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A “bike platform” that temporarily swaps one car parking space for ten bicycles

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Re: A “bike platform” that temporarily swaps one car parking space for ten bicycles

#181

Post by lacampbell »

Johnny555 wrote: post #125
bikeshaving wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

My pet armchair theory is because driving a car is the one time a lot of human beings feel powerful. Where I live (provincial New Zealand) car traffic is slowed down just as much by tractors moving from farm to farm as it is by cyclists. Yet I never hear people tell me their elaborate fantasies about murdering tractor drivers. Why? Because it's not a realistic fantasy - the tractors are bigger than them.

If you work a menial job, or your family doesn't respect you, or you're looked down on by society - or maybe a combination - then your commute home is maybe the only time you have real power, protected by a big metal shell. So the anger at cyclists is more about 'how dare they slow me down when during the small pocket of time in my existence when I wield power?'.

I'm a long time cycle commuter relucantly turned auto-commuter. I thought I'd start hating cyclists too once I joined the herd but they're practically a non issue.

Re: A “bike platform” that temporarily swaps one car parking space for ten bicycles

#182

Post by laingc »

frankus wrote: post #35

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…

This doesn’t directly address your point, but a particular cycleway in my city (Wellington, NZ) has unquestionably put several small businesses out of business, and is well on its way to killing a previously thriving village centre.

As a personal disclaimer, I lived in Europe for years, where my primary means of transport was a bicycle, and after careful consideration over many years I am firmly in favour of personal motor vehicles as a means of transport.

Re: A “bike platform” that temporarily swaps one car parking space for ten bicycles

#183

Post by rayiner »

wutbrodo wrote: post #165
vortico wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Public transit handles long distances rather neatly, but there's a chicken-and-egg issue where (support for) its development is in part stymied by the last-mile problem: covering 20 miles rapidly isn't useful if you have no good options for the last 2. Biking fills a very important slot in a healthy transit infrastructure. Unfortunately, we're pretty horrible as a society at reasoning about issues that involve more t…

The car bloc is 95% of the population and is completely rational. It makes no sense to take entire lanes out of service for the tiny minority of people who can integrate biking into their daily commute. And for most people in the US, public transit is not an option because you have a last mile problem at both the starting point and ending point.

Consider, as an ironic example, the new development around DC’s New Carrolton metro station, where WMATA, DC’s subway operator, will have a major office. Although it is a metro stop, it’s not practically commutable by metro. Almost all of the housing in the area is outside walking distance from the station, and it would make no sense to live in the city (where the rent is very expensive and the schools are bad) and take metro when you could live in the surrounding suburbs and drive 15 minutes to work instead. This is a problem endemic to the US—because we put large employment centers in the suburbs (like Silicon Valley) we end up with suburb-suburb commutes with last mile problems at both ends. It kills transit and biking as viable options.

Public transit is viable when your cities look like New York or Chicago. You put a little train station in a walkable/bikeable suburb, and then put all the jobs downtown. Most post-WWII cities don’t look anything like that. In those cities, it’s entirely rational to cater primarily to cars, because most people couldn’t use public transit and biking even if they wanted to.

Re: A “bike platform” that temporarily swaps one car parking space for ten bicycles

#184

Post by slewis »

vonmoltke wrote: post #180
MBlume wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The policy in every major city is to treat free overnight car storage on both sides of every road as the default

That is not the policy in a large chunk of Manhattan. It was not the policy on major (more than two-lane) or downtown roads in Dallas (and its two independent enclaves prohibited overnight street parking entirely). It's not the policy on the vast majority of streets in Miami or the surrounding cities.

Anecdotes dont override the claim of “default” here.

Re: A “bike platform” that temporarily swaps one car parking space for ten bicycles

#185

Post by briga »

laingc wrote: post #182
frankus wrote: post #35

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…

This doesn’t directly address your point, but a particular cycleway in my city (Wellington, NZ) has unquestionably put several small businesses out of business, and is well on its way to killing a previously thriving village centre. As a personal disclaimer, I lived in Europe for years, where my primary means of transport was a bicycle, and after careful consideration over many years I am firmly in favour of personal…

It's interesting that you say the cycleway unquestionably put small businesses out of business--why do you think that?

