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

461–470 of 485 posts

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#461

Post by JohnFen »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #417
hannasanarion wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 And those people can continue using roads. Nobody is asking for a nationwide ban of all cars. We just want to make bicycles a safe option. That means less cars on the road, which is better for everybody.

I suspect this is where some of the bike-hatred comes from. People are afraid that somebody is trying to take their car away from them.

Outside of the small percentage of fanatics that you find in any group, I don't know any bicyclists who want to take people's cars away.

I know that I don't. I don't even think less of people who drive. I just want to be able to use the transportation methods that suits me best, just like they do.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#462

Post by king_panic »

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 tension is fundamental.

You have two parties who feel entitled to the road, while few parameters exist around how they share the road. Naturally anything a cyclist does that interferes with the driver ends up irritating him/her and vice versa.

Protected bike lanes go a long way to solving this problem. We need rules around how we interoperate.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#463

Post by JohnFen »

megaremote wrote: post #436
cannonedhamster wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't sound like you know Cambridge at all. There aren't many under capacity roads, especially when winter snow comes down. What this is going to do is make traffic slower, encourage more bikers who will ignore traffic rules and act unpredictably, and generally muck things up. Cambridge is actually probably a really great candidate for bike lanes with multiple colleges nearby, but let's not pretend this isn't going…

> bikers who will ignore traffic rules Bikes ignoring traffic rules is a 1000x better than cars ignoring traffic rules. Since cars actually kill people. 40,000 a year in the US. Every year. But hey, you don't give a shit about that, right?

This is true, but it doesn't excuse bikes ignoring traffic rules. Also, bikes striking pedestrians can kill them just as dead as cars can.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#464

Post by JohnFen »

lkbm wrote: post #400
btrettel wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

That's a significant design failure. In my town, they have been adjusting those embedded road car detectors so that they are sensitive enough to detect bikes. You do have to sit on the right spot, but they've added road markings to let you know exactly where you have to be.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#465

Post by JohnFen »

btrettel wrote: post #178
gugagore wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bein…

As a bicyclist, I can tell you what my greatest fear is: parked cars. Statistically speaking, I am far more likely to get hurt because someone opened their driver's side door without looking than from any other cause.

As a result, when I ride by parked cars I make sure that I'm at least a car-door-length away from them when at all possible.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#466

Post by JohnFen »

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…

Interesting. In my town, it's illegal to ride your bike on the sidewalk. And on a straightaway, most bikes are going substantially faster than people can walk.

I just checked my bike computer, and it tells me that my average speed is around 10 MPH, which means that roughly half the time I'm going faster than that.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#467

Post by JohnFen »

adrianN wrote: post #243
asdff wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Lane splitting at more than a walking speed is quite dangerous and illegal where I live.

Yes, lane splitting is illegal where I live as well. And I think that's appropriate.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#468

Post by JohnFen »

cheesymuffin wrote: post #438
techsupporter wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

My favorite is when they're freaks about safety and try to be altruistic (ex: "where's your helmet?")... ...by slowing down, driving on your shoulder, and screaming at you. Had someone do this at an exit to the freeway once. I had to stop and walk across.

I don't think people doing that are trying to be altruistic. They're trying to engage in harassment.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#469

Post by JohnFen »

microtherion wrote: post #354
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…

The next round of laws that criminalize non-cars at the expense of cars might be impending with the rise of autonomous cars. Cf this recent tweet where zoox called a law abiding pedestrian a "Jaywalker": https://twitter.com/zoox/status/1115622929192980480

I am really amazed they haven't deleted that tweet out of embarrassment for being so utterly wrong.

Re: Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law

#470

Post by JohnFen »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #424
btrettel wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said, I can't recall vehicular cyclists claiming that vehicular cycling will increase the number of cyclists. So don't judge them on that. I think increasing the number of cyclists is important, however. Also, I don't know any place where vehicular cycling is particularly common. It seems to be enthusiastically practiced by a relatively small group of people. As I said, though, those people are the safest cyclis…

Getting more bikes on the road makes bicycling safer. Drivers in cars are much more careful when they see bikes everywhere than when they only see them once in a blue moon. Unfortunately most people are not going to ride when they have to mix with cars. I'm willing to do it on low speed city streets, and in unprotected bike lanes at up to highway (55MPH) speeds when I have to, but the great majority of people won't,…

> Getting more bikes on the road makes bicycling safer.

This is a really interesting point. One of the things about where I live that I think I've taken for granted is that biking is pretty common. Not as common as driving, but at any given time you are very likely to see at least one bike on the road.

And, in general, cars do keep an eye out for bikes -- and they even do things like slow down to make room for bikes when the road gets narrow.

Post reply on HN