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

fastcoexist.com

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

#31

Post by TulliusCicero »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #21

I appreciate the effort, although I'm annoyed that FastCoExist mentions Mountain View and Santa Clara, while avoiding mentioning Sunnyvale, the actual 'heart' of Silicon valley and right there on the map between Mountain View and Santa Clara. But hometown prejudices aside, the challenges are in connecting existing stuff. For example, once you get to the Stevens Creek Trail you are good to go right up to Goole's campu…

> Sunnyvale has been adding protected bike lanes that cross it east/west to aid that effort.

Have they? Where? I'd love to see some on Evelyn.

Really anywhere there isn't street parking, changing painted bike lanes into protected bike lanes seems like a no-brainer. Much more (perceptual, at least) safety, without any significant change to how the road space is divvied up.

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

#32

Post by bryanlarsen »

dogma1138 wrote: post #12
nextos wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Rural areas in Denmark have awesome cycling infrastructure and a much lower population density than Silicon Valley. Urban areas have awesome cycling infrastructure and a much higher population density.

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

#33

Post by michaelt »

stbtrax wrote: post #18
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #7

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 y…

The width of the tyre might not affect your speed - but the fact the path is unpaved will :)

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

#34

Post by scythe »

kevinburke wrote: post #6

A good way to accomplish this (not mentioned in the article) would be to build more housing close to Mountain View's campus. Office space has been outstripping housing growth in Mountain View for a very long time. See for example https://www.jwz.org/blog/2015/01/stop-being-bullied-lets-sue... .

The problem isn't Mountain View alone, it's balkanization. You can't just build housing in Mountain View unless you really believe "Alphabet" will be there forever -- that's different from believing that tech will last a long time, because one company does not an industry make. It makes more sense to build 2000 units in each of Mountain View, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Redwood City, San Mateo, East Palo Alto, Cupertino, San Jose, and Los Altos, than to force any one of those to build 20000 units. But coordinating this is easier said than done, and it took a long time to type, at that.

Annexing the suburbs has been mentioned as a possibility for SF, but the real balkanization is worse further south, and it would actually be easier for San Jose to annex most of Silicon Valley -- for one thing, it doesn't cross county lines -- than for San Francisco to reach all the way down the peninsula. The end result is the same, if SJ city authorities recognize both the problem and the opportunity it represents.

But hopefully some useful public transit pops up in the area, too.

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

#35

Post by bduerst »

antr wrote: post #19

Silicon Valley is a car-centric urban area, and this Google initiative strikes a cord with this talk "The Importance of Designing Streets Instead of Engineering Them", well worth watching: http://www.architecture.io/talks/mikael-colville-andersen-th...

If you look at the history of South SF Bay, it has always been a string of commuter communities.

It started with the train to take workers into SF and the rich out to their mansions on the weekends. It exploded in the 1950's with affordable automobiles, and houses went up everywhere.

Now the workers are going the other way and the South SF Bay infrastructure is being crushed by it.

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

#36

Post by buckbova »

dkhenry wrote: post #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 acceptab…

I don't want to show up to work sweaty. And I want the utility of a vehicle if my plans change. So I'll drive regardless.

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

#37

Post by jmhain »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #31
ChuckMcM wrote: post #21

I appreciate the effort, although I'm annoyed that FastCoExist mentions Mountain View and Santa Clara, while avoiding mentioning Sunnyvale, the actual 'heart' of Silicon valley and right there on the map between Mountain View and Santa Clara. But hometown prejudices aside, the challenges are in connecting existing stuff. For example, once you get to the Stevens Creek Trail you are good to go right up to Goole's campu…

> Sunnyvale has been adding protected bike lanes that cross it east/west to aid that effort. Have they? Where? I'd love to see some on Evelyn. Really anywhere there isn't street parking, changing painted bike lanes into protected bike lanes seems like a no-brainer. Much more (perceptual, at least) safety, without any significant change to how the road space is divvied up.

> Have they? Where? I'd love to see some on Evelyn.

Me too. I was actually hit on Evelyn a few months back.

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

#38

Post by _delirium »

dkhenry wrote: post #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 acceptab…

Even in Copenhagen, 10km (6 miles) tends to be about the furthest most people bike. A few do bike further, but it really drops off past that. For the longer commutes, people do a hybrid bike/rail trip. If you're 5km from work, often it's easiest and fastest to just bike directly. If you're 20km, it's more common to bike to the S-train. Depending on your job location, you either take the bike with you on the S-train and continue biking from the other side, or you park it at the station and just take the train in.

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

#39

Post by lukeschlather »

stbtrax wrote: post #18
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #7

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 y…

I only ride hybrids, I've ridden my hybrid on steep mountain highways and gravel roads, although mostly thousands of miles in the city. I agree that wider tires are best. However, having a durable bike with durable tires doesn't "solve" the problem of riding on gravel, it just makes it less painful. If Silicon Valley actually built a decent bike network I might consider moving there from Seattle.

As it is I'd feel like I'm paying a premium to put up with worse infrastructure.

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

#40

Post by trhway »

erjiang wrote: post #24
kevinburke wrote: post #6

A good way to accomplish this (not mentioned in the article) would be to build more housing close to Mountain View's campus. Office space has been outstripping housing growth in Mountain View for a very long time. See for example https://www.jwz.org/blog/2015/01/stop-being-bullied-lets-sue... .

Mountain View and most of the other SV cities want to maintain their quiet suburban image, nevermind that they are home to some of the biggest tech companies in the world. Until residents start voting the other way, housing will continue to be in very short supply.

until people learn how and, more importantly, willing to build good urban space, as a resident of MV (or of SV in general as i lived in other near by cities before) i am even against current 3 story "barracks" being actively built all over the place.

For example, one can build 30 story (plus 10 underground for parking/storage/etc...) towers with enough green space around it instead of covering all available space with the 3 story-s.

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