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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

#231

Post by analog31 »

mapt wrote: post #225
analog31 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in the US it's typical for every house to be responsible for its own sidewalk. So everybody gets it done somehow, by hand, or with a gas powered snowblower, or they hire a service. The same people who mow lawns in the summer, clear snow in the winter. Where the land is public-owned, e.g., parks, the city brings a little machine that's the same width as the sidewalks. Its main attraction is a heated cabin for the…

No. 90% of people get it done somehow. The failure of the other 10%, and inability to ride your bike more than ten or twenty houses of sidewalk down the line, stands as testament to concept of professionalized public infrastructure. We don't ask people to shovel the roads.

That's true. During the winter, I ride my bike in the street. My route is 100% on "tame" neighborhood streets or dedicated bike paths. The city plows the bike paths with the same priority as main roads.

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

#232

Post by michaelmior »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #198
gamblor956 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It snows quite heavily in Minnesota, so during much of the year those sidewalks would be unusable or hazardous.

Are the roads unusable? I'm guessing not; you can clear sidewalks too - central European countries seem to use a small snowplough for the pavements (ie sidewalks), the snow is ploughed on to the road, the road plough lifts the snow to a truck and it's trucked away.

Such plows are fairly common in larger Canadian cities with heavy snowfall as well (e.g. Toronto, Montreal).

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

#233

Post by Patrick_Devine »

nickbauman wrote: post #176
rwhitman wrote: post #160

Retrofitting 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.

I live in a neighborhood in Palo Alto that doesn't have sidewalks, and people here walk (and bike) all the time. The reason why it works is because many of the streets are extremely narrow, and we've worked fairly hard at making certain they aren't striped down the center. For whatever reason this seems to get motorists to drive more slowly and makes it safer for everyone.

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

#234

Post by dasil003 »

Bahamut wrote: post #162

It would be nice if the Valley was more pedestrian friendly - all too often bikers 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 :( . One time I got yelled at by a biker on El Camino when trying to board a bus...the biker tried to pass to the right of the bus. It is fru…

I think part of the problem is that you have to have brass balls to bike in certain routes anyway, which leads to a higher distribution of assholes than you get in other groups.

But after being a cycle commuter in the best (Minneapolis), worst (Albuquerque), and middle of the road (SF/Peninsula/East Bay) cities in America and then also London (which I guess is sort of middle of the road for Europe), I think the real problem is American urban planning and the entitlement of the American driver. Basically, average city streets in the US are like highways in Europe, they are wider, faster, and drivers don't give two shits about pedestrians, cyclists or anyone else (except in Berkeley, Berkeley is like a weird parallel universe of pedestrian etiquette); a disturbingly large proportion of otherwise decent Americans get behind the wheel and turn into Mr Hyde.

Contrasting with London where congestion is every bit as bad, not only on the roads, but also the sidewalks, and you find a sort of emergent cooperative effort for everyone to pay attention to everyone else and attempt to make the least nuisance of themselves. This is necessary because often the sidewalks (pavements) are overcroweded and pedestrians spill into the streets, but the cars and the bicycles watch out for this. Similarly, cyclists will reach critical mass and sometimes block traffic, but then filter themselves down to single file to let cars go by. Lanes are much more fluid in general, with oncoming traffic making room for buses to pass each other by utilizing part of their lane.

To sum it up, America lacks an attitude of public cooperation when it comes to transportation infrastructure and utilization. I suppose this is the cultural legacy of a century of being able to simply move west and be granted 160 acres of land to oneself.

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

#235

Post by dasil003 »

mc32 wrote: post #228
TulliusCicero wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd like to see Bart or similar all the way down the el camino and encourage high density housing and offices. Create a nice long urban canyon with good transit. People could bike a few blocks off the stations.

I don't have details, but apparently BART was originally drawn up to encircle the South Bay but that was torpedoed by the local communities on the peninsula just like high speed rail to LA. It's sort of crazy making to think about how much better BART would be compared to the apocalyptic, earthquake-inducing rumbling and dinging bells of Caltrain with at-grade crossings and monthly deaths (sometimes intentional, sometimes not).

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

#236

Post by oostevo »

Patrick_Devine wrote: post #233
nickbauman wrote: post #176

Earlier 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.

I live in a neighborhood in Palo Alto that doesn't have sidewalks, and people here walk (and bike) all the time. The reason why it works is because many of the streets are extremely narrow, and we've worked fairly hard at making certain they aren't striped down the center. For whatever reason this seems to get motorists to drive more slowly and makes it safer for everyone.

>> For whatever reason this seems to get motorists to drive more slowly and makes it safer for everyone.

That's actually a known phenomenon. When drivers experience unusual situations (like roads without stripes down the middle), they're forced to pay much more attention to the actual act of driving.

For more, see here: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/02/to-make-ro...

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

#237

Post by xxpor »

rar_ram wrote: post #63

How about they fix the public transport system first ? The bay area (united states in general, except for a few places) has the worst public transportation system. The VTA light rails and buses are nothing compared to new york or even boston for that matter!

SV isn't even remotely close to being in the same universe in terms of density, which is needed to make transit really work.

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

#238

Post by linkydinkandyou »

Patrick_Devine wrote: post #233
nickbauman wrote: post #176

Earlier 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.

I live in a neighborhood in Palo Alto that doesn't have sidewalks, and people here walk (and bike) all the time. The reason why it works is because many of the streets are extremely narrow, and we've worked fairly hard at making certain they aren't striped down the center. For whatever reason this seems to get motorists to drive more slowly and makes it safer for everyone.

Bicyclists in Palo Alto kill pedestrians. http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2015/04/22/pedestrian-str...

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

#239

Post by beatpanda »

scythe wrote: post #34
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,…

San Jose tried this in the 60s. Most of the little towns surrounding San Jose used to be San Jose. They were rebuked over and over again as town re-incorporated. I think you'd at least have to wait longer before trying that again.

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

#240

Post by mgraczyk »

rconti wrote: post #211
mgraczyk wrote: post #152

Not sure how they generated that stress-level map, but it seems to be an unreasonably simplistic approximation. For example, there is a dedicated bike path along the 101 from the region marked "North Bayshore" all the way past the top-left corner of the map. That entire stretch is less stressful than any place south of El Camino. By extension, most of northern Palo Alto should be dark green instead of yellow and pale…

I used to bike commute on rare occasions from near Levi stadium up to around where Oracle is in Redwood Shores. I don't remember a dedicated bike path along 101 at North Bayshore. I'd usually leave Moffet, cross under 101, go up Middlefield to Rengstorff, then ride past Google, turn left, past Intuit, then follow East Bayshore (the road) the entire way until I cut through EPA towards what is now Facebook HQ (used to…

I was referring to the Baylands trails, specifically the Adobe Creek Loop Trail and those that lead to EPA.
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