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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

#281

Post by jules »

sandworm101 wrote: post #111

I do laugh at the image of society at large switching from cars to bikes. At the moment biking is dominated by young fit and generally healthy people. That may be silicon valley but it isn't the general population. I see lots of young parents going to work by bike, but do they take their kids to school on bikes? Does grandma get to the doctor on a tricycle? And what about the growing number of people who need to be b…

Actually, here in the netherlands most children bike to school by age 5, and continue to bike until they are no longer able to. My grandmother biked until 80, she never had a drivers license. Before age 5 children sit on their parents' bikes. Handicapped people do use tricycles. I know a guy who lost one of his legs, and he rides on a bike with 3 wheels. There are also bikes that are powered by your arms instead of legs for people who cannot use any of their legs.

But what I see in the linked article in the photo as an example of a good bike lane, no way in hell parents are going to let their 5 year olds bike there. It's a death trap from moving cars on the left and car doors on the right. The road is massive (at least 5x wider than the average road here), so there is plenty of space there for proper infrastructure.

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

#282

Post by wbsun »

The problem with bike in US is that everybody drives, the roads were initially designed for cars, not bikes. Simply converting part of a drive lane to a bike lane makes cars and bikes still share the road, which is very unsafe. Blind spots can easily cause accidents because of the shared-road bike lane design.

Some downtown streets are already narrow enough, still the stupid city planning squeeze a bike lane into them and put more risk to bikers.

The safe way to make bike lane is separating drive lanes and bike lanes with strip traffic island that can't be crossed. I used to work at Madison, WI for a while. Their bike lanes are completely separated and isolated by grass or tree traffic island from drive lanes. No wonder Madison claims itself the most bike-friendly city in US.

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

#283

Post by jrock08 »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #267
linkydinkandyou wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You mean a single bicyclist in Palo Alto killed a single pedestrian, who was crossing without a crosswalk on a blind curve.

I can't find aggregate statistics for Palo Alto, but here's the 2012/2013 statistics for the New York Burroughs.

Cyclists killed 1 pedestrian (in 2013) and injured 560 pedestrians for a mortality rate of .1%.

Drivers killed 326 pedestrians and injured 24411, a mortality rate of 1.3%.

Clearly bikers are killing pedestrians and are very dangerous.

See page 2 for source:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2013-bicycle-crash...

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2012-bicycle-crash...

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

#284

Post by a8da6b0c91d »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #277
a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The prices on ebikes are still ridiculous. They cost more than a lightly used 300cc motorcycle that can go 100 mph and sips gasoline.

But ebikes ride quietly and do not produce smoke. And you can pedal them. Speed is not the only factor here.

Nothing compensates for the absurdity of spending over $3K for one.

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

#285

Post by yason »

For masses, bikes work great if the daily operating radius where you go about is something like five kilometers. But in Silicon Valley, except for some minor villages in between, 5 kilometers is only a couple of blocks. And instead of snaking through traffic in a city for five kilometers at slower speeds with your working clothes on, you would be sweating on your bike beside fast-going cars in a very much grueling environment of noise, heat, and an endless stretch of road. And then you would need to take a turn and do another five kilometers along another road.

I could see it working somewhat if you diverted all the bike traffic through the residential areas and punched the isolated culs-de-sac via bike paths so that bikes, not cars, could take a shortcut through the whole block instead of going along by the car routes. This kind of approach is very common in Finland: you can't always drive from one suburb to another but there's always a bike/pedestrian path that cuts through all that extra distance; here's a typical traffic sign denoting that: http://savepic.ru/7576556.png

But in general it's hard to see bikes becoming the popular vehicle for masses in Silicon Valley until there are enough towns the size of Copenhagen downtown and built with similar density, and where people commute locally.

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

#286

Post by QuercusMax »

hueving wrote: post #179
npsimons wrote: post #159

When I did my on-site interview with Google in Mountain View, it was very obvious to me I would almost certainly be car commuting every day, for (at least) two reasons: 1) Cost of houses close to Google was ridiculous. 2) The city is very car centric. Fixing the second may be possible, but the first seems like a more insurmountable (and more important) problem. Where I currently live, I can bike commute to and from w…

Keep in mind big companies like Google have buses that run pretty far and you can just count the ride on the bus as part of your work schedule because you can work on your laptop.

