I speak as a non-car-owning bicycle commuter when I say that bicycle lanes inside apartment building hallways are ... glaringly stupid. Rabid bicyclowns like this give the rest of us a bad reputation for fanaticism.
What a City Would Look Like If It Were Designed for Only Bikes
71–80 of 96 posts
Re: What a City Would Look Like If It Were Designed for Only Bikes
#72I'm a cyclist and I love the idea of making cities more bike friendly, but this group of designers has missed a major point. Cities are for PEOPLE. Not for cars, not for bikes, but for humans. Space for people to live and exist in should be the highest priority, and anytime you start cutting into living space to make more room for vehicles, you're making the city less human friendly. That's what these guys seem to be…
> I'd even suggest that a major reason why cars have supremacy at the moment is that they are more inclusive of people than bikes are. This is mostly true because >>we make it true Plus, it's not like cars universally win at inclusiveness: They're less inclusive of the poor, for example, because they're vastly more expensive to own and operate than a bike. The poor who need a car because there's no good transit or bi…
> You see plenty of older people, people with kids, kids themselves, etc. biking around in the Netherlands or Denmark. This is because they have good support for biking, such that people 8 - 80 can bike around town.
In Japan I saw an elderly lady (easily 85+) pull a very nice moving dismount from her bicycle at an intersection.
Re: What a City Would Look Like If It Were Designed for Only Bikes
#73I wonder if that expert has been to the Netherlands or Copenhagen. In fact I wonder whether he has really experienced a bike for day to day use, because some of the ideas are very strange. It's telling that most bikes in the pictures are racing bikes. What's the advantage of bikes in apartment buildings? Why not park the bike at the ground floor? It would waste a lot of space in the corridors. Think about what you'd…
Agreed. Strangely, this concept seems to replicate with bikes most mistakes done previously with cars (and 60's concepts around planes). The designer is actually sort of aware of this, not understanding the consequences: > "Residential bike parking should have the same space-syntax relationship to the front door and kitchen as car parking does in a contemporary house in the suburbs," Fleming says. Designing cities ar…
> Designing cities around people, not a way to transport them, is missing from this approach.
Exactly! What a lot of bike activists seem to be missing is that bikes are just one part of this. Bikes are a means to an end. The goal is human friendly cities not bike friendly cities. Facilities for pedestrians are as important as facilities for cyclists. The relationship of cars to bikes is similar to the relationship of bikes to pedestrians. If you look at well designed cities they have a pedestrian focused centre, then around that a bike and car focused area. In Amsterdam you aren't allowed to bike in shopping streets. (I'm using Amsterdam as an example because it's known internationally, but as far as dutch cities go it's not that good, neither for pedestrians nor for cyclists).
Beyond that the atmosphere is important. If you want people to spend time walking and biking around cities you need safety yes, but that's just the start. Would you enjoy walking or biking around a city with massively wide and straight streets that go on for kilometers? I don't think so. You need cosy streets with shops and squares with bars with terraces and trees and parks and nice architecture. The livable space of a city shouldn't just be the inside of its buildings, and what's outside is just a way of getting to those buildings. The outside should itself be a livable space.
Re: What a City Would Look Like If It Were Designed for Only Bikes
#74I wonder if that expert has been to the Netherlands or Copenhagen. In fact I wonder whether he has really experienced a bike for day to day use, because some of the ideas are very strange. It's telling that most bikes in the pictures are racing bikes. What's the advantage of bikes in apartment buildings? Why not park the bike at the ground floor? It would waste a lot of space in the corridors. Think about what you'd…
I think there's a different culture in places where bikes remained (like Netherlands & Denmark) as a major vehicle type and where they can back in recent decades. In the places where they came back, it was a trendy sporty thing. Very expensive bikes became normal and when these new age cyclists try to use their bikes for transport they hit the theft and vandalism issue. Part of the solution in (EG) Netherlands is rid…
The Netherlands wasn't always bike friendly. There was a big push in the 70's to redesign cities and popularize cycling. It wasn't something that just happened or something that was always there.
I agree that you need to adapt the approach to the country or area. The real goal should be making the space in cities outside of buildings human friendly rather than only car friendly. This is about pedestrians, bikes, public transport, architecture, atmosphere, etc. In Sydney you could perhaps use public transport for long distances, with bikes for the last mile. This is also common in the netherlands for people who travel between cities. Or you could have electric bikes for hilly terrain and warm weather. Note that the netherlands is rainy and windy, and that's not nice for cycling either yet people still do it.
