4 ms·

On the other hand, I don't know if telling kids and families to just take the lane is the right approach.

uneekname 4y ago
I think it depends on what kind of street it is. If I had my way, downtown areas would have very low speed limits, and narrower streets would discourage cars from going fast. People who need cars (or, make deliveries) could still use them, but the streets would be slow enough that pedestrians and cyclist would feel seen and in-control.
- Reason077 4y ago
  > "If I had my way, downtown areas would have very low speed limits, and narrower streets would discourage cars from going fast." Thankfully, this is exactly the sort of urban design we're gradually seeing more of, at least in many bigger European cities. New UK Department for Transport guidance is for all urban and residential streets to have 20 mph (~30 km/h) speed limits, down from 30 mph previously. It is, however, still up to local authorities to actually set those limits. In London, most streets have been 20 mph for a while now.
ThatGeoGuy 4y ago
Vehicular cycling is such a ridiculous ideology and mantra. John Forester has done more damage to not-cars-means-of-transportation than pretty much any other person riding a bike, and many more outside of that group. The "Well there's your problem" podcast goes over a lot of his ideas in great detail [0]. The crux of it is what the above study says: if you want to encourage cycling you have to build dedicated infrastructure (and maintain that infrastructure in all weather and conditions) in order for people to view it as something reliable. The key is to avoid what the parent poster specified by just increasing supply: to assuage fears that there are "only a handful of bike lanes and paths (and thus cyclists fear they are confined)" is to just build more. It's vastly cheaper than our current car-focused infrastructure. Cities exist today that seem to figure this out without turning into Amsterdam, so surely the rest of us can figure it out as well. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm29fd-s7tQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm29fd-s7tQ
- epakai 4y ago
  Vehicular cycling at least puts you where drivers expect other vehicles to be coming from. It's a good choice in many situations. Being in pedestrian areas, riding as far right as possible (area-specific mandate), or in a bike lane makes you practically invisible in many cases. Cycling specific infrastructure can do a lot, but it can never be a solution for all destinations because of limitations enforced by pre-existing infrastructure.
  - trmsw 4y ago
    my knee-jerk reaction is: and because streets aren't just for cars! But more pragmatically, vehicular cycling is often the best choice because of visibility and predictability, and also as regards driver awareness and expectation: it at least seems safer if drivers are accustomed to sharing the road than if they never have to.
- deadbeeves 4y ago
  Nah. Unless you ride in a town where everyone rides and no one drives, you're gonna have to interact with cars at some point. It's just inevitable. You need to know how to ride on a road with other vehicles. I'm not convinced that the answer is just more infrastructure. IME, most bike paths are just bad. They're some combination of poorly designed, poorly made, or poorly maintained. There's one on the way to my office that has marked loading bays for trucks such that I have to keep getting off onto the car traffic because there's no way I'm passing between a vehicle and the sidewalk. Why would you build something like that there? And of course if you decide that it's just too risky to use the bike path people scream at you because they think they're entitled to that lane that you didn't even ask for.
  - hooverd 4y ago
    Most "bike lanes" suck but physically separated bike lanes are great in my experience. You can also have slow streets or bike boulevards which filter the through traffic.
- lmm 4y ago

I think it depends on what kind of street it is. If I had my way, downtown areas would have very low speed limits, and narrower streets would discourage cars from going fast. People who need cars (or, make deliveries) could still use them, but the streets would be slow enough that pedestrians and cyclist would feel seen and in-control.

Reason077 4y ago
> "If I had my way, downtown areas would have very low speed limits, and narrower streets would discourage cars from going fast." Thankfully, this is exactly the sort of urban design we're gradually seeing more of, at least in many bigger European cities. New UK Department for Transport guidance is for all urban and residential streets to have 20 mph (~30 km/h) speed limits, down from 30 mph previously. It is, however, still up to local authorities to actually set those limits. In London, most streets have been 20 mph for a while now.

ThatGeoGuy 4y ago

Vehicular cycling is such a ridiculous ideology and mantra. John Forester has done more damage to not-cars-means-of-transportation than pretty much any other person riding a bike, and many more outside of that group. The "Well there's your problem" podcast goes over a lot of his ideas in great detail [0]. The crux of it is what the above study says: if you want to encourage cycling you have to build dedicated infrastructure (and maintain that infrastructure in all weather and conditions) in order for people to view it as something reliable. The key is to avoid what the parent poster specified by just increasing supply: to assuage fears that there are "only a handful of bike lanes and paths (and thus cyclists fear they are confined)" is to just build more. It's vastly cheaper than our current car-focused infrastructure. Cities exist today that seem to figure this out without turning into Amsterdam, so surely the rest of us can figure it out as well. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm29fd-s7tQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm29fd-s7tQ

epakai 4y ago
Vehicular cycling at least puts you where drivers expect other vehicles to be coming from. It's a good choice in many situations. Being in pedestrian areas, riding as far right as possible (area-specific mandate), or in a bike lane makes you practically invisible in many cases. Cycling specific infrastructure can do a lot, but it can never be a solution for all destinations because of limitations enforced by pre-existing infrastructure.
- trmsw 4y ago
  my knee-jerk reaction is: and because streets aren't just for cars! But more pragmatically, vehicular cycling is often the best choice because of visibility and predictability, and also as regards driver awareness and expectation: it at least seems safer if drivers are accustomed to sharing the road than if they never have to.
deadbeeves 4y ago
Nah. Unless you ride in a town where everyone rides and no one drives, you're gonna have to interact with cars at some point. It's just inevitable. You need to know how to ride on a road with other vehicles. I'm not convinced that the answer is just more infrastructure. IME, most bike paths are just bad. They're some combination of poorly designed, poorly made, or poorly maintained. There's one on the way to my office that has marked loading bays for trucks such that I have to keep getting off onto the car traffic because there's no way I'm passing between a vehicle and the sidewalk. Why would you build something like that there? And of course if you decide that it's just too risky to use the bike path people scream at you because they think they're entitled to that lane that you didn't even ask for.
- hooverd 4y ago
  Most "bike lanes" suck but physically separated bike lanes are great in my experience. You can also have slow streets or bike boulevards which filter the through traffic.
lmm 4y ago