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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

#261

Post by lmm »

kd5bjo wrote: post #244
Symbiote wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When they overtake a standing queue, Bicyclists, from the point of view of drivers, are acting against the common interest of smoothly flowing traffic for their own gain and taking advantage of a temporary situation to screw up the natural order of faster vehicles at the front of the line and slower ones at the back. Now compare that behaviour with motorists, who are acting against the common interest of society an…

So, queue jumping is a moral act as long as the people you’re jumping in front of are bad people? Even if so, they’re most of the population and making someone angry is rarely a good tactic to convince them to help you. It’s possible to disagree with everything someone stands for and still treat them with civility. Many people on both sides of this debate that are concerned primarily with their own convenience, and t…

> So, queue jumping is a moral act as long as the people you’re jumping in front of are bad people?

I see it as more like a "10 items or less" queue: if you're taking up less (checkout/road) space then you get to go in a shorter queue that moves faster than the queues of the people who are taking up more space. That's fair, isn't it?

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

#262

Post by betterworldb »

supergauntlet wrote: post #10
whalesalad wrote: post #2

> A light, quick, cheap solution so good, it should be copied the world over. It is. This can be seen all over... SF, LA, DC, Austin, Ann Arbor ... I have seen this everywhere (in the US)

Where in Ann Arbor? I live in it and have never seen a structure like this.

here's a map of them

https://www.a2dda.org/wp-content/uploads/ddabikeparkingFB_04...

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

#263

Post by betterworldb »

whalesalad wrote: post #28
supergauntlet wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where in Ann Arbor? I live in it and have never seen a structure like this.

In front of the gay bar in Kerrytown. It's not a platform, but it's the same concept. There is a steel barrier/structure placed there to block cars from parking and the structure also serves as a bike rack.

map of the rest of them - they move year to year

https://www.a2dda.org/wp-content/uploads/ddabikeparkingFB_04...

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

#264

Post by betterworldb »

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #12
supergauntlet wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where in Ann Arbor? I live in it and have never seen a structure like this.

They have similar things downtown, I believe there's one across the street from the Fleetwood Diner.

this years map of them from the DDA

https://www.a2dda.org/wp-content/uploads/ddabikeparkingFB_04...

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

#265

Post by lmm »

rayiner wrote: post #257
AceyMan wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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, publ…

> 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. Transit is completely impractical in almost all the places where most Americans live and work. We’re talking about a commute that starts in a suburban cul-de-sac and ends in a suburban office park. Where would you put the transit lines? There is…

> Transit is completely impractical in almost all the places where most Americans live and work. We’re talking about a commute that starts in a suburban cul-de-sac and ends in a suburban office park. Where would you put the transit lines?

Again, chicken and egg. You need density to get to a point where non-car commutes are practical, and you won't get that as long as you build car-first.

It wouldn't be practical to turn the whole country into Manhattan overnight. But at every level there are steps that localities can take to make things marginally better: permitting higher density housing, permitting housing and offices to be built close together, reducing or eliminating street parking.

And the various bits of better cycling or transit infrastructure add up: add secure bike parking to the office park and a few hardy souls will start cycling, then you'll gain more value from adding bike lanes, which in turn will get more people switching and then more extensive infrastructure becomes more affordable. Start giving buses priority at lights and more people take the bus, then it becomes more practical to build rail lines along the busiest corridors, and so on.

> our political systems are incapable of the coordinated effort necessary to make transit work.

Political systems are made up of people, and as the newer generation takes over the system responds to their wants. Many people want denser neighbourhoods and better transit and they are - slowly but surely - starting to get them.

> And even if you tore down Atlanta and rebuilt it as a walkable city you’ll never convince Americans to walk or bike long distances in 90 degree weather/90 percent humidity.

Sounds like a similar climate to Hong Kong, which is famously low-car.

No doubt many parts of the US will not have great transit for centuries. But that's not a reason to avoid building it in the places where it will work. If you look at many places that are now famously low-car, there was a similar level of skepticism when they first started introducing bike lanes etc..

