3 ms·

Ok for LEDs and your general point but for the bike lane situation you are kind of shooting yourself in the foot : It's either non-standard compliant bike lane,

Ok for LEDs and your general point but for the bike lane situation you are kind of shooting yourself in the foot : It's either non-standard compliant bike lane, which is a problem, or it is standard compliant and then it means that the standard is a broad, inflexible set of rules dictated from the top which is either too complicated for people in charge of the implementation or leaves them no room to adapt to a special case... or probably do not incentivize the implementers to think about what they are doing, all of which is a also a problem.

pclmulqdq 2y ago
Maybe they would rather not have bikers bombing onto the sidewalk at 20 mph when they are going to be sharing that space with pedestrians. A sharp turn is a good way to prevent that. I assume there are several "bike lane ends" signs here, though, which should be an indication to slow down.
- drunner 2y ago
  Imagine if you were talking about a road doing this for no reason. The engineers care about how fast you can go in a car around town, not bikes. You can't argue bike lanes get the same amount of care/effort as roads.
  - pclmulqdq 2y ago
    Roads do this all the time "for no reason." Plenty of neighborhoods have very sharp curves to get drivers to slow down. This is one of many "traffic calming" techniques. Also, I'm not sure where you got the idea that engineers don't care about the speeds of bikes (especially around pedestrians).
    - drunner 2y ago
      The example by the author is an unsafe one. You think putting unsafe sharp curves at the bottom of hills for cars is acceptable? Your example is good, and the matching example of a bike lane is the opposite of what was shown in the article.
      - pclmulqdq 2y ago
        > You think putting unsafe sharp curves at the bottom of hills for cars is acceptable? Yes, it is absolutely acceptable and it happens all the time in road design. It happens specifically because people (apparently in all vehicle types) will speed on the long straightaway down the hill into whatever comes next. Many, many suburban areas with hills will have sharp curves or T-intersections at the bottom of hills as a matter of course and it does work at slowing down the traffic going down the hill. If you look at street view on the actual road, that is exactly this situation: a very straight road with a lot of visibility, leading toward a very long and complicated intersection where everyone needs to pay attention and go slowly. Nobody traveling a reasonable speed on a bike will be surprised by that turn since they can all see it coming for literally a mile. I assume the alternatives to this specific merge are either: * Merge the bikes into the car traffic and pray to god that they obey traffic signals at the upcoming intersection (we all know this isn't happening), while also accepting that they accelerate very slowly compared to cars. * Set up a dedicated bike lane with dedicated signals (which is very expensive). The engineers here clearly opted to instead merge the bike traffic with the pedestrian traffic through that intersection so that the existing pedestrian signals apply to them. You can see that the bike lane continues after this intersection, so they literally just did this to handle the intersection. TFA on this point reads like "cyclist (or illegal moped user) doesn't want to be slowed down and doesn't care about anyone else."
        defen 2y ago
        > Yes, it is absolutely acceptable and it happens all the time in road design. Aren't there usually signs indicating the maximum safe speed when that sort of thing happens? We don't have context here but I doubt there is a sign telling bikers that they should slow down. And aren't roads in general much larger and easier to see from far away, vs this tiny little ramp? You also haven't explained why the big curb is vertical instead of sloped, or why the street sign needs to be where it is. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that this thing is designed as a fuck you to bikers who don't obey the rules. We simply don't design roads that way, where it's designed to make you crash if you deviate from the standard even a bit.
- cassepipe 2y ago
  Fair enough. On a side note, I would personally avoid sharing the sidewalk with pedestrians, keep my speed and remain on the road. I know it's legal in my country to bike on (not high-speed) road even if there is a bike lane available. I'd rather share space with the plentiful, the cars, and have them slow down a bit, which cost them nothing, than bothering pedestrians.
ieee2 2y ago
Yes, the less sharp angle of the described bike-lane would imply that biker can get into the sidewalk in high speed without issue and harm a pedestrian easier.
- drunner 2y ago
  Yeah, that's why when pedestrians have to cross where cars are that there is always a stop sign to make sure their high speed won't harm a pedestrian /sarcasm.
  - bccdee 2y ago
    …we do put stop lights at pedestrian crossings on high-speed streets. They look like this: http://www.pedbikesafe.org/PEDSAFE/cm_images/PedHyb1.png http://www.pedbikesafe.org/PEDSAFE/cm_images/PedHyb1.png

pclmulqdq 2y ago

Maybe they would rather not have bikers bombing onto the sidewalk at 20 mph when they are going to be sharing that space with pedestrians. A sharp turn is a good way to prevent that. I assume there are several "bike lane ends" signs here, though, which should be an indication to slow down.

