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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

#301

Post by adrianN »

buro9 wrote: post #82
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…

> Sure, you're never going to get people who live 15 or 20 miles out biking the whole way to work That's what I do every day in London. Why wouldn't you? Myself and a lot of my friends choose our housing approx' 45 minutes to an hour away from the centre of London just to ensure we've got a good ride every day. At a commuter average of 16mph, and an experienced cyclist average of 18/19mph means that 15 to 20 miles is…

I commute in Berlin by bike. I'm reasonably fit and on an open road I can average about 28km/h for a couple of hours. In the city though my average speed is about 18km/h because of traffic lights. There are very few people who overtake me on my commute. I don't see how you would manage 20 miles (32km) in less than 90 minutes without running all the red lights and riding like these madmen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhaGzAnEOd8

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

#302

Post by provemewrong »

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…

> 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?

Where I live kids, young adults and old people are the most prevelant cyclists. Grandmas who have riddden bikes their whole lives, they don't own a car, and it takes less effort and is faster than walking. They're not particulary fit, usually overweight and they ride easy and slow as hell. You don't need to be young athelete to cycle. And kids cycle to school on their own. Obviously there are exceptions, nobody's suggesting banning cars altogether, but the average old person can cycle just fine and so can a school aged kid.

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

#303

Post by IkmoIkmo »

odiroot wrote: post #95
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…

I wouldn't say pretty much everywhere. Probably only in Amsterdam. In Berlin it's mostly: cars | bikes | parking | pedestrians (raised sidewalk). In Warsaw (for example) it's: cars | parking | bikes (part of the sidewalk) | pedestrians (raised sidewalk).

Yeah it really depends to be honest. Born n raised in Amsterdam and if I look out the window, there's parking separated lanes, but if I cycle down my street and take a right, I get merely curb-separated lanes, and if I take another right I'd be sharing (without even dotted lines) the street with cars (although for these streets there are lots of speed bumps and speed limits and one-direction traffic, mostly for people living there to park their cars rather than actual travel). So it's far from 'everywhere' in Amsterdam.

It's hard to say how much of the cycle lanes are parking separated. I feel like it's quite a bit but then I also look at streets like the marathonweg or stadionweg (check google maps street view) which have been peds | parking | bikes -dottedlines- cars, since forever and still are to this day, despite there being room to switch the middle two around.

But it's quite clear that wherever possible, this is what streets are being modified to all the time, construction just finished infront of my dad's house to modify the street for improved safety for example. I wouldn't be surprised if say the marathonweg and stadionweg would look more like the apollolaan before 2020. In the case of the stadionweg it's a little tricky as it's often used to drive through, past the olympic stadium onto the highway, it's pretty damn packed during rushhour so construction isn't a bit tricky to plan.

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

#304

Post by zurn »

rconti wrote: post #206
buckbova wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're welcome to your opinion. I bike 8 miles each way in Silicon Valley with a backpack on my back. I ride in a t-shirt and jeans (unless it's really hot, in which case I wear shorts). I ride moderately hard, so I arrive with a bit of sweat on my body and on my face. Sometimes I wipe the sweat off my face with a paper towel. 10 mins in my air-conditioned cube and I'm back to normal temp, all dried off, and merino t…

Just curious, why do you prefer a backpack to a pannier (or backpack-inside-pannier)?

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

#305

Post by jessaustin »

ptaipale wrote: post #293
analog31 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise here in Wisconsin, but we're expected to shovel our walks. I once got a ticket for failing to do so. They only ticket people if somebody complains to the city, so I probably deserved it. Depending on where and when, sidewalks are optional for new subdivisions, and face a couple of dis-incentives: 1) You pay if the sidewalk in front of your house has to be repaired. 2) You have to shovel it. So, there are see…

Never lived in American suburbia, so I never though ot this: the cul-de-sacs are made so that a bike or even a pedestrian can not get through? Over here (Finland), it is very common that a road is cul-de-sac for motor vehicles but you can get through riding bike or on foot. There is also a common traffic sign to indicate this, for instance here in my neighbourhood: https://www.google.fi/maps/@60.2285087,24.7129127,3a…

Over here (Finland), it is very common that a road is cul-de-sac for motor vehicles but you can get through riding bike or on foot.

This is common in USA if the cul-de-sac is a retrofit to a previously-through road. (If not by design, then in the breach, because someone has knocked a hole in the fence and it hasn't been fixed.) However, in the sorts of housing-only developments that have culs-de-sac designed in, the typical cul-de-sac is completely surrounded by houses with yards backed by other houses with yards, so there's nowhere to go.

Personally, I've never lived in such an environment, and when I've visited those who do it has driven me to distraction. You can't get anywhere directly! My impression is that this sort of development design is growing less popular, although maybe it's just that I more rarely visit people who live in such places.

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

#306

Post by IkmoIkmo »

_delirium wrote: post #38
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 a…

Absolutely, same here. Amsterdam for example, most distances are about 4-5km. Inside the 'ring', which is a highway running in a circle around the centre of Amsterdam, is considered to be Amsterdam the city, outside is mostly considered Amsterdam the suburban area, and the ring has a diameter of about 8km, which is probably a good measure for what people are willing to bike. Up to 10km still makes sense, too, but beyond that it tapers off really quickly.