In North America small businesses and town centres are generally under threat from big shopping centres and the way large highways that literally split communities in half. After seeing how smoothly dense cities in the Netherlands can function with advanced bicycle infrastructure I'm convinced that bikes should have an effect opposite to what you mention.

Re: A “bike platform” that temporarily swaps one car parking space for ten bicycles

#186

Post by jameslars »

frankus wrote: post #35

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…

I for one purposely worked remotely for at least 75% of "viadoom" specifically because of all the warnings beforehand. Many of my coworkers did as well. That may have had something to do with everything working out? They warned us very much in advance to make plans to deal with it, and people seemed to.

Another anecdata, the days I did commute in the bus was at least 50% fuller than "normal".

Re: A “bike platform” that temporarily swaps one car parking space for ten bicycles

#187

Post by lazyasciiart »

belorn wrote: post #151
8ytecoder wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And break seatposts when they are angry they couldn’t steal anything. I had a not too fancy bike that uses Pinhead locks to secure every removable component. And a sturdy U lock. There were multiple attempts to steal various components including an angry thief breaking the seat post for no good reason - the saddle is worthless. Only finally to be stolen from a secure parking garage using an electric saw in full view…

What I don't get is why the same thieves do not steal the wheels, head lights and other parts of parked cars. Seems like it would be more profitable.

Cars tend to require tools by default, but a lot of bike parts can be removed just with your hands. They’re also a lot lighter and smaller, so they’re easier to carry and hide. To take the wheels off a car, for instance, you need to jack the whole car off the ground - with a bike you can just hold it in place.

Re: A “bike platform” that temporarily swaps one car parking space for ten bicycles

#188

Post by wozniacki »

lacampbell wrote: post #181
Johnny555 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My pet armchair theory is because driving a car is the one time a lot of human beings feel powerful. Where I live (provincial New Zealand) car traffic is slowed down just as much by tractors moving from farm to farm as it is by cyclists. Yet I never hear people tell me their elaborate fantasies about murdering tractor drivers. Why? Because it's not a realistic fantasy - the tractors are bigger than them. If you work…

I beg to differ.

The problem-cyclists everyone has at one time or the other, encountered have this air of entitlement - not dissimilar to Prius drivers who are known to be some of the worst drivers on the road [1][2] - that their chosen mode of conveyance is morally superior to other modes and so they're owed certain privileges like being not held to the same degree of responsibility for flouting traffic rules.

[1] The aggressive driving antics of some Prius drivers have been attributed to a lack of engine noise in the Prius and thus absence of revs found in an ICE vehicle

[2] Science Confirms That BMW And Prius Drivers Are The Worst

https://jalopnik.com/science-confirms-that-bmw-and-prius-dri...

edit: punctuation

Re: A “bike platform” that temporarily swaps one car parking space for ten bicycles

#190

Post by tastygreenapple »

fader wrote: post #143
tastygreenapple wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

That's a beautiful example of the entitlement in question. Cyclists pay taxes (did you think that gas taxes are high enough to pay for roads?), cause orders of magnitude less damage and wear to the road surfaces than automobiles, and don't use anywhere near the amount of valuable land as free storage for their vehicles when not in use. (The law violation works both ways too. Ever seen a motorist obey the speed limit?…

> (The law violation works both ways too. Ever seen a motorist obey the speed limit? Me neither.)

Drive next to a police car.

> did you think that gas taxes are high enough to pay for roads?

They would be if the gas tax revenue weren't diverted towards politican's pet causes.

> cause orders of magnitude less damage and wear to the road surfaces than automobiles

Same is true for most things that are lighter than cars. Scooters and motorcycle cause less damage than cars.

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