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Roads with protected bike lanes make both cycling and driving safer: study

citylab.com

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Re: Roads with protected bike lanes make both cycling and driving safer: study

#171

Post by nogridbag »

u801e wrote: post #153
nogridbag wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes me feel even worse now. The other day I stopped behind a cyclist at a red light on a major avenue in NYC. He was in the left lane and the bike lane is simply one more lane over. When the light turned green he took forever to get going and even after 20 seconds he was still going dangerously slow so I honked him and felt like a jerk. I did not understand why he simply didn't use the bike lane. The cross str…

> he was still going dangerously slow On a city street that's essentially an oxymoron. You have to deal with stopped and slow traffic, turning traffic, etc. A slow cyclist should not be any different.

The avenues in Manhattan actually flow really well and the lights are very well timed. You can get from downtown to uptown almost without stopping. Personally I don't think cyclists should be mixed with cars in Manhattan especially when there's already dedicated bike lanes. But I'll probably change my opinion once I start commuting via bike :)

Re: Roads with protected bike lanes make both cycling and driving safer: study

#172

Post by closeparen »

fooblitzky wrote: post #145
u801e wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a bike commuter who's not exactly in Tour de France riding condition You don't need to be in "Tour de France" condition to take the lane on city streets (discounting your use of hyperbole). I do so all the time and intersection navigation is far easier when taking the lane than it is when forced to ride all the way to the right. Pedestrian style infrastructure is suitable for pedestrian speeds (3 to 6 mph), not…

Would you be comfortable with children or elderly people taking the lane though? "Vehicular cycling" has been around since the 1970's, and in practice it doesn't work. Protected bike infrastructure gets more people cycling, of all ages and abilities, because the number one reason people cite for not cycling is not feeling safe around cars. Telling them "you're really safer in the lane" doesn't work to allay their fea…

Yes. I was raised to be an assertive vehicular cyclist and make proper use of turn lanes by age 10.

I’m thankful for protected lanes when they are consistent and high quality (at minimum: absolutely never shared with bus travel or truck loading) but I would not ride if I had to dismount at intersections or wait 2 light cycles for left turns.

Biggest pet peeve now is pedestrians who hang out in the bike lane while waiting for the light to change.

Re: Roads with protected bike lanes make both cycling and driving safer: study

#173

Post by closeparen »

addicted wrote: post #98
linuxftw wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This stuff is plainly obvious when you've rode 10s or 100s of times more miles than the researchers. I'd argue, the points you make are 100% obvious if you've ever been through any intersection on a bicycle and needed to go straight or left from one of these lanes. You don't need 'research' when something is obviously stupid, but that seems to be something we've forgotten as a society. Around me, they put these 'bi…

I don’t get it. How many lefts are you making in a trip? If you make 3 lefts you’ve made a circle, and there’s in most cases a better route. You are far more likely to be biking straight than making left turns, so this is just optimizing for the general use case, while making the less frequent use case slightly more cumbersome (although still significantly safer). This is unfortunately a common criticism faced in US…

8? 10? Surface roads change in character significantly throughout the city and often have discontinuities, intersections vary in anxiety level, etc. Cycling the geometrically simplest route is a recipe for pain. You want to be on streets that are quiet but don’t have too many stops, have the protection of traffic signals when they cross major roads, avoid hills, etc. It’s a balancing act.

Re: Roads with protected bike lanes make both cycling and driving safer: study

#174

Post by vkou »

u801e wrote: post #160
vkou wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Cincinnati, it's illegal to ride a bike on a sidewalk, which makes sense, it's not very pleasant for the cyclist or pedestrians. It doesn't make any sense to protect pedestrians from having to deal with larger, faster, heavier vehicles, that may injure them, by forcing cyclists into the street, where they have to deal with larger, faster, heavier vehicles that may kill them.

How do drivers of cars deal with driving among trucks and buses?

Cars can match their speed.

Re: Roads with protected bike lanes make both cycling and driving safer: study

#175

Post by u801e »

hannasanarion wrote: post #168
u801e wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which is why there need to be bike lines, either between the parking lane and the sidewalk, The problem with this is when an intersection comes up, cars preparing to turn or approaching from an intersecting road cannot see the cyclist in time to avoid colliding with them.

This can be avoided with good intersection design that gives bicycles their own light cycle or puts the bike lane's stop line ahead of the automotive stop line.

> This can be avoided with good intersection design that gives bicycles their own light cycle

And this now significantly increases the wait time for all modes of transportation. This will lead to signal non-compliance which will lead to more collisions and injuries.

> or puts the bike lane's stop line ahead of the automotive stop line.

This presents another set of issues where cyclists now have to determine whether they have enough time to get ahead of the general traffic stream before the light changes to green. The other issue is that this type of facility encourages cyclists to keep to the right of the general traffic stream when the light is green which makes them much more likely to get right-hooked by traffic preparing to make a right turn at the intersection.