It really depends how long that takes though on a few factors. For example, in the Netherlands you can separate two distinct groups.

One are those who cycle between cities, usually these are either old people for recreation, or much bigger, teenagers (12-18) who cycle from a small village to a nearby larger village or town to go to secondary school. Those people have two things in common, 1) they have nice bikes with gears and 2) they have very long stretches of fully separated cycling paths without any traffic or stop lights. They can pretty easily get speeds of 20 km/h and do a 10km trip in half an hour.

The other group of people are mostly inner-city people who don't take their bicycle outside of the city and use it for shopping, seeing friends, cycling to work, to a station etc. They usually have what are called 'opa' and 'oma' bikes without any gears. And their trips consist of mixed traffic (quite a lot of separate lanes, but not everywhere) with a lot of traffic stops every minute or so. They get speeds around 14 km/h or so, and with the constant stops some effectively get more like 12 km/h. Their 10km trip suddenly takes 50 minutes, and that's just not really acceptable for a lot of people, particularly when you're in your suit for a morning meeting and it either rains or gets really warm.

So it really depends. In big cities though, you'll rarely see 10km trips, 8km is the reasonable limit for most, 1-5km is typical (for example 1km for shopping, 2km for sports, 2-5km for friends or work or a station).

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

#307

Post by phanimahesh »

spacecowboy_lon wrote: post #296
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.

So when its raining hard and you have to stop quickly and safely? will that 100$ bike be as good/safe as a sensible entry level MTB say 800/900$ with properly setup brakes?

In India, where I live, you can get a good bicycle for about 5000 INR or ~ $76. And for the few years I owned a bicycle, I never had any issues with it. Mine cost ~ $46.

I don't understand why bikes in US are priced so high.

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

#308

Post by hvidgaard »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #177
meatysnapper wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although i'm a fairly responsible biker, I'd say the amount of bikers I see totally ignoring traffic laws is very high- stoplights, riding fast on sidewalks, going the wrong way on one way roads, etc. Maybe 30%. Re sidewalks, I think most people feel very unsafe on bikes in demarcated bike lines, and I get that. The other stuff is totally crazy though.

> I'd say the amount of bikers I see totally ignoring traffic laws is very high- stoplights, riding fast on sidewalks, going the wrong way on one way roads, etc. Maybe 30%. Studies show that cyclists and motorists break the law at about the same rate: http://www.phillymag.com/news/2015/08/06/bikers-drivers-brea... What's usually happening is that we're so used to motorists breaking the law that it doesn't even regist…

I am from Denmark and frequently drive in the largest cities. The main problem is not breaking the law as such, but the tendency to completely disregard the surroundings - in the last 5 years a lot bike with music as well (though this can be compensated for with proper use of your eyes). A lot of bikers doesn't look over their shoulder when biking past a connecting road. The majority does not defensively try to determine if a right turning car has seen them and just assume it has. Some are all over the place and bike on the left side of the cars. There are a ton of other examples I see on a daily basis. They do it simply because it's more convenient to them.

Bikes and cars share the road, yet a great many cyclists act like they have priority. E.g when stopping at the red light, all cars waiting to do a right turn should have the right wheels close the the curb, and cyclists should queue up behind the car. They however almost always try to get past you, even jump off their bike and walk on the sidewalk if they have to and some give you the finger in the process - how dare you be in the way of how they think it should be?

No matter how much motorists break the law, they're not putting themselves in nearly the same danger. Not even close.

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

#309

Post by hvidgaard »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #275
happycatbasket wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coming from a cyclists perspective, I always assumed that eBike riders were laypeople who just wanted to pay for the convenience to make the daunting task of pedaling seem like less of a deal. It's truly tragic that bikes as a form of transport has been regulated to the domains of college kids, hipsters, fitness buffs, and enthusiasts. < 15 miles is manageable for most people if they don't give up the first day they'…

What you are missing from your perspective is mountainous regions, long distances or fact that some people do not want to arrive too sweaty, but still wish to enjoy the ride.

If you arrive sweaty it's because you bike too fast.

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

#310

Post by analog31 »

ptaipale wrote: post #293
analog31 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise here in Wisconsin, but we're expected to shovel our walks. I once got a ticket for failing to do so. They only ticket people if somebody complains to the city, so I probably deserved it. Depending on where and when, sidewalks are optional for new subdivisions, and face a couple of dis-incentives: 1) You pay if the sidewalk in front of your house has to be repaired. 2) You have to shovel it. So, there are see…

Never lived in American suburbia, so I never though ot this: the cul-de-sacs are made so that a bike or even a pedestrian can not get through? Over here (Finland), it is very common that a road is cul-de-sac for motor vehicles but you can get through riding bike or on foot. There is also a common traffic sign to indicate this, for instance here in my neighbourhood: https://www.google.fi/maps/@60.2285087,24.7129127,3a…

Yes. A lot of newer neighborhoods are not laid out on a grid, but are designed with lots of winding streets an cul-de-sacs. Maybe it seems more pleasant that way, and it forces through traffic out onto the main roads, but does the same to bikes.

Cyclists really benefit from a "network" of alternative routes that have low traffic, and what you describe in Finland is a great idea.

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