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Rethinking Streets for Bikes

rethinkingstreets.com

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Re: Rethinking Streets for Bikes

#21

Post by gotocake »

SECProto wrote: post #20
ken wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Add green dye to the asphalt instead of adding a layer of green paint. We've had green bike lanes here for many years. I've never noticed any of them fade. We're supposed to lay new streets for one lane, for a problem which hasn't happened yet?

>We've had green bike lanes here for many years. I've never noticed any of them fade The key word in your post is "here". These things vary by location - for example, anywhere that uses snowplows, a superficial treatment (paint, even thermoplastic) will wear away in a very short period of time. Centrelines here are repainted every year or two (or ten, on roads that aren't considered very important).

Of course places such as the Northeast (USA) are also the worst candidates for the SF dream of bike dominance. Where I’m from (Colorado) the idea of bike-first is something we roll our eyes at, and generally rightly assume that the loudest advocates live somewhere else, don’t have families, and only go back and forth to work.

That’s really not the whole country, no matter how much a minority of SV’ers want it to be. Parts of the country are really spread out, parts are brutally cold, windy, and rainy, and yes some parts are lovely and sunny and packed to the gills. The problem is that evangelists for Bike Jesus never seem to accept that, and there’s always one or two who claim to live in Antarctica with a family of 6, and all while only riding a bike.

Re: Rethinking Streets for Bikes

#22

Post by cletus »

So when I last visited Perth, I bought a bicycle and rode around a lot. Google Maps was helpful here in showing where the bike paths are. While other people might feel fine riding in traffic I never have and probably never will. Honestly I just don't trust drivers, particularly in this era of smartphones.

Anyway, there are vast differences in what people view as a bike path. Take Reid Highway as an example [1]. Those strips on either side of the road are the bike path. This is a highway with a speed limit of 90kph (~55mph), which probably means people are really going 120kph on what is essentially the hard shoulder.

There's no way in hell I'd ride on that. Personally I considered something like this stretch of Morley Drive [2] to be a good standard of biking infrastructure, for several reasons:

1. Wide bike path separated from the road

2. The road has a wide median strip. I can't tell you how much this helps in crossing busy roads.

3. The bike path isn't right up against the walls of residential properties. This can be a real nightmare for visibility of cars pulling out.

4. Bike paths shouldn't be clogged with pedestrian traffic either as in if it's a busy pedestrian area, have a separate pedestrian path.

Personally I just like to find long residential streets with minimal busy road crossings. You can fly down those things and don't have to second guess what cars are doing most of the time.

As for America in particular, I've said it once and I'll say it again the most anti-cyclist (and anti-pedestrian) rule is the ability to turn right at a red light and it's almost universal in the country. Even in places where it's technically illegal (eg the five boroughs of NYC) you have people who either don't know or don't care (eg once I told some driver fairly calmly after they did it and stopped at the traffic 50 feet down the road that it was illegal in NYC they told me to go F myself).

[1] https://goo.gl/maps/MfLB58HyZHJ2

[2] https://goo.gl/maps/wAnsF4HUqPA2

Re: Rethinking Streets for Bikes

#23

Post by cletus »

jdavis703 wrote: post #4

This might sound pedanatic but I hate when transportation choices are framed as for cars or for bikes. Transportation is for people. Talking about and designing our street infrastructure as if it’s designed for machines like cars and bikes leads us to designing systems that aren’t very friendly to humans (one needs to look no further than the ever increasing incidents of deaths for people walking or riding a bike).

I'm not sure what the point of your comment is to be honest. Transportation choices are made between different modes of transportation all the time. There's no universally good option.

Take NYC where light changes happen about every 45 seconds. This is necessary for pedestrians to be able to get anywhere and because the blocks are fairly narrow (in the north-south direction) in Manhattan.

I've visited the Bay Area many times and it's a nightmare as a pedestrian. You need to cross, say, Castro and El Camino Real and you might be waiting 3+ minutes for the light change to cross those 6 lanes of traffic (and you probably have to be on your guard for inattentive drivers turning right at red lights even when you have right-of-way.

