A “bike platform” that temporarily swaps one car parking space for ten bicycles • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by frenchy » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 2:28 AM UTC

tastygreenapple wrote: post #190

fader wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

> Drive next to a police car.

I'm not sure what you're getting at, but here the police regularly drive 20 kph above the speed limit.

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

#202

Post by iCarrot » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 2:32 AM UTC

tastygreenapple wrote: post #190

fader wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Yours and parent comment both have a wrong assumption: cyclists don't own cars and therefore pay no taxes that car owners do.

Some of them own cars, but prefer to be on a bike.

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

#203

Post by fader » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 2:58 AM UTC

wozniacki wrote: post #194

fader wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?…

Would you be open to a. having bicyclists licensed, b. their bicycles registered & inspected by an agency, c. license plates issued & d. the respective parties be insured to cover potential damages to themselves and others on the road, when accidents happen? Does not that reasonably follow from what you're implying & if you want the same rights as any other DMV registered vehicle? How does a cyclist not get to do any…

I'd obviously be very willing to do all of these -- I've already done them as a driver. I've been licensed and driving for 25 years with no accidents or tickets. I'm a member of AAA too, for what that's worth. (Though I'll note that I'd expect my biking insurance to be so close to zero as to not matter as the odds that I'll injure anyone on my bike are vanishingly small compared to the odds that I'll severely injure or kill someone when I'm driving.)

In my opinion cyclists should be licensed, but that's not currently the law. But neither is it the law that killing someone in a wreck is automatically 2nd degree murder, which in any other situation it would be.

Those licensing laws don't exist because the government wants to make driving on the natural roads that sprung fully formed from the earth less fun in cars. They exist because roads are built on public land that could potentially be used for other purposes, and because driving is inherently dangerous to other people and requires special training. And while I would actually prefer that there were more regulation here, I don't see how it is implied from cyclists paying taxes any more than it would tax-paying pedestrians requiring a license to cross a street. Aside from being another direct example of driver entitlement, that is.

It's... downright bizarre that you think anyone wouldn't know that impaired riding of a bicycle is prosecutable. I honestly can't figure out what you're even trying to say there. If it's some sort of sideways implication that anyone riding a bicycle is ignorant of the law, I'd point to the far larger number of arrests for DUI of drivers as a counter.

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

#204

Post by iCarrot » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 3:01 AM UTC

mrmanner wrote: post #142

nightfly wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For years I commuted by train/bus to school/work until I could afford (the extra $200ish per month) to switch to driving to claw-back an hour of time I spent commuting each day. If traffic devolved to the point that I wouldn't be able to drive to work anymore I /would/ adjust, but I'd be generally less happy for it.

My most productive time each day is the ~half hour on the bus or train to work. I plan my day, answer all simple emails, and when I’m in the office I can get right to the important things. I get that many jobs (and even more employers) require 8 hours attendance, that not everyone has volunteer work to do when they can’t work work on their commute, and that some public transport doesn’t accommodate any kind of being…

There are also other ways to reclaim dead time on public transport like reading a book, listening to podcast, or just plain relax. You can't do those while driving without compromising your attention and (therefore) safety of yourself and others.

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

#205

Post by bryanlarsen » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 3:13 AM UTC

wozniacki wrote: post #197

lacampbell wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem-cyclists everyone has at one time or the other, encountered have this air of entitlement You betray yourself by the language you use - 'entitlement'. They are entitled to use the road, etc, just like any other user. I see many dangerous road users (all vehicles), but I never think of them as entitled - as if they shouldn't be there. Just sloppy/dangerous/ignorant. It bothers people more because they know…

An air of entitlement not to the road, they feel entitled to flouting the rules & to not be penalized or reprimanded for doing so -- like not stopping at signals or intersections as if its beneath them.

Similar to how car drivers feel entitled to being able to go 5mph over the speed limit without being penalized or reprimanded.

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

#206

Post by AceyMan » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 3:23 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #183

wutbrodo wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Carr…

>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.

Cart meet horse. I believe we have to "build it and they will come." It's a 'tiny minority' (well, minority) due largely to lack of infrastructure (bike lanes, sharrowed roads with modest speed limits, &c.).

Then, you hit upon the other issue...

>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.

America needs more transit everywhere, and maybe more importantly, we need to dissolve the notion that mass transit is not just how low-income people solve transportation.

I love meeting New Yorkers and Chicagoans and their ilk because they are already on board with transit, they just don't continue use in newCity because the coverage is inadequate.

