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When Citi Bikes Are Faster Than Taxis in New York City

toddwschneider.com

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Re: When Citi Bikes Are Faster Than Taxis in New York City

#61

Post by CydeWeys »

verelo wrote: post #20

Not much love for biking here; You'd almost think that most of the people on Hacker News are from Californian suburbs... Seriously though, biking in cities is great. It's one of those critical mass problems where the more people that do it the better the infrastructure gets, the more aware drivers become and there is a herd mentality where bikers tend to flow together making them more predictable and therefore safer…

I'm a daily cyclist in Manhattan. I just took Citi Bike to work today, though usually I take my own bike. I have both because they're useful for different kinds of trips.

Biking in the city is great. We still need lots of infrastructure upgrades to make it safer, but progress is being made on a monthly basis. Just last month a particularly dangerous section of 5th Ave had its bike lane converted from, essentially, a standing/loading lane for vehicles into an actual protected bike lane (with parking separating it from vehicle traffic) that is safe for use. And they even painted it green!

For every one complaint others here have about cyclists, I have ten complaints about drivers and pedestrians. Every day on my commute I see dozens of infractions, the most common types being vehicles parking or driving in bike lanes, not yielding safely, pedestrians walking/standing in bike lanes, and pedestrians jaywalking through intersections. People who jaywalk at every light without thinking, and don't even yield to cyclists who have right of way while doing so, will then hypocritically turn around and criticize cyclists for doing things that are much less unsafe.

Just this morning I had to navigate through a veritable horde of people standing around in the bike lane at Union Square. I had the green light and they were all waiting to cross across me, except they were six feet too forward and were completely blocking the bike lane. This is a daily occurrence that you see while biking.

Re: When Citi Bikes Are Faster Than Taxis in New York City

#62

Post by the_gastropod »

jdanp wrote: post #31

I live in the East Village and am convinced that cyclists in New York City have no regard for human life. The NYPD seems to be cracking down on their lawless behavior, but I think a push away from cycling and towards ride-sharing (a la Via) is the solution for our transit issue. With our broken subway system and high volume of cabs, ubers, etc; it is clear that New York is a driving city - but not a parking city.

Most NYC residents don't own cars. I'm not sure I'm buying your "New York is a driving city" assessment.

New York is a dense city. Bicycles: 1. Don't pollute the air the that 8 million people breathe. 2. Take up a fraction of the space of a car. 3. Are faster than cars for most trips people make.

Don't toss out the entire idea of a bicycle because a few cyclist ride like idiots. Drivers sometimes behave this way, too. And when they do, lives often end.

Re: When Citi Bikes Are Faster Than Taxis in New York City

#63

Post by xyzelement »

I am a zealous citibike convert here in NYC and I'll take one over a taxi any day but I think there's a systematic error in these numbers.

I assume the taxi times are pickup to drop-off (ie encompasses the entire trip) while bike are station to station so there is walking time that's not accounted for on either end of the bike trip. There are times where the nearest station doesn't have bikes or free docks so the walk may be non trivia and add up to more than the 5 minutes median difference for cross town.

On the other hand sometimes it takes a while to catch a cab and that's not included in the data either so perhaps it averages out.

The author is right, bikes are great for reducing variability (on the bike you can get around most obstruction, even if it means walking the bike on a sidewalk for a quarter of a block while the taxi gets stuck)

The one advice I disagree with is taking the bike when the President is in town. Trump was here last week for the UN and with all the street closures, detours and crazed drivers, biking was much more dangerous than usual.

Re: When Citi Bikes Are Faster Than Taxis in New York City

#64

Post by dokein »

thesmallestcat wrote: post #58
dokein wrote: post #28

I would love to bike, but the major issue is that every single person I know who's biked for more than 1 year has gotten into some type of accident (around 10 people), whether car, car door, or poorly maintained road. These are all 30s and work-at-the-office types so maybe they're not the most coordinated, but they are also not doing stupid shit.

.

My concern is that everyone I know has had an accident, even if minor. It sounds like you have had accidents too. Although we can go slower, be more aware, etc., this suggests that the fundamental issue is structural -- if every single nurse in your hospital as accidentally administered the wrong medication, you should improve the identity verification process rather than just sending them for more training.

