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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

#181

Post by Wowfunhappy »

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.

The cars frequently treat them as suggestions too. And they seem to treat bike lines in a similar manner.

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

#182

Post by physguy1123 »

u801e wrote: post #151
OutsmartDan wrote: post #62

As an avid cyclist in NYC, this is a huge step forward into cyclist protection. I can't tell you how many times i've almost been hit, or doored, by a car. Sometimes, it's a lot safer to run a red light to get in front of a car versus waiting for the light to turn- but of course that's not legal. Honestly, as huge and condensed NYC is, I am surprised this hasn't happened years ago. It's much, much more efficient to ge…

> I can't tell you how many times i've almost been hit, or doored, by a car. Do you try to pass right turning vehicles on the right or left turning vehicles on the left? If you're at risk for getting doored, then you need to ride further away from parked vehicles (at least 6 feet away).

This doesn’t do anything when cars decide to park in your bike lane anyways, and your bike lane has maybe a foot clearance to traffic in the other side.

It’s also an interesting attitude, that cars are so much more important than bikes that it’s not car drivers who should check the road when opening their door, but bikers who should lose the 6 feet of street space near parked cars which is the only semi-safe place for bikes in New York

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

#183

Post by mschuster91 »

smt88 wrote: post #139
mschuster91 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can run a pro-vax platform - if the populace is not too dumb and uneducated. Anyone with a slice of a brain understands that anti-vaxx is a deadly game. The problem is that (not only in the US!) education funding has gone way downhill and the "free speech!!!" absolutist crowd does not realize that truly free speech depends on an audience intelligent enough to separate facts from quackery (such as homeopathy, anti…

I don't disagree with everything you said, but suggesting people should be jailed for misunderstanding scientific facts is a pretty obviously disastrous position to take. Who is the arbiter of the truth? What about people who are sincerely misinformed and well-intentioned? Free speech laws in the US seem to strike a good balance: if you're selling a product under false pretenses, you can be sued. If you're just publi…

Sorry, but antivaxxers, homeopaths and quackers telling drinking bleach drives out intestinal worms don't "misunderstand science". They spread, knowingly, lies.

> Who is the arbiter of the truth?

Why does a fact need an arbiter in the first place? It is general scientific consensus that vaccines do not cause autism, that homeopathy is placebo at best, and that the "worms" that people excrete after drinking bleach is their intestinal lining. And for heaven's sake the earth is a globe, not a flat pizza. Everyone has a right to be an absolute moron, but it should not be allowed to knowingly spread dangerous lies. Democratic discourse requires facts as foundation, not lies.

> What about people who are sincerely misinformed and well-intentioned?

Reeducation camps? I don't care about people too dumb to accept science. Sarcasm aside, I do not see a realistic way on how to re-integrate people brainwashed by conspiracy crap over years back into democratic discourse that does not at the same time build a system that can easily be abused by fascists. And this is a problem.

> if you're selling a product under false pretenses, you can be sued. If you're just publishing content, you can't be sued.

The people selling bleach cannot be prosecuted. They sell bleach, a perfectly legal product. The people who say that bleach kills autism cannot be prosecuted either, because "free speech". Meanwhile, parents are pumping their children full with bleach because they are afraid of "autism". I would prefer a system where no child has to suffer bleach enemas because their dumb-as-rocks-parents fell victim to quackers - I would prefer a system where these quackers are locked up before their speech leads to direct quantifiable suffering.

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

#184

Post by rossitter »

schrodinger wrote: post #32
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have any numbers, but my impression is that it's mostly turns, although there's also a big problem with people getting "doored" (which would easily be solved by putting bike lanes between parking lanes and sidewalks, instead of between parking lanes and automobile lanes). I was surprised to learn that left turns account for "more than twice as many serious injuries and fatalities as right turns." https://www1…

> putting bike lanes between parking lanes and sidewalks This is how all of the new NYC bike lanes work!

On major avenues in Manhattan, but not necessarily on side streets[0] or in other boroughs[1].