I used to walk back to Mountain View from the Google campus along Shoreline in the afternoons. That's where the on ramp is onto 101 South and it uses a light-less system (I don't believe it's a full clover leaf?). Crossing that on ramp to continue down Shoreline was essentially an exercise in waiting for some driver to take pity on you to let you cross.

Clearly a choice has been made in favour of cars.

Urban planners also go out of their way to restrict traffic to 20mph in pedestrian-heavy areas by narrowing lanes and decreasing distances between lights because there's a huge increase in injuries and death to pedestrians by going 30mph.

So a choice is made in favour of pedestrians here.

Re: Rethinking Streets for Bikes

#24

Post by gotocake »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #17
crote wrote: post #6

I quickly read through this. Context: I'm Dutch and live in Utrecht, The Netherlands. This booklet has one massive flaw: it is constructed using American best-practices. At best, a couple of examples could be considered almost acceptable. Most of them were woefully inadequate and consist of little more than a blob of quickly-fading green paint in ill-considered positions. Worst of all, several examples are clearly fl…

Agreed - details matter a lot. For example many years ago, Camden in London put in green asphalt cycle paths - one was dangerously hilarious - you ran parallel to the main road, on a painted strip, on the side of a one way street - going against the traffic. However the new cycle "superhighways" in London are a big improvement but oddly now I find the biggest challenge is to change the attitude of the cyclists - we h…

At some point however we are going to face the fact that roads are a cheap form of transport because they are shared and so are dangerous - the UK has 4500 deaths a year

Well that’s untrue.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reported_Road_Casualties_Gre...

As you can see road casualties have been dropping for quite a while, and for the last 5+ years the rate is around 1,700. Deaths per year haven’t been near 4500 since the 90’s. This also reflects another reality you ignore, which is that road fatalities are not evenly distributed. Being drunk, driving tired, owning an unsafe or poorly maintained car, driving too fast, all contribute to risk, and all are avoidable.

You also picked the UK, which has an extensive rail system.

Re: Rethinking Streets for Bikes

#25

Post by brippalcharrid »

ams6110 wrote: post #9
twblalock wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The places where people ride bikes en masse, like Amsterdam, have physical separation. Very few people want to have cars whizzing by a few feet from their elbows. If you want people to seriously consider cycling as anything other than a hobby you need physical separation of bicycles from cars. Unfortunately cycling advocacy organizations in the United States tend to be opposed to physical separation.

Why is that? I've seen that: dedicated, separated bike paths are unused, and cyclists continue to ride in the street with the cars.

Cycle lanes tend to be designed for speeds below that which a cyclist of even average ability is capable (otherwise, they would tend to more closely resemble roads).

Sheltered from motorised traffic, they cater to a wider age, experience and ability range, and the fact that they are typically narrower than roads exacerbates problems that arise from mixed-ability/experience users sharing same facility.

Features of cycle lanes[1] tend to put cyclists in closer proximity to pedestrians than they would be on a road, and this creates a lack of physical and psychological separation that further reduces practical speed (and utility). They also create new challenges such as situations[2] requiring a cyclist to observe a 270°-arc on the approach to a junction. In the last example, it doesn't matter if I have right of way, and it doesn't matter if I'm wearing a helmet; all it takes is a motorist not to be paying attention or to misjudge my speed and I could be the victim of a fatal accident, and that's not a risk that I'm willing to take.

[1] https://i.imgur.com/CkAxcE5.jpg [2] https://i.imgur.com/0q9PadV.jpg

Re: Rethinking Streets for Bikes

#26

Post by amalcon »

gotocake wrote: post #21
SECProto wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We've had green bike lanes here for many years. I've never noticed any of them fade The key word in your post is "here". These things vary by location - for example, anywhere that uses snowplows, a superficial treatment (paint, even thermoplastic) will wear away in a very short period of time. Centrelines here are repainted every year or two (or ten, on roads that aren't considered very important).