Yup. I live in Saratoga, about a 13 mile bike ride to where I work at Google West Campus (still part of North Bayshore). I typically ride my bike in every morning (takes just under an hour) and take the bus home - there's a bus stop a mile from my house, plus another one 2.5 miles away. I usually end up taking the bus to the farther stop because I forget to leave my desk on time. :D

I started biking every day partly to try to get in shape, but also because my kids' school schedule is such that I can't catch the bus at the time I'd prefer. (During the summer I took the 7:30 bus near my house, which got me in to work in 20 minutes.)

It typically takes me about 25-30 minutes on the bus to get home, plus 5-15 minutes biking home from the bus stop. I had a 13-mile commute to my old job in Cleveland, and I find I'm significantly less stressed commuting this way, even if it takes slightly longer.

The locations of the bus stops are not publicized to non-employees, but there are lots of them, and some are pretty far out - as far as Santa Cruz. I can't imagine working on the bus to/from SC, though - you'd better bring some dramamine or barf bags!

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

#287

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#288

Post by ptaipale »

oostevo wrote: post #236
Patrick_Devine wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

But then, if you want to make use of these unusual situations to make people drive more slowly, and build more of them, then they come not unusual situations, and everyone gets used to them and drives normally.

Where I live (Finland), we have plenty of separate bike/pedestrian paths, so biking is overall nice, but not like Copenhagen which is a) completely flat and b) in a milder climate.

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

#289

Post by 6t6t6 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #260
6t6t6 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people don't understand that they don't need to spend 3000$ in the bike they use to commute. Mine costed me 10.000yen (100$). It works quite OK, and if one day it is stolen or broken, I will not be really sad. Ah, it also has a basket that is quite convenient when I go to the supermarket.

I guess. But commuting may be the bulk of all bicycling I do. To do most of my bicycling on a crap bike would be very disappointing. I could also eat sawdust at work for lunch every day, if sawdust was nutritious. I don't need to eat tasty food. Nor wear comfortable clothes that fit - sackcloth will do. I'm happy to ride a really good bike. I want to be happy more often.

Well. Happiness is really a personal thing. In my case, it makes me happy to let my bike without any lock in front of my house, knowing that nobody will touch it. On the other hand, it would make me quite unhappy to get an expensive bike stolen.

A carbon fiber bike would probably be 3 kilos lighter than my bike. But then I would have to carry a really heavy chain in order to lock it. So, I cannot see the gain. Also, the heavier my bike, the more exercise I do, witch is the point, isn't it?

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

#290

Post by InclinedPlane »

tarasglek wrote: post #271
InclinedPlane wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biking really is dangerous though. Per-mile you are more likely to get injured in an accident on a bike than in a car. Though there are problems with that statistic since cars are also used for long-distance highway driving which inflates the total number of miles. That said, it's absolutely true that biking can be a fairly dangerous activity, though driving itself is also fairly dangerous (one of the most dangerous…

Yes per mile it's worse. However driving is worse for your health in long run. The odds average out in favor of cycling

Also, the statistics can be somewhat misleading because they average over so many details.

For example, there is a huge disparity in the range of safety equipment, level of situational awareness, and caution used by cyclists. Some are very conscientious, use lights, even mirrors, pay close attention to traffic, etc. while others take a cavalier attitude to safety, ignore the laws, are practically invisible on the road, etc. The statistics average both of those extremes into an aggregate risk level (though the same is true for cars as well, which is worth considering). Also, people have the ability to judge which routes they travel and to choose the safest ones.

Overall I would never discourage people from cycling, though there are some routes that I myself would be hesitant to take due to the lack of alternatives for safe places to travel. I commuted to work by bicycle for about a year and a half in Alabama, which is considered the worst state in the US to ride a bike (and I wouldn't disagree). In most cases there are reasonable and safe bike commuting routes, often on less trafficked side streets from main thoroughfares, though there are some cities where it's difficult to travel by bike unless you are a very skilled and aggressive cyclist.

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