drunner 2y ago
Imagine if you were talking about a road doing this for no reason. The engineers care about how fast you can go in a car around town, not bikes. You can't argue bike lanes get the same amount of care/effort as roads.
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  Roads do this all the time "for no reason." Plenty of neighborhoods have very sharp curves to get drivers to slow down. This is one of many "traffic calming" techniques. Also, I'm not sure where you got the idea that engineers don't care about the speeds of bikes (especially around pedestrians).
  - drunner 2y ago
    The example by the author is an unsafe one. You think putting unsafe sharp curves at the bottom of hills for cars is acceptable? Your example is good, and the matching example of a bike lane is the opposite of what was shown in the article.
    - pclmulqdq 2y ago
      > You think putting unsafe sharp curves at the bottom of hills for cars is acceptable? Yes, it is absolutely acceptable and it happens all the time in road design. It happens specifically because people (apparently in all vehicle types) will speed on the long straightaway down the hill into whatever comes next. Many, many suburban areas with hills will have sharp curves or T-intersections at the bottom of hills as a matter of course and it does work at slowing down the traffic going down the hill. If you look at street view on the actual road, that is exactly this situation: a very straight road with a lot of visibility, leading toward a very long and complicated intersection where everyone needs to pay attention and go slowly. Nobody traveling a reasonable speed on a bike will be surprised by that turn since they can all see it coming for literally a mile. I assume the alternatives to this specific merge are either: * Merge the bikes into the car traffic and pray to god that they obey traffic signals at the upcoming intersection (we all know this isn't happening), while also accepting that they accelerate very slowly compared to cars. * Set up a dedicated bike lane with dedicated signals (which is very expensive). The engineers here clearly opted to instead merge the bike traffic with the pedestrian traffic through that intersection so that the existing pedestrian signals apply to them. You can see that the bike lane continues after this intersection, so they literally just did this to handle the intersection. TFA on this point reads like "cyclist (or illegal moped user) doesn't want to be slowed down and doesn't care about anyone else."
      - defen 2y ago
        > Yes, it is absolutely acceptable and it happens all the time in road design. Aren't there usually signs indicating the maximum safe speed when that sort of thing happens? We don't have context here but I doubt there is a sign telling bikers that they should slow down. And aren't roads in general much larger and easier to see from far away, vs this tiny little ramp? You also haven't explained why the big curb is vertical instead of sloped, or why the street sign needs to be where it is. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that this thing is designed as a fuck you to bikers who don't obey the rules. We simply don't design roads that way, where it's designed to make you crash if you deviate from the standard even a bit.
cassepipe 2y ago
Fair enough. On a side note, I would personally avoid sharing the sidewalk with pedestrians, keep my speed and remain on the road. I know it's legal in my country to bike on (not high-speed) road even if there is a bike lane available. I'd rather share space with the plentiful, the cars, and have them slow down a bit, which cost them nothing, than bothering pedestrians.

ieee2 2y ago

Yes, the less sharp angle of the described bike-lane would imply that biker can get into the sidewalk in high speed without issue and harm a pedestrian easier.

drunner 2y ago
Yeah, that's why when pedestrians have to cross where cars are that there is always a stop sign to make sure their high speed won't harm a pedestrian /sarcasm.
- bccdee 2y ago
  …we do put stop lights at pedestrian crossings on high-speed streets. They look like this: http://www.pedbikesafe.org/PEDSAFE/cm_images/PedHyb1.png http://www.pedbikesafe.org/PEDSAFE/cm_images/PedHyb1.png