Re: Roads with protected bike lanes make both cycling and driving safer: study

#176

Post by u801e »

nogridbag wrote: post #171
u801e wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he was still going dangerously slow On a city street that's essentially an oxymoron. You have to deal with stopped and slow traffic, turning traffic, etc. A slow cyclist should not be any different.

The avenues in Manhattan actually flow really well and the lights are very well timed. You can get from downtown to uptown almost without stopping. Personally I don't think cyclists should be mixed with cars in Manhattan especially when there's already dedicated bike lanes. But I'll probably change my opinion once I start commuting via bike :)

The problem is that many of those bike lanes present significant problems to cyclists using them (illegally parked vehicles, lack of room to avoid bad surface conditions, intersection conflicts, dooring hazards caused by door zone bike lanes, etc.

Re: Roads with protected bike lanes make both cycling and driving safer: study

#177

Post by julianlam »

pagnol wrote: post #146
btrettel wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also might find the acronym MGIF (must get in front) to be interesting. I think it's mostly used by British cyclists. If my memory serves, the responses range wildly. On one end you have completely reasonable and sincere sounding apologies that they accidentally passed me dangerously. Whether or not these were accidents, I don't know. On the other end you have the typical rants against cyclists. In the middle I m…

I didn’t know the MGIF acronym although the attitude is something I pretty much take for granted. If I’m on a narrow road with a car behind me, I mostly expect the driver will try to squeeze past me even though they won’t be significantly faster.

Oof, that's where defensive cycling is important. Whenever I come up to a spot where a car and a bike cannot fit side by side (with safe clearance), I take the lane.

Re: Roads with protected bike lanes make both cycling and driving safer: study

#178

Post by gpm »

ebg13 wrote: post #76
gpm wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wearing a helmet increases your chance of death on a bike according to the statistics. I personally don't, I feel less safe wearing one. I can't locate cars as accurately with audio with one on my head, the extra weight makesy head turn slower, and I think subconsciously left often. Drivers pass more aggressively and illegally (most drivers passing break the law here that requires a meter seperation when passing a cy…

> Wearing a helmet increases your chance of death on a bike according to the statistics. I'm not aware of any study that says this. The most I've ever read is speculation that wearing a helmet might lead to more accidents, but that's not the same thing, since accidents with head protection are less likely to result in catastrophic head trauma and death. Could you maybe drop a reference link or two for this claim?

Totally fair to call me out on references.

You should read this instead: https://www.vox.com/2014/5/16/5720762/stop-forcing-people-to...

Why? Because it's an meta analysis of a bunch of actually rigorous papers written for the general public.

My original source was a blogpost written by some guy with an opinion. I promise you I'm not lying that's what it said, but I wouldn't trust the statistics he had to not be caused by some quirk like "people in safer to countries to bike are less likely to wear helmets". I can't find it again, sorry - probably because google has gotten so much worse at surfacing blogposts in the last few years. You'll just have to take my word that I wasn't lying when I said I saw such statistics (or google more yourself, I didn't try that hard, but at some point googling for statistics that support your view is unfair cherry picking of evidence).

Re: Roads with protected bike lanes make both cycling and driving safer: study

#179

Post by ummonk »

btrettel wrote: post #163
kryogen1c wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was riding 17 mph in a 15 mph zone Where in the world is there a 15mph zone where cars can drive 40 that bikes want to go? I cant think of a single 15 mph zone in any of the 6 cities ive lived

San Jacinto Blvd. at the University of Texas at Austin campus. I would intentionally ride there on my commute because the speed limit is so low. To be fair, few drivers seem to actually go 40 mph, though 25-30 mph seems to be regularly observed, particularly on the downhill road next to it (Deloss Dodds Way). I could easily do 30 mph going downhill there. I think the speed limit is 15 in that entire area due to the h…

Yeah, 40 mph there would be really unusual. Most cars drive at reasonable speeds there. Source: I lived in Creekside dorm.

Re: Roads with protected bike lanes make both cycling and driving safer: study

#180

Post by ummonk »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #121
stevesimmons wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I nearly got a brain injury in the Netherlands! I was riding too fast, carrying a TV, in heavy rain (all perfect normal for Amsterdam!). For some reason, I took my other hand off the handlebars, the front wheel spun round and I landed face-first on the road. :( 100% my fault; no other vehicles involved. (btw, I wear a helmet 100% of the time in the UK, and in NL when on my road bike with clipless pedals)

Congrats! You are one in 90 lifetimes! From http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2010/08/brain-injuries-... > Rather than reacting emotionally we have to look at the numbers to make sense of this. The overall risk to Dutch cyclists (it's on page two of the document) of a "head/brain injury" is 153 per billion kilometres ridden. That means that one such injury is one per 6.5 million kilometres ridden. > On average, ev…

One in 90 is really really high.
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