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

#267

Post by kd5bjo »

Johnny555 wrote: post #258
kd5bjo wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you manage to overtake a tractor once, it doesn’t ever re-overtake you and make you do that work again. On sections of road with large amounts of traffic and stoplights, I’ve had to wait behind and overtake the same bicycle 5 times before I finally got far enough ahead. Most bicycle encounters are non-issues, but it’s these extended ones where it seems to the driver that they’ll never be done with this one parti…

So your problem isn't with the cyclist, its with having so many cars on the roads that you can't drive faster than biking speed? What do you expect would happen if those riders weren't on bikes? When I'm not on my bike, I'm driving (if transit worked for me, I wouldn't be on my bike)

No, my problem is with the city planners that can’t get their act together and build the appropriate infrastructure to support all the road users.

And it’s with bicyclists that don’t understand the idea of a queue for controlling access to limited resources.

And it’s with drivers that think they own the road and pass bicyclists at patently unsafe speeds and distances.

There’s plenty of blame to go around; there’s no need to restrict it to just one party.

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

#268

Post by supergauntlet »

whalesalad wrote: post #124
georgehotelling wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm looking at one right now on Main St. between Huron and Washington. It even has a library Summer Game code on it.

Oh yeah I think there is usually one out in front of Mighty Good too?

I honestly didn't even realize those were temporary, I've just always seen them.

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

#269

Post by kd5bjo »

lmm wrote: post #261
kd5bjo wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, queue jumping is a moral act as long as the people you’re jumping in front of are bad people? Even if so, they’re most of the population and making someone angry is rarely a good tactic to convince them to help you. It’s possible to disagree with everything someone stands for and still treat them with civility. Many people on both sides of this debate that are concerned primarily with their own convenience, and t…

> So, queue jumping is a moral act as long as the people you’re jumping in front of are bad people? I see it as more like a "10 items or less" queue: if you're taking up less (checkout/road) space then you get to go in a shorter queue that moves faster than the queues of the people who are taking up more space. That's fair, isn't it?

That would be fair, if the infrastructure reflected that. It doesn’t, however: often there’s only one lane downstream from the traffic light that can’t be effectively shared, so there’s only one resource to queue for. That’s why we should get some proper bicycle infrastructure built already, but bicyclists angering drivers with their behavior isn’t going to help.

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

#270

Post by u801e »

kd5bjo wrote: post #236
Johnny555 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is explaining why many drivers dislike cyclists. This accurately describes some of the complaints I've heard from non-cyclists: 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 followin…

The reason these behaviors are frustrating to drivers is that bicycles are hard to overtake. They’re unpredictable and fragile compared to a car, and so the driver has to give them a wide berth, often having to wait behind them for a long time until there’s a break in oncoming traffic to get around them. That’s not so much of a problem, as that’s the same with every slow-moving vehicle. Bicycles, however, are the onl…

> The reason these behaviors are frustrating to drivers is that bicycles are hard to overtake.

It's a lot easier to see around a bicycle compared to other slower vehicles with bigger profiles. Also, since you're driving at a lower speed before and during the overtake, you're going to require less distance overall to complete the maneuver.

> They’re unpredictable

If they're following the rules of the road, then they're not unpredictable.

> and fragile compared to a car,

So are motorcyclists, for example.

> so the driver has to give them a wide berth

Four (or more) wheeled vehicles, by their nature, make it difficult to judge their precise extent from the driver's seat (the passenger side going more difficult compared to the driver's side). Roads typically have lines that help drivers laterally position their vehicles such that they have sufficient distance between the edge of the road and other vehicles traveling in the same direction.

Commonly, when overtaking another vehicle, one will completely change lanes before doing so (regardless of the vehicle type). The same rule should also apply to overtaking a cyclist.

> Bicycles, however, are the only ones that will re-overtake while the car is standing in a queue

I've seen people on motorcycles and other motor driven two wheel vehicles do the same.

> The obvious solution here is separate infrastructure for cars and bicycles as they have such different acceleration profiles that there will inevitably be problems putting them in the same space.

The same could argued for HGVs, but we do drive on the same roads they do without any issues despite the fact that their acceleration is much less compared to a typical car.

Unless the separate infrastructure is truly separate (i.e. grade separated), then these types of facilities cause more problems at intersections where they put cyclists on the wrong side of turning vehicles or even on the wrong side of the road relative to the direction of traffic).

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