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Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

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Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#191

Post by xxpor »

Filligree wrote: post #177
xxpor wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vehicular cycling is, to put it lightly, controversial.

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

It's normal here in the US too, but that the problem people have. Vehicular cycling can really only be used by the strongest bikers, mostly young, mostly male riders. It excludes slower, older, and younger riders who might be intimidated by sharing a road with aggressive drivers going 45+ mph who pass with less than 3 feet of space.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/livable-city/la-oe-babin-pro...

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#192

Post by unholiness »

strictnein wrote: post #47
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…

Don't they get snow? With vertical barriers I'm confused how a plow will be able to properly clear the street.

Cambridge has a fleet of sidewalk plows (About 30" wide) that are also used for plowing paths and bike lanes. In the winter they are a godsend.

In a snow emergency (i.e. when cars are forced off one side of the street for plowing), the vertical barriers can be manually removed.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#193

Post by parthdesai »

prolepunk wrote: post #150
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!

The difference is that in the car all you do is press brake & gas, cycling requires some physical work to start up again. I know it's breaking the law, and I don't usually do it, but when I cycle on a quiet residential street, I'm going to roll a stop sign. I know it's bad, but at that point I'm going home and I feel tired.

Yeah my rule of thumb while cycling is, if it's an empty street i'll slow down so i can scan the other 3 sides and if it's completely empty i'll roll the stop sign. If there is a car/pedestrian, i'll come to a complete stop.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#195

Post by xemdetia »

addicted wrote: post #74
amalcon wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don’t believe there is pain. All the studies in the US have shown that improving biking infrastructure immediately improves retail sales (it’s obvious why...you throw bikes in the mix, and walking is also a lot safer, and everyone who enters a retail store eventually needs to walk, so a nicer walking environment makes it better for all their customers). The complaints are likely a combination of general aversion to…

Specifically to Cambridge many of the people who need to go there are not within bike distance, and to me Cambridge has been friendly to people walking around for a long time so that was never a thing. I can't speak to biking as for me a bike would have not really helped the situation, so putting more squeeze on the limited parking arrangements would affect retail businesses. There's quite a bit of retail that only makes sense to have in Cambridge because of proximity to all of the universities.

I feel like these bike-centric arguments do well in very dense cities like NYC but don't translate as well to places like Boston where there's just as much reason to go into Boston as there is to go out of Boston.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#196

Post by rayiner »

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…

How many people commute by bike in Cambridge versus by car? And what’s the cost of inconveniencing all those drivers by having bikes buzzing around?

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#197

Post by rayiner »

bluejekyll wrote: post #108
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 this same anecdote in similar situations for the past 20 years as well. There has been a long push by auto manufacturers to make anything other than cars that use the roads seen as both illegitimate and illegal. For example, see the history of Jaywalking laws: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26073797 . Starting around 1920's the auto-industry encouraged laws around the US to make crossing the stree…

> We need to slow down auto-traffic and encourage more non-vehicular use of the roads, while making those roads safer for pedestrians, cyclists, scooter riders, skate boarders, etc.

Is that the most efficient use of the roads? Especially in a place like Boston, where most people in the metro area don’t live in (and can’t afford to live in) the city itself. At a certain point doesn’t creating a preference for pedestrians and cyclists actually end up being a preference for wealthier people who can afford to live downtown, versus those who need to access the city but can’t live within walking or biking distance? (Note that bicyclists and skateboarders also slow down busses, which are what lower income people use to get around.)

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#198

Post by ArrayList »

ahoy wrote: post #62
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…

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!

What about more men?

And what was preventing all of those groups you mentioned from cycling to begin with?

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#199

Post by bluejekyll »

dominotw wrote: post #155
bluejekyll wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't want people to risk their lives for anything. I want things to change. 40,000 people die a year in the US while driving or riding in cars, following your logic, that is also extremely risky, and so we shouldn't do it.

I am not sure thats a correct analogy. Driving a car to work is not an optional activity for most ppl. Ppl riding their bikes in the city are doing it for fun/thrill/whatever, its an optional activity for 90% of the ppl doing it. I have a theory that most of these ppl would stop doing it once the thrill/'cool factor' goes away with protected bike lanes.

That's an interesting theory. I think I've seen some studies that show the opposite:

85% increase in cycling with better infrastructure: https://www.cyclinguk.org/blog/tomguha/85-increase-cycling-a...

This shows a direct correlation between lower risk and increased cycling: https://nacto.org/2016/07/20/high-quality-bike-facilities-in...

I especially like this quote: "A virtuous cycle is clear: With more infrastructure come more riders. Perhaps counterintuitively, with more infrastructure and more riders, safety improves. And the more bicycles there are traversing a city, the more it reaps numerous returns on investment, including the health benefits of cleaner air and greater physical activity." from https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/buildings-and-cities/bike...

I don't think most people who are biking while commuting are doing it purely for the thrill, but that is a plus, no doubt.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#200

Post by asdff »

btrettel wrote: post #116
ahoy wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know a single cyclist who agrees with that statement.

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…

You have to strive to separate bikes from traffic because no matter how much bike culture you have baked into your laws and society, it only takes one careless driver of a 3000lb hunk of steel to lay you out at 25mph. Doesn't matter if you do everything right as a cyclist, you can't change the fact that you are a flabby soft bag of water and a car is 20x your weight.
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