40° C on average, nor do they possess the health to do so. Plenty of European regions are just as deplected of good city with wonderful public transport networks, specially on the southern countries where the people love to spend their vacations and end up renting cars if they actually want to move around in a timely manner.
nedt 4y ago
There are also a lot of disabled people that have a hard time walking or using public transport, because of steps, need to sit down and stand up, etc. But with the right bike it's much easier for them to move through the city. So even there the bike infrastructur is an enabler for disabled people. Don't force them into cars.
janef0421 4y ago
Also worth noting that many disabled people cannot drive due to their disabilities.

by larve 4y ago

kybernetyk 4y ago

Our city converts street lanes into bike only lanes like crazy. All under the guise of keeping carbon emissions down. With the result that still no one is using the bike lanes and the traffic is now more condensed and way worse on the remaining car lanes. Bikes sound so good if you live somewhere with an eternal summer (or spring) and where it never rains or snows or gets below 20 C.

loloquwowndueo 4y ago
You make it sound like it’s impossible to bike in less-than-perfect weather. Which is false. Makes me think you haven’t really tried to use all those new shiny bike lanes.
- kybernetyk 4y ago
  Bikes are recreational vehicles. I wouldn't ever swap my car for a bike.
  - loloquwowndueo 4y ago
    You’re wrong on the first take and entitled to your choices on the second - to each their own.
    - kybernetyk 4y ago
- zardo 4y ago
  It would certainly take some time for the cultural shift and all weather cycling gear investments to take place.
matsemann 4y ago
I bike all-year around here in Norway. Studdes tires feels even safer than walking. And on mornings after a big snow storm cars are stuck everywhere while I zoom past on my bike.
Kim_Bruning 4y ago
I went to high school in a country where 20C during school season would be exceptional, and where there is a lot of rain. Bicycle was mandatory, and actually pretty useful: it's a great form of transport to get around on when you're a teenager!
acchow 4y ago
How does your city accomplish this politically? Sounds impossible to fight the masses if they aren't even using the bike lanes...

iancmceachern 4y ago

There are also lots of options for disabled folks that aren't all the way to a car. My wife and I bike around our city daily, and there are plenty of disabled folks zooming around on all manner of mobility devices, in the bike lane, on sidewalks, at similar speeds to bikes. I'd argue that making a city more bike friendly also makes it more friendly to these types of mobility devices as well. It seems that these two things, bike friendliness and disabled friendliness have the same needs of our infrastructure.

matsemann 4y ago
My belief is that the same carbrains pushing the "what about the disabled" argument are the same people parking their huge SUV illegally on the sidewalk, blocking wheelchairs from passing..

Spivak 4y ago

Right but the argument is that it’s not worth investing a lot of dedicated space for a mode of transportation that’s only usable for part of the year, by a subset of the population, and actually utilized by a so few people that you could argue that nobody bikes and after rounding be correct. My city is approaching it differently, instead of bike lanes they are just adding significantly more sidewalk and marking the left side as where bikes should ride. The sidewalk can be fully utilized by everyone all of the time. During big crowded events it’s just sidewalk.

matsemann 4y ago
Your first paragraph sounds like you're talking about cars. That's the mode of transportation only a subset of people can use! Young people, old people, poor people, some disabled people etc can't drive. Many more can bike, especially with el assistance / tri-wheels.
- Spivak 4y ago
  > Your first paragraph sounds like you're talking about cars. Every single person no matter how old, poor, or disabled can utilize roads meant for vehicles year round. There is no "public transportation" for bike lanes. Every single person no matter how old, poor, or disabled can utilize sidewalks even if that means assistive devices like wheelchairs. This is not true of bike lanes at all. My grandmother even with a try-wheel and fully electric would still be unable to use the bike lane. People seem to forget that one of the ways people can become disabled as they age is balance. Infrastructure that accommodates bikes is a good thing, dedicated infrastructure for them isn't.
  - matsemann 4y ago
    Dedicated bike infrastructure is good, because if more people cycle it leaves more room for those disabled that need their car. So being so anxious about providing for them, you surely agree that we should do that and also ban other cars from the roads to make it even easier for them. Right?

ryukafalz 4y ago

> Make the city better for bike doesn’t mean making it hell for cars. It doesn’t, but it does mean that you can’t dedicate 100% of street space and 75% of space for businesses to cars. And some drivers seem to interpret losing any sliver of their dominance over the streets as “hell for cars,” making this a tough battle.

