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

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#121

Post by dnadler » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 4:05 PM UTC

biswaroop wrote: post #49

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in Boston/Cambridge about eight years ago and found it to be the most bicyclist-unfriendly city I had ever lived in (there are certainly worse, I just haven’t had that misfortune). I’ve been honked at by obnoxious drivers before, but only in Boston would drivers routinely slow down to call me a “f----ing f-gg--t” for being on the road. NYC drivers might be jerks, but I never got the impression that they were…

It's gotten far better. As a grad student who races for MIT and trains on the roads around Boston's suburbs, I've found most drivers to be surprisingly patient with us cyclists. There's the fair fraction of drivers who turn without signaling, but the only anger I've gotten from drivers is when I've run a red light (deserved it). The suburbs to the west are packed with road cyclists, and good weather weekends mean the…

I'll second this. I commute to downtown via the southwest corridor bike path, and most of the drivers are pretty patient and give me enough space once I get on to the roads. The worst parts of the commute are usually the torn up roads by mass Ave.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#122

Post by justaguyhere » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 4:05 PM UTC

just_steve_h wrote: post #61

I've lived in Cambridge or neighboring Somerville every year but one since 1989. The cycling infrastructure is much improved and still deadly. Just yesterday, I approached an arterial Street from a side street at 6pm. Cars on the arterial were moving about 8 MPH. I dismounted my bike, and began walking across the arterial in the crosswalk. As I re-mounted on the other side and resumed riding, a white man in a mid-siz…

I've experienced similar hostility, while just walking and minding my own business (and respecting traffic rules). For some reason, drivers get annoyed with anyone on the road that is not inside a car.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#123

Post by viburnum » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 4:06 PM UTC

just_steve_h wrote: post #61

I've lived in Cambridge or neighboring Somerville every year but one since 1989. The cycling infrastructure is much improved and still deadly. Just yesterday, I approached an arterial Street from a side street at 6pm. Cars on the arterial were moving about 8 MPH. I dismounted my bike, and began walking across the arterial in the crosswalk. As I re-mounted on the other side and resumed riding, a white man in a mid-siz…

The thing about cycling is that it’s basically fast walking. In places where cycling dominates people only ride as fast as a quick jogger (10 mph is a 6 minute mile). The correct model for cycling isn’t space on the road, it’s an extra sidewalk with an accommodating turning radius. This is what you actually see in The Netherlands. People think of public spaces as roads and as roads as places for cars to drive and park, so they get hung up on “sharing the road,” but really the thing to do is shrinking the road and enhancing places for people.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#124

Post by abstractbarista » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 4:07 PM UTC

just_steve_h wrote: post #61

I've lived in Cambridge or neighboring Somerville every year but one since 1989. The cycling infrastructure is much improved and still deadly. Just yesterday, I approached an arterial Street from a side street at 6pm. Cars on the arterial were moving about 8 MPH. I dismounted my bike, and began walking across the arterial in the crosswalk. As I re-mounted on the other side and resumed riding, a white man in a mid-siz…

Sounds good to me, as long as cyclists follow the same rules drivers do. Just yesterday I had a cyclist blatantly roll a stop sign on a side street, entering the main road I was on. If I was an inattentive driver I would have creamed him! He even looked to the left, saw me, and just kept rolling through!

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#125

Post by surge » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 4:07 PM UTC

I try to cross the street in my downtown are just walking from my parking garage to the office and some driver's think I don't have right of way and turn left or make right turns into me, because as a person, I don't count, even though I have the walk signal.

I'm almost tempted to just start video recording when I'm making the trip, and start reporting these people after getting their plate number.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#126

Post by peterwwillis » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 4:07 PM UTC

mhb wrote: post #39

chadash wrote: post #27

> "Local law now requires the city to erect vertical barriers between cyclists and cars on any roadway that’s rebuilt, expanded, or reconfigured" I'm all for better bike lanes, but it seems kind of extreme to require this for all new roads [0]. I used to live in Cambridge and rode my bike quite a bit. I never felt like I needed a dedicated lane on every side street, just on the main drags (where some of the new prote…

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.

For one-way streets this is avoided by reducing one lane of travel and using it for parking, putting the protected bike lane where cars used to park. Example: https://goo.gl/maps/9FoAZgKirbQ2

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#127

Post by btrettel » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 4:07 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #24

larrymyers wrote: post #14

I'm a huge fan of protected bike lanes. Chicago has a few of them, and they are far less stressful to ride on compared to just basic striping on the road. By far the biggest issue I have with striped bike lanes is trying guess when an Uber driver is going to do something crazy when picking up or dropping off a passenger.

My biggest problem with unprotected bike lanes here in Manhattan is that they are so frequently illegally blocked, not just by Taxis/FHVs but also by people parking in them. And a lot of the unprotected bike lanes are basically just the door zone of a line of parked cars, so you need to ride to the far outside of it to avoid getting doored. There's entire block-long stretches that I'll stay out of the unprotected bik…

Excellent point, the relative lack of blocking is one thing that makes protected bike lanes better.

To be honest, though, I'm not entirely a fan as protected lanes make left turns much more difficult to the point where to make a left turn I usually make a right turn and then a U-turn in a protected bike lane.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#128

Post by Doctor_Fegg » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 4:07 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…

Forester and his acolytes are widely discredited.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#129

Post by linuxftw » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 4:08 PM UTC

just_steve_h wrote: post #61

I've lived in Cambridge or neighboring Somerville every year but one since 1989. The cycling infrastructure is much improved and still deadly. Just yesterday, I approached an arterial Street from a side street at 6pm. Cars on the arterial were moving about 8 MPH. I dismounted my bike, and began walking across the arterial in the crosswalk. As I re-mounted on the other side and resumed riding, a white man in a mid-siz…

Cycling on the street is taking your life into your own hands. I avoid it whenever I can. Sidewalks are usually empty where I live.

Some places have a great network of bike and walk trails. I think this is the only viable option: roads or other paved surfaces where automobiles are not allowed.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#130

Post by CydeWeys » Thu, Apr 11, 2019, 4:08 PM UTC

LeonidasXIV wrote: post #119

CydeWeys wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are smaller vehicles that are used to plow just the bike lanes in some parts of the world. It probably doesn't matter so much though because the percentage of people who continue biking even in cold winter and with adverse snow conditions is quite low.

> It probably doesn't matter so much though because the percentage of people who continue biking even in cold winter and with adverse snow conditions is quite low. This is not necessarily true. Here in Copenhagen the amount of people cycling in winter is not significantly less than at other times of the year. That said, we don't have much snow, but the bike lanes are cleared before the road lanes (to incentivize not…

It's not the snow so much as the temperature. I bike commute year-round here in NYC and most other cyclists aren't willing to brave the cold, even when the streets are completely clear.