Checkmate, Tesla
Google Wants to Make Silicon Valley as Bike-Friendly as Copenhagen
181–190 of 345 posts
Re: Google Wants to Make Silicon Valley as Bike-Friendly as Copenhagen
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be nice if the Valley was more pedestrian friendly - all too often cars ignore the rules. One example is near the Palo Alto Caltrain station tunnel between Stanford and downtown Palo Alto, and too many times pedestrians come close to getting hit by their recklessness :( . [Eh, pick any time you've seen a car shoot through a crosswalk and narrowly miss pedestrians... I observe this at least weekly] It is frus…
Cars don't drive on the sidewalks or to the right of buses picking up passengers.
No, but they do kill tens of thousands of people each year in the US. How many people do bikes kill again?
Re: Google Wants to Make Silicon Valley as Bike-Friendly as Copenhagen
#183Retrofitting American suburban sprawl to be less car-centric is going to be one of the enduring puzzles of the 21st century. The suburban model of planning championed in the 50's onwards became so deeply embedded in development projects and just the entire culture of small city planning across the country that a huge chunk of Americans are completely unaware that a less car-centric lifestyle is even possible, let alo…
Here in Minnesota it's common that suburban "subdivision" neighborhoods don't even have pedestrian sidewalks. And the inhabitants think that's a good thing. I cannot even.
It snows quite heavily in Minnesota, so during much of the year those sidewalks would be unusable or hazardous.
Re: Google Wants to Make Silicon Valley as Bike-Friendly as Copenhagen
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Lower population density areas are easier to make bike friendly, less people which means that taking off road lanes or making sidewalks slightly narrower has a smaller impact. It also means that other bike infrastructure like parking is easier to build (need less of it). Construction is also easier when you either do need to move buildings at all, or you are moving 2-3 story buildings instead of huge complexes. Fixin…
You're posing a false choice between biking and public transit. Biking and public transit can be improved together since, when properly designed, biking to public transit is a very easy way to extend the effective "bikeable" commute distance. Why do you think creating bike infrastructure would be more expensive than improving public transit?
Re: Google Wants to Make Silicon Valley as Bike-Friendly as Copenhagen
#185Earlier 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…
The only problem to this otherwise ideal solution is how bursting at the seams the Caltrain is. No parking at the stations, no room to sit for the passengers, and no room for the bikes in the bike car. We really need a better rail system on the peninsula.
It's supposed to get somewhat better with electrification, since they'll be able to run more trains so we'll have more frequent service. I agree though that we need good transit on top of Caltrain, and it should be separated-grade.
Re: Google Wants to Make Silicon Valley as Bike-Friendly as Copenhagen
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
> dismantlement of motorvehicle-related infrastructure. Whether it is turning car lanes into bike lanes, Yes, it turns out we overbuilt streets and under-built bike infrastructure so now we have to reclaim some car lanes to create bike lanes instead. This is not the end of the world. > reducing available parking in new constructions Reducing the required parking in construction doesn't eliminate parking in new constr…
The infrastructure issue isn't so simple. In my local we are in a real estate boom. There are many groups claiming that cars will not be so prominent in the near future. That view is taken onboard by zoning people when deciding on new buildings. Rather than demand sufficient parking spots and upgrades to roads and mass transit, developers are allowed pretend that a large number of residents will bike to work. That me…
Above ground or street-level parking is literally the worst use of space possible in an urban setting.. This is fairly established by this point.
http://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/05/22/americas-absurdis-park...
The answer to people parking in street parking and annoying local businesses is to charge for street parking. The amount of space wasted so that cars can sit empty on expensive infrastructure in prime locations is staggering;
http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-04-01/american-cit...
Re: Google Wants to Make Silicon Valley as Bike-Friendly as Copenhagen
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many, many people: - do not have showers at work - do not have safe routes to ride - are not experienced cyclists - average more like 10mph The discussion is not "how do we get hardcore bike nuts to ride to work". That's not hard.
I find it hilarious that Americans made it to the moon but think that commuting to work by bike is practically impossible. Meanwhile millions of people all over the rest of the world, from school children to seniors, are doing just that every single day. I moved to southern California last year (from the UK) and of course I ride my bike to work. My colleagues think that this is a really strange thing to do and some r…
You're comparing a jackfruit to an entire valley's harvest of grapes there.
Re: Google Wants to Make Silicon Valley as Bike-Friendly as Copenhagen
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be nice if the Valley was more pedestrian friendly - all too often cars ignore the rules. One example is near the Palo Alto Caltrain station tunnel between Stanford and downtown Palo Alto, and too many times pedestrians come close to getting hit by their recklessness :( . [Eh, pick any time you've seen a car shoot through a crosswalk and narrowly miss pedestrians... I observe this at least weekly] It is frus…
I love this comment because it illustrates perfectly the cognitive dissonance going on. People everywhere talk about how drivers in their area are like, so, so bad, but nobody ever suggests that we halt investing in car infrastructure until they get better. And that's a good thing: you don't stop investing in a vital public good just because it's sometimes abused. That applies to bikes as much as cars.
I have far more problems with bikers in the area than cars - the close encounter rate is quite high, largely because a lot of bikers don't have good control over their bikes or because they don't care at all about pedestrians and are willing to run them over to force them out of the way. I'm quite amazed I haven't been hit by a biker yet to be honest, some even talking on their cellphones held in one hand while driving pedestrians running out of the way.
I'd be more sympathetic towards bikers if they didn't decrease the quality of getting from one place to another for pedestrians & harass when they decided to not follow laws & rules there for good reason.
You act like being pedestrian friendly isn't a vital public good - I'd argue it is more important than being bike friendly, and if being bike friendly has a logical result in making it much more perilous for a pedestrian (and I'd fear for those with babies in baby carriages), one needs to consider that the current system does not work, and this problem needs to be solved either before or alongside the bike friendly problem.
Re: Google Wants to Make Silicon Valley as Bike-Friendly as Copenhagen
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many, many people: - do not have showers at work - do not have safe routes to ride - are not experienced cyclists - average more like 10mph The discussion is not "how do we get hardcore bike nuts to ride to work". That's not hard.
I find it hilarious that Americans made it to the moon but think that commuting to work by bike is practically impossible. Meanwhile millions of people all over the rest of the world, from school children to seniors, are doing just that every single day. I moved to southern California last year (from the UK) and of course I ride my bike to work. My colleagues think that this is a really strange thing to do and some r…
A handful of Americans made it to the moon. The rest of us watched it on TV.
Re: Google Wants to Make Silicon Valley as Bike-Friendly as Copenhagen
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here in Minnesota it's common that suburban "subdivision" neighborhoods don't even have pedestrian sidewalks. And the inhabitants think that's a good thing. I cannot even.
It snows quite heavily in Minnesota, so during much of the year those sidewalks would be unusable or hazardous.
As would the roads without the maintenance that everybody always seems to completely forget about.