251–260 of 317 posts
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I know, right?! It’s sooo much nicer that way. That’s a good demonstration of how bikes are really just slightly faster pedestrians and not slow cars.
Cyclists typically move between 10 to 30 mph. Pedestrians move between 2 to 6 mph. That's not slightly faster.
I dont really want to hurt people’s feelings but why do we care about this topic so much? I am kind of confused about why people are so passionate about bike lanes. Isn't it better if we focus on improving the subway and the bus lines before anything? I would like to see an open minded discussion about the pros and cons of this.
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?
There are automated bike counters in certain places (e.g. bridge crossings), but I haven't been able to find the data for winter months. Citi bike data is probably a pretty good proxy, though. It's in the report I linked and in sibling from apaprocki
[0]: https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/cycling-in-the-c...
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Cyclists typically move between 10 to 30 mph. Pedestrians move between 2 to 6 mph. That's not slightly faster.
A fast jogger will go from 8-12mph.
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…
As a pedestrian, I've often thought that. There are no cars coming (in the direction that has the right of way), but if I wait, the cars waiting to turn might not yield to me. My threshold for cars entering my personal space is clearly different than drivers. I've had drivers accelerate toward me and pass me with 1-2' of space. Way too close. My rule, as a driver is simple: never accelerate toward a pedestrian. That…
https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/infrastructure/leading-pe...
People riding bikes will be able to follow LPIs at intersections that have them soon (sometime in December, I think)
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In Chicago it's largely been implemented by placing the bike lane in between on-street parking and the sidewalk, with soft posts and paint separating the parking lane from the bike lane. I've watched people put an impressive amount of effort into delicately navigating between those posts so that they can parallel park their car next to the curb. i.e., in the bike lane.
So more signage and education is needed?
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It's not an interesting point because this topic has already been studied. Cyclists break traffic laws at roughly the same rates as motorists.
Thanks, I wasn't aware of studies in this area. Do you know of studies that compare breaking traffic laws of cyclists in different countries?
For my own reference as much as others:
Florida study on rates for people driving vs cycling: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/01/03/study-cyclists-dont-b...
Wesley Marshall (Univ of Co) surverying 18k people: https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-07-18/survey-finds-bicyclis... (I haven't found the actual paper on this one)
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> This doesn’t do anything when cars decide to park in your bike lane anyways When there's a stopped vehicle in the lane you're in, you can simply check for traffic in the next lane and switch lanes. > your bike lane has maybe a foot clearance to traffic in the other side. You're not restricted to the bike lane if there's an obstruction. > that cars are so much more important than bikes that it’s not car drivers who…
> When there's a stopped vehicle in the lane you're in, you can simply check for traffic in the next lane and switch lanes. > You're not restricted to the bike lane if there's an obstruction. These comments proves my whole second point. If a car were to just park in the car lane because it felt like it, there would be outrage, tickets, and the car would get towed immediately. Nobody would say "no big deal, just chang…
And drivers of those cars would switch lanes to get around it in the interim. Cars can develop mechanical issues that prevent them from proceeding and if they driver can't get to the side of the road, then they remain in the general purpose traffic lane (which isn't for the exclusive use of cars).
> But when a biker says "I don't like using the street because it's dangerous", it's just dismissed like this.
What's dangerous about changing lanes after checking for traffic in the adjacent lane? People do this all the time while driving cars, trucks and motorcycles. Why would it be any different when on a bicycle?
> There's a reason bike lanes exist in the first place, and it's because the car lanes are dangerous.
According to NY state law, they exist so that cyclists do not interfere with traffic[1]. It's not for safety. It's just to keep cyclists out of the way.
> Imagine somebody saying this when a car driver complains about somebody else running a red light
When I drive a car or ride a bike, I check for approaching traffic when I enter an intersection. This is out of self-preservation. People are going to screw up (whether intentionally or not). But if you can avoid a collision regardless of what someone else did, then that's a far better alternative.
> When bikers do all the terrible biker things like roll through stop signs, or "act like pedestrians", or roll to the front of the line, that IS taking our own safety
No, that's for the cyclist's convenience. If everyone followed the same set of rules, then everyone's actions are predictable and there would be fewer conflicts and lower risk of collision. Imagine if drivers of motor vehicles started following the same strategy you mentioned. They can justify it by saying they needed to stay out of the way of the bus and they saved time as well.
> Plenty of car lanes themselves are near the door zone, not to mention bike lanes themselves ARE the door zone usually.
If other lanes are present, then drivers stay out of the door zone. That is always true when there is a door zone bike lane.
> I don't mean to be aggressive, but the endless victim blaming
Providing advice in order to prevent others from becoming victims is not victim blaming.
[1] https://www.dot.ny.gov/display/programs/bicycle/safety_laws/...
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And the cops. And the firefighters parking outside the fire station. And when a car does hit a bike and NYPD shows up... well... https://twitter.com/joemewler/status/1177042296900071425
I've been thinking about starting a cyclist-oriented "neighborhood watch" type organization because the police don't do much anything about violence against cyclists, much less more "minor" issues like parking in the bike lane. At the very least volunteers could document things like this properly.
https://twitter.com/reported_nyc
https://twitter.com/copsinbikelanes
What else do you have in mind for a cyclist-oriented neighborhood watch?
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"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.
Surely someone with a username that says "datashow" would think that this isn't the proper way to measure it.