[0] - https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7740039,-73.9587169,3a,75y,1...

[1] - https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6757116,-73.9532197,3a,75y,2...

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

#185

Post by rossitter »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #20
ptaipale wrote: post #10

Where do bike deaths happen in New York? On streets when riding straight, or in intersections? (On both, of course, but what is the distribution?)

I don't have any numbers, but my impression is that it's mostly turns, although there's also a big problem with people getting "doored" (which would easily be solved by putting bike lanes between parking lanes and sidewalks, instead of between parking lanes and automobile lanes). I was surprised to learn that left turns account for "more than twice as many serious injuries and fatalities as right turns." https://www1…

> I was surprised to learn that left turns account for "more than twice as many serious injuries and fatalities as right turns."

This may be because bike lanes are placed on the left side of major one-way avenues in Manhattan: https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8005797,-73.9618377,3a,75y,1...

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

#186

Post by CydeWeys »

schrodinger wrote: post #170
CydeWeys wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is definitely not true on the multi-lane avenues. You're thinking of the single-lane streets. One good solution for the avenues would be to time their rolling green waves for an average of 15 mph. They just recently started doing this in Brooklyn on a particularly dangerous road.

I’m referring to 5th and 6th ave near the village which I commute on every day. Some aves are worse.

So you're referring to a few particular avenues in one neighborhood during rush hour.

I'm just pointing out that that's hardly indicative of the overall speed of traffic across Manhattan at all times. Vehicles go fast on the avenues when they can, definitely faster than you would want to try to keep up with on a bike.

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

#187

Post by gok »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #177
gok wrote: post #127

This will get more people on bicycles, which will almost certainly make the problem worse, unfortunately. No amount of lane protection prevents collisions in intersections, which is where nearly all the deaths happen. The problem isn't the amount of protected lanes; it's the rampant amount of comically unqualified drivers. The two tearjerkers from the article are typical: an 18 year old blowing a red light and someon…

Protected intersections are also a thing. They didn't exist in the US at all until like 2015, but they're starting to become more common. They don't make safety 100% perfect, obviously, but they do make things substantially better.

That just means they add bicycle setbacks in an attempt to scare drivers. It doesn't solve the problem when people are routinely allowed to drive without demonstrating an understanding of how a traffic light is supposed to be interpreted.

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

#188

Post by esyir »

mFixman wrote: post #100
unlinked_dll wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 you walk when you have been assigned to walk, your risk of an accident goes down. Please do not wave your faux high ground around like an argument.

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

#189

Post by Scarblac »

tombert wrote: post #112
OutsmartDan wrote: post #62

As an avid cyclist in NYC, this is a huge step forward into cyclist protection. I can't tell you how many times i've almost been hit, or doored, by a car. Sometimes, it's a lot safer to run a red light to get in front of a car versus waiting for the light to turn- but of course that's not legal. Honestly, as huge and condensed NYC is, I am surprised this hasn't happened years ago. It's much, much more efficient to ge…

My biggest pet peeve is when cops treat the bike lane as additional parking. I've seen cops do it just to walk into 7-eleven and buy a snack. I wonder if that will be addressed at some point.

In the Netherlands the bike lanes are usually separated from the car lanes, so you'd have car lane - car parking - bike line - sidewalk. Much safer and also prevents people parking on the bike lane.

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

#190

Post by nemo44x »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #162
nemo44x wrote: post #121

With more bikes because of bike lanes, I hope the city will begin enforcing bike infractions more seriously. So many people on bikes are going way too fast in the bike lanes (and pedestrian pathways) and do not stop at red lights, etc. I was happy to see a person get stopped and ticketed for riding down a walkway to a bike path when there was a sign explicitly stating that riding on the path was not allowed. I've see…

Mandatory bike registration is a terrible idea, but I got no problem with fining people who ride dangerously.

Make it simple with a 5% tax on any new bike purchased in the city. Call it the “bike lane preservation fund”.
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