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After Spike in Deaths, New York to Get 250 Miles of Protected Bike Lanes

nytimes.com

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Re: After Spike in Deaths, New York to Get 250 Miles of Protected Bike Lanes

#91

Post by insickness »

I'm amazed at some of the places where there are no bike lanes. For example, on 7th avenue between 34th and 30th--going past MSG/Penn Station, the bike lanes simply disappear. It's a five lane road and one of the most heavily trafficked in the city. There's lanes North and South but not on the throughway. Who's idea was that?

Instead of putting rinky-dink unprotected lanes on all these minor roads, they should lay out fewer, uninterrupted, protected through-ways that travel the length of the city. There's a few that run up and downtown but hardly any that run east-west.

Re: After Spike in Deaths, New York to Get 250 Miles of Protected Bike Lanes

#92

Post by downrightmike »

pwthornton wrote: post #5

This is big time for America. If our biggest city can’t show leadership on pedestrian and bicyclist safety, we can’t expect any other city to as well. New York is really lagging behind where it should be. Despite being by far the biggest American city, it is overrun with cars. Protected bike lanes, street improvements to make crossing the street safer, and dedicated bus lanes will improve the city for all New Yorkers…

Trickle down never works.

Re: After Spike in Deaths, New York to Get 250 Miles of Protected Bike Lanes

#93

Post by Elof »

WD-42 wrote: post #82
wefarrell wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I commute on my bike in NYC daily and I am far more terrified of pedestrians and other cyclists than I am of cars. Cars for the most part pay attention and obey traffic rules. Cyclists less so and pedestrians ignore rules entirely and frequently aren't even aware of cyclists.

Wait until you get hit by your first car. I guarantee the object of your fear will change to the car. It's not a pleasant experience.

This. I’ve been hit 2x with major injuries, both times 100% the cars fault and one time I was in a very well identified bike lane. Cars are terrifying

Re: After Spike in Deaths, New York to Get 250 Miles of Protected Bike Lanes

#94

Post by bobthepanda »

datashow wrote: post #57
kansface wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How popular is biking in New York - eg, do people bike in the winter?

"How popular is biking in New York" You can have a sense of it by checking with Google Maps street view on different places in Manhattan. It seems that there are way more cars and pedestrians than bike riders in most places.

This is not a good measurement, because one person on a bike takes up much less space than one person in a car. (Average car occupancy in the US is around 1.5.)

Re: After Spike in Deaths, New York to Get 250 Miles of Protected Bike Lanes

#95

Post by oh_sigh »

kansface wrote: post #26
pwthornton wrote: post #5

This is big time for America. If our biggest city can’t show leadership on pedestrian and bicyclist safety, we can’t expect any other city to as well. New York is really lagging behind where it should be. Despite being by far the biggest American city, it is overrun with cars. Protected bike lanes, street improvements to make crossing the street safer, and dedicated bus lanes will improve the city for all New Yorkers…

How popular is biking in New York - eg, do people bike in the winter?

I don't bike for fear of ice patches unless weather has been above freezing for a few days straight. I bike maybe 10% of days in winter and 90% in summer(from UWS to Chelsea via Hudson river bike paths)

Re: After Spike in Deaths, New York to Get 250 Miles of Protected Bike Lanes

#96

Post by yourapostasy »

kylek wrote: post #3

I wonder if they can do better than $12 million per mile a la seattle[0] [0] https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/12-...

This [1] is a good overview of the general costs and trade-offs of various kinds of bike lanes in the US. Some benchmarks to get a feel for ballpark numbers [2] for US cities to start an analysis in your area. Basically in built-up areas in the US, options are pretty limited without overwhelming public demand for ejecting car drivers from an area in favor of pedestrian and cycling traffic.

I'm still looking for what it looks like when a city design favors pedestrian, cycling, e-assisted human-powered/assisted mechanisms (e-bikes, scooters, Segways, skateboards, skates, etc.) traffic, then on-call PRT-to-GRT-scale people/cargo/freight movers within neighborhood-scale distances in dense (40-50,000 people per sq km) developments, subways for inter-neighborhood connections, and vehicles are restricted to the city borders (kind of like restricting specific traffic at the network border) for large-scale commercial cargo and passenger transport.

