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Cities who want to keep cars out of bike lanes should stop offering “mom says we have bike lanes at home” repainting of streets. Create a curb and raise the bik
by SOLAR_FIELDS 6mo ago
Cities who want to keep cars out of bike lanes should stop offering “mom says we have bike lanes at home” repainting of streets. Create a curb and raise the bike lanes. It’s the only safe solution. I understand this is not realistic in a lot of scenarios but it is basically the only way you can achieve actual safety short of cement separators at the road level, which is basically a curb anyway. There’s just no reality where a bicycle can share the road unimpeded with a motor vehicle safely. No, plastic bollards are not enough. It needs to be either raised or a barrier enough that a car sideswiping it won’t cause the barrier to fail
- cosmotic 6mo agoI've seen people park in these curbed bike lanes too, completely blocking it off.
- Ekaros 6mo agoSeems like they need to fenced off. Would also prevent jaywalking so in general increase safety of pedestrians forcing them to cross only at intersections.
- bradleyjg 6mo agoGreat, now how are we going to force bicyclists to open red lights and stop signs?
- rolph 6mo agoive also seen cyclists having to squeeze by, and are forced to offer up against the side of the blocking vehicle to avoid being hit, leaving pinstripes bumper to bumper.
- rsynnott 6mo agoClamping is a useful deterrent there.
- Shadowed_ 6mo agoOr they could fine them. And increase fine for each repetition so rich can't just pay to be jerks.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 6mo agoAll the fines in the world won’t save you from getting mowed down by a distracted driver on their phone. Drinking and driving has heavy fine deterrents, yet people still do it anyway. You know what stops a drunk or distracted driver from killing someone? A cement barrier
- rolph 6mo agoadd to that, a class of drivers that believe two wheel vehicles have no place on public thoroughfares, openly hostile to non cars.
- jona-f 6mo agoAnd police that is sympathetic to those drivers.
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago> a distracted driver on their phone Waymos don’t get distracted. Grade separation, ticketing and increasingly favoring AVs in cities is a simpler solution than erecting physical barriers, which have the downside of making cities less walkable.
- fc417fc802 6mo agoThat would be relevant if we had mass adoption of autonomous vehicles. Unfortunately last I checked actual autonomy was still stuck in the perpetual R&D phase.
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago> last I checked actual autonomy was still stuck in the perpetual R&D phase I know plenty of people in Phoenix for whom it’s their main mode of transport. When I’m there or in San Francisco, it’s certainly mine. (And now, increasingly, in Miami, too.) Waymo is here and it’s real and it’s so much better than Uber or taxis.
- trhway 6mo ago>There’s just no reality where a bicycle can share the road unimpeded with a motor vehicle safely. that was among the promises of self-driving cars. Because of ultimately superior sensor suite and reaction time they can be safer than humans, in particular they would never "not see a bicyclist", they wouldn't cut impatiently, etc. . Instead that superiority is used these days to drive more "efficiently", to beat/cut the human drivers in a way not every regular human would be capable of. At least that is my anecdotal observation during the last several months (and these several months experience totally differs from the more than 15 years of having Waymo cars around in MV when they were i'd say among the safest to be around) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46199294 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46199294 From the more recent - saw again a Waymo cutting like a ninja into a left turn lane at the same intersection as before, and at the other intersection a Waymo car missing the point to get in line for the right turn behind several cars already waiting in line in the bike lane, drives forward on green and makes the right turn as the second layer of the cake in parallel with those cars from the bike lane. I think all that aggressiveness/"efficiency" comes as a result of the push to increase the customer satisfaction. All these years before driving actual passengers, Waymo (and i guess others) could allow themselves to be the safest, most courteous drivers on the road. Not anymore as such "inefficient" granma-style driving obviously would conflict with the passengers satisfaction.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 6mo agoMaybe in 40 years or so everyone will use self driving vehicles that work perfectly and this will be a solved problem. We should probably do something about the problem in the meantime though
- wffurr 6mo agoYes! Concrete please!
- doug_durham 6mo agoBike lanes with curbs aren’t great. On garbage days trash cans often get parked in the bike lane and cyclists have no way of going around since the curb block their way. I’m perfectly comfortable with just lines for bike lanes.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 6mo agoI’ll take my chances with the trash can over the SUV that can’t even see me because it’s so lifted and that will kill me instantly if the driver isn’t paying attention. At least with the trash can I have a chance
- lwansbrough 6mo agoYou might be, but cycling adoption is strongly linked to safer riding conditions. Protected bike lanes are demonstrably safer. So perhaps you should be more concerned about people blocking roadways with their garbage?
- Gud 6mo agoOnly in dysfunctional societies.
- lxgr 6mo agoBike lanes on a curb are significantly more dangerous due to turning car drivers often not seeing them (due to parked cars in the way) or interpreting them as “just a sidewalk” and not properly looking for cyclists.