Re: What a City Would Look Like If It Were Designed for Only Bikes
#75I like that they are trying to consider different possibilities, although I'm not personally fond of what they came up with. For example, one picture looked like ramps for bikes to go over cars, but in practice it works better for cyclists to go under (even though from an engineering standpoint it is more work to put the heavy traffic on top). I also don't want bikes to be indoors (and I primarily bike for transportation).
I like David Hembrow's blog about cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands. Here is a good post on myths and excuses about cycling infrastructure: http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2011/02/all-those-myths...
Re: What a City Would Look Like If It Were Designed for Only Bikes
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'd even suggest that a major reason why cars have supremacy at the moment is that they are more inclusive of people than bikes are. This is mostly true because >>we make it true Plus, it's not like cars universally win at inclusiveness: They're less inclusive of the poor, for example, because they're vastly more expensive to own and operate than a bike. The poor who need a car because there's no good transit or bi…
> You see plenty of older people, people with kids, kids themselves, etc. biking around in the Netherlands or Denmark. This is because they have good support for biking, such that people 8 - 80 can bike around town. In Japan I saw an elderly lady (easily 85+) pull a very nice moving dismount from her bicycle at an intersection.
The situation of the elderly in Japan is an outlier.
Re: What a City Would Look Like If It Were Designed for Only Bikes
#77I wonder if that expert has been to the Netherlands or Copenhagen. In fact I wonder whether he has really experienced a bike for day to day use, because some of the ideas are very strange. It's telling that most bikes in the pictures are racing bikes. What's the advantage of bikes in apartment buildings? Why not park the bike at the ground floor? It would waste a lot of space in the corridors. Think about what you'd…
Kickstand?
Yes, thanks :)
Re: What a City Would Look Like If It Were Designed for Only Bikes
#78I like that they are trying to consider different possibilities, although I'm not personally fond of what they came up with. For example, one picture looked like ramps for bikes to go over cars, but in practice it works better for cyclists to go under (even though from an engineering standpoint it is more work to put the heavy traffic on top). I also don't want bikes to be indoors (and I primarily bike for transporta…
Why should bikes go under the cars?
Re: What a City Would Look Like If It Were Designed for Only Bikes
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'd even suggest that a major reason why cars have supremacy at the moment is that they are more inclusive of people than bikes are. This is mostly true because >>we make it true Plus, it's not like cars universally win at inclusiveness: They're less inclusive of the poor, for example, because they're vastly more expensive to own and operate than a bike. The poor who need a car because there's no good transit or bi…
> Honestly, it sounds like you just haven't been to any city with a high (15%+) bike modal share, because then you'd see how your assumptions are wrong. If you live in America, that's understandable, because we don't have any major cities like that. But they do exist, elsewhere in the world. Visiting Amsterdam or Copenhagen could be eye-opening. I believe you, for sure, I just don't think the concept in this article…
Oh, I agree that these particular concepts are over the top. I was just taking issue with the idea that bikes aren't inclusive. This is a common misconception in the states, because indeed, here we are used to cyclists being mostly young, fit and male, because our bike lane networks are so shoddy that no one else is brave/crazy enough to risk their lives just to move around the city.
Funnily enough, at Google, their bike commute rate in the Mountain View/Sunnyvale area for people who live within 9 miles of work is 21%, which is obviously extremely high for the states. It's helped along by a reasonably high number of painted bike lanes in the area, a few good bike/ped trails, and the fact that car traffic going to those areas is really, really horrible during rush hour.
Re: What a City Would Look Like If It Were Designed for Only Bikes
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You see plenty of older people, people with kids, kids themselves, etc. biking around in the Netherlands or Denmark. This is because they have good support for biking, such that people 8 - 80 can bike around town. In Japan I saw an elderly lady (easily 85+) pull a very nice moving dismount from her bicycle at an intersection.
The situation of the elderly in Japan is an outlier.
Plenty of elderly in the Netherlands biking around too. Are they also an outlier?
I mean, they kind of are, but only in the sense that they have a ton of good bike infrastructure. If we built bike infrastructure that well, we also could have elderly cyclists.