I'd like to see a breakdown of where the capex and opex expenses come from for elevated and subterranean bike lanes. Building up and down seems currently a significant cost barrier.

[1] https://peopleforbikes.org/blog/protected-bike-lanes-do-not-...

[2] https://activelivingresearch.org/sites/activelivingresearch....

Re: After Spike in Deaths, New York to Get 250 Miles of Protected Bike Lanes

#97

Post by komali2 »

wefarrell wrote: post #59
pwthornton wrote: post #5

This is big time for America. If our biggest city can’t show leadership on pedestrian and bicyclist safety, we can’t expect any other city to as well. New York is really lagging behind where it should be. Despite being by far the biggest American city, it is overrun with cars. Protected bike lanes, street improvements to make crossing the street safer, and dedicated bus lanes will improve the city for all New Yorkers…

I commute on my bike in NYC daily and I am far more terrified of pedestrians and other cyclists than I am of cars. Cars for the most part pay attention and obey traffic rules. Cyclists less so and pedestrians ignore rules entirely and frequently aren't even aware of cyclists.

Your experience is entirely the opposite of mine. Cars are not only usually unaware of me (despite me being lit up like a Christmas tree day or night), even if they do see me they'll just cut me off or even run me off the road if I'm in their way (and in violation of local law).

Pedestrians pose no threat to me unless I'm breaking the law, i.e. bicycling on the sidewalk, running a red, running a stoplight, etc.

Re: After Spike in Deaths, New York to Get 250 Miles of Protected Bike Lanes

#98

Post by jacobreg »

bravoetch wrote: post #87
pwthornton wrote: post #5

This is big time for America. If our biggest city can’t show leadership on pedestrian and bicyclist safety, we can’t expect any other city to as well. New York is really lagging behind where it should be. Despite being by far the biggest American city, it is overrun with cars. Protected bike lanes, street improvements to make crossing the street safer, and dedicated bus lanes will improve the city for all New Yorkers…

No. NYC isn't some reference point for what other cities should do. Making a city bike friendly is available to all cities, and has been for decades. There's no trickle down bike policy, as other cities in the US are already showing.

It's not ridiculous to say the urbanest area should try to set an example for other urban areas

Re: After Spike in Deaths, New York to Get 250 Miles of Protected Bike Lanes

#99

Post by stefan_ »

k_ wrote: post #66
runarberg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people don’t follow traffic signals it is the fault of the signals. That is, if everybody makes the same mistake, it is no individuals fault, but a fault in the system. To give a more concrete example. Say a traffic light has a pedestrian light attached. It will only allow pedestrian crossings when it does not stop the flow of vehicular traffic (say every 3-5 min, and only for 20 seconds at a time). But it does so…

No. I don't care if a security system is not highly efficient in letting everyone moving around. It's not the point anyway. That's the kind of thinking that makes our roads so deadly. If a rule in particular seems really silly to you, file a complaint / suggest a change so that it takes more parameters into account but until it is changed, stick to it. Loose some seconds or even minutes, I don't really care. These se…

No, what makes our roads deadly is cars. Things with engines in them that can power a street of suburban homes. Never pedestrians.

Re: After Spike in Deaths, New York to Get 250 Miles of Protected Bike Lanes

#100

Post by mFixman »

unlinked_dll wrote: post #23
pwthornton wrote: post #5

This is big time for America. If our biggest city can’t show leadership on pedestrian and bicyclist safety, we can’t expect any other city to as well. New York is really lagging behind where it should be. Despite being by far the biggest American city, it is overrun with cars. Protected bike lanes, street improvements to make crossing the street safer, and dedicated bus lanes will improve the city for all New Yorkers…

not to go all "blame the victim" here, but one thing I noticed culturally in NYC is that traffic lights are a suggestion to pedestrians. If there isn't a car directly in front of them, they'll cross the street. Compare to LA, where people tend to wait for the signal to cross pretty consistently. That said, LA still has horrible pedestrian death statistics so who knows how much that matters.

This is literally blaming the victim.

Pedestrians aren't carrying a multi-tonne vehicle that can kill people. Traffic lights are for drivers, and it's drivers who should pay attention.

The first step to fixing traffic deaths is fixing the laws that make causing a traffic accident more affordable than paying attention on the road. Right now you can drive while using a cellphone and run over as many people as you want if your excuse is "they came out of nowhere".

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