161–170 of 307 posts
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I don't see any evidence of that in the article you posted, other than the opinion of one of the plan's supporters.
You can read all about the group that's against the plan. https://www.14thstreetcoalition.org/
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This, pretty much. Motorists can be extraordinarily vocal without realizing how extraordinarily entitled they are to be able to operate their motor vehicles in urban environments where accommodating those motorists has an extraordinarily detrimental effect on the community in terms of space, traffic, pollution, congestion, etc. Not really a slight against motorists, I am one and never had this realization until I spe…
In America, Motorist == Community. It's bikers who are deviations from normal. We've built our cities for cars, now these bikers demand 'inclusion' on infrastructure they broadly don't pay for while flagrantly violating laws (ever seen a bicyclist come to a complete stop at a stop sign? Me neither).
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If you’re conceding that most motorists are irrational, then we as cycling advocates have all the more reason to adopt more aggressive tactics to eliminate parking. Cycling advocates should consider, in addition to legal pop-up parking replacements, sabotaging parked cars and parking spaces, blocking roads without permission, and other forms of protest to reclaim our streets. This is how Amsterdam was won ( https://w…
Driver getting angry for a few minutes vs wanton acts of sabotage, vandalism, and violence... This is why most drives regard cyclists as irrational and why most people choose not to cycle or not to identify as cyclists. And I say that as someone who both drives and bikes.
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If you’re conceding that most motorists are irrational, then we as cycling advocates have all the more reason to adopt more aggressive tactics to eliminate parking. Cycling advocates should consider, in addition to legal pop-up parking replacements, sabotaging parked cars and parking spaces, blocking roads without permission, and other forms of protest to reclaim our streets. This is how Amsterdam was won ( https://w…
Driver getting angry for a few minutes vs wanton acts of sabotage, vandalism, and violence... This is why most drives regard cyclists as irrational and why most people choose not to cycle or not to identify as cyclists. And I say that as someone who both drives and bikes.
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I don't think something like this would be that successful in the USA - it's not lack of parking that keeps most people from riding, it's lack of protected bike lanes (or other "safe" routes), and lack of cultural acceptance of biking. Plus, open, street parking isn't that safe in a lot of cities, if I could ask for some specific parking infrastructure, I'd ask for lockable bike lockers... though I'd rather see bike…
>it's lack of protected bike lanes (or other "safe" routes), and lack of cultural acceptance of biking. In my opinion, it's because most people live too far away from the places they need to go in order to bike there. I wouldn't want to ride a bike 20 miles a day, regardless of bike lanes or bike parking.
Unfortunately, we're pretty horrible as a society at reasoning about issues that involve more than one step, exacerbated by the fact that the pro-car bloc is probably the single most selfish-or-irrational voting bloc that I can think of, in terms of scale, intransigence, and magnitude of damage done.
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I don't think something like this would be that successful in the USA - it's not lack of parking that keeps most people from riding, it's lack of protected bike lanes (or other "safe" routes), and lack of cultural acceptance of biking. Plus, open, street parking isn't that safe in a lot of cities, if I could ask for some specific parking infrastructure, I'd ask for lockable bike lockers... though I'd rather see bike…
The lack of protected bike lanes is a direct consequence of the policy of providing free overnight car storage on both sides of every residential/commercial street. The days of “share the road” are over: cycling advocates need to advocate for 1/2 street parking on every street if we actually want change, because this is a zero-sum game where only one side continues to murder and maim the other because they think they…
You make it sound like there is some sort of federal policy covering every road in the US. Not only is there not, but your statement is far from the truth. There are many, many streets in the US where parking is restricted or paid
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>it's lack of protected bike lanes (or other "safe" routes), and lack of cultural acceptance of biking. In my opinion, it's because most people live too far away from the places they need to go in order to bike there. I wouldn't want to ride a bike 20 miles a day, regardless of bike lanes or bike parking.
There are buses, trains, etc. That can take you most of the way. It is super handy to be able to bike to a well served direct bus route, take the bike on the bus, and bike to the destination without having to have to change from/to an underserved indirect lane.
You make that sound so simple. There's no way I could bring a bike on the bus or train I use to get to work.
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Temporarily repurposing street parking is a great tactic to get people to realize how much public space is given to 1 person which could serve many I think all it would do is enrage drivers that their parking space is being taken up by cyclists. To think that they'd finally recognize how much space is taken up by cars assumes that drivers are looking at this rationally. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130212-why-yo…
I don't like that the article implies cyclists are breaking the rules, but then they list behaviors that are legal in most places and make sense: > overtaking queues of cars, moving at well below the speed limit or undertaking on the inside. It also blames bikes for both moving too fast and too slow, and ignores that drivers'd be way more pissed if bikes took the entire lane (like they're entitled to in most places).
Then along come cyclists, innocently following what they see are the rules of the road, but doing things that drivers aren't allowed to: overtaking queues of cars, moving at well below the speed limit or undertaking on the inside.
Whether or not the cyclists are actually following the law is irrelevant, there's still the perception that they are not. I've had a motorist pull up beside me at a stop sign and yell at me to get off the road and ride on the sidewalk -- I pointed out the bike stencil on the bike lane I was in and pointed to the "No bicycles on sidewalks" sign, and he still told me to get off the road. Laws (even with clear evidence that I was following them) didn't matter to him.
Local governments (at least in the US) seem to systematically underinvest in experiments like this. Things like traffic congestion have a ton of weird, largely unpredictable positive and negative feedback loops. Seattle removed its waterfront viaduct from service for a couple of weeks before changing over to the new $3.3B tunnel and traffic was mostly fine, despite apocalyptic predictions of gridlock. It's not entire…
Dutchman living in NYC here. Manhattan seems perfect for cycling: small distances, wide roads (lots of space for bike lanes), not very hilly. Sometimes it rains but definitely not more often then the Netherlands. That they choose to fill all the streets with big Suburbans bewilders me. Especially when the only alternative is the subway.
Where do you even see Suburbans in Manhattan that don't belong to the NYPD, the MTA, or a black car service, let alone streets filled with them?
quick survey : how many readers actually ride to work?