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I recognize some of the Cambridge and Boston streets, since I walk a few miles here daily. These bike lanes are politically-loaded, for various reasons (e.g.,
by neilv 2mo ago
I recognize some of the Cambridge and Boston streets, since I walk a few miles here daily. These bike lanes are politically-loaded, for various reasons (e.g., car drivers disliking bicyclists, brick & mortar businesses losing parking), but there's also 3 additional problems in the last couple years:
1. For over a year, the rate of bicyclists and motorized bikes/scooters I see running red lights has escalated to the point where it is highly unusual that I see one not run a red. Yesterday, for example, a bike, at speed, aimed through a crowded crosswalk, not missing pedestrians by much. Also yesterday, while I was crossing in crosswalk after waiting for light, one of those heavy motorized bikes with the huge fat tires larger than some motorcyles plowed through long after the red.
2. Some (not the majority, unlike running reds) bikes and motorized treating busy sidewalks as special highways, which they use at speed. You can see this, for example, on Mass. Ave., especially between Harvard and Porter, when they can't always run reds on the street. (Incidentally, having Blue Bike rental stations on the sidewalk might encourage this among the riders of those, by desensitizing and confusing about riding on sidewalk.) I used to walk miles of Mass. Ave. almost daily, but last summer it got to the point that it was normal on a walk to get blown past by at least one bike or motorized bike/scooter on the sidewalk that was going fast enough to cripple or kill me if it hit me.
3. Some of the various kinds of protected bike lanes make it harder for pedestrians to see car traffic, to cross in a crosswalk. (Combine this with the prevalence of parked large SUVs now, blocking the view of both pedestians and moving vehicles further.) A few times a day, I can't even cross the street without leading with my left hand out, because I can't see the traffic, and reckless people on vehicles, are normal now. One of these days, I'm going to either narrowly miss a crippling/lethal crash because of that hand, or injure my left hand/arm first, because too many people are reckless and we have worse visibility than we used to.
As a walker who isn't a huge fan of cars, in a city that earned the term "Massholes" for how they drive, I can tell you that, in the last two years, IME, the car drivers behave much better than the overwhelming majority of people on bikes and motorizes bikes/scooters. There's still some red-running by cars, but it's nowhere near the standard-operating-procedure recklessness of the people who now think they can use the bike lanes, streets, and sidewalks as their personal Autobahn, and that pedestrians can always be dodged safely.
Politically, when walkers in a Masshole city start side with cars, and walkers suddenly feel a lot less solidarity with their bicyclist cousins, then you should suspect there's a big new problem.
It used to be that bicyclists rightly felt they had to look out for themselves, because they were in constant danger from the "I'm a car guy" mayor town drivers, and a lot of people sympathized with bicyclists. Now it looks like bicyclists (and the motorized bikes/scooters who've joined them) are the arrogant/smug, get-yours danger to others.
I speculate the cause is the combination of all the new "bike lane" infrastructure, and all the new motorized regulation-subverting vehicles seeking to take advantage of that infrastructure, followed by traditional bicyclists taking their behavior cues from the prevailing "bike" behavior.
A wave of new students arrives in town over the next 2-3 weeks, many of them with bikes and motorized bike/scooters, and they'll immediately adopt and reinforce the apparent de facto rules for how to operate their vehicle on the streets and sidewalks.
BTW, this LoudBicycle.com "Bike Bureau" seems to be an SEO thing by the makers of a 125 dB horn for bicyclists. If someone uses that horn in the company's own "walking friendly" dense town of Boston, I hope no one without hearing protection is hit by the blast. https://thedailyautomotive.com/how-loud-is-a-car-horn/ https://thedailyautomotive.com/how-loud-is-a-car-horn/
- matsemann 2mo agoThe reason some pedestrians feel cyclists pose a bigger threat than drivers, is mostly due to car centric infrastructure. Cars get all the room, and cyclists&pedestrians get clumped together. Of course you see little conflicts with cars when you're physically separated from them. Additionally it's a form of servility and motonormativity. Most people accept that they themselves have to obey cars, so no jaywalking or other behavior, most people go out of their way to avoid conflicts with cars (due to the risk), which again makes the drivers seem less of a threat. But only because you yourself have removed yourself from the situation. In total, the numbers don't support the impression. Literally no one dies from being hit by cyclists. Vs thousands upon thousands die from being hit by vehicles each year.
- neilv 2mo ago> The reason some pedestrians feel cyclists pose a bigger threat than drivers, is mostly due to car centric infrastructure. I'm sympathetic to criticisms of car-centric infrastructure and regulations, but the human/motor-powered bikes and scooters in just 2 years have lost any political high ground, by en masse behaving like the historically worst car drivers. And you can no longer separate bicyclists from the motorized regulation-circumventing bikes and scooters, when (in my thousands of hours of anecdotal observations) human-powered bikes are mimicking the behaviors of the motorized. Regarding injuries, I don't think we will have good stats yet, but random data point I happened to bookmark, from this company's town: https://mass.streetsblog.org/2025/08/07/e-bike-rider-inflicts-serious-injuries-to-pedestrian-in-chaotic-copley-square-intersection https://mass.streetsblog.org/2025/08/07/e-bike-rider-inflict... A couple other relevant non-HN links: https://macleans.ca/longforms/menace-on-the-streets/ https://macleans.ca/longforms/menace-on-the-streets/ https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/1v0mboz/er_doctors_warning_parents_against_getting_their/ https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/1v0mboz/er_do...
- foco_tubi 2mo agoThere are a lot of conclusions which do not follow the evidence here. You’re using similarity of bad behavior to imply similarity of harm, while simultaneously admitting you don’t have the statistics showing similarity of harm.