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After Spike in Deaths, New York to Get 250 Miles of Protected Bike Lanes
291–300 of 317 posts
Re: After Spike in Deaths, New York to Get 250 Miles of Protected Bike Lanes
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
Education probably doesn’t matter. Convenience will always trump education. What would work would be enforcement, if you’re fairly likely to get slammed with a $500 ticket for blocking the lane that will actually stop the behavior.
Why do you think someone put so much effort into parking "conveniently" instead of misunderstanding what the post is for?
Driving in between two posts doesn’t seem that much effort to me (doesn’t seem harder than parallel parking for example). And I suspect many of them do understand what the flexposts are for, and just don’t care.
Drivers park in clearly signed bike lanes all the time, and when cyclists alert them to this fact they often respond with anger, not understanding or contrition. Common excuses are “I’ll just be a minute” or so on. It’s just part of how driving causes people to behave - I see the same thing with my apartment driveway which is regularly blocked by people parking illegally to go to the bank, rather than drive a few hundred feet and legally park in a garage.
Now, I’m sure there are some ignorant people out there, but the majority of people will just do what they can get away with regardless of what the law or the rule is. It’s like educating people to not text and drive. Just doesn’t work.
Re: After Spike in Deaths, New York to Get 250 Miles of Protected Bike Lanes
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have the uneasy feeling that police will never look into cyclist accidents very seriously. Way too many cyclists disobeying the rules, weaving through traffic, wandering from sidewalks to street and back again, ignoring signals, and on and on. Sure I bet we all obey the rules. But there's that overwhelming mass of cyclists that don't, it will be hard to interest police in trying to separate the incidents.
I've looked at the statistics and cyclists don't break the law significantly more than drivers do. Drivers break different laws that are socially acceptable to break, like speeding. About 2/3 of drivers admit to speeding: https://news.uns.purdue.edu/x/2008b/081107ManneringSpeeding.... That fits with my experience. You can find wildly varying estimates of how often cyclists run red lights: https://bikeportland.org/201…
That's perhaps the least dangerous of the bicycle maneuvers. Its the dashing from lane to lane, from street to sidewalk and back, into and out of blind spots unexpectedly that makes bicycles a hazard to themselves.
Re: After Spike in Deaths, New York to Get 250 Miles of Protected Bike Lanes
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Cops all drive into the city from Long Island. They don't understand how New Yorkers actually live and get around; to them a bike lane is a curiosity for weirdos who like to get around on a child's vehicle. Getting change in this regard will require either very serious change in how cops are regulated, or a change in cops' mindsets regarding cars and bikes. Not sure which I'd bet on happening first.
Maybe for a couple of days a month, some cops may be rotated onto a police bicycle?
Re: After Spike in Deaths, New York to Get 250 Miles of Protected Bike Lanes
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you think someone put so much effort into parking "conveniently" instead of misunderstanding what the post is for?
Driving in between two posts doesn’t seem that much effort to me (doesn’t seem harder than parallel parking for example). And I suspect many of them do understand what the flexposts are for, and just don’t care. Drivers park in clearly signed bike lanes all the time, and when cyclists alert them to this fact they often respond with anger, not understanding or contrition. Common excuses are “I’ll just be a minute” or…
I don't know that driving brings out terribly different behavior on that front, it's more that cars are so big that they act as this inconvenience multiplier that allows one person to easily create a much bigger hassle or hazard for others than they could with their bare hands.
For example, I have plenty of run-ins with stepping out of a storefront and nearly getting creamed by a cyclist who's zooming down the sidewalk at 10mph, too. And it's frequently the cyclist who yells at me for failing to anticipate them barreling down the sidewalk illegally.
Re: After Spike in Deaths, New York to Get 250 Miles of Protected Bike Lanes
#296Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's a list of this year's deaths with links to details: https://patch.com/new-york/new-york-city/these-14-cyclists-d...
Interesting, thanks. It doesn't say it directly, but it appears that heavy vehicles turning (right) at an intersection are a relatively common setup for fatalities. Unfortunately separate bike lanes don't help there.
For turning specifically, NYC has been installing a variation of http://www.protectedintersection.com/ along with protected lanes recently. For example, 12th and 13th St has "turn traffic calming" (https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/12th-st-13th-st-..., slide 4)
Re: After Spike in Deaths, New York to Get 250 Miles of Protected Bike Lanes
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, you’re on your bike, in dense traffic. Even if all of them are already indicating direction, how do you know whether you’ll be next to a car wanting to turn right by the time you reach the junction? How do you even get from the right of a row of cars to the left of it in slow moving (⇒ short distances between cars) traffic? How do you get back to the right of the cars after making a turn? But even if that’s doabl…
> how do you know whether you’ll be next to a car wanting to turn right by the time you reach the junction? Prior to the junction, you move into the center of the lane corresponding to your intended direction. If you plan to go straight, you get behind the vehicles that are going to make a right turn or go straight. Depending on how dense traffic is, you'll have to do this further in advance from the intersection. A…
> Prior to the junction, you move into the center of the lane corresponding to your intended direction.
Over here in the netherlands we're phasing these out, crossing traffic at a diagonal like that means that drivers will need to look almost 180 degrees behind them to spot you. It's a fine solution if there's only one lane of cars, but as soon as there's more than one lane merging movements just make it plain too dangerous.
Re: After Spike in Deaths, New York to Get 250 Miles of Protected Bike Lanes
#298This 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?
Very, even in heavy rain. Some vlogs on a bike: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9KUGQ3rfaI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkw45Zz72W0
Re: After Spike in Deaths, New York to Get 250 Miles of Protected Bike Lanes
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
You've completely missed the parent's point. It's not productive to lump every cyclist together, or every driver together. At the end of the day, people are people, and some people who happen to be cyclist are shitty, while others who happen to be drivers are assholes. But that doesn't mean ALL cyclists are assholes, or all drivers.
I never said that all cyclists, motorists, or pedestrians are "assholes". I just said that if a cyclist tries to act like a pedestrian at cyclist speed, then collisions (with pedestrians and/or motorists) are more likely.
You used if by the end of your comment, but it literally starts with "Yes, but cyclists try to act like pedestrians and move at speeds typical of vehicles."
Re: After Spike in Deaths, New York to Get 250 Miles of Protected Bike Lanes
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cops all drive into the city from Long Island. They don't understand how New Yorkers actually live and get around; to them a bike lane is a curiosity for weirdos who like to get around on a child's vehicle. Getting change in this regard will require either very serious change in how cops are regulated, or a change in cops' mindsets regarding cars and bikes. Not sure which I'd bet on happening first.
Maybe for a couple of days a month, some cops may be rotated onto a police bicycle?
Impossible, NY cops are too fat https://nypost.com/2018/02/18/fat-cops-are-weighing-down-the...