Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law • Hacker News Board

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#81

Post by yardie » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 3:42 PM UTC

hirundo wrote: post #44

This is long term controversial issue. If you think the right answer is obvious you probably haven't dove down to the details, where it's much murkier. See in particular John Forester's _Effective_Cycling_. Forester believes that "cyclists fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles" and are not segregated from them. There are studies in this area pointing in both directions. One such concluded tha…

Their argument is that bicycle collisions increase at intersections and, I assume, decrease in segregated bike lanes. That is understandable since most automobile accidents also happen at intersections.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#82

Post by biswaroop » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 3:43 PM UTC

tsmarsh wrote: post #52

biswaroop wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, why do you hate Cambridge so much? I find it a reasonably great place, but I'm just a graduate student here.

Here is my list: * Its ridiculously ugly. * The layout seems designed to amplify the wind and somehow manages to do it in all directions. * Building restrictions that prevent affordable housing from being built. * They're happy to hike prices on parking to reduce cars, but the Red Line is unreliable which forces people to use cars. * Central * They managed to make bike lanes that are more dangerous than roads * North…

[edit: just wanted to say these are my initial opinionated responses to your points. Not stating these as facts necessarily]

* Eh. Running around the Charles in the fall is glorious. Mt Auburn cemetery is awesome. There's a crazy diversity of architecture from Mass Hall in Harvard Yard to the Stata Center.

* It's a windy city. The average wind speed of the Boston area is higher than Chicago.

* Affordable housing is a serious issue in a lot of cities, especially ones with a rapidly growing population of high-salary tech jobs.

* As much as people hate the Red line, it's old, and it works. Yes it's delayed often, but at rush hour it's packed with people who don't want to use cars.

* Central is central. There's tons of ok restaurants, and it's lively enough for me. As 'downtowns' go, it's not intolerably dirty or worse, dead. As public art goes, it's not Lisbon, but it's quite fun.

* They're clearly trying to improve the bike lanes. It's gotten a lot better over the 6 years I've been here.

* More specific road issues: yes, it's in a state of change, and there are a bunch of old streets. I'll always have complaints about cities. Considering it started as the oldest grid-planned town in the US, it's not all that bad.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#83

Post by craftyguy » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 3:43 PM UTC

RHSeeger wrote: post #72

ahoy wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better bike infrastructure will encourage groups of people who don't currently bike to start. More protected lanes means more kids, more old folks, more women of all ages, will start cycling. And more cycling is a good thing!

There's many things that are good things. However, you need to balance them against the cost (money, space, time, whatever) required to achieve them. For some smaller roads, the cost might not be worth the benefit.

Encouraging people to exercise and not drive gas-powered vehicles is a net win for not only their long term health but also the environment. It's worth it.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#84

Post by zingermc » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 3:44 PM UTC

amalcon wrote: post #54

mhb wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a lot of streets, won't the only way to do this be to eliminate parking on one side of the street? Should be interesting.

This is what has happened so far. Retail business owners have... not been pleased (to put it mildly). Overall it's pretty clearly been a net gain, but there's definitely some short term pain there.

Some of the pressure for parking spots should be reduced by the people who are now biking. It's not clear it will even out, though.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#85

Post by CydeWeys » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 3:44 PM UTC

hirundo wrote: post #44

This is long term controversial issue. If you think the right answer is obvious you probably haven't dove down to the details, where it's much murkier. See in particular John Forester's _Effective_Cycling_. Forester believes that "cyclists fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles" and are not segregated from them. There are studies in this area pointing in both directions. One such concluded tha…

That's a very US-centric (and outdated) viewpoint, coming from a perspective of bike infrastructure being entirely non-existent in the US back in the 1970s. Contrast with Amsterdam's approach, where cycling is a properly treated third form of at-grade transit that has all its own paths just like cars and pedestrians do. That's way safer and has much higher usage than you'd ever see if no separate paths were provided for cyclists at all.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#86

Post by cure » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 3:44 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #4

est31 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never been there, could you explain?

I live in Cambridge, MA and would need it explained.

It's about density and available space. I don't think most people around here think of Cambridge as a suburb of Boston. I'd say Newton is a suburb of Boston. Lexington too. But not Cambridge or Somerville.

Suburb evokes lots of single family homes with yards, and a fairly car-centric environment. That doesn't fit Cambridge, which is much more urban. That said, there are ultra-wealthy pockets of Cambridge that look and feel a little more like a suburb, but they are small.

Like SF, Boston is somewhat unusual in that the city itself is pretty small both in surface area (48 sq miles) and population (~685k). The Greater Boston area is a different story, of course (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Boston). But that includes Cambridge, and Somerville, and all the neighboring cities to Boston.

Someone else in this thread said that Cambridge is to Boston like Oakland is to SF. That sounds about right, though Oakland is much bigger (both in population and surface area) than Cambridge.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#87

Post by biswaroop » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 3:45 PM UTC

wool_gather wrote: post #76

biswaroop wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good. Parking and driving are not well-suited to narrow roads in high density cities. There have been tons of studies that show this. This is as a Cambridge resident who struggles to find parking when I occasionally have to. Parked cars are truly a blight on our beautiful streets. Protected bike lanes are definitely [edit: probably] part of the route towards greater livability.

I agree mostly, except that there needs to be a usable non-bicycle alternative to cars too. I love riding, but not everybody can do it all the time, for a large variety of reasons. Reducing in-city car usage is good, but just forcing it to be even more unpleasant is not going to solve anything.

I take the T and the buses pretty often. They're quite usable.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#88

Post by CydeWeys » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 3:45 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #58

souterrain wrote: post #36

While Baltimore is reversing protected a bike lane implementation as a result of pressure from retail business and constituents who prefer cars. (The neighborhood in question is one of the most affluent in the city.) https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs...

My city did that. Only they waited for most of the businesses to fold first. What a great reward for weathering the recession those businesses got. Turns out when you kill parking in favor of bike lanes in a small city that does a lot of business by being a commerce destination for the surrounding towns it doesn't work well. Also nobody bikes here because the entire city is hills (plenty of people walk though) so bik…

I think you're really overstating the case in blaming bike lanes for the majority of closures of businesses in a given area.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#89

Post by ahoy » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 3:46 PM UTC

RHSeeger wrote: post #72

ahoy wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better bike infrastructure will encourage groups of people who don't currently bike to start. More protected lanes means more kids, more old folks, more women of all ages, will start cycling. And more cycling is a good thing!

There's many things that are good things. However, you need to balance them against the cost (money, space, time, whatever) required to achieve them. For some smaller roads, the cost might not be worth the benefit.

Agreed, lets skip the automobile lanes and just put bike lanes on those streets :]

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#90

Post by wool_gather » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 3:46 PM UTC

gbear605 wrote: post #73

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire state of MA is highly unwelcoming to anything with two wheels and a motor that is less than a motorcycle (and even then it kinda sucks for them too). You say "scooter" or "moped" and suburban soccer moms and uptight politicians get images of New Dehli in their heads and that's too low class for MA so any organized attempt at doing that gets blocked by the power of arbitrary enforcement. As another commente…

Single party nature of the state? The governor is Republican

And has been for most of the last three or four decades.