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

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

#201

Post by u801e »

close04 wrote: post #33
Quequau wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fra…

Bikes shouldn't share the lane with pedestrians any more than they should share it with cars. In an ideal world they would look more like Danish ones, with all 3 separated by at least a small kerb. This helps pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers alike. Cycling in Denmark was the best cycling experience I ever had relative to the way bike lanes are designed (definitely not related to the cyclists that were sometimes fal…

> Bikes shouldn't share the lane with pedestrians any more than they should share it with cars.

Bicycles are vehicles with wheels just like motorcycles and cars. Drivers are supposed to follow the same rules of the road regardless of what type of vehicle they use. That is, stay on the correct side of the road, signal intention to change lanes or turn. Make left turns while keeping to the left of same direction traffic and make right turns while keeping to the right of same direction traffic. Faster traffic passes/overtakes slower traffic on the side closer to the center of the road which allows for traffic moving at different speeds.

In the other hand, none of these requirements apply to pedestrians, so they cannot mix with traffic other than at designated crossing points. These crossing points work for pedestrians moving at pedestrian like speeds (3 to 5 mph -- 5 to 8 km/h). Faster speeds leads to the problem where drivers have insufficient time to see the pedestrian and yield).

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

#202

Post by u801e »

ehnto wrote: post #94
close04 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bikes shouldn't share the lane with pedestrians any more than they should share it with cars. In an ideal world they would look more like Danish ones, with all 3 separated by at least a small kerb. This helps pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers alike. Cycling in Denmark was the best cycling experience I ever had relative to the way bike lanes are designed (definitely not related to the cyclists that were sometimes fal…

Bikes can certainly share pedestrian areas, they just need to ride slower, the walkways need to be wide, and the walkways should be easy to enter and exit in the case you need to ride around groups of people (shallow curbs you ride up and down). Look at Osaka, you have almost free reign on a bicycle there. Bikes are slow, cars are slow, but it all flows. Bikes even join foot traffic in shopping precints. But when it'…

> Bikes can certainly share pedestrian areas, they just need to ride slower

That significantly reduces the utility of the bicycle in terms of transportation. If one can't ride at a pace that much faster than walking, then using a bicycle provides no advantage in terms of time. It's also more awkward to control a bicycle at slower speeds and you're more likely to fall and injure yourself compared to hist Ealing at the same speed.

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

#203

Post by u801e »

labawi wrote: post #162
ehnto wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bikes can certainly share pedestrian areas, they just need to ride slower, the walkways need to be wide, and the walkways should be easy to enter and exit in the case you need to ride around groups of people (shallow curbs you ride up and down). Look at Osaka, you have almost free reign on a bicycle there. Bikes are slow, cars are slow, but it all flows. Bikes even join foot traffic in shopping precints. But when it'…

Cars can certainly share cycle paths, they just need to ride slower, the paths need to be wide, and they should be easy to enter and exit in the case you need to ride around groups of cyclists. Pedestrian areas, yes - people usually don't commute through there. Sidewalks vs. cycle paths vs. car lanes - not a good idea. When people propose path sharing among pedestrians and cyclists, they often mean cyclists slowing d…

> try telling drivers to go 30km/h so they share with cyclists going 15-30 km/h

It's certainly possible for traffic moving at different speeds to share the road since there's a set of rules drivers of vehicle follow. On multi-lane highways/motorways, faster traffic passes/overtakes slower traffic by moving closer to the center of the road. The same principle works when faster traffic wants to pass/overtake a cyclist.

On the other hand, this won't work when a cyclist is riding amongst pedestrians because pedestrians do not follow the rules of the road while walking.

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

#204

Post by u801e »

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #99
bagacrap wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which seems like it would translate to at least 10% more people being willing to drive...

And yet, even more will discover than riding a bike is more pleasant than driving a car once the city has been designed that way. I'm one of them, and many of my friends are just waiting for the infrastructure to be further improved to make the switch. More space, better markings (…), just more reasons to drop the expensive, polluting, stressing space-taking cars and take a breath of fresh air while commuting.

> And yet, even more will discover than riding a bike is more pleasant than driving a car once the city has been designed that way.

Most people aren't going to find cycling more pleasant than driving in inclement weather, cold weather, hot weather, low traction conditions, uphill, or carrying cargo.

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

#205

Post by u801e »

dkarl wrote: post #112
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.

I live in the U.S., and I've been surprised to hear from several people I know that their kids refused to learn to drive and get a driver's license. They all live in the suburbs, so it's utterly impractical and in every case took their parents completely by surprise. Their reasoning is, driving is harmful and passé and everybody knows we should live in dense cities and take public transit. They've never lived in a pl…

Suburban teenagers also haven't been exposed to the realities of life. In my case, there simply isn't enough time to go to all the places I need to go on weekday mornings and get to work given the among of distance I have to cover if I were to ride my bike with the trailer and child seat as opposed to driving my car.

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

#206

Post by jillesvangurp »

IshKebab wrote: post #153
itamarst wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

E-bikes! They're amazing. Bicycle with small assist engine. You start pedaling, and the bike engine helps you, so going up hills is easy. Riding one feels like you have super-strength.

