7 ms·

I have a pretty strong anti-cycling stance, because I watched my New York neighborhood that was a pedestrian paradise significantly degraded by bike lanes. The

by rz2k 3y ago

I have a pretty strong anti-cycling stance, because I watched my New York neighborhood that was a pedestrian paradise significantly degraded by bike lanes. The balance of walking, subways, busses, taxis and delivery trucks had worked pretty well. Bicyclists introduced the concept of failing to yield, then acting indignant and entitled.

whimsicalism 3y ago
Failing to yield to pedestrians where? e: Actually, not going to get into it but c'mon - cars kill pedestrians in a way that bikes rarely do and removing the cars from your NY neighborhood would have an obviously better impact on pedestrians compared to the bikes.
- renlo 3y ago
  As a New Yorker, with cars on the road I have a reasonable expectation of where they might be coming from or what direction they're headed (ie, they're following traffic laws). With bikes, they can (and do!) come from any direction, on the sidewalk, riding the wrong way on the road, wrong way in the bike lanes, etc. These bikes could be considered as motorcycles (ebike designation is a legal one), they often go 20mph or faster by delivery drivers with little consideration of pedestrian safety, and you really don't know where or how you might encounter one so your head needs to be on swivel as pedestrian in NYC. That said, I'm still pro-bike and acknowledge that cars are much more dangerous for pedestrians, just I'd like to see the delivery bike / ebike problems fixed.
  - whimsicalism 3y ago
    I think with e-bikes we've entered a new equilibrium that will take some time to shake out. It used to be that the fastest bikers on the road were usually the most experienced, this is no longer the case and as a street biker I have noticed it causing more danger.
    - Aerbil313 3y ago
      Where I live e-bikes haven't caught up yet. I need to be mindful of that people get scared of me biking fast close to them on the sidewalk, even though I'm experienced and know that there's no danger. A bike without motors is enough steerable that it doesn't pose any real danger for anyone imho.
- JackFr 3y ago
  Cyclists in NYC are positive menace. They don’t need to be but they choose go the wrong way down one way streets, routinely ignore all traffic signals, ride on busy sidewalks and eschew bike lanes to weave in and out of heavy traffic. Well under 50% wear helmets. As a pedestrian in NYC I feel far more endangered by bikes than I do by automobiles. There is room for cyclists, but there has got to be some compliance with rules.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - roboror 3y ago
    >As a pedestrian in NYC I feel far more endangered by bikes than I do by automobiles. This is why legislating by "feelings" is a bad idea. Automobiles are a far larger and more lethal risk.
    - yellowapple 3y ago
      And that risk is mitigated by traffic rules, separation of pedestrian v. vehicular traffic, etc. That goes out the window when you have a category of vehicles that routinely ignores those mitigations.
      - bazeblackwood 3y ago
        Even with those mitigations, they're still more deadly.
    - jodrellblank 3y ago
      That isn't why it's a bad idea at all; people don't walk and instead drive because walking "feels" unsafe. Legislate changes to make walking "feel" safer and people will walk instead of drive, and then will be safer because the changes will be things like separated walkways from cars, more guarded pedestrian crossings, road design which slows traffic, and more people walking will mean fewer cars on the road.
- wantoncl 3y ago
  NYC bike messengers. And rollerbladers. Not sure how it is now, but in the late 90's they were exactly as the other poster described. Fail to yield, swerving in front of buses and flipping off the drivers if they honked. Utter contempt for everyone else. I was in far more danger of getting injured by them than any vehicle, and this was Manhattan traffic. Plenty of stories of grandmas getting knocked down by rollers and bikers in Central Park back then too.
  - whimsicalism 3y ago
    > I was in far more danger of getting injured by them than any vehicle, and this was Manhattan traffic. Sorry but the stats just don't bear this out. I've lived in dense cities my entire life. Stories, anecdotes, etc. do not reflect the reality of what is more likely to cause you harm.
    - 7speter 3y ago
      The stats dont record whose at fault in NYC, nor do they record when car drivers and pedestrians have to avoid dangerous situations caused by bikers and people on scooters.
    - ufmace 3y ago
      Statistics are not a good indicator either because most events never get recorded. Nobody keeps statistics on how often cyclists whiz within inches of pedestrians on the sidewalk, scrape by people, or knock people over but they get right back up again with a few bruises. It doesn't get recorded unless the police get involved or somebody goes to the hospital, both of which are pretty rare. Believing you understand what's going on just by looking at statistics is terribly naive.
      - carlob 3y ago
        > both of which are pretty rare so what you're saying is that people don't really get injured by bikes, they just get a bit rattled.