Kim_Bruning 4y ago
The opposite is true of course. Bike lanes and pedestrian sidewalks can transport more people per minute than the car lane(s). So if/when you do need to use a car, you'll actually find less people in your way.
- ryukafalz 4y ago
  Yep. If everyone’s only reasonable option for getting around is to drive, then everyone will drive, and there will be a lot of cars on the road.
peoplefromibiza 4y ago
> making this a tough battle. well, they have some strong arguments. In my Country cars are worth 77 billion euros in taxes every year. If my country was a free market utopia like US, people would be screaming that they paid for those roads and it's their right to use them exclusively. Bikes aren't worth that much, unfortunately.
- tremon 4y ago
  Cars also cause a lot more road wear than bikes do, and they require a lot more road surface area than bikes. It makes perfect sense that car users pay for the majority of road maintenance.
- uavals 4y ago
  Its not so simple as “I paid I, so I do what I want”. Are roads funded exclusively from tax collected from car taxes? Aren’t bicycle and public transport users also funding roads also? Even if indirectly, by going to a shop that use those roads for supplies. As far as I heard, roads cost a LOT to maintain (and more to build). 77 billion might be a small bucket in the ocean depending on the country. This is public space, your freedom to drive a car impacts my commute time by bus.

wonder_er 4y ago

cities are already hell for cars. This is a piece I don't know how to explain coherently - cities function _as poorly_ for passenger vehicles as they do for bicyclists. Tons of queueing time, low reliability, noise, hassle, expense, lack of perception of progress. I think a good city engineer would: 1. start gathering benchmarks for travel time by mode across the city, at various times of day. 2. Start counting intersection vehicle through-put 3. Start counting intersection "vehicle dwell time" (an intersection that has 15 cars stopped waiting for a light to change is wasting an incredible amount of time) And then with this data, start modifying how the intersections are laid out, run experiments. There's 50 things someone could experiment with, some of which would be worth retaining and expanding. American traffic 'planning' is so boring and so openly ineffective. It's a traumatizing institution to be a part of, if you have a sense of awareness and responsibility and agency.

ackfoobar 4y ago
Yet another video from NJB on this topic. https://youtu.be/d8RRE2rDw4k?t=402 https://youtu.be/d8RRE2rDw4k?t=402 Chuck Marohn measured his average speed at rush hour, and found it was about 16km/h ... So despite the roads having a speed limit of 50 km/h or more, his average speed was less than 16, because of all the traffic lights. And this was in a tiny town of only 14,000 people. Incidentally, 16 km/h is the average speed of a cyclist in Amsterdam
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  > So despite the roads having a speed limit of 50 km/h or more, his average speed was less than 16, because of all the traffic lights. > Incidentally, 16 km/h is the average speed of a cyclist in Amsterdam Unfortunately this only says that removing traffic lights would drive cars' average speed up and many bikers aren't actually stopping at traffic lights. Maybe average speed is not that important as a metric and we should not optimize for it. I would prefer a 15km/h average speed for cars, but to avoid any intersections with other users and flow interruptions: people should not cross streets, they should pass over them on bridges. Crossroads should not exist, only roundabouts. Etc. Anyway, in most of Amsterdam the average speed of cars is between 15 and 30km/h [1], while bikes on average go at 14.9km/h. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-of-average-traffic-speeds-in-central-Amsterdam-Source-Spotzi_fig5_332660949 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-of-average-traffic-s...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

acchow 4y ago

Car-dependent Americans have such myopic vision that they can't see that investment to improve cycling and mass transit infrastructure actually improves the driving experience dramatically.

pjmlp 4y ago
From my grandparents village to the district capital in a Portuguese countryside region, there is a bus coming twice a day, once in each direction. If you don't want to lose a whole day just to go to town, either own a car or better be wealthy enough to pay for a 20km taxi ride (X2). Most people won't cycle in a mountain region where temperatures in August are 40° C on average, nor do they possess the health to do so. Plenty of European regions are just as deplected of good city with wonderful public transport networks, specially on the southern countries where the people love to spend their vacations and end up renting cars if they actually want to move around in a timely manner.

nedt 4y ago

There are also a lot of disabled people that have a hard time walking or using public transport, because of steps, need to sit down and stand up, etc. But with the right bike it's much easier for them to move through the city. So even there the bike infrastructur is an enabler for disabled people. Don't force them into cars.

janef0421 4y ago

Also worth noting that many disabled people cannot drive due to their disabilities.