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Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

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Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#181

Post by infinite8s »

m0nty wrote: post #124
snovv_crash wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why wouldn't you wear a helmet as a cyclist anyway? Because a dinky bicycle helmet won't change anything if you are hit by a car. Even a motorcycle helmet won't help. The only time a helmet helps is in low speed accidents.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07o-TASvIxY Anyone just blindly downvoting snovv_crash should check out the video above and any number of other resources, such as this one: http://www.cyclinguk.org/campaigning/views-and-briefings/cyc... There are strong feelings on both sides, but many cyclists feel helmets are a distraction from the real issues which make cyclists unsafe: poor road design and unsafe driving. Cycling…

How is walking not safe?

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#182

Post by DanBC »

oarsinsync wrote: post #123
andrewem wrote: post #40

I don't have time now to write a comment laying out a comprehensive rebuttal of all the foolishness that some people have suggested here (bicyclists need to be licensed! bicyclists should have to follow exactly the same rules as drivers! we shouldn't have bicyclists on many roads because cars go too fast!). Instead, I'll say that just as people walking need physically protected infrastructure on essentially all roadw…

> I don't have time now to write a comment laying out a comprehensive rebuttal of all the foolishness that some people have suggested here ... bicyclists should have to follow exactly the same rules as drivers In the UK, all vehicles on the road are required to abide by the highway code. Yep, that means bicycles have to follow the same rules as drivers. In the 1990s, schools in the UK ran cycling courses to ensure th…

> In the UK, all vehicles on the road are required to abide by the highway code. Yep, that means bicycles have to follow the same rules as drivers.

They're required to follow the road traffic act. The highway code is a simple guide to the road traffic act, and it contains best current practice, but people are not required to follow the highway code.

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#183

Post by DanBC »

URSpider94 wrote: post #151
igf wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead, I'll say that just as people walking need physically protected infrastructure on essentially all roadways - these are called sidewalks - so too people on bicycles need physically protected infrastructure on essentially all roadways Where do we stop? Should we have skateboard lanes as well? Unicycle lanes? Lanes for people who wish to taxi down the road in a Learjet? We can't accommodate every form of trans…

Would you agree that we should choose which forms of transit to accommodate based on their needs and their utility? Cycling is a well-established form of transit that many people participate in, and which can serve a large portion of the transit needs of a city in relatively little space and with zero carbon footprint. Getting more people out of cars (and off of buses) and onto bikes requires making them feel safe an…

> The Dutch have been doing this for 70 years or so

The other thing the Dutch do is give priority to all bikes on shared roads where there aren't cycle lanes.

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#184

Post by aquratic »

I PhD student in Switzerland. Here, we just have a yellow marking for the bike lane, and car drivers are surprisingly considerate towards bikers. I don't know what the penalties are for hitting bikers, but biking here is a bliss. Even in big cities like Zurich and Geneva!

Really, god bless this beautiful country :)

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#185

Post by PeterSmit »

jomamaxx wrote: post #179
PeterSmit wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that is how it should be. Cars are great to go between cities fast, but inside cities they should behave like guests. Ironically, most drivers are guests to a city as well, coming from the suburbs. Pedestrians, cyclists and public transportation are the most efficient mode of transportation inside a city, and should be honored as such. In most medium to big Dutch cities this is the case, although there is always…

"Cars are great to go between cities fast, but inside cities they should behave like guests" No, especially in north american cities where you can walk few places, cares are another form of transit, like anything else. Relatively few people actually ride bikes. "Pedestrians, cyclists and public transportation are the most efficient mode of transportation inside a city" this is completely false in most situations, esp…

You're talking specifically about North American cities, where everything is designed around automobile usage. And that is the problem the article talks about. It has been designed with this goal in mind so much, that it results in lots of pedestrian and cyclist deaths. Cities that are not designed like this are much compacter, so distances become smaller.

Commuting 5km by bicycle is fine, takes roughly 20 mins if the roads are decent. Using a tram or bus that has a decent frequency it will take roughly the same time, even including a few minutes of walking.

See example: https://www.google.nl/maps/dir/52.1136289,5.0897208/52.08605...