Re: When Citi Bikes Are Faster Than Taxis in New York City

#65

Post by addicted »

dr_ wrote: post #4

As a pedestrian crossing the straw in NYC, you will typically wait for cars to stop, then walk about 2/3 of the way into the street, then peer into the bike lane to make sure no bikes are coming, then complete your crossing. Most of the bikers, from my experience, do not follow rules such as stopping at a Stop sign or for pedestrians or at their own bike designated stop lights. It may be nice to bike in the cities pa…

The difference between bike accidents with pedestrians and car accidents with pedestrians is that the victims of car accidents aren’t alive to complain about how cars are so dangerous anymore.

Re: When Citi Bikes Are Faster Than Taxis in New York City

#66

Post by deevolution »

jdanp wrote: post #44
ghaff wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NYC subway system is far from the nicest in the world and it has a lot of infrastructure problems--in part because of its age. But a system that moves about 6 million people on the average weekday can't be all that broken.

You're right, my use of the term 'broken' was a bit harsh but this summer was particularly bad in terms of track fires, delays, station shutdowns, and persistent subway signal system problems, so much so that 'fixing the subway' has become a major talking point of the mayoral race.

No reason to appologize for being "too harsh" at all. There is no reason to tollerate the state of this system. The nyc subway is hanging on by threads. By modern standards it deffinitely is broken and there are a whole lot of bugs to fix. The whole thing is running on ancient infrastructure. Saying otherwise will allow it to coninue as it is.

Re: When Citi Bikes Are Faster Than Taxis in New York City

#68

Post by Chathamization »

verelo wrote: post #20

Not much love for biking here; You'd almost think that most of the people on Hacker News are from Californian suburbs... Seriously though, biking in cities is great. It's one of those critical mass problems where the more people that do it the better the infrastructure gets, the more aware drivers become and there is a herd mentality where bikers tend to flow together making them more predictable and therefore safer…

> i probably drive more than bike, depends on the weather and somewhat the mood i'm in

A lot of bikers won't bike when the weather reaches a certain point (too cold, too much rain). This means that even if you build infrastructure for bikes, you're still going to have to build just as much throughput for other modes of transportation as you did before (they have to handle situations where no one is biking).

Re: When Citi Bikes Are Faster Than Taxis in New York City

#69

Post by nashashmi »

I cannot help but witness the effects of traffic calming:

> a taxi trip in 2017 took 17% longer than the same trip in 2009.

> The same regression applied to Citi Bikes shows no such slowdown over time, in fact Citi Bikes got slightly faster.

Obviously when you dedicate more street space from cars towards bikes, bikes get faster and cars get slower. The article goes to mention this, but also downplays it.

What the article seems to ignore on a major scale is the effect of traffic calming, or traffic impeding. By civilizing traffic to the appropriate rules and procedures via hardscapes, you make vehicle travel more unbearable and a test of patience. If the intentions behind doing this weren't derived from anti-car sentiments, I could respect this move. But Janet Sadik-Khan is a bicycling enthusiast and after her appointment, car travel became really bad.

Re: When Citi Bikes Are Faster Than Taxis in New York City

#70

Post by gbrown »

ChrisBland wrote: post #24
dr_ wrote: post #4

As a pedestrian crossing the straw in NYC, you will typically wait for cars to stop, then walk about 2/3 of the way into the street, then peer into the bike lane to make sure no bikes are coming, then complete your crossing. Most of the bikers, from my experience, do not follow rules such as stopping at a Stop sign or for pedestrians or at their own bike designated stop lights. It may be nice to bike in the cities pa…

A million times this! I live in Chicago and am an avid biker (been doored by a cab, right of passage i guess?) I am one of the few who stops at stop signs and slows down or stops at cross walks to watch for pedestrians. I attend my local alderman's meetings to push for more protected bike lanes which we are now getting, but my fellow bikers are making us all look bad wrt following the rules of the road. I can't tell…

I brought my bike to Chicago during a conference... you're not kidding. I don't mind rolling a stop sign carefully when there's no traffic, but cars, bikes, and pedestrians alike in Chicago seemed to be making up their own rules.
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