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Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

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Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#251

Post by radicalbyte »

snazz wrote: post #213
antisthenes wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I cycle somewhere between 20 and 35 km/hour; that's faster than scooters and most electric bikes. This makes no sense. You can pedal an electric bike at least as fast if not faster than a regular bike. Some e-bikes are speed limited to cut out the assist at a certain speed, but it doesn't mean it also removes your ability to pedal hard and achieve the same speed.

You could, but most e-bikers choose not to go too fast. Additionally, they often have thicker tires and enourage poor aerodynamic body positions which mean that they decelerate faster.

Most are either 60+ or are leisure cyclists. So they just doodle along at their 25km/h.

Proper road racing enthusiasts can average 35km/h including stops (the joys of a flat country).

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#252

Post by u801e »

viburnum wrote: post #123
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 par…

> The thing about cycling is that it’s basically fast walking.

My commute while I take the kids to the daycare in a trailer takes me about 20 minutes one way. My ride to work takes me another 6 minutes. If I walked the same route, it would take me over an hour to get to daycare and another 30 minutes to get to work from there.

Bicyclists are not fast pedestrians. They're riding on vehicles that have similar dynamics to any other 2 wheeled vehicle like a moped or motorcycle. The only difference is that they're slower, but when going downhill, they can easily match motorized traffic speeds with little effort (I've managed to get up to 35 mph going down some steep grades).

Infrastructure designed for pedestrian speeds is not really suited for cyclists who ride for transportation.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#253

Post by wool_gather »

rayiner wrote: post #225
bobwaycott wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why spend public money, and inconvenience drivers in the process, for their sake? Because the cyclists, too, are part of the public? It's not like that public money is solely sourced from automobile drivers. Many people I know who live and work and pay taxes in Atlanta cycle and drive, depending on where they're going. Are you really suggesting auto-drivers are more important citizens whose convenience matters more…

I'm suggesting that it's not right to inconvenience the majority (drivers), for the sake of a relatively privileged minority (folks who can afford to live within cycling distance of their jobs downtown).

Before going too far down the road with this argument, you also need to figure out how many of those drivers would use something other than a car if it were feasible. The majority is not necessarily the majority by choice in this case.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#254

Post by u801e »

The major problem with protected infrastructure is that they do a poor job at managing intersection conflicts. Intersections are where the majority of collisions happen. If traffic cannot see other traffic when approaching an intersection, then some type of signage or traffic signal is required to control approaches to the intersection. But if you have too many modes of transportation making use of the intersection, then the phased signals start taking too long and you start having compliance issues. This then leads to more collisions.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#255

Post by techsupporter »

callinyouin wrote: post #235
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, to me, signals the general attitude people have towards bicyclists in the US. The average person either doesn't care or, for some misguided reason or another, actively hates bicyclists. I've been yelled at by drivers for no apparent reason so many times I've lost count. I've had so many friends hit by cars. My partner was struck by a car last fall and broke her leg in two places. She's s…

> This, to me, signals the general attitude people have towards bicyclists in the US. The average person either doesn't care or, for some misguided reason or another, actively hates bicyclists. I've been yelled at by drivers for no apparent reason so many times I've lost count.

My experience as a pedestrian (I don't ride a bike on the street so I can't speak to that experience) mirrors this. More than once, I've been honked or yelled at for being in an actual, marked crosswalk, crossing the street. (Never mind all of the driver complaints about my use of legal, unmarked crosswalks.)

On a former commute, I regularly got off the bus at a bus stop immediately adjacent to a signaled crosswalk that several of us used. We regularly got honked at by drivers bringing their cars to a screeching halt as the light changed and, once on a holiday, when it was just me and my kid, a driver yelled "if you weren't so fucking poor you wouldn't have to ride the bus!"

> It's really sad, I think it's a symptom of something a lot more sinister happening to the hearts and minds of people in this country

Agreed, and I live in a city where ways of getting to work and around town that aren't a single-occupant vehicle are now in the cumulative majority yet the pushback has increased even more. People regularly write letters to the local paper about how they "openly" use the bus and bike lanes for their cars because "[screw] those entitled people."

I hold a driving license and, until recently, owned a car that I regularly used. This behavior ought to be unacceptable and more actively enforced against but I can only imagine the uproar if an even light "crackdown" happened.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#256

Post by mruts »

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…

Is being white a relavent factor here? What if you had said black instead?

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#257

Post by u801e »

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.

> Mixing cyclists and pedestrians causes a whole set of different problems (and injuries).

The other issue is that pedestrians do not typically follow traffic rules while walking. That is, they won't keep to one side of the path, they won't signal their intention to change direction in advance, etc. This makes it much more difficult to ride among them compared to riding in traffic where drivers do generally follow the rules.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#258

Post by celestialjeu »

btrettel wrote: post #168
CydeWeys wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not. Protected bike lanes are for sure safer than unprotected bike lanes. If there are problems at intersections, that means that the bike lanes aren't protected enough . Amsterdam for example doesn't have these kinds of issues because their design (and especially light signaling) is better.

> If there are problems at intersections, that means that the bike lanes aren't protected enough. Amsterdam for example doesn't have these kinds of issues because their design (and especially light signaling) is better. I agree. The problem is that I have never seen those sorts of lanes in the US. The choice is between semi-protected lanes which may be worse or no lanes. I don't know precisely which is better, but I…

We also have a few of these kinds of lanes in Austin. There are a few downtown and a few in East Austin.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#259

Post by est31 »

alistairSH wrote: post #34
est31 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never been there, could you explain?

Slightly more direct answer than the others... If you look at the map, most of Cambridge is as close to downtown/historic Boston as much of Boston itself. Also, outside the immediate Boston-area, MIT and Harvard are usually thought of as being in Boston. But, they're actually in Cambridge. For most people, Cambridge is "the side of Boston to the north of the Charles River" - for many, it's just a neighborhood in Bost…

Makes total sense. Thank you!

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#260

Post by ocschwar »

rayiner wrote: post #215
stefan_ wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean the roads downtown should be inaccessible to people living downtown so suburban people can commute in on 2 ton steel boxes that they then store for the day in downtown? No, that is indeed not the most efficient use of the roads. The most efficient use of the roads would be to rip them out and use the space for vastly more efficient public transport. (Bus transport is also not slowed down by cyclists, or of a…

> The most efficient use of the roads would be to rip them out and use the space for vastly more efficient public transport. More efficient for who? The software developer who lives in a condo downtown, or the lady who cleans his office that drives in from the suburbs?

In Boston? The cleaning lady takes the T. No way she can afford parking downtown.
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