Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

citylab.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 485 posts

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#391

Post by noir_lord »

JohnFen wrote: post #378
mywittyname wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "if you weren't so fucking poor you wouldn't have to ride the bus!" I honestly think this is a huge factor in violence against cyclists & pedestrians. Drivers think you're automatically beneath them in the societal pecking order if you're walking or biking, so they feel justified or entitled to victimize you. People do similar shit to other people who they perceive to be poor, such as homeless, maids, delivery driv…

Yes, it's very interesting. I moved to a city (in the US) where driving a car is actually unnecessary, so I sold mine and ride a bike as my primary transportation. I am so happy to not have to deal with car ownership -- it's improved my life tremendously. Although I haven't been subjected to any abuse about it, more than once I have had people make comments about when I'll be able to buy a car, as if finances are why…

Same boat, I could go buy a car in cash tomorrow but I don’t have a drivers license.

People react with incredulity when I tell them I don’t have a car.

I live a 15 minute walk from the center of town and work and the UK has reasonable bus service in most towns so why would I spend thousands on a car and hundreds a month to park a vehicle I never use outside my house.

I cycle for fitness and pleasure though and most car drivers are lovely but we do have the odd dickhead as well.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#392

Post by noir_lord »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #323
lostphilosopher wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

Some roads around me are positively lethal on a bike, I sometimes jump off and walk across because it’s not worth the risk to me or anyone else, annoying but worth it.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#393

Post by noir_lord »

JohnFen wrote: post #390
u801e wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They can enter the car plane from places I don't expect and didn't even realize existed That's a problem with cyclists who don't follow the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles. When I cycle, I will check my mirror and signal prior to changing lanes. I'll only make left turns from the left lane and right turns from the right lane. I won't pass right turning cars on the right or left turning cars on the left. >…

> That's a problem with cyclists who don't follow the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles. Yes. As someone who bicycles as my primary transportation, I get really angry with other bicyclists who don't follow the rules. A couple of times I've even shouted "you're why drivers hate bikes!" Here's the thing -- where I live, the police used to enforce traffic laws against bikes to the same degree as against cars. It…

On average I get more annoyed with other cyclists than drivers, no turn signals, running traffic lights, riding without lights at night in dark clothing on a black bike, curb jumping, riding on busy pavements, not signalling turns etc.

I’m fully in favour of the police cracking down on cyclists for not following the rules.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#394

Post by mjevans »

novok wrote: post #299
mjevans wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about elevating those public spaces up two floors and leaving all of the level beneath to motorized transport (preferably electric only)? The safest engineering solution is to separate heavy motorized vehicles from human scale things.

Cars crashing into supporting pillars might create a disaster for the people above. And it's also a lot more expensive.

Crashes in to and over 'barriers' can already happen. If you want to provide safety against that you really should have pedestrian only paths.

The way to get THAT inside of major cities involves lots of adapter IO at the edge of the city, and a much more (Azimov's) Cave of Steel like transit infrastructure inside.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#395

Post by JohnFen »

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?

I wouldn't hesitate to note their license plate # and report them to the police. It may not help, but it might -- particularly if more than one person reports the same car over time.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#396

Post by noir_lord »

radicalbyte wrote: post #182
CydeWeys wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just in Amsterdam this past autumn. It was awesome how most streets have bike lanes that are at-grade with the sidewalk instead of at-grade with the street, and that everyone respects as being for cyclists and does not block. You're underestimating some of the speeds involved though. People will bike at speeds that feel safe to them. There's bike lanes there that are long, straight, and that have people going m…

I cycle somewhere between 20 and 35 km/hour; that's faster than scooters and most electric bikes. It's way faster for me to cycle to the supermarket, the gym and the kids daycare compared to driving. It beats being lazy in a car and I'm very thankful that the infrastructure here in NL supports it.

I can keep up 28kmh all day comfortably on my road bike and I’m not that fit but that’s 8 kg of carbon fibre running on 21mm tyres at 120psi not your average commuter bike.

I ride much slower on mixed use paths or around pedestrians, me hitting someone at 32km/h is going to hurt both of us potentially badly.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#397

Post by JohnFen »

rayiner wrote: post #222
bluejekyll wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on what you mean by efficient, I guess. I like the graphic on this article, https://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/how-much-space-do-pe... It shows how many more people can efficiently use roads while on bikes than in cars. So, if we define efficiency by that measure (obviously this matters more in cities and congested areas), then yes, it's more efficient.

I see that graphic a lot, but it's not a very useful one, because it ignores residential patterns. Most people can't use a bike. So if you displace one car, you're not going to replace it with one bike, much less than 5 that would otherwise fit in the same space. The efficiency question is: what minimizes the amount of collective time people spend getting where they need to go. Bike infrastructure might actually make…

> Most people can't use a bike.

What? How do you figure? My observation is that most people absolutely can (and many would seriously benefit from it).

Maybe not for every situation, but for the rare ones where a bike won't do, a cab will.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#398

Post by ocschwar »

wtetzner wrote: post #387
ocschwar wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

But how does she get to the T? It doesn't go very far.

It goes to East Somerville. It goes to Chelsea. It goes to Everett. If you want to knwo how the night shift janitors in your office get to work, just hang around the Sullivan Square station at 6PM.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#399

Post by z2 »

just_steve_h wrote: post #265
rayiner wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Actually the City of Cambridge installed a bike counter on one of the main thoroughfares toward one of the bridges over the Charles River into Boston. There are more than 1000 trips in each direction on a weekday.

https://pb.cambridgema.gov/pb4bikecounter

That's kind of cool! At a glance, also kind of expensive at $90,000 for 3! A quick search shows the hardware costing around $5,000 each.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#400

Post by lkbm »

btrettel wrote: post #371
adrianmonk wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this not fit the definition? https://austintexas.gov/news/new-central-austin-bicycle-sign... http://fitness.blog.austin360.com/2017/08/04/new-bicycle-tra...

This could be what is needed. Thanks. I didn't see a specific mention of the turning problem, but I guess it's supposed to fix that. But I should note that those cover only a small fraction of the intersections with this problem in Austin. So few that I've never seen them and I ride a bike on a daily basis. I have been on many of the mentioned streets, but I must not have gone through those intersections as I would r…

What are you talking about, "bike lane"? That's the Uber and Lyft drop-off lane.

The separated lane along the Drag sucks (which is the one in the photo) for the reason you mentioned -- cars will turn across it, and people will wander across/along it.

The two-way separated lane on Rio Grande is great. My only complaint is that I occasionally come face-to-face with a car that decided they wanted to use it.

There's one of those bike signals on Rio Grande and 24th does make that light slow, and people ignore it a lot (partly because it's West Campus and that's what kids so.) It's also very short, at least when going north. It's green for long enough to get across the street, and that's about it. Once it turns yellow, cars to the right of the bike lane get the left-turn green. It just miss that light and have to wait a long time roughly every day.

I think better than the signals may be the "I see you" signal on southbound Rio Grande and MLK. There's a blue light that will light up when it detects you, so you know you'll eventually get a green. Going the other way, and at many other intersections, at certain times of night, I know that I have three options:

1. Wait for a car going the same way as me shows up and is detected,

2. Bike up onto the side walk so I can press the pedestrian signal, or

3. Run the light because it doesn't know I'm there and it will let me wait indefinitely until one of the above occurs. (Or morning rolls around in 8-12 hours, I guess?)

I'd trade all these new bike signals for more of those detectors/blue lights. Maybe all the intersections will detect me if I stop in just the right spot, but I don't know what spot is for any given light.

Post reply on HN