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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

#71

Post by TulliusCicero »

mc32 wrote: post #64

To my mind, one of the main issues, in addition to protected bike lanes is the spread. Bike friendly cities are more compact. Commuting to work via bike is not a strenuous fifteen mile commute one way. They tend to be leisurely few mile rides. Now, not to say it's not possible, but a one to five mile bike ride is not the same as a ten to fifteen or more miles bike ride. Now, I do like Copenhagen's above ground bike r…

Sure, you're never going to get people who live 15 or 20 miles out biking the whole way to work, but there's lots of people who live You also have to keep in mind biking as a first-mile/last-mile complement to rail transit. If there's good bike paths to get to a transit station, that effectively extends the usable radius of the station. Already, lots of people bike to Caltrain and then bike from their stop to work (I should know, I do it occasionally but recently have shied away because of how full the bike cars are during rush hour).

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

#73

Post by TulliusCicero »

calbear81 wrote: post #67

How about a bike lane with a small barrier along the Caltrain tracks? You already have the land, you can build some overpasses at major street intersections.

This makes sense technically, but not psychologically, if you're talking about a bike lane that's very close to the tracks. The trains are very large and very loud with their horns. It's already intimidating when I'm biking on Evelyn, pretty close to the tracks. Intellectually, I realize the chance of the train derailing is pretty much zero, but it doesn't feel that way.

Adding such a bike lane would be better than what we have now, but I think a lot of the 'interested but concerned' group would be unwilling to be very close to the train.

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

#74

Post by lifeisstillgood »

mc32 wrote: post #64

To my mind, one of the main issues, in addition to protected bike lanes is the spread. Bike friendly cities are more compact. Commuting to work via bike is not a strenuous fifteen mile commute one way. They tend to be leisurely few mile rides. Now, not to say it's not possible, but a one to five mile bike ride is not the same as a ten to fifteen or more miles bike ride. Now, I do like Copenhagen's above ground bike r…

I would like to see a mix of coach and bike - I live about 30 miles outside London in a typical commuter town, and the station is two miles away and the train takes an hour to drop me off in the wrong part of London and I need a 20 minute tube ride afterwards.

Currently the totally commercial and private coach is half the cost of my tax subsidised train per month, and picks me up 40 yards from my door and goes past the office where I work in London.

Soon I shall be moving offices and while I could stay on the coach I can just pedal the last few miles by getting off earlier. In London traffic i will be there faster eight times out of ten.

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

#75

Post by mc32 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #71
mc32 wrote: post #64

To my mind, one of the main issues, in addition to protected bike lanes is the spread. Bike friendly cities are more compact. Commuting to work via bike is not a strenuous fifteen mile commute one way. They tend to be leisurely few mile rides. Now, not to say it's not possible, but a one to five mile bike ride is not the same as a ten to fifteen or more miles bike ride. Now, I do like Copenhagen's above ground bike r…

Sure, you're never going to get people who live 15 or 20 miles out biking the whole way to work, but there's lots of people who live You also have to keep in mind biking as a first-mile/last-mile complement to rail transit. If there's good bike paths to get to a transit station, that effectively extends the usable radius of the station. Already, lots of people bike to Caltrain and then bike from their stop to work (I…

Yes, true it can complement mass transit some, but then it's not the same as Copenhagen (their characterization) and becomes more Tokyo --which while they have very many bikes, is not all that bike friendly.

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

#76

Post by TulliusCicero »

meatysnapper wrote: post #8
tormeh wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This. Just putting down bike paths is useless when everything else is missing. You need bike parking too!

Google, at least, has tons of bike parking.

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

#77

Post by jarcoal »

hyperion2010 wrote: post #62

Based on the photo at the bottom they are going to fail the same way that many other US cities have failed when trying install bike lanes. You MUST put the parked cars between moving traffic and bikes. If you do not bikers are going to get hit and doored and will obstruct turn lanes. Pretty much everywhere in Europe gets this right. Traffic -> parking -> bikes -> peds. How did the US get everything completely backwar…

This is happening in Portland, OR in select locations.

Admittedly I haven't seen a lot of progress in the last year, but they converted a few of the streets up by PSU rather quickly, so maybe it's not a huge obstacle to overcome?

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

#78

Post by TulliusCicero »

jalayir wrote: post #51

Silicon Valley is not exactly a dense city.. It's more a suburb.

True, but even suburbs in the Netherlands have high cycling rates, thanks to their good bike infrastructure.

And while SV is not a dense city, it's not that sprawled out. Almost everyone in the area has plenty of services and attractions within a good biking range (~3-5 miles depending on confidence), and lots of people live within a half-decent biking range (< 10 miles) of their work.

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

#79

Post by praneshp »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #45
ChuckMcM wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remington has full size bike lanes, Mary and Bernardo are in the works to get them, and I don't know where the proposal for Homestead is these days.

Two things: Remington & Homestead don't connect to Stevens Creek Trail, and Mary & Bernardo aren't East-West streets. You said they were adding protected bike lanes, are any of those protected? Off the top of my head, I can't think of any protected bike lanes I've seen in Sunnyvale.

Wolfe has protected lanes all through, I used to bike on that. Same with Fremont/Sunnyvale-Saratoga, etc.

When I rode a bike to work because I had to bike 500m on El Camino, which is 500m more than what I want to on that road. The alternate was quite longer.

Edit: first para incorrect, I had "protected bike lanes" and "dedicated bike lanes" confused.

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

#80

Post by JupiterMoon »

mc32 wrote: post #75
TulliusCicero wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you're never going to get people who live 15 or 20 miles out biking the whole way to work, but there's lots of people who live You also have to keep in mind biking as a first-mile/last-mile complement to rail transit. If there's good bike paths to get to a transit station, that effectively extends the usable radius of the station. Already, lots of people bike to Caltrain and then bike from their stop to work (I…

Yes, true it can complement mass transit some, but then it's not the same as Copenhagen (their characterization) and becomes more Tokyo --which while they have very many bikes, is not all that bike friendly.

Actually most of the the trains (not the metro for some reason) in Copenhagen have lots of bike space and one can take one's bike for no charge. Lots of people use bikes and mass transit together.
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