Ebikes still cost way too much. You can get a really great bike for £500. An ebike is going to set you back £1500 or more. I think the price will come down but I don't think they're a great solution yet. Fortunately they don't need to be a great solution. In all but the hilliest places plenty of people will bike if the cycle lanes are there. Loads of people cycle in Bristol despite it being quite hilly and not really…

https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/02/e-bike-sales-continue-...

The market for ebikes has overtaken that for regular bikes in the Netherlands. It was a billion euro market last year and the average price is around 2K euros. There are a lot of company sponsored programs & tax benefits as well. Cheaper bikes are available but they generally have less range, comfort, and build quality.

I'm currently in Athens for a short vacation and what strikes me here is the insane number of petrol run scooters that are loud, take up lots of space, and pollute the city. Most of these could be replaced e-bikes easily and it would probably transform cities like this (this is a thing all over southern Europe). This is more or less exactly what's already well underway in Asia and these things are being mass produced by the millions already. Of course, Greece is a lot poorer and it will probably take quite long for them to catch up. A lot of the scooters here are obviously very old and I imagine their second hand value is very low. Of course fuel cost is a thing but they run quite far for just a few euros.

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

#207

Post by ehnto »

labawi wrote: post #162
ehnto wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bikes can certainly share pedestrian areas, they just need to ride slower, the walkways need to be wide, and the walkways should be easy to enter and exit in the case you need to ride around groups of people (shallow curbs you ride up and down). Look at Osaka, you have almost free reign on a bicycle there. Bikes are slow, cars are slow, but it all flows. Bikes even join foot traffic in shopping precints. But when it'…

Cars can certainly share cycle paths, they just need to ride slower, the paths need to be wide, and they should be easy to enter and exit in the case you need to ride around groups of cyclists. Pedestrian areas, yes - people usually don't commute through there. Sidewalks vs. cycle paths vs. car lanes - not a good idea. When people propose path sharing among pedestrians and cyclists, they often mean cyclists slowing d…

I want to be clear, I'm talking about the city metro areas. Not commuting from suburbia. We should have fully separated bike paths for longer distance commute bike traffic, because mixed speed traffic with cars just doesn't work when cars are going faster, and unprotected bike lanes are just a bandaid solution to that problem.

But once you're in the metro area, everyone should slow right down. The dominant traffic in the city is foot traffic.

Cars go at 50km/h through my city, meaning they need to be separated really strictly. Slow them down to 20km/h with narrower roads, and you can reclaim the area for mixed pedestrian traffic, allowing more free movement for everyone in the city. Something as simple as crossing the road shouldn't take 10 minutes for 200 people just so five cars can cross the road.

With narrower streets and slower traffic, you can reasonably cross the road anywhere you want. That also allows bikes to move reasonably along the road but slowly on the footpaths, you open the whole area up for the people using the city.

It's all a balance, not everywhere in a city should be like that. I'm just advocating to move away from the heavy car-oriented lean many places currently have for their city centers.

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

#208

Post by ehnto »

u801e wrote: post #202
ehnto wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bikes can certainly share pedestrian areas, they just need to ride slower, the walkways need to be wide, and the walkways should be easy to enter and exit in the case you need to ride around groups of people (shallow curbs you ride up and down). Look at Osaka, you have almost free reign on a bicycle there. Bikes are slow, cars are slow, but it all flows. Bikes even join foot traffic in shopping precints. But when it'…

> Bikes can certainly share pedestrian areas, they just need to ride slower That significantly reduces the utility of the bicycle in terms of transportation. If one can't ride at a pace that much faster than walking, then using a bicycle provides no advantage in terms of time. It's also more awkward to control a bicycle at slower speeds and you're more likely to fall and injure yourself compared to hist Ealing at the…

I didn't make it clear, but I'm talking about metro areas. Longer distance commuting would be better catered for with separated bike paths. My city is almost there, with separated bike paths for commuting, but then it reverts to car-dominant in the city, which doesn't make any sense.

But you can totally ride faster than walking on footpaths provided they're big enough, and it's easy enough to get on and off the path when needed. Not commute speed, but fast enough for inner-city commutes.

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

#209

Post by asdff »

brnt wrote: post #5
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-...…

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.

You don't have to go as far as the netherlands. On the santa monica bike path people absentmindedly stumble into it, imagining it to be a sidewalk, and cause chaos when 80 rental bikes and 15 electric scooters begin to pile up and all attempt to merge and pass the wandering geriatric in the path at once.

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

#210

Post by asdff »

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #48
ghaff wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's (literally) one street in a nearby city that, during a redesign a few years back, basically embedded a bike lane in the sidewalk. It's sort of a hazard. It's moderately busy for both pedestrians and bikes and, given that this is an extremely atypical configuration, pedestrians are simply not used to looking out for bikes zipping down this bike lane (sometimes even in the direction that they're supposed to be…

The Rue de la Loi is Brussels is notorious for this. They removed a lane of traffic a few years ago and added a bike lane at the same level as the sidewalk. Incredibly dangerous to pedestrians and cyclists. https://www.google.com/maps/@50.8445626,4.3736092,3a,75y,270...

They tried to paint one like this along some of the main walks at USC. Absolutely no one realizes it's there, cyclist or pedestrian.
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