Of course places such as the Northeast (USA) are also the worst candidates for the SF dream of bike dominance. Where I’m from (Colorado) the idea of bike-first is something we roll our eyes at, and generally rightly assume that the loudest advocates live somewhere else, don’t have families, and only go back and forth to work. That’s really not the whole country, no matter how much a minority of SV’ers want it to be.…

I've always thought cities with a snowy season would be great candidates for bike lanes. Bicycling drops dramatically in the winter, so the bike lanes sit mostly unused. This makes them a good place to deposit excess snow.

Re: Rethinking Streets for Bikes

#27

Post by csmeder »

Here is a moon shot idea for US cities, by 2050:

1. All car streets need to be under ground in tunnels

2. All vehicles must be 100% electric

3. Over ground traffic is limited to: walking, wheel chairs, bikes, scooters and wide load special permit vehicles.

Forget Trump’s plan for going to the moon another time, can we do this instead?

Re: Rethinking Streets for Bikes

#28

Post by Steltek »

crote wrote: post #10
ams6110 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that? I've seen that: dedicated, separated bike paths are unused, and cyclists continue to ride in the street with the cars.

Could you give an example of a bike path where this happens? For context, it should end up looking not unlike https://goo.gl/maps/MCzsE6vg1Sr .

I bike commute in Boston. I avoid a 1 mile stretch of grade separated cycle track because there are so many problems with it, I don't even know where to begin.

- Cars emerging from side streets don't stop at the cycle track so there's a constant T-bone risk.

- Parking (the only parking lane on the road) obscures drivers' vision leading to a high right-hook risk.

- The grade separation disappears at driveways and side streets so you're constantly going up and down like a rollercoaster.

- Because the city plows it and homeowners suck at shoveling their sidewalks, people walk in the cycle track like it's a sidewalk.

- Actually, people walk in the cycle track regardless of the season.

- The "entrance" is marked by a seriously deadly right-hook risk at a Y-shaped fork. And when you're not at risk of getting hooked, there's probably a car blocking the entrance while waiting to turn into traffic.

I mean it is a seriously deranged and broken cycle track. Even with cars road raging, honking, and revenge-cutting-off me, it's better than getting smeared against someone's door panel.

Re: Rethinking Streets for Bikes

#29

Post by jdavis703 »

cletus wrote: post #23
jdavis703 wrote: post #4

This might sound pedanatic but I hate when transportation choices are framed as for cars or for bikes. Transportation is for people. Talking about and designing our street infrastructure as if it’s designed for machines like cars and bikes leads us to designing systems that aren’t very friendly to humans (one needs to look no further than the ever increasing incidents of deaths for people walking or riding a bike).

I'm not sure what the point of your comment is to be honest. Transportation choices are made between different modes of transportation all the time. There's no universally good option. Take NYC where light changes happen about every 45 seconds. This is necessary for pedestrians to be able to get anywhere and because the blocks are fairly narrow (in the north-south direction) in Manhattan. I've visited the Bay Area ma…

Examples of bad design thinking from the report:

* Decorative bike racks that make securing a bike more difficult.

* An expectation that people will feel comfortable riding feet away from vehicles traveling 35-40 MPH

* Shrugging off increased injuries on one redesigned street.

Re: Rethinking Streets for Bikes

#30

Post by burlesona »

crote wrote: post #6

I quickly read through this. Context: I'm Dutch and live in Utrecht, The Netherlands. This booklet has one massive flaw: it is constructed using American best-practices. At best, a couple of examples could be considered almost acceptable. Most of them were woefully inadequate and consist of little more than a blob of quickly-fading green paint in ill-considered positions. Worst of all, several examples are clearly fl…

I completely agree. There was an article here on HN about American infrastructure problems which described the “uncuriosity” of the US and Canada when it comes to infrastructure projects - apparently studies like this looking only at North American examples are the rule, not the exception.

As an American I find that disappointing and concerning.

Thanks for the links to the Dutch cycling site, that’s really cool!

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