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#186

Post by DanBC »

infinite8s wrote: post #181
m0nty wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07o-TASvIxY Anyone just blindly downvoting snovv_crash should check out the video above and any number of other resources, such as this one: http://www.cyclinguk.org/campaigning/views-and-briefings/cyc... There are strong feelings on both sides, but many cyclists feel helmets are a distraction from the real issues which make cyclists unsafe: poor road design and unsafe driving. Cycling…

How is walking not safe?

Pollution and idiot car drivers.

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#187

Post by pyb »

m0nty wrote: post #117
pyb wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, but the funny thing about London is that cyclists tend to be more of a menace than cars. There is a noticeable minority who just don't want to stop for pedestrians.

> cyclists tend to be more of a menace than cars That must be why bikes injure 60,000 people per annum in the UK, and kill ~2,000. Then there's the ~40,000 deaths from pollution. Oh wait, that's the cars. Maybe you need to rethink what you mean by "menace"? Annoying and inconvenient (even threatening) is not the same as deadly.

Perhaps I should have said : more of a menace to me.

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#188

Post by vertex-four »

m0nty wrote: post #128
oarsinsync wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That must be why bikes injure 60,000 people per annum in the UK, and kill ~2,000. Then there's the ~40,000 deaths from pollution. Oh wait, that's the cars. 40k deaths from impact from car, or 40k deaths from pollution? The two are not the same. Cars produce a lot of pollution. So do offices. So do busses. So does the underground tube network. Impact from car I'm sure is cause for a lot of injuries and deaths, use t…

> Cyclists need to learn red lights apply to them to. As do motorists. Cars go through red lights all the time but we don't seem to notice, for some reason. If you'd been hit by cars this year, you would have suffered far more serious injuries and possibly death. That hardly ever happens with bikes. My figures for KSI are possibly a little out of date, there are actually 180,000 of them each year in the UK: https://e…

> As do motorists. Cars go through red lights all the time but we don't seem to notice, for some reason.

Hell, I've seen buses run red lights and once almost kill somebody in my city. Nobody complains, nobody does fuck-all about it. Deaths from road vehicles are seen as normal, having a bruise for a couple of days on the very rare occasion a bicycle runs into you is the end of the world.

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#189

Post by pyb »

oarsinsync wrote: post #121
m0nty wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cyclists tend to be more of a menace than cars That must be why bikes injure 60,000 people per annum in the UK, and kill ~2,000. Then there's the ~40,000 deaths from pollution. Oh wait, that's the cars. Maybe you need to rethink what you mean by "menace"? Annoying and inconvenient (even threatening) is not the same as deadly.

> That must be why bikes injure 60,000 people per annum in the UK, and kill ~2,000. Then there's the ~40,000 deaths from pollution. Oh wait, that's the cars. 40k deaths from impact from car, or 40k deaths from pollution? The two are not the same. Cars produce a lot of pollution. So do offices. So do busses. So does the underground tube network. Impact from car I'm sure is cause for a lot of injuries and deaths, use t…

> Here's an anecdote, since this already isn't an argument based on numbers and facts. I've never been hit by a car in London. In the space of a year, I've been hit by two cyclists and lost my takeaway dinner on account of a third.

That's pretty much my experience too. However, my comment was downvoted to the death, as it doesn't make sense in statistical terms.

Anyway, one very real issue here is that the average London cyclist doesn't know when it's safe to pass a red light, and when it's not. There is a lack of road-reading skills.

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#190

Post by pyb »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #110
pyb wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, but the funny thing about London is that cyclists tend to be more of a menace than cars. There is a noticeable minority who just don't want to stop for pedestrians.

Cycle couriers/deliveroos are the cycle equivalent of the white van man and the black cabbie - they drive for a living and time is money, so they try to kill you if you so much stand in their way. Luckily even if they crash into you, they are as likely to kill themselves a you - something that cannot be said of white van men...

Ok, but it's really lycra clad commuters I've had bad experiences with... some of them are just oblivious

I don't find black cabs threatening. It's the Ubers who are usually really dangerous. Not sure if it's because they're new to their jobs (a high turnover occupation?), or half asleep.

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