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Milan confirms new cycling network linking 80% of the city to bike paths

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Re: Milan confirms new cycling network linking 80% of the city to bike paths

#131

Post by drakonka »

999900000999 wrote: post #115
blamazon wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

E-bikes and other electric personal conveyances disrupt various arguments you raised.

Ok, Weather ? Say it's raining, this makes riding a bike much more dangerous. Or even just heat, if it's over 90 F out biking is going to be rough. American cities are spread out to the point you may need to drive 5 miles to buy some oat meal. Fix that first, I'd vastly prefer smaller cities.

I read these types of arguments a lot from people who live in places where cycling is not the norm. They tend to read like strange nitpicks in light of how common it is for people of ages to cycle in different types of weather. 5 miles doesn't seem like that far to cycle. I am by no means an avid cyclist myself - for longer trips I take public transport. But I see plenty of people cycling even while I am on the train, and that's the nice thing: good cycling infrastructure allows us to choose what is most convenient for us on any given day or destination.

"But what about people who can't cycle?" - Most people can cycle. Besides, what about people who can't drive cars? Why do we invest in extensive car infrastructure when some people can't drive cars, either?

"But what about the weather?" - Some people in my city don't like cycling on a rainy day, so they take a bus or drive that day. Tomorrow, when it's not raining, they'll cycle. This still results in less cars and more cyclists. Most of us don't live in perpetual rain or snow. Not to mention the fact that plenty of people don't seem to mind cycling in the rain or snow at all, so they utilize the cycling infrastructure year-round. "Sometimes the weather is bad" is not an excuse for avoiding bike infrastructure, in my opinion.

I agree on cities should be laid out in a way that encourages and enables cycling. I think building safe cycling infrastructure, such as dedicated paths for cyclists (separated from cars) is a good start.

Re: Milan confirms new cycling network linking 80% of the city to bike paths

#132

Post by Arnt »

watwut wrote: post #121
Arnt wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhm, don't the Dutch separate cyclists and motorists only where the speed limit is >30km/h? At ≤30km/h there's no separation at all IIRC. Good news about Milan, though. That'll be such an improvement.

30km/h is very low speed. Majority or roads are faster.

Majority by road count, road length, road surface area, number of trips travelled or what? The answer varies. And BTW, 30km/h isn't very low speed in a country where bicycles are common.

Re: Milan confirms new cycling network linking 80% of the city to bike paths

#133

Post by woah »

lbriner wrote: post #54

There is an issue that needs consideration, if you compare to Japan which has enormous cycle usage. Although it is good for air pollution, you end up seeing whole seas of cycles everywhere which is not nice in terms of the aesthetic nvironment. Go to a normal suburban train station and there might be 500+ bikes all in a massive area. Better than a large car park but we don't get many large station car parks in the UK…

You can easily fit 10 bicycles in the space of one car.

Re: Milan confirms new cycling network linking 80% of the city to bike paths

#134

Post by 999900000999 »

owenwil wrote: post #119
999900000999 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, Weather ? Say it's raining, this makes riding a bike much more dangerous. Or even just heat, if it's over 90 F out biking is going to be rough. American cities are spread out to the point you may need to drive 5 miles to buy some oat meal. Fix that first, I'd vastly prefer smaller cities.

> Say it's raining, this makes riding a bike much more dangerous. Wait what, why? Because I'm going to get a bit wet? The rain is no more a threat to a cyclist's safety than it is to a car on a wet day. You just might need to wear a rain jacket, too. The Dutch certainly don't give a shit about rain, snow or shine, as the saying goes "there's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes."

You seriously think inexperienced cyclist should ride in bad weather?

If you have a city of Lance Armstrongs , sure everyone could bike commute. That's not practical though.

I'd argue for building more bike infrastructure just since cycling is fun. I'm planing on working remote forever anyway, so I think we'd agree on alot. But I recognize my privilege here, if you need to commute to an office biking won't work over a few miles.

The average American is commuting 16 miles each way. Can you realistically do this on a bike , I know I can't.

https://itstillruns.com/far-americans-drive-work-average-744...

