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Google Wants to Make Silicon Valley as Bike-Friendly as Copenhagen

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Re: Google Wants to Make Silicon Valley as Bike-Friendly as Copenhagen

#11
post #5

Good luck, SV is what 4-5 times (if not more) larger than Copenhagen and consists of spotty urban, suburban, industrial areas, connected by high speed motorways and highways.

How about public transport you can take the bikes with you on, and nice bike paths in the denser areas?

The denser areas, especially the bay side belt are quite are quite bike friendly. Public transportation is a completely different question, bikes on buses do not work, some train services can be adopted with special carriages to carry bikes on board.

The main issue isn't just roads its and entire infrastructure, e.g. giving bikes priority over motor vehicles like in some European countries which might not work well, In many cases bike lanes tend to also have a negative impact as they are often take spaces from public side walks, you can see that being a very big issue in some European cities that went bike crazy.

London is trying to do that and it's infuriating bikes seem to do what ever the fuck they want they'll go in the bike land but on a red signal they'll decide to go over the cross walk and onto the side walk to get a head, they often go into red signals even on the road when there is no (or they think there isn't) incoming traffic, and they clog bus lanes.

You can't just go from 0 to 60, turning SV into a bike friendly zone will take as much time as it took to turn Copenhagen or Amsterdam into one.

Re: Google Wants to Make Silicon Valley as Bike-Friendly as Copenhagen

#12
post #4

Good luck, SV is what 4-5 times (if not more) larger than Copenhagen and consists of spotty urban, suburban, industrial areas, connected by high speed motorways and highways.

Suburban Copenhagen has very good bike lanes. Actually separate roads for bikes. [1] Granted, this took years to build. [1] E.g. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Sjælsø,+Denmark/@55.8628... (yes, that thing on the left is a bike lane!)

We are still talking about an area much smaller than SV with a much lower population density.

Re: Google Wants to Make Silicon Valley as Bike-Friendly as Copenhagen

#13
Quote: --- They tackled the problem with data. "Rather than looking at what bike infrastructure is there, they looked at the user experience [...] They looked at levels of stress faced by bicyclists, and how those could change based on the infrastructure that could be there in the future," ---

The innovation of this project is mind-blowing. Bicycle lanes! A whole network of them!

Re: Google Wants to Make Silicon Valley as Bike-Friendly as Copenhagen

#14
I applaude this effort. I think many people discount how capable they are of making the switch to commuting via bike to work. Almost any commute less then 10 miles can easily be done via bike, and making a "safe" route to connect the metro area is a great first step.

The unfortunate situation is that if you are over 10 miles to your office ( which many are ) you will have a hard time making that commute in a acceptable amount of time, unless you actually make an effort at going fast.

Re: Google Wants to Make Silicon Valley as Bike-Friendly as Copenhagen

#15

I just biked last evening from downtown San Jose to the southern vicinity of the Google campus. There are two main options: Central Expressway or something close and parallel to it, which I've declined. Or trails near the bay shore, which is what I chose. Bad choice. The trails are for the most part unpaved. Riding my sleek, rigid road bike on those things was torture. Never again. If those trails were paved, that wo…

I know its not an option for everyone, but a good cyclecross bike will do wonders for that kind of commute. I picked up a hybrid bike and got a set of tires with some tread on them and I can now handle gravel fairly well, and still get good rolling resistance on the rest of my ride

Re: Google Wants to Make Silicon Valley as Bike-Friendly as Copenhagen

#16
I evaluated moving to MTV last fall to take a job with GOOG; bayshore drive certainly is the most direct and dicey route. I'm in a position to move there this fall and knowing that Palo Alto, MTV etc would be connected via safe bikeways would be a huge plus to living in the fairly bland suburbs.

Re: Google Wants to Make Silicon Valley as Bike-Friendly as Copenhagen

#17

I just biked last evening from downtown San Jose to the southern vicinity of the Google campus. There are two main options: Central Expressway or something close and parallel to it, which I've declined. Or trails near the bay shore, which is what I chose. Bad choice. The trails are for the most part unpaved. Riding my sleek, rigid road bike on those things was torture. Never again. If those trails were paved, that wo…

you should give cyclocross bike a go

Re: Google Wants to Make Silicon Valley as Bike-Friendly as Copenhagen

#18

I just biked last evening from downtown San Jose to the southern vicinity of the Google campus. There are two main options: Central Expressway or something close and parallel to it, which I've declined. Or trails near the bay shore, which is what I chose. Bad choice. The trails are for the most part unpaved. Riding my sleek, rigid road bike on those things was torture. Never again. If those trails were paved, that wo…

This sounds like it could be easily solved by you riding a more suitable bike for commuting. It seems people in the US fetishize road bikes with drop bars and skinny tires as the 'best and fastest' kind of bike and then complain about how uncomfortable biking is. Even in the tour de france they don't use 23mm tires anymore. Going to a wider tire won't affect your speed adversely and to an extent will actually speed you up.

https://janheine.wordpress.com/2014/01/01/tires-how-wide-is-...

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