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  I don't think you've been to NYC in the last 5 years or so if you think that bikers aren't routinely failing to yield to pedestrians. The worst and most dangerous culprits are the people whizzing around on e-bikes with a complete disregard for pedestrian safety or traffic laws. The drivers in NYC are comparatively safe. They drive relatively slowly (compared to other parts of the country), pay attention to pedestrians, and obey traffic lights and signs.
  - whimsicalism 3y ago
    Even per capita of bike riding vs. car riding, the deaths from drivers are disproportionate. > bikers aren't routinely failing to yield to pedestrians I didn't say that, I think it is true. That said, I also think pedestrians sometimes have an expectation that a biker would yield in a place where they wouldn't even try with a car (ie. crossing the road between two vehicles into the bike lane).
    - pclmulqdq 3y ago
      > Failing to yield to pedestrians where? This is what you said, and what I am responding to. Also, I would suggest that deaths from drivers are probably only higher because the probability of a collision being fatal is a lot higher when one party in the collision is 2 tons, and that the fatality rate is not a good proxy for the rate of total accidents (even the rate of total accidents where someone ends up in a hospital). I have not seen a credible measurement for that, but I would expect from what I have seen in my 6 years living in Manhattan that the accident rate with bikes is a lot higher than it is with cars, and that so is the rate of injuries. As a pedestrian, my chance of getting killed in a traffic accident are so astronomically low that I actually care a lot more about my probability of being injured than my probability of being killed.
      - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
        > my chance of getting killed in a traffic accident are so astronomically low Are they really? You have a higher chance of being killed by a car while you are inside a building, than you are of being killed by a cyclist.
piva00 3y ago
You aren't anti-cycling, you are anti-uneducated assholes.
hfgjdssaghj 3y ago
> I have a pretty strong anti-cycling stance, because I watched my New York neighborhood that was a pedestrian paradise significantly degraded by bike lanes. A car driver, a cyclist and a pedestrian walk into a café and order ten cream cakes. When the waitress places them on their table the car driver grabs nine of them and scoffs them in his face, then he leans over to the pedestrian and whispers: “don’t let the cyclist take your one”.
- msla 3y ago
  I've been all but shoved aside by cyclists on sidewalks. Don't try that crap with me.
  - Doxin 3y ago
    The problem here is not the cyclist -- though that's for sure a dick move -- but the lack of proper space for cyclists to exist. There'll be seventy-two lanes for cars, and maybe one cycle lane which'll end up occupied by parked cars anyways.
  - reducesuffering 3y ago
    If that was a car you'd have been dead. 20 people in the US died today because of that. https://www.npr.org/2023/06/26/1184034017/us-pedestrian-deaths-high-traffic-car https://www.npr.org/2023/06/26/1184034017/us-pedestrian-deat...
    - msla 3y ago
      "Be glad you weren't killed, you ungrateful swine" isn't the tone cyclists should be taking in a thread about dignity.
      - neuronic 3y ago
        I perceive your tone as purely hostile and frankly pretty ignorant, so maybe don’t talk about tone. Aside from that, hating a form of mobility is weird. People that are assholes in cars will be assholes on bikes and vice versa.
laserlight 3y ago
Louis Rossmann talked about cyclists not respecting pedestrians yesterday [0]. [0] NYC's toxic ebike culture almost killed 4 people; let's talk about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrtLWilSoNI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrtLWilSoNI
- Rebelgecko 3y ago
  Meanwhile hundreds of people per year are being killed by NYC's toxic car culture. It would be interesting to see a per-mile comparison, but ebikes are looking a helluva lot safer by comparison.
Rebelgecko 3y ago
I'm impressed that being indignant and entitled wasn't a part of your neighborhood before the cyclists came in. Really does sound like paradise!
ClumsyPilot 3y ago
> Bicyclists … indignant and entitled I will tell you who is entitled, driver of a 20 ton construction truck that drove over pedestrian area, where children play, to beat traffic. This was on pavement, few meters from the front door of my house.
msla 3y ago
It's amazing how you post this and a bunch of cyclists come out, elbowing each other aside to be the first to act out their most obnoxious stereotypes. "Yeah, we bomb down the sidewalks at 30 and categorically refuse to yield to pedestrians while shouting 'Share the road!' at anyone using an engine, and you should be grateful we didn't get in an SUV and plow through a daycare center!"
- neuronic 3y ago
  What’s amazing is that you have formed an absurd hostile image of bicyclists in your head and actually post as if that was normal. When confronted, you immediately suspect a concerted action against you by a group of bicyclists. Sounds very paranoid to me.
  - msla 3y ago
    No, I'm just sick of cyclists who think they can ride on the sidewalk. You're the one imputing all this crap to others.