Re: Milan confirms new cycling network linking 80% of the city to bike paths

#135

Post by 999900000999 »

fahrradflucht wrote: post #128
999900000999 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For myself cycling takes about twice as long. Assuming a peak physical condition, then driving. Taking the metro is a bit faster than cycling, I consider myself to be an okay shape. I still need to lose about 20 lb to get to where I want to be, and I still don't think I'd be up to the challenge of hopping on a bike for all my commuting needs. If you want to propose something, you have to factor in what people are wil…

This hits on an interesting fundamental that is often skipped when talking about bike infrastructure. Zoning. If you live in a country/area where living, working, recreational activities and shopping all happen in distinct areas, like it does in most cities built for cars, the distances traveled are often too far for the average person. In this case you are kind of right that investing in public transport might be mo…

Thank you !

This might be the only comment that address my point. Imagine if we had mixed use high rises, 1st floor is retail , 3-5 floors are apartments and 5-8 floors offices.

I could live an elevator ride away from work, and still buy groceries without ever going outside!

Unfortunately in America we have business zoning and residential zoning, ensuring we all have to commute miles to do anything. I want mixed zoning. I want to walk to work, and then walk to the bar afterwards.

Hell, biking would only be for longer commutes in this dream.

Re: Milan confirms new cycling network linking 80% of the city to bike paths

#136

Post by Zigurd »

ced wrote: post #126
Zigurd wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was very fortunate to raise kids in low density exurbs. My son completely wore out a bike going to school and visiting friends, often miles away. Dozens to hundreds of serious cyclists visit town on weekends to ride here. We also have people on roller skis and longboards on our roads. It seems really shortsighted to exclude these people in favor of cars.

Are there bike paths, or does he ride on the road alongside cars?

No bike paths, just rural roads. Generally without any center line, even. We gave our kids mobile phones early on so they could stay in touch while being independent. It is common for kids in town to go fishing or sailing small boats on their own on a large pond in town. Lots of autonomy.

Re: Milan confirms new cycling network linking 80% of the city to bike paths

#137

Post by usrusr »

lobochrome wrote: post #20
Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #5

Meanwhile our idiot city (Oxford, UK) is spending £1.2m on "Quickways", which are painted lines on existing roads... guaranteed to keep cyclists 0% safe. This in the face of national Government guidance in favour of physical segregation from cars. (Plans at https://letstalk.oxfordshire.gov.uk/quickway-cycle-route-oxf... : the promise of "segregation where possible" in reality means about 5% of the network.) It is rea…

I'm a road biker and would love fully separated bikeways wherever possible. The scheme in Milano sounds exciting and full of the right spirit. That being said, painted lines, in reality, do positively affect safety, both perceived (at least by me) and in accident statistics. Rethinking our cities towards multi-modal transportation will take time. I believe maximalist positions ("only physically separated bike lanes a…

Painted lines can be both very good and very bad. It really depends on implementation. A painted strip right through the door-zone of parking is the well known example of bad painted lines. But painted lines next to a pair of narrow lanes are bad even without parking: here, without the bike lane a cyclist would effectively take most of the full lane, with overtaking cars easily doing a half-width zip merging on the outside lane. It's an easy flow with cars temporarily "compressed" onto "1.5 lanes". But when you compress the cars onto two permanently narrow lanes, with an explicit bike lane, drivers will reliably stop the zip merge and just plow through, often even much closer to the bike lane than to the other car lane. The worst examples are those where the original road was slightly too narrow to make 2x car and 1x bike and they painted a minimum width bike lane: on those, drivers keep doing double file and those on the right routinely enter the bike lane - and they still don't do the "partial zip" they'd do without the bike lane. Those things are not only worse than fully separated, they are worse than absence of bike infrastructure.

