7 ms·

The reason people don't ride bikes in the US is not because unprotected bike lanes are scary. It's because our cities have been laid out with the premise in min

by akjetma 12y ago

The reason people don't ride bikes in the US is not because unprotected bike lanes are scary. It's because our cities have been laid out with the premise in mind that everyone will have cars. We have disparate clusters/districts related to activities like 'work', 'play', 'shop', and 'sleep', rather than having these constructs evenly interspersed. We have supermarkets instead of markets. Monoliths instead of distributed systems.

ffumarola 12y ago
Arguably, it's both. And to make cities more livable, infrastructure change would be a good thing.
- akjetma 12y ago
  Agreed. I guess I was responding to the part in the video where it said 'We know that protected bike lanes are the key to getting the average person to consider travelling by bike.'
bane 12y ago
We also have bad weather. Right now, where I live at least, a top 10 metro, it's around 90-95degF and 80-90% humidity or it's raining. Suppose I decide to ride to work. Google puts that at a 1 hour and 13 to 1 hour 23 minute ride depending on my route. It sucks but it's doable. Now I arrive at work and I'm soaked either from sweat or rain. Now what? I can stink up the office with my B.O. all day while I desperately try to dry my clothes. Or I go through the indignity of getting to work, waiting an hour to cool-down and dry off, then trying to change out of my riding kit into some decent professional work clothes in a dirty stall in the men's room after giving myself a paper towel bath in the sink. Then at the end of a long work-day, reverse this absurd course of events? Now instead of a 10 minute drive and 8.5 hours at the office followed by a 10 minute drive home (total time commitment under 9 hours), I've succeeded in turning my 9 hours of work time into a 10.5-11.5 hours of work time so I can put myself dangerously out in traffic, exposed to the elements and be uncomfortable the entire day and can't go anywhere else once I'm there? Even if the stars aligned and I had door-to-door bike trails, I wouldn't partake in this uncivilized madness. I'd much rather just get home earlier, not smelling like exhaust fumes and body odor and go do a leisurely jog around my neighborhood park for a half hour or go to one of the 3 gyms next to my house where I can ride a stationary bike in a temperature controlled environment while watching TV. Edit: for the record, I support dedicated bike lanes and infrastructure almost everywhere because of all the side benefits it brings. But I'm also not treating it as a religious issue, mindful of acute practicalities that explain the world better than assuming one of the most technologically sophisticated countries on the planet doesn't like to ride bikes to work because they're too stupid to do so.
- stingraycharles 12y ago
  Just because it isn't your personal preference doesn't mean no one should think about cyclists. There are many pro- and con-cyclist arguments, all of which are irrelevant to this discussion.
  - bane 12y ago
    My larger point is that painting up bike lanes is probably the last of the issues in the "let's get people biking" discussion.
    - andrewliebchen 12y ago
      Yeah, but you don't shy away from setting up straw men you can knock down in service of your "I don't think its feasible to bike to work, so we shouldn't bother making it easier for anyone else" argument.
      - bane 12y ago
        Good thing you didn't read my main comment and decided to get your religion offended instead.
        maxerickson 12y ago
        You've made ~10% of the comments for this article and you are dismissing things other people say by accusing them of caring too much about the issue. I'm also not sure repeatedly dismissing the same minor points does much for the conversation (of course repeatedly raising them doesn't do much good either). I think you are probably right that bike lanes alone aren't going to get a lot of people biking, but I think you are wrong that they don't matter. It's a situation where each piece of the puzzle needs to exist, so safe routes probably matter just as much as sensible city planning and shower availability and so on. The existence of safe routes could even impact planning some (because if there is significant interest in using them to commute, it should show up in housing decisions).
ars 12y ago
> It's because our cities have been laid out with the premise in mind that everyone will have cars. Some cities are like that, and others aren't. People can vote with their feet. Guess which one people like better? (Hint: People have been moving out of dense cities for 100 years now.) Are you planning on forcing people to accommodate themselves to your definition of the perfect city? > We have disparate clusters/districts related to activities like 'work', 'play', 'shop', and 'sleep', rather than having these constructs evenly interspersed. Is that supposed to be a bad thing? The world is not sim-city. Not everyone wants to live near a shopping area. > We have supermarkets instead of markets. Markets are not large enough to carry everything, so when I lived in a place like that I never went to the market, so I got the worst of both worlds: High density (i.e. traffic) plus a long drive. I moved out. You are acting as if the layout of cities was a commandment given from on high, but actually cities are laid out as they are because people like it that way.
- dohertyjf 12y ago
  " People have been moving out of dense cities for 100 years now." Data to support this? Every study I've seen recently shows that people are moving INTO cities, not out of them.
  - ars 12y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_center_of_the_United_States_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_center_of_the_United_Stat... People are leaving the dense NE cities and going to the less dense south and west ones. To pick the largest city in the US, the population density of Manhattan went from 21 in 1910 to 12 today. And Lower East Side went from 70 to 16.[1] Also look at construction statistics, new home construction outpaces population growth, people are moving into less dense areas and need new housing. They build a bit less than 1 million homes every year, and most of those are single family homes.[2] Population growth is about 2.8 million each year, but that's people not families. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/03/01/realestate/manhattans-population-density-past-and-present.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/03/01/realestate/man... [2]http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/new-residential-construction-housing-starts-decline-30-november-2012 http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/new-residential-cons...