- maest 6mo agoNot a real problem, as proven by many countries where cycling is encouraged and supported
- HDThoreaun 6mo agoI bike in Chicago and curbed bike lanes recently installed are a big problem
- queenkjuul 6mo agoReally? I use them all the time without issue, unless someone has decided to park themselves in the intersection
- lxgr 6mo agoThe global consensus on which type is safer is not nearly as clear as you confidently make it out to be. A lot of things need to be true for a curbside bike path to be safer than a roadside one, most importantly protection against dooring and ensuring visibility at intersections. If these measures are not taken, the result is often less safe.
- devilbunny 6mo agoIt’s a real problem, just not an unsolvable one. But it will take a lot of awareness campaigns and time.
- Mawr 6mo agoIt definitely is a real problem, although I cannot say with certainty whether it's a significant enough problem to make curbside lanes worse than roadway lanes.
- mcmSEA 6mo agoAgree with this. The concrete barriers being added in Seattle help a lot.
- bartwr 6mo agoMy experience cycling regularly in NYC: bike lanes separated by curb, stoppers, or poles are more dangerous as cars stop at their entrances/exits and I am literally trapped or cannot enter them before/after an intersection. I'm not against them in principle, but without extremely strict enforcent of laws (let's say a ticket 5% of someone's annual income and a loss of DL on a repeated offense - this stuff endangers people's lives), they are sadly counterproductive. :(
- maest 6mo agoI semi regularly see big cop SUVs parked here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/MydRmrTkiJMxt3Pi7?g_st=ac https://maps.app.goo.gl/MydRmrTkiJMxt3Pi7?g_st=ac On the bike lane, which is physically separated from the road. The cop car takes the whole width of the lanes. It also means the cop had to get on the bike lane here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/frGXL1NpcCW18iRN9?g_st=ac https://maps.app.goo.gl/frGXL1NpcCW18iRN9?g_st=ac and then drive for a couple of blocks _on the physically separated bike lane_.
- foxyv 6mo agoThis is why bike lanes should be some non-integer multiple of a car width. 1.5 car widths allows the continuation of bike traffic despite an emergency vehicle in the lane unless someone blocks it intentionally.
- WillAdams 6mo agoThe thing which I think would really help with bike lanes would be to standardize on placing underground utilities beneath them --- they'd be less expensive to dig up than a roadway structured for cars, and when maintenance is necessary, a cyclist can easily be diverted either onto the roadway (if staying on the bike) or to the sidewalk (if temporarily dismounting).
- monster_truck 6mo agoThe width of a bike lane and its margins is not nearly enough space to safely trench deep enough with the equipment they already have to reach most things they need to tear roads up for. Even modest water mains can be 4ft in diameter, drainage and sewage twice that (in flood prone areas)
- moomin 6mo agoPeople undoubtedly said this was not realistic in many car-clogged European cities before some actually did it. “Realism” here is just a measure of the current number of votes you have for making things better.
- altairprime 6mo agoIt helps to replace ‘realistic’ with ‘palatable’, which at least conveys the issue more precisely as one of desirability rather than capability. Most U.S. voters for someone who interferes with drivers on behalf of non-drivers.
- bryanlarsen 6mo agoStreets are narrower in Europe. It should be easier in the US.
- tsss 6mo ago[flagged]
- rsynnott 6mo ago... Are you claiming that there are few or no European cities with extensive separated bike lanes or something?
- retired 6mo agoThere is Copenhagen. And Dutch cities. I don't know if there are any other European cities with extensive separated bike lanes. Valencia has some bike lanes but I wouldn't call them extensive. Only 143 kilometers versus 515 kilometers in Amsterdam, which has a similar population.
- datsci_est_2015 6mo agoBerlin certainly qualifies. If not by metric, then by vibe. Lightyears ahead of Chicago which I rate as a good city to bike in the US (and getting better under the current batch of aldercreatures). 143km sounds like quite a bit though, especially since separated bike lanes are usually for main thoroughfares, whereas many low-traffic side streets you simply bike down the middle.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- gzread 6mo ago> There’s just no reality where a bicycle can share the road unimpeded with a motor vehicle safely. Logically equivalent: > There’s just no reality where a motor vehicle can share the road unimpeded with a bicycle safely. ... or a pedestrian. Those motor vehicles sure are a menace!
- petre 6mo agoWhat's wrong with lane separators¹? Bollards are dangerous for cyclists. Rised bike lanes are also parked onto. I had the displasure of sliding on reentry when a car was blocking the raised bike lane. Next time I'd rather stop and argue with the driver. Also you get to enjoy going up and fown ramps all of the time. 1. https://orcacivil.com.au/products/traffic-management-products/bike-lane-separators/ https://orcacivil.com.au/products/traffic-management-product...
- HDThoreaun 6mo agoCurbed bike lanes create a huge hazard when cars going the same direction turn right. Neither the bike nor the car has good visibility of the other, very likely the car turns into the bike or the bike doesn’t stop and rides into the turning car.