But a not-bad lane implementation (either enough room for well-sized lanes for both cars and bikes or making the remaining car lane clearly too narrow for double file), yeah, I'd take it over fully separated any single time. Much better coordination with right turning traffic (occasionally, when speed happens to match, I even merge through the right turn lane so they don't have to give me right of way, clear win-win), much safer access to left turn lanes if you need it, much easier merging into traffic when the bike infrastructure is blocked (plenty of occasions, both sides of legality) and in general sooo much less interaction with stray dogs, children, cyclists who ride against traffic because in their mind they are a pedestrian with wheels instead of a very light vehicle, pedestrians who walk there because in their mind they are cyclists (yeah, that has happened to me, I admit) and so on. I love painted lanes! Just please avoid those horrible mistakes that you have to avoid while setting them up when you set them up.

Re: Milan confirms new cycling network linking 80% of the city to bike paths

#138

Post by Drunk_Engineer »

jdavis703 wrote: post #111
MomoXenosaga wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Holland they learned the hard way that you have to physically cordon off half of every road for bicycles. But you have to remember that just putting some paint on the pavement is a lot cheaper so that's what the government tries first. The reason why roads were taken back by Dutch cyclists and pedestrians is that they never stopped doing it. At some dark moment in the 1970s the number of children run over by cars…

In the US far more people have died of COVID-19 than we’ve ever seen of dead bike riders. The bar for the US to change policies because of a “dark moment” is going to be in the millions of deaths, which just isn’t going to happen when bike riding has such a small mode share here.

Road safety measures would benefit all road users, not just cyclists. Around 40,000 Americans are killed each year on the roads, and 1% of the population are injured seriously enough to require medical attention. Those are scary large numbers, and the fact that the country has gotten accustomed to this is really unbelievable.

Re: Milan confirms new cycling network linking 80% of the city to bike paths

#139

Post by mpol »

usrusr wrote: post #125
vishnugupta wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those are picture of a Cambridge roundabout, I realised it minutes after posting it when I noticed the driving was on the left (as opposed to right in NL) :-). The architecture is very close to those in the NL though which fooled my lazy eyes. Pedestrian islands, enabling free movement of cyclists with clear markings etc.,

How does right of way with this wide separation work though? In my experience (not Dutch) it always goes like this when a car and a cyclist approach a point where their paths cross and the cyclist has right of way: cyclist slows down to be ready for an emergency stop knowing full well that right of way won't be of any help when bones are crushed, driver takes it as an invitation to "slip" through. The usual cooperati…

Car drivers get trained when doing driving lessons. There are so many roundabouts that you have to cooperate as a car driver. Also, it is well-known that when an accident happens, the car driver gets the financial damage, and yes, the insurance will pay, but he/she will lose a big percentage of the no-claim decrease in insurance fee.

Recently, local governments are moving away from the real small roundabouts like this one because in the dark, when it is raining, with cyclists who are without lights, these are still somewhat unsafe: https://www.telegraaf.nl/images/1540x866/filters:format(jpeg...

These are much more modern, and car drivers can more easily see cyclists and mopeds come: https://www.denhaag.nl/upload/0690e94f-f7ac-43a3-8c1e-4fb768...

Oh, and yes, car drivers can sometimes be aggressive. The same counts for cyclists though. I guess both kinds of people are just like normal people. And by the way, a lot of people are one day car drivers, the next day cyclist, there is a lot of sympathy.

Re: Milan confirms new cycling network linking 80% of the city to bike paths

#140

Post by aembleton »

csmattryder wrote: post #10
Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #5

Meanwhile our idiot city (Oxford, UK) is spending £1.2m on "Quickways", which are painted lines on existing roads... guaranteed to keep cyclists 0% safe. This in the face of national Government guidance in favour of physical segregation from cars. (Plans at https://letstalk.oxfordshire.gov.uk/quickway-cycle-route-oxf... : the promise of "segregation where possible" in reality means about 5% of the network.) It is rea…

You want to move yourself oop north, Greater Manchester's "Bee Network" delivers fully segregated cycle lanes - they've just done a large tranche of work to the roads south of Stockport to resize the road to make the walkways wider. That said, haven't seen them actually used yet. Pass a lot more cyclists that choose the road, still. https://activetravel.tfgm.com/bee-network-vision/

If the bee network gets fully built then it could be great, but even then it relies upon a lot of paint on the road rather than segregated cycleways. There are some, such as Stockport and Oxford Road but there needs to be far more.
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