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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

#101

Post by _jal »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #12
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.

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.

There are public bike counters along Market St. with displays. If you live here you can go and look at the numbers yourself, there's one not far from Twitter's office.

I don't know what the overall daily ride count is now. About 5 years ago it was something like 90K trips/day, and had been on a more or less linear growth path.

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

#102

Post by callmeal »

jiofih wrote: post #95
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.

The curb is a hazard to cyclists, more so than a crash with inattentive pedestrians. The majority of Dutch cycle lanes are level with the sidewalk and how often do you hear of accidents (not caused by mopeds)?

A crash is hazardous to inattentive pedestrians more so than a cyclist who is better protected (helmet/gear).

What to do, what to do?

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

#103

Post by rabeener »

closeparen wrote: post #100

Market St. has never been a significant thoroughfare for private cars. Of course there’s no traffic impact. Try the same thing on Mission, Howard, Folsom, Harrison, Geary, Van Ness, etc. and you’ll see a very different story.

Can you clarify your point? I read the article but don’t see any mention of trying this on any of the streets you listed. It looks like the city of SF made a good call here and the first part of your comment supports that.

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

#104

Post by _jal »

ghaff wrote: post #46
chrisseaton wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is driving an imperative even in cities like NY and SF? Where would you even be driving to or from in cities like that? Where would you be parking? I wouldn’t attempt to drive in NY in a million years.

NY (Manhattan and certain areas of Brooklyn in particular) somewhat uniquely don't really require a car. Partly it's because owning a car is a pain/expensive and partly because of transit. But it's also because there's a general mindset that as a professional 30 year old, you're not really expected to have a car and activities and people's expectations are set accordingly. In other cities--and there are other cities…

This really overstates things. I am car-free in San Francisco, and prefer it. It is cheaper, less stressful and generally my life is just noticeably nicer than when I had one.

I use Zipcar maybe once a month. I rent a car overnight maybe once every 2 months. All in, I pay less than $1500/year on on transport. I don't have to worry about parking, parking tickets, broken windows, or street cleaning.

I lived in Brooklyn for about a decade, too, and yes, NYC has better public transport, it isn't close. And to some extent, transport does effect where I go regularly. But I don't consider this a bad thing.

Kids would change the equation, but I don't need those in my life, either.

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

#105

Post by acdha »

chrisseaton wrote: post #38
half_way wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of them don't even hold a driving license Maybe true in Milan, but not anywhere in the US. Driving is near imperative in all areas of the country, unfortunately even in big cities, meaning everyone who can get a license, does.

Is driving an imperative even in cities like NY and SF? Where would you even be driving to or from in cities like that? Where would you be parking? I wouldn’t attempt to drive in NY in a million years.

It's not mandatory but it's quite common because it's been so heavily subsidized for the previous century. Fire up street view and look through residential neighborhoods: notice how many street parking spots and driveways there are?

Here in DC, the figure is something like 40% of residents not owning cars in a city with well above average transit options by U.S. standards. That leaves a lot of people driving and if you follow the local news there are perennially tons of complaints about any change which removes even a handful of parking spaces because so many people are used to driving being the only mode of transportation which is taken seriously.

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

#106

Post by bussierem »

rabeener wrote: post #103
closeparen wrote: post #100

Market St. has never been a significant thoroughfare for private cars. Of course there’s no traffic impact. Try the same thing on Mission, Howard, Folsom, Harrison, Geary, Van Ness, etc. and you’ll see a very different story.

Can you clarify your point? I read the article but don’t see any mention of trying this on any of the streets you listed. It looks like the city of SF made a good call here and the first part of your comment supports that.

I believe his point is that this is kind of non-news. Yes they picked a good place to do this because it's kind of obvious that there wouldn't be an impact, but that also makes it not really news-worthy because it does nothing to support the idea that "getting rid of cars on streets is a good thing everywhere".

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

#107

Post by closeparen »

rabeener wrote: post #103
closeparen wrote: post #100

Market St. has never been a significant thoroughfare for private cars. Of course there’s no traffic impact. Try the same thing on Mission, Howard, Folsom, Harrison, Geary, Van Ness, etc. and you’ll see a very different story.

Can you clarify your point? I read the article but don’t see any mention of trying this on any of the streets you listed. It looks like the city of SF made a good call here and the first part of your comment supports that.

Doing this for Market St. is basically free. There are no real risks or tradeoffs. Of course it’s a good call.

But to frame this as a triumph against critics predicting doom is just weird. No one was seriously predicting doom on this one. The only people driving on Market are confused tourists. But then it’s going to be held up as an example for other streets that actually do have risks and tradeoffs.

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

#108

Post by Valgrim »

99052882514569 wrote: post #83
pleasecalllater wrote: post #67

I'm always wondering what about people with disabilities, older people with problems with walking, pregnant women, families with four kids, etc. Sometimes the public transport for such people is problematic and using taxi all the time is too expensive. Total banning cars makes a great space for the healthy ones, the rest is happily ignored. And this is sad. I like decreasing the number of cars, not forbidding them at…

>people with disabilities, older people with problems with walking, pregnant women Are precisely the kinds of people less likely to be able to drive. Accessible and convenient public transit is a better option for them, provided of course that it's accessible and convenient throughout their journey - that means sidewalks, intersections, transit stops, building access, etc. If families with 4 kids don't need a vehicle…

I'd like to add another thing to consider: good urbanism, specifically mixed-use development, which reduce the distances immensely.

I live in Montreal and I use my old used "mini-boat on wheels" maybe twice a month to see my family outside the city. I intend to sell it actually. I travel to work on public transport because most of the city is covered 24/7 with a pretty acceptable bus and metro.

Everything is close enough that I can simply walk, even in winter. There are 5 schools, 4 parks, 3 pharmacies, 2 grocery stores, a bunch of shops and restaurants, two medical clinics, two metro entrances, several of my friends, etc, all within 15 minutes on foot.

And I don't even live in a "dense" area. It's actually considered a food desert compared to the rest of the city.

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

#109

Post by _jal »

eru wrote: post #28
wahern wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you have a nearly full cup, and someone dumps a bunch more water at it, who do you blame for the mess?

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

#110

Post by ghaff »

jiofih wrote: post #95
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.

The curb is a hazard to cyclists, more so than a crash with inattentive pedestrians. The majority of Dutch cycle lanes are level with the sidewalk and how often do you hear of accidents (not caused by mopeds)?

It may be worth noting that there are so many bicycles in Dutch cities that, as a pedestrian, you learn very quickly that you have to be every bit as aware of them (if not more so) than you are of cars. It's mostly a pretty different situation that the occasional bike bombing down an unseparated lane on a sidewalk.

It can work OK when you have wide paths that have lots of different types of users on them. It's less good when you have fairly narrow sidewalks.

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