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Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

citylab.com

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Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#321

Post by atoav »

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?

I lived next to a main traffic route in a bigger city for a few years. You rarely see a commuter that is not completely ALONE in their car.

Using a car in a city is not a human right, it is a luxury. That trunk and the four free seats are there "just in case" you might need it. There is no rational reason why it is that way. It is a whole culture that revolves around owning a car and I say that as somebody who was driving for a living once.

Commuting to a city boils down to using the cities advantages (well paying jobs, infrastructure, etc) while avoiding the disadvantages (noise, pollution, higher rents and criminality) at the cost of those living there (you take jobs people living there could take, you are traffic, space and noise). Could they get a space in the city? Sure. Only it would be tiny and substandard and they don't want that.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#322

Post by abstractbarista »

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.

But do you roll a stop sign when a car is literally about to slam in to you if you continue into the intersection? No. Yet that's what the guy did.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#323

Post by TulliusCicero »

lostphilosopher wrote: post #277
callinyouin wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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…

Ok, I'll say it - bicyclists tend to annoy me. Obviously, I don't shout at them, or try to hit them, or make them think I'm trying to hit them. That's nuts. That seems like a problem separate for bike/car relations. I doubt someone who behaves that way in a car gets out of it and suddenly becomes a calm and reasonable person. But here's my assessment of why bikes annoy me. Not argument that they should, just some int…

> generally exist on a predictable well defined plane

Protected bike lanes/paths mostly solves this problem.

Cyclists aren't unpredictable because they want to be, it's because the system is not set up well for bikes at all. Sometimes it's actively hostile to bikes.

> Space efficient? Yes and no. It is more space efficient for people whose options are bike vs car to ride a bike, but there's tons of people that doesn't apply to - people who live far away, people who need to haul things, people who have health issues, people who are too young etc.

There's multiple problems to unpack here:

* You'd be surprised how accessible biking actually is, with good infrastructure. There's hardly anyone in Munich that falls under the "too young to bike" bracket, I see even three year olds on their balance bikes around, and of course it's common for parents to have toddlers on their bikes. Plenty of elderly people too. And with electric bikes and handicap-friendly bikes around, people who can bike comprise the overwhelming majority.

* There's still some fraction who cannot bike, true, but the same is true of stairs, and yet this doesn't make us stop building stairs. We just also build ramps and elevators. Nobody's suggesting replacing all car lanes with bike lanes.

* If you replace car lanes with bike lanes for those who can bike, the people who cannot can simply...continue driving, because many people who would otherwise be in car lanes taking up space have shifted over to a more space-efficient mode. In theory, this can actually free up space in the remaining car lanes.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#324

Post by abstractbarista »

rconti wrote: post #205
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!

Sounds like the cyclist properly judged the danger for himself, and his judgement was correct, because he's still alive. When riding a bicycle, you often choose to endanger your own life and break the law in order to be less of an obstacle to motorists -- motorists, who in turn, almost certainly curse under their breath about how you should just obey the rules. Aggro assholes are gonna be aggro assholes.

Heh it'll work until someone on their phone doesn't even see them. In my case, I had to swerve left of center while blaring the horn. The guy rolled the sign >15mph.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#325

Post by fooblitzky »

rayiner wrote: post #197
bluejekyll wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pedestri…

https://twitter.com/TheRicMan/status/1002373087424274432?ref...

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#326

Post by Chardok »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #317

Every city should be doing this. It's shameful how little attention we've paid to cyclist safety with city designs up to this point.

Its especially frustrating how cities will try almost anything to alleviate traffic instead of encouraging cycling. Its less taxing on the roads, it doesn't pollute, it doesn't require a schedule and best of all it takes up peanuts in space compared to a parking spot.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#327

Post by Finnucane »

I live and work in Cambridge and one of the new separated lanes is on my regular route to work. The design, I think has been mostly an improvement, with quibbles. There's definitely less chance of getting doored, but I don't like that the lanes go right through bus stops. Also, cars turning at intersections don't see you on the other side of parked cars.

A big plus, though is that the city actually keeps the lane cleared in winter. The regular bike lanes get to be pretty bad and blocked by parked cars when there's a lot of snow.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#328

Post by atoav »

amalcon wrote: post #293
rayiner wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 pedestri…

> Note that bicyclists and skateboarders also slow down busses, which are what lower income people use to get around. Bicyclists are substantially faster than downtown buses (due to stop frequency). It seems unlikely that they are slowing down the buses very much. Push skateboarders use the sidewalk; electric skateboarders move at the same speed as bicyclists.

As somebody who took buses regularily at one point in his live I can assure you that the most slowdown I experienced was due to cars. It rarely ever happens that a cyclist is sustancially slowing down a bus.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#329

Post by teddyh »

novok wrote: post #294
teddyh wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people can't use a bike. Huh? What kind of people are you referring to? In my simple observation, most people can indeed use a bike. And in some countries, like Denmark, or China, it is my impression that most people do use a bike.

If your elderly or disabled. Although if you that level of elderly, you might not be able to use a car either, and the disabled often have motorized wheelchairs that could go as fast as bikes. For people who say 'but the disabled need cars', I want to offer some ancedata: I know a retired couple that bought a house in SF years ago because they wanted a working transit system when they can't drive cars anymore.

But rayiner said “most people”. Most people are not elderly or disabled.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#330

Post by rhinoceraptor »

sgarman wrote: post #284
aeternus wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is that the driver had been yelled at by a biker in the past. I've seen bikers chew out drivers, or yell profanities many times in SF. They sometimes/usually have a good reason to do so, but that kind of behavior just breeds contempt and animosity between the two groups.

I think that's reasonable and sometimes find myself in that group. Instead of yelling what do you think the is the best way to handle a driver intentionally running you off the road?

Take out their valve cores once they park? :)
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