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Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities

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211–220 of 382 posts

Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities

#211
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C'mon. A car is a steel cage that has been obsessively engineered to protect it's occupants in the case of a collision.

Sure the consequences might be different, but you still have to trust the other road participants just the same.

No, sorry.

Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities

#212
post #57

I’m simply never going to support any policy framework that would require me to cycle in Chicago in the winter. I know it’s possible but I’m not doing it.

And we can talk about how maybe you should because it's better for you, but this brings up a larger issue: when it comes to how whole populations behave, comfort is a factor that can't be totally ignored.

Basically it creates a trade-off. Some percentage of people will decide one way and some the other way. This is going to affect adoption if you try to build a city around this idea.

Incidentally, there are also issues in hotter climates. Here in Texas, it hit 100°F (37.7°C) more than 50 days this summer. And it doesn't get cold at night. You can try to avoid the heat by biking to work early, but even at 6:00am, it might still be 80°F (26.6°C) and humid. So you will arrive sweaty, and if you don't do something about that, you will smell bad all day. (The ideal is if your office provides showers.) You're also probably going to end up taking two showers every day since you are sweaty when you get home.

Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't you let your kids roam in a suburb?

I suppose my kids could technically "roam" but they won't have anywhere to go that's interesting. Most kids can't even walk or bike to school in the suburbs.

Ahh. I'm lucky enough that my kids have some trails, two parks, a lake, a water park etc. within walking/biking distance to roam to. Not to mention friends' yards. And roam they do.

Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities

#215
post #28

A 2 key points about well designed bike lanes that aren't bought up enough are: 1. raised / structural separation between the road and bikes path. 2. bike paths can be used for just about anything that is not a car/motorbike or a pedestrian. Skaters, skate boarders, mopeds and bikes can all share a common separated path way. I have tried biking in Boston and it is a nightmare. Bike Lanes marked on the road are taken…

In Minneapolis some of our streets have these white posts stuck inbetween the car lane and bike lane. They mostly solve the problem of cars drifting into the bike lane.

https://www.minnpost.com/cityscape/2015/09/minneapolis-break...

Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shaming people for intensely personal choices is rude. Cut it out. Your argument basically presupposes that there’s something desirable about suburban homes, and that people not buying them is abnormal. I find this both unconvincing and historically incoherent.

My argument is that not having children en masse as a group goes against biology. It's happening in a lot of places too. https://www.businessinsider.com/do-it-for-denmark-ad-campaig... It's not shaming to point out a thing is happening or that it a thing is biologically necessary to further the human race. You're welcome to call it anything you want, but there's a lot of "shaming" that's gone in the other direction a…

Yes, having kids is (currently) still the main way to propagate our species. It may not be so in the future and/or when lifespans increase many times it may make more sense to make much fewer kids.

Even today, with a global fertility rate of 2.5 children per woman and a population of over 7 billion people I don't think there's any need to worry about biological mandates. On the contrary, I think that in developed countries where each human being consumes much more (and consequently generates more waste) than other countries the birth rate should be heavily lowered. Of course, our economy/society may not be engineered for that but better start doing it sooner than later.

Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities

#217

In most cities, especially in America, there's a vicious cycle: 0) Cycling is dangerous because there are too many vehicles on the road 1) There are so many vehicles on the road because everyone knows it's dangerous to cycle 2) Go to 0 Breaking out of that loop requires building safe infrastructure for cycling, like indestructable cement dividers between bike lanes and vehicle lanes or no-vehicles-allowed-in- days

I bought an e-bike. Because I can keep up with car traffic on most roads within the city, I am usually in the far right lane of the road and haven't had any problems really. You do have to be extra careful when changing lanes though.

Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities

#218
post #28

A 2 key points about well designed bike lanes that aren't bought up enough are: 1. raised / structural separation between the road and bikes path. 2. bike paths can be used for just about anything that is not a car/motorbike or a pedestrian. Skaters, skate boarders, mopeds and bikes can all share a common separated path way. I have tried biking in Boston and it is a nightmare. Bike Lanes marked on the road are taken…

I'd cycle to work, and many other places, if there was a physical barrier in place for bike lanes. I have been hit driving often enough to not want to try my luck cycling.

The plastic white posts are better than nothing, but still not enough IMO.

Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities

#219

A city that is bike-friendly is good, but a city that is walking-friendly is better. The bicycle is a great way to exceed "walking distance", but why should that even be necessary in day-to-day life? It is easily possible to build a neighbourhood where three generations of a family can live, work, attend school, shop, and more within walking distance. Walking is the simplest, most universal, and most natural mode of…

> The bicycle is a great way to exceed "walking distance", but why should that even be necessary in day-to-day life?

Uh... because I want to visit friends? Go see a show? Explore? Take a job that's not immediately next door? There are a million reasons why.

You know what cities were insanely walkable? The endless concrete enclaves of Khrushchyovkas in the USSR. Walkable does not mean pleasant.

Re: Cycling Is Key to Safer, Healthier, More Vital Cities

#220
post #28

A 2 key points about well designed bike lanes that aren't bought up enough are: 1. raised / structural separation between the road and bikes path. 2. bike paths can be used for just about anything that is not a car/motorbike or a pedestrian. Skaters, skate boarders, mopeds and bikes can all share a common separated path way. I have tried biking in Boston and it is a nightmare. Bike Lanes marked on the road are taken…

I'd add that a significantly under-discussed element of safe biking infrastructure is safer intersections. My city has lots of bike lanes that are sufficiently wide (and many that aren't) and no consideration all at for how a cyclist is supposed to safely traverse an intersection. My commute requires me to cross several lanes of traffic to get from the bike lane to the left turn lane on a road where cars go ~40mph - there's no way to do that without a significant risk of getting clobbered. That's to say nothing of the potential for someone hooking right through me when I go straight at an intersection as apparently no one checks their side mirror before turning.

Unfortunately even cities that consider biking infrastructure often seem to ignore how to connect bike lanes in a reasonably safe way. The only city I've seen that does this is Portland, OR and they make heavy use of separated paths to do so.

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