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Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

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Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#171

Post by ben7799 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #17
ummonk wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't describe Cambridge as a suburb, but plenty of suburbs have populations larger than 100k.

The key distinction is that suburbs are largely residential and composed of lower density housing, which does not describe Cambridge accurately.

Waltham is further away too and has > 100k people. It's hard to say if these cities are suburbs or not.

Waltham, Newton, Cambridge, etc.. are very dense.

There is a clear delineation in density with a lot of these. Usually it's whether the town/city is inside 95, but Lexington is not very dense and is inside.. I think Lexington fits the mold of suburb where as Newton & Waltham feel urban.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#172

Post by btrettel »

CydeWeys wrote: post #144
btrettel wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been a transportation cyclist for roughly a decade and I agree with everything he said. Many cyclists do, particularly more experienced ones. Bike lanes can be helpful, but they are not the panacea many people make them out to be. I think the main benefit bike lanes have is increasing the number of cyclists which leads to the "safety in numbers" effect. I think far too many bike lanes are made poorly, however, a…

And yet protected bike lanes are proven to vastly increase the number of people who are willing to bike, which then makes biking safer for everyone because of sheer numbers. I'm a confident enough cyclist to bike in the street, take the lane, and ignore all the honking assholes, but my girlfriend isn't. The protected bike lanes are great because it means we can bike to things together.

I don't know if the increase in the number of cyclists outweighs the problems with the intersections.

I get the impression from your various comments here that you have never rode a bike in the US, so perhaps our experience differs.

On my daily commute in Austin I cross I-35 via a bike lane that is sometimes semi-protected. I think many inexperienced cyclists think that this is "safe" because it's sometimes protected, but I consider it to be actually a fairly dangerous intersection that I take reluctantly. Whenever the bike lane crosses a car lane, there are signs saying to yield to cyclists, yet I can only think of a single instance where a driver yielded to me without me having to use my air horn.

I can't find the details right now, but a local bike activist's wife actually stopped cycling because she found this intersection so dangerous:

https://bicycleaustin.info/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=5464

(I don't see a mention of the particular intersection in that link, but as I recall this was it.)

Perception and reality can differ a lot, and I think that's what my criticisms come down to.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#173

Post by asdff »

prolepunk wrote: post #143
viburnum wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 par…

Mixing cyclists and pedestrians causes a whole set of different problems (and injuries). Some people ride slow, and some ride fast, and it's facetious to conclude that average biking speed is slow. Also as a jogger, I wouldn't every try running on a busy sidewalk somewhere downtown, but I will need to bike home in rush hour.

Much easier to bike in rush hour as well. Lane splitting lets you beat traffic, and it's of course way easier to dodge a 5mph car in a lane versus a pedestrian wandering all over the sidewalk with zero situational awareness on their phone with headphones.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#174

Post by justinator »

anonu wrote: post #160
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 hope you get hit!" This is one thing I will never be able to wrap my head around - why would a human being say something like this to a fellow human? In my experience this comment brings together a few things: 1. Many drivers just have no respect for "Share the Road" and specifically no respect for cyclists 2. This type of "speak your mind" attitude is very New England and specifically Boston (and suburbs). 3. J…

why would a human being say something like this to a fellow human?

Cars seem to act as a stress multiplier.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#175

Post by gatherhunterer »

justinator wrote: post #166
viburnum wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 par…

This is what you actually see in The Netherlands. Huh? In the city center, speeds are greatly reduced for cars and bikes, but getting between metropolitan areas, both speeds can climb. You do know there's a whole bike highway system in the Netherlands, right? I think the, "bikes as fast pedestrians" model is a bit outdated. I don't want to be seen as a very fast person on foot, while on my bike. I can hit 30+mph in a…

I think the comparison was about personal safety in the event of a collision, not a slight at your cycling ability.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#176

Post by wool_gather »

anonu wrote: post #160
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 hope you get hit!" This is one thing I will never be able to wrap my head around - why would a human being say something like this to a fellow human? In my experience this comment brings together a few things: 1. Many drivers just have no respect for "Share the Road" and specifically no respect for cyclists 2. This type of "speak your mind" attitude is very New England and specifically Boston (and suburbs). 3. J…

> > "I hope you get hit!"

> This is one thing I will never be able to wrap my head around - why would a human being say something like this to a fellow human?

Because he was frustrated and angry about something else that he has no power to affect (possibly the traffic that he was stuck in) and misdirected his energy at an accessible target to alleviate some psychic pressure.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#177

Post by Filligree »

xxpor wrote: post #48
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…

Vehicular cycling is, to put it lightly, controversial.

In the US specifically? It's perfectly normal here. (Ireland.)

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#178

Post by btrettel »

gugagore wrote: post #132
btrettel wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Examples like this are exactly why bike lanes are not the only change needed to make cycling more accessible. What stops drivers from doing any of these if there were protected bike lanes? Generally "protected" bike lines are not protected at intersections, which is where most problems occur. I live in Austin right now and I tend to avoid the protected bike lanes because drivers frequently turn across them without yi…

There's a certain burden to being vigilant and self-defensive on the road. Even if I'm not protected in intersections, a protected bike lane means that there's a lot less time I need to be worried that a car will hit me. However, you're bringing up the point that protected bike lanes may make intersections even more dangerous for cyclists. While your reasoning makes sense, do you know if there's anything to corrobora…

I'm not sure there's much clear data on this. I have plenty of anecdotes from myself and other cyclists, however.

Here's what is clear: Many cyclists worry about getting rear-ended, which presumably is a major part of what bike lanes are supposed to eliminate, but those sorts of crashes are rare: http://bicyclesafe.com/#rearend2

I can recall a pro-bike-lane advocacy organization had some different data that said being rear-ended is actually common, but that seems very discordant with the remainder of the data, and they seem hardly unbiased. (The webmaster of the site I linked to seems neutral on bike lanes.)

The main risks come from intersections, and most bike lanes, even protected ones, don't address that.

My concern is that bike lanes may give inexperienced cyclists a false sense of security. These problems are relatively easily avoided if one is aware of them. See this website to learn about how to avoid the most common types of bike crashes: http://bicyclesafe.com/

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#179

Post by swebs »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #128
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.

By who?

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#180

Post by dsfyu404ed »

soperj wrote: post #133
abstractbarista wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

I see car drivers roll stop signs every day, multiple times a day. Sounds like the cyclists are doing just as good of a job at following the rules.

Rolling a stop sign (regardless of how many wheels you have) can be perfectly safe or stupidly dangerous and requires discretion. I'm not going to fault anyone for doing it in the abstract.
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