by rz2k 3y ago

whimsicalism 3y ago

Failing to yield to pedestrians where? e: Actually, not going to get into it but c'mon - cars kill pedestrians in a way that bikes rarely do and removing the cars from your NY neighborhood would have an obviously better impact on pedestrians compared to the bikes.

renlo 3y ago
As a New Yorker, with cars on the road I have a reasonable expectation of where they might be coming from or what direction they're headed (ie, they're following traffic laws). With bikes, they can (and do!) come from any direction, on the sidewalk, riding the wrong way on the road, wrong way in the bike lanes, etc. These bikes could be considered as motorcycles (ebike designation is a legal one), they often go 20mph or faster by delivery drivers with little consideration of pedestrian safety, and you really don't know where or how you might encounter one so your head needs to be on swivel as pedestrian in NYC. That said, I'm still pro-bike and acknowledge that cars are much more dangerous for pedestrians, just I'd like to see the delivery bike / ebike problems fixed.
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  I think with e-bikes we've entered a new equilibrium that will take some time to shake out. It used to be that the fastest bikers on the road were usually the most experienced, this is no longer the case and as a street biker I have noticed it causing more danger.
  - Aerbil313 3y ago
    Where I live e-bikes haven't caught up yet. I need to be mindful of that people get scared of me biking fast close to them on the sidewalk, even though I'm experienced and know that there's no danger. A bike without motors is enough steerable that it doesn't pose any real danger for anyone imho.
JackFr 3y ago
Cyclists in NYC are positive menace. They don’t need to be but they choose go the wrong way down one way streets, routinely ignore all traffic signals, ride on busy sidewalks and eschew bike lanes to weave in and out of heavy traffic. Well under 50% wear helmets. As a pedestrian in NYC I feel far more endangered by bikes than I do by automobiles. There is room for cyclists, but there has got to be some compliance with rules.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- roboror 3y ago
  >As a pedestrian in NYC I feel far more endangered by bikes than I do by automobiles. This is why legislating by "feelings" is a bad idea. Automobiles are a far larger and more lethal risk.
  - yellowapple 3y ago
    And that risk is mitigated by traffic rules, separation of pedestrian v. vehicular traffic, etc. That goes out the window when you have a category of vehicles that routinely ignores those mitigations.
    - bazeblackwood 3y ago
      Even with those mitigations, they're still more deadly.
  - jodrellblank 3y ago
    That isn't why it's a bad idea at all; people don't walk and instead drive because walking "feels" unsafe. Legislate changes to make walking "feel" safer and people will walk instead of drive, and then will be safer because the changes will be things like separated walkways from cars, more guarded pedestrian crossings, road design which slows traffic, and more people walking will mean fewer cars on the road.
wantoncl 3y ago
NYC bike messengers. And rollerbladers. Not sure how it is now, but in the late 90's they were exactly as the other poster described. Fail to yield, swerving in front of buses and flipping off the drivers if they honked. Utter contempt for everyone else. I was in far more danger of getting injured by them than any vehicle, and this was Manhattan traffic. Plenty of stories of grandmas getting knocked down by rollers and bikers in Central Park back then too.
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  > I was in far more danger of getting injured by them than any vehicle, and this was Manhattan traffic. Sorry but the stats just don't bear this out. I've lived in dense cities my entire life. Stories, anecdotes, etc. do not reflect the reality of what is more likely to cause you harm.
  - 7speter 3y ago
    The stats dont record whose at fault in NYC, nor do they record when car drivers and pedestrians have to avoid dangerous situations caused by bikers and people on scooters.
  - ufmace 3y ago
    Statistics are not a good indicator either because most events never get recorded. Nobody keeps statistics on how often cyclists whiz within inches of pedestrians on the sidewalk, scrape by people, or knock people over but they get right back up again with a few bruises. It doesn't get recorded unless the police get involved or somebody goes to the hospital, both of which are pretty rare. Believing you understand what's going on just by looking at statistics is terribly naive.
    - carlob 3y ago
      > both of which are pretty rare so what you're saying is that people don't really get injured by bikes, they just get a bit rattled.
pclmulqdq 3y ago
I don't think you've been to NYC in the last 5 years or so if you think that bikers aren't routinely failing to yield to pedestrians. The worst and most dangerous culprits are the people whizzing around on e-bikes with a complete disregard for pedestrian safety or traffic laws. The drivers in NYC are comparatively safe. They drive relatively slowly (compared to other parts of the country), pay attention to pedestrians, and obey traffic lights and signs.
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  Even per capita of bike riding vs. car riding, the deaths from drivers are disproportionate. > bikers aren't routinely failing to yield to pedestrians I didn't say that, I think it is true. That said, I also think pedestrians sometimes have an expectation that a biker would yield in a place where they wouldn't even try with a car (ie. crossing the road between two vehicles into the bike lane).
  - pclmulqdq 3y ago
    > Failing to yield to pedestrians where? This is what you said, and what I am responding to. Also, I would suggest that deaths from drivers are probably only higher because the probability of a collision being fatal is a lot higher when one party in the collision is 2 tons, and that the fatality rate is not a good proxy for the rate of total accidents (even the rate of total accidents where someone ends up in a hospital). I have not seen a credible measurement for that, but I would expect from what I have seen in my 6 years living in Manhattan that the accident rate with bikes is a lot higher than it is with cars, and that so is the rate of injuries. As a pedestrian, my chance of getting killed in a traffic accident are so astronomically low that I actually care a lot more about my probability of being injured than my probability of being killed.
    - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
      > my chance of getting killed in a traffic accident are so astronomically low Are they really? You have a higher chance of being killed by a car while you are inside a building, than you are of being killed by a cyclist.