by akjetma 12y ago

ffumarola 12y ago

Arguably, it's both. And to make cities more livable, infrastructure change would be a good thing.

akjetma 12y ago
Agreed. I guess I was responding to the part in the video where it said 'We know that protected bike lanes are the key to getting the average person to consider travelling by bike.'

bane 12y ago

We also have bad weather. Right now, where I live at least, a top 10 metro, it's around 90-95degF and 80-90% humidity or it's raining. Suppose I decide to ride to work. Google puts that at a 1 hour and 13 to 1 hour 23 minute ride depending on my route. It sucks but it's doable. Now I arrive at work and I'm soaked either from sweat or rain. Now what? I can stink up the office with my B.O. all day while I desperately try to dry my clothes. Or I go through the indignity of getting to work, waiting an hour to cool-down and dry off, then trying to change out of my riding kit into some decent professional work clothes in a dirty stall in the men's room after giving myself a paper towel bath in the sink. Then at the end of a long work-day, reverse this absurd course of events? Now instead of a 10 minute drive and 8.5 hours at the office followed by a 10 minute drive home (total time commitment under 9 hours), I've succeeded in turning my 9 hours of work time into a 10.5-11.5 hours of work time so I can put myself dangerously out in traffic, exposed to the elements and be uncomfortable the entire day and can't go anywhere else once I'm there? Even if the stars aligned and I had door-to-door bike trails, I wouldn't partake in this uncivilized madness. I'd much rather just get home earlier, not smelling like exhaust fumes and body odor and go do a leisurely jog around my neighborhood park for a half hour or go to one of the 3 gyms next to my house where I can ride a stationary bike in a temperature controlled environment while watching TV. Edit: for the record, I support dedicated bike lanes and infrastructure almost everywhere because of all the side benefits it brings. But I'm also not treating it as a religious issue, mindful of acute practicalities that explain the world better than assuming one of the most technologically sophisticated countries on the planet doesn't like to ride bikes to work because they're too stupid to do so.

stingraycharles 12y ago
Just because it isn't your personal preference doesn't mean no one should think about cyclists. There are many pro- and con-cyclist arguments, all of which are irrelevant to this discussion.
- bane 12y ago
  My larger point is that painting up bike lanes is probably the last of the issues in the "let's get people biking" discussion.
  - andrewliebchen 12y ago
    Yeah, but you don't shy away from setting up straw men you can knock down in service of your "I don't think its feasible to bike to work, so we shouldn't bother making it easier for anyone else" argument.
    - bane 12y ago
      Good thing you didn't read my main comment and decided to get your religion offended instead.
      - maxerickson 12y ago
        You've made ~10% of the comments for this article and you are dismissing things other people say by accusing them of caring too much about the issue. I'm also not sure repeatedly dismissing the same minor points does much for the conversation (of course repeatedly raising them doesn't do much good either). I think you are probably right that bike lanes alone aren't going to get a lot of people biking, but I think you are wrong that they don't matter. It's a situation where each piece of the puzzle needs to exist, so safe routes probably matter just as much as sensible city planning and shower availability and so on. The existence of safe routes could even impact planning some (because if there is significant interest in using them to commute, it should show up in housing decisions).

ars 12y ago

> It's because our cities have been laid out with the premise in mind that everyone will have cars. Some cities are like that, and others aren't. People can vote with their feet. Guess which one people like better? (Hint: People have been moving out of dense cities for 100 years now.) Are you planning on forcing people to accommodate themselves to your definition of the perfect city? > We have disparate clusters/districts related to activities like 'work', 'play', 'shop', and 'sleep', rather than having these constructs evenly interspersed. Is that supposed to be a bad thing? The world is not sim-city. Not everyone wants to live near a shopping area. > We have supermarkets instead of markets. Markets are not large enough to carry everything, so when I lived in a place like that I never went to the market, so I got the worst of both worlds: High density (i.e. traffic) plus a long drive. I moved out. You are acting as if the layout of cities was a commandment given from on high, but actually cities are laid out as they are because people like it that way.

dohertyjf 12y ago
" People have been moving out of dense cities for 100 years now." Data to support this? Every study I've seen recently shows that people are moving INTO cities, not out of them.
- ars 12y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_center_of_the_United_States_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_center_of_the_United_Stat... People are leaving the dense NE cities and going to the less dense south and west ones. To pick the largest city in the US, the population density of Manhattan went from 21 in 1910 to 12 today. And Lower East Side went from 70 to 16.[1] Also look at construction statistics, new home construction outpaces population growth, people are moving into less dense areas and need new housing. They build a bit less than 1 million homes every year, and most of those are single family homes.[2] Population growth is about 2.8 million each year, but that's people not families. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/03/01/realestate/manhattans-population-density-past-and-present.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/03/01/realestate/man... [2]http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/new-residential-construction-housing-starts-decline-30-november-2012 http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/new-residential-cons...