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No ‘carmageddon’ on auto-free Market Street: study shows bikes and buses benefit

sfchronicle.com

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Re: No ‘carmageddon’ on auto-free Market Street: study shows bikes and buses benefit

#21

Post by Quequau »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #9
brnt wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Dutchie blunders like the one you mention are so stupifying... Takes you a ten minute visit to NL to figure out why you need to separate modalities consistently, yet even as close as Germany and France cities are designed so obviously by people who never ever bike.

Same in Austria, we simply grew accustomed to bikes sharing the road with cars, busses and trams which I'm sure would be terrifying to someone from NL. The problem is, after the post war boom, the cities were planned for cars and now there's simply no space left for cycling lanes unless we ban cars which as much as I wish for will never happen in my lifetime.

I live in Graz and I'm hard of hearing. Hearing aids make locating where some kinds of sounds come from difficult, so I miss a lot of acoustic cues that pedestrians use to navigate their way through busy places.

I've been run down once by a bicyclist and once by a skateboarder while I was walking on mixed use pathways. The skateboarder took a harder fall than I did, still helped me up, and sincerely apologized. I fractured my wrist in my fall when the bicyclist hit me and not only did they not stop, they yelled at me as they cycled away.

Anyway, I too would support limiting the use of cars as well as on street parking in city centres and other similar zones.

Re: No ‘carmageddon’ on auto-free Market Street: study shows bikes and buses benefit

#22

Post by fit2rule »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #9
brnt wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Dutchie blunders like the one you mention are so stupifying... Takes you a ten minute visit to NL to figure out why you need to separate modalities consistently, yet even as close as Germany and France cities are designed so obviously by people who never ever bike.

Same in Austria, we simply grew accustomed to bikes sharing the road with cars, busses and trams which I'm sure would be terrifying to someone from NL. The problem is, after the post war boom, the cities were planned for cars and now there's simply no space left for cycling lanes unless we ban cars which as much as I wish for will never happen in my lifetime.

Vienna has a few roads recently been closed off to cars, and there are more coming. I'd say the cities of Austria appear to be paying attention to the advantages of this approach, generally a little more these days ..

Re: No ‘carmageddon’ on auto-free Market Street: study shows bikes and buses benefit

#23

Post by Angostura »

Symbiote wrote: post #3

The linked article (1) says the redesign will have "sidewalk level bike lanes". If there's a way for local people to comment on this, please encourage these to be changed to in-between-road-and-sidewalk level. (Or road level with a continuous kerb in between). This makes it much, much easier for pedestrians not to accidentally wander into the lane. (2) 1 https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Car-free-Market-...…

Indeed. We have pavement level cycle tracks in the part of East London I live in - I tend to stick to the roads since if if I'm doing 16-18MPH and a pedestrian wanders into the cycleway, it gets tricky.

I absolutely do not blame the pedestrians - its all too easy to do.

Re: No ‘carmageddon’ on auto-free Market Street: study shows bikes and buses benefit

#25

Post by asjw »

Tepix wrote: post #2

Just the fact that riding a bicycle got more attractive and 25% more people are using their bicycles now means that there will be less people left stuck in traffic in their cars. Not to mention the people who are exercising by using their bicycles will have health benefits as well.

> more people are using their bicycles now means that there will be less people left stuck in traffic in their cars

It doesn't follow though

More people using bikes is not a direct consequence of less people using cars

It could be, but there is no cause-effect relationship

For example in Milan where I live more people are using bikes because many people moved in recently and owning a car is expensive here and the weather has improved since climate change started showing its effects

But they are people that weren't driving before, they used public transport

Most of them don't even hold a driving license

Re: No ‘carmageddon’ on auto-free Market Street: study shows bikes and buses benefit

#26

Post by eru »

loa_in_ wrote: post #17
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will 25% more cyclists have much of an impact on the number of cars on the road? 25% more of a small number is still a small number.

As the number of cars drops below critical saturation, the flow can transition to intermittent to smooth

Of course, that makes car use more attractive again.

Re: No ‘carmageddon’ on auto-free Market Street: study shows bikes and buses benefit

#27

Post by eru »

asjw wrote: post #24
tiku wrote: post #20

Studies? Just check out how we do this in the Netherlands. It works great here in most bigger cities.

You live in a flat country, were cities are quite densely populated and you don't have to travel a lot. Mine is not.

The density could be fixed in lots of cities.

Re: No ‘carmageddon’ on auto-free Market Street: study shows bikes and buses benefit

#28

Post by eru »

wahern wrote: post #7
scarejunba wrote: post #4

I thought it would be mayhem but traffic overall didn't change at all. It's exactly the same.

That's because most cars were taken off Market St in 2015: https://www.sfmta.com/project-updates/turn-restrictions-mark... Since then most cars on Market St north of Van Ness seem to have been Uber and Lyft. Now they're finally banned. If buses are actually running faster--not just a consequence of less traffic during the winter months--it goes to show how much Uber and Lyft have contributed to traffic in the city. T…

It's a bit weird that some people (not you) single out Uber and Lyft when talking about congestion. A congestion charge would solve the problem in a principled way, with no need for exceptions for special vehicles.

Buses and even fire engines and ambulances could just pay the congestion charge, too.

Re: No ‘carmageddon’ on auto-free Market Street: study shows bikes and buses benefit

#29

Post by adrianN »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #9
brnt wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Dutchie blunders like the one you mention are so stupifying... Takes you a ten minute visit to NL to figure out why you need to separate modalities consistently, yet even as close as Germany and France cities are designed so obviously by people who never ever bike.

Same in Austria, we simply grew accustomed to bikes sharing the road with cars, busses and trams which I'm sure would be terrifying to someone from NL. The problem is, after the post war boom, the cities were planned for cars and now there's simply no space left for cycling lanes unless we ban cars which as much as I wish for will never happen in my lifetime.

In most cities it would be enough to ban roadside parking on larger roads to get enough space for safe bike lanes. That's very different from banning cars.

Re: No ‘carmageddon’ on auto-free Market Street: study shows bikes and buses benefit

#30

Post by adrianN »

asjw wrote: post #24
tiku wrote: post #20

Studies? Just check out how we do this in the Netherlands. It works great here in most bigger cities.

You live in a flat country, were cities are quite densely populated and you don't have to travel a lot. Mine is not.

The core of SF is fairly dense and hills are nicely compensated by electric bicycles (which are also very popular in the Netherlands for different reasons).
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