Playing devil's advocate for the car culture we do face the fact that the USA is huge and our cities have sprawled as a result. This makes cycling end to end take way more effort and often dictates that there be some powered locomotion to cover the bulk of the distance. And that's where transport fits perfectly.

Tl;dr. There's a symbiosis that needs to happen between bikes and transit to achieve critical mass and this wider adoption in urban centers. If we find strategies that get us to that tipping point then I think wider change is possible.

(me: currently commute by bike-bus-bike and previously did bike only (26 miles/day. I'll admit, the LA climate is a big help with this, no doubt.)

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

#207

Post by CapricornNoble » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 3:37 AM UTC

Johnny555 wrote: post #84

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 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…

In Japan the cyclists ride on the sidewalk, and use little bells that the entire pedestrian population is conditioned to understand means "move over please, I'm coming through". I've found bike usage surprisingly high in Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto compared to my experience living in/near numerous US cities (Philadelphia, Miami, St. Louis, to name a few).

Why the emphasis on bike lanes in US cities? Putting unarmored people on unpowered vehicles on the same transit medium as multi-ton high-powered enclosed vehicles with reduced visibility seems like a recipe for disaster. Hell, I rode a motorcycle for a little while here in Japan and stopped because I wasn't comfortable commuting to work and sharing the road with kei cars, let alone Cadillac Escalades or F-150s like in America.

While riding on scooters in Hanoi with my Vietnamese friends, I learned the "ways of the road" there: small things yield to big things. Dump trucks and other large commercial vehicles drive however they please. Cars get outta their way. Then cars drive however they please, and all the mopeds kinda swarm around them and move over as necessary. Smaller vehicles are more nimble and generally have better situational awareness, so they can react more easily. Operators of smaller vehicles take it upon themselves to avoid death at the hands of the larger vehicles. In a city where people on two wheels are like 95% of all street traffic....big vehicles have traffic priority. As an aside, ALL motorists strike me as hyper-alert and competent compared to the typical American. Vietnamese on Vespas avoid collisions at the last second with lightning-quick reflexes and maneuvers that tough-guy American biker dudes I know could never pull off. It's pretty amazing.

But cyclists in the States....they seem to argue "everything bigger than me on the road must adjust to accommodate me", even though they are the physically-smallest vehicles on the road, and the smallest minority of commuters. It all seems ass-backwards to me.

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

#208

Post by rizzin » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 3:55 AM UTC

dancek wrote: post #97

Johnny555 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Is the problem with open parking stealing bikes, stealing parts or breaking bikes? The obvious safety strategy is to have a bike of lesser value with better locks than what's available nearby. But I also ponder what it would be like to own a really valuable bike. Do people steal handlebars or something, because that would make sense to me? Or is vandalism the bigger issue?

>Is the problem with open parking stealing bikes, stealing parts or breaking bikes?

I'd like to add an often overlooked problem with open parking: bikes that are left there forever to rust and rot.

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

#209

Post by CapricornNoble » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 4:01 AM UTC

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #113

tonymet wrote: post #55

quick survey : how many readers actually ride to work?

Why wouldn't you? I have a daily 10 mi. commute. In the spring and summer, I almost never drive my car. I haven't driven my car in 2 months, come to think of it.

"Why wouldn't you?"

The spring/summer weather hovers between 25-33 Celsius with 80%+ humidity. I like arriving at my destinations not covered in sweat. When it's not brutally hot and sunny....it's raining (this island gets twice as much rainfall as Seattle). And we are regularly hit by typhoons. You can drive a car in a weak typhoon. Good luck riding a bike during one.

The terrain is very hilly here, with many roads cutting across the island having elevation changes of ~70m. Attacking hills like that might be a great workout but I sure as hell wouldn't want to do it after a trip to my favorite ramen shop or tempura restaurant (both of which are at sea level, down the hill from me).

Finally....I'm a speed freak and a gearhead, and the experience of operating a powerful car, daily, is its own reward. I wouldn't be caught dead on a bicycle, but I also wouldn't be caught dead driving a low-powered commuter vehicle shitbox.

Climate and geography are major factors which I think many Americans ignore because most tech workers either live somewhere with mild weather, or live somewhere with flat, bland geography (most of the country, really).

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

#210

Post by Rapzid » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 4:04 AM UTC

I'm not sure I understand. From a safety point of view I'd be concerned locking my bike to something that is literally designed to be moved on a flat bed.. From a space optimization point of view, why would you put a bike rack in one of the only places you can park a motor vehicle while there is almost endless amounts of space around for bicycle parking/storage(relatively at least)?