piva00 3y ago

You aren't anti-cycling, you are anti-uneducated assholes.

hfgjdssaghj 3y ago

> I have a pretty strong anti-cycling stance, because I watched my New York neighborhood that was a pedestrian paradise significantly degraded by bike lanes. A car driver, a cyclist and a pedestrian walk into a café and order ten cream cakes. When the waitress places them on their table the car driver grabs nine of them and scoffs them in his face, then he leans over to the pedestrian and whispers: “don’t let the cyclist take your one”.

msla 3y ago
I've been all but shoved aside by cyclists on sidewalks. Don't try that crap with me.
- Doxin 3y ago
  The problem here is not the cyclist -- though that's for sure a dick move -- but the lack of proper space for cyclists to exist. There'll be seventy-two lanes for cars, and maybe one cycle lane which'll end up occupied by parked cars anyways.
- reducesuffering 3y ago
  If that was a car you'd have been dead. 20 people in the US died today because of that. https://www.npr.org/2023/06/26/1184034017/us-pedestrian-deaths-high-traffic-car https://www.npr.org/2023/06/26/1184034017/us-pedestrian-deat...
  - msla 3y ago
    "Be glad you weren't killed, you ungrateful swine" isn't the tone cyclists should be taking in a thread about dignity.
    - neuronic 3y ago
      I perceive your tone as purely hostile and frankly pretty ignorant, so maybe don’t talk about tone. Aside from that, hating a form of mobility is weird. People that are assholes in cars will be assholes on bikes and vice versa.

laserlight 3y ago

Louis Rossmann talked about cyclists not respecting pedestrians yesterday [0]. [0] NYC's toxic ebike culture almost killed 4 people; let's talk about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrtLWilSoNI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrtLWilSoNI

Rebelgecko 3y ago
Meanwhile hundreds of people per year are being killed by NYC's toxic car culture. It would be interesting to see a per-mile comparison, but ebikes are looking a helluva lot safer by comparison.

Rebelgecko 3y ago

I'm impressed that being indignant and entitled wasn't a part of your neighborhood before the cyclists came in. Really does sound like paradise!

ClumsyPilot 3y ago

> Bicyclists … indignant and entitled I will tell you who is entitled, driver of a 20 ton construction truck that drove over pedestrian area, where children play, to beat traffic. This was on pavement, few meters from the front door of my house.

msla 3y ago

It's amazing how you post this and a bunch of cyclists come out, elbowing each other aside to be the first to act out their most obnoxious stereotypes. "Yeah, we bomb down the sidewalks at 30 and categorically refuse to yield to pedestrians while shouting 'Share the road!' at anyone using an engine, and you should be grateful we didn't get in an SUV and plow through a daycare center!"

neuronic 3y ago
What’s amazing is that you have formed an absurd hostile image of bicyclists in your head and actually post as if that was normal. When confronted, you immediately suspect a concerted action against you by a group of bicyclists. Sounds very paranoid to me.
- msla 3y ago
  No, I'm just sick of cyclists who think they can ride on the sidewalk. You're the one imputing all this crap to others.