Direct link to PDF: https://oa.mg/pdf/10.1016-j.trip.2022.100604.pdf
Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis
61–70 of 258 posts
Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis
#62Easy equation - make safe biking in the city and people will use it instead of driving if weather permits. It's such an easy equation to improve the quality of a city.
Yup. I live 4 miles from my workplace. But biking just isn't a safe option.
Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The economic impact of pulling people OUT OF A CAR and INTO THEIR environment is perhaps under-appreciated. All you have to do is stop and take a look at pictures where you see lots of people riding bikes or walking near businesses and then contrast that with a 4-lane road to get an idea of how much more economic activity is generated locally for a business. If you don't have an automobile industry (and even if you…
Won't somebody please think of the oil and car companies!
Oil and car companies just sell a product that people want to buy. Toyota didn’t hold a gun to my head to get me to buy an SUV that gets 15 miles a gallon. Attacking them is an out to avoid confronting the real issue, which is that you don’t like the life choices most other Americans are making.
Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis
#6469% doesn’t seem like the kinds of gains you’d hope for. If you’re going from unsafe infrastructure to protected bike paths I’d want to see a tripling of ridership.
Exactly. Before it must have been close to zero so we would expect a huge increase. Seems underwhelming
I didn't see any mention of starting numbers, at least not in the summary/abstract. I believe Minneapolis has been bike-friendly for quite some time, so the starting point was probably not zero.
Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
The belief that the opposite is true is so entrenched that business owners in Manhattan vehemently opposed banning cars on 14th St for fear that it would devastate their businesses. Of course, nothing of the sort happened. The cars were banned and nothing happened except that the street got a lot quieter and safer.
This attitude is common in my city as well. So many people seem to think that if you cannot park directly in front of a business then that business will fail.
The list of businesses directly affected by proximity to traffic consists of:
1. Gas stations
Everything else does better when the storefront is nearer the road, assuming all things else are equal (ie., rear parking vs front parking). However, to do this right you often need two entrances for the business, which can complicate things.
Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis
#66Minneapolis resident here. Unlike the other Minneapolis resident here, I feel like I see most of the bike lanes entirely disused. A project in my neighborhood turned a major thoroughfare into a one way with a separated bike lane, and I've seen maybe 40 people use it since it's completion a few years ago. I'm curious what a 69% increase looks like in real numbers - a 20% increase on next to nothing is still next to no…
Some alternate interpretations of your experience:
1. It’s possible your sampling is biased. I.e. you usually pass that street at its lowest usage time, and never at its highest usage time.
2. It’s possible that road is a cycle infrastructure fragment. I.e. it’s great, but unconnected to the rest of the cycling network - so it’s not being used because only people who are going from one place on that strip to another place on that strip can make use of it. Once it’s joined up to the rest of the infrastructure it would start to get heavily used.
As for Minneapolis’ climate - i’ve not been there so i can’t speak firsthand but I have lived and biked in Toronto and Montreal, which have roughly similar climates (very cold + very hot) and SO MANY CYCLISTS - so I think you might be wrong about that
Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis
#67Minneapolis resident here. Unlike the other Minneapolis resident here, I feel like I see most of the bike lanes entirely disused. A project in my neighborhood turned a major thoroughfare into a one way with a separated bike lane, and I've seen maybe 40 people use it since it's completion a few years ago. I'm curious what a 69% increase looks like in real numbers - a 20% increase on next to nothing is still next to no…
While the city has been making a lot of improvements with bike infrastructure, I feel like there are still a lot of pain points in the system. Many bike lanes are still only indicated by paint or flex-posts (which do absolutely nothing for safety), there are still many dicey left turns, and bikers get virtually no accommodation during construction (see the Cedar Lake Trail disaster).
This is a big deal, because for inexperienced cyclists, their perception of safety is dictated by the most unsafe portion of the journey, not the average safety.
I don't think the weather has that much to do with it. There are hotter and colder cities out there with higher bike ridership then Minneapolis. Good infrastructure is the number one contributor to bike ridership, and weather is a secondary factor at most.
Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
The belief that the opposite is true is so entrenched that business owners in Manhattan vehemently opposed banning cars on 14th St for fear that it would devastate their businesses. Of course, nothing of the sort happened. The cars were banned and nothing happened except that the street got a lot quieter and safer.
This attitude is common in my city as well. So many people seem to think that if you cannot park directly in front of a business then that business will fail.
Typical seat-of-the-pants, non-data-driven business thinking. Knee jerk pablum.
Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
The belief that the opposite is true is so entrenched that business owners in Manhattan vehemently opposed banning cars on 14th St for fear that it would devastate their businesses. Of course, nothing of the sort happened. The cars were banned and nothing happened except that the street got a lot quieter and safer.
This attitude is common in my city as well. So many people seem to think that if you cannot park directly in front of a business then that business will fail.
Well, maybe if I can't park my bike directly in front of it. But there's never enough space for all the cars of all the customers; car drivers are used to having to walk the last bit.
Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis
#70Fair question: Are dedicated bike lanes near pedestrian friendly paths a safe transportation environment? I feel that bikes and electric scooters are more dangerous than cars.
I'm going to assume it's saf er . I can't remember the last time I heard about someone riding a bike or scooter killing a pedestrian. Oh wait, I've never heard of that. But I have heard of people driving cars that have killed: - other people driving cars - cyclists - pedestrians - themselves Why do you feel that bikes and scooters are more dangerous than cars?
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