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Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

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Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#141

Post by Cederfjard »

jader201 wrote: post #127
ericmay wrote: post #11

Earlier 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…

> It's fucking crazy that we do this. I don't know how much more emphasis I can put on it. I usually jump on a soapbox whenever I see so much support for getting rid of cars on HN, so here goes: Not everyone lives in a city. I’m 100% in agreement for all of these arguments, with the precondition that you live in the city . But many prefer and enjoy distance from neighbors, commerce/industry, and enjoy being surrounde…

As we figure out how to live sustainably with ten billion people (or wherever the population will cap out) with higher and higher standards, perhaps certain people’s preferences isn’t what we should optimize for. Maybe if you want to live far away from others, you’ll have to bear the true cost of the externalities associated with that. So yes, you can live in the sticks, but running that car of yours is going to cost you. If you won’t or can’t pay for that, stay in the city with everyone else and live efficiently.

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#142

Post by cpursley »

jader201 wrote: post #127
ericmay wrote: post #11

Earlier 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…

> It's fucking crazy that we do this. I don't know how much more emphasis I can put on it. I usually jump on a soapbox whenever I see so much support for getting rid of cars on HN, so here goes: Not everyone lives in a city. I’m 100% in agreement for all of these arguments, with the precondition that you live in the city . But many prefer and enjoy distance from neighbors, commerce/industry, and enjoy being surrounde…

Nobody is suggesting we prevent people from living away from cities. People are talking about making North American cities human-friendly instead of car-centric. Also, the more people live in cities, the more the countryside is left wide open - for people who want to live there.

If you want to see how you can have your cake and eat it too, watch some of this guys videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQE_5MFCekg

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#143

Post by germinalphrase »

dhr wrote: post #14

I recently moved to the twin cities. The bike paths are absolutely amazing, and given that the whole state is pretty flat, it's not hard to get around the city for work or for fun. Bike paths are plowed in winter, but biking in -10C weather doesn't sound pleasant. I haven't tried winter biking yet, and honestly, I'm a bit scared to.

Once you figure out how basic winter bike maintenance and how to dress appropriately (which is almost certainly wearing less than you think), it’s really not too bad. Give it a shot!

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#144

Post by NoSorryCannot »

tomc1985 wrote: post #86

Meanwhile San Diego is adding bike lanes right and left and people are constantly bitching about them.

There are tatters of bike lanes which makes it hard to assemble a route without going through very uncomfortable traffic situations. Drivers are really, uh, spirited and unpredictable, as well.

So they're not well-used yet, which some are taking as a signal that we should foreclose on the entire idea before it even truly gets started.

San Diego needs to reconsider the design of virtually all of its surface roads. They're designed for 45mph traffic but the signs ask politely, maybe 25mph instead? Which everyone ignores.

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#145

Post by belligeront »

aeolis_mons wrote: post #35
thedevelopnik wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah Denver turned one of the residential roads in my neighborhood into an official bike road two years ago. They replaced stop signs with roundabouts, put up tons of signage, and where there are lights at major crossings they put sensors that are triggered by bikes. Even though it’s still shared with cars, it’s so much more pleasant and safe because they are more aware and polite. Went from biking being just a thing…

Are you talking about 16th? Moving from NYC, I appreciated the island of sanity that street provides in Denver’s car-dominated cityscape.

If so, I'm sad to say that the city recently removed the traffic calming on 16th ave

https://denverite.com/2022/06/09/denver-installed-traffic-ca...

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#146

Post by bombcar »

toyg wrote: post #140
bombcar wrote: post #52

Note that the improvement was on protected bike lanes, which is the key. A dedicated bike path (even if shared with pedestrians) is the kind of thing that gets people who don't ride to try riding. Painting some lines on the road can help once people are on the bike - we need more dedicated bike lanes and they should be designed to "shortcut" in ways that roads do not. Even things like "mostly" closing an alley to thr…

> Painting some lines on the road can help once people are on the bike Nah, it really doesn't. It just creates aggravation for cars and bikes alike, as both parties are stressed out about small spaces and eventually who-went-over-the-line. The only place it helps is at intersections, to favour filtering; whether that's a good thing per se, I'll leave for others to argue. This is one of those areas where politicians'…

The places I've seen where line painting works is where it replaced on-street parking; a bike lane painted on a road that is 10-12 feet wide works well, for some value of well.

The thin bike lanes added to roads are a joke most of the time.

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#147

Post by belligeront »

dionidium wrote: post #136
NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on feedback from local businesses in early 2020 (pre-Covid), ~40% of food and beverage businesses reported that business had become either "worse" or "much worse" since the changes. Reports from "dry retail" businesses are slightly better and service businesses slightly worse. This is compared with https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bc63eb90b77bd20c50c5... (page 21) Traffic also increased substantially on…

We're at a bit of an impasse here because I simply don't find those self-reports credible. These folks are salty about the changes. They're not going to tell people that it's going swimmingly. Does it pass any kind of smell test that most of the traffic in these shops arrived by automobile? We don't need to ask them, anyway. I feel like it'd be pretty easy to set up a test to simply observe how people arrive at shops…

Agreed. This is one of the most transit dense areas of ny and the country. The amount of available street parking was minuscule compared to the amount of people walking/biking/transiting on 14th.

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#148

Post by Bukhmanizer »

jader201 wrote: post #127
ericmay wrote: post #11

Earlier 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…

> It's fucking crazy that we do this. I don't know how much more emphasis I can put on it. I usually jump on a soapbox whenever I see so much support for getting rid of cars on HN, so here goes: Not everyone lives in a city. I’m 100% in agreement for all of these arguments, with the precondition that you live in the city . But many prefer and enjoy distance from neighbors, commerce/industry, and enjoy being surrounde…

I think most people, including the person you replied to would agree with this. The key is that people shouldn’t be required to have a car to go everywhere.

By increasing density in some places, we would decrease density in other places, allowing people to have a choice in how they want to live. But in huge swaths of America, there is basically no diversity in density. You literally can’t live somewhere that’s walkable or bike-able to grocery stores and restaurants, and you can’t live somewhere that’s more rural than a suburb (because it’s all suburbs).

Even in non-cities I’ve lived in places where it’s perfectly fine to walk or bike to do my daily chores, but to have a car for longer trips. But if the only options are a Walmart 10 miles away, and a Home Depot 15 miles away from the Walmart, it’s just not possible.

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#149

Post by sokoloff »

mdasen wrote: post #133
rayiner wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Toyota didn’t hold a gun to my head to get me to buy an SUV No, but lots of things push people to buy those vehicles. As others buy giant vehicles, you might want to buy a giant vehicle so that you feel safer on the road. If everyone is riding around in a 4,000 pound (1,800 kg) SUV whose bumper is very tall, you don't want to be riding around in a 3,000 pound (1,350 kg) car whose bumper is low. As we mandate parkin…

> The US allows you to deduct parking costs from your taxes.

Parking costs in furtherance of a business, yes. Same as the US allowing me to deduct the cost of taking the subway to a business meeting or the utility bills required to air condition my office building.

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#150

Post by rayiner »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #116
ericmay wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which is that you don’t like the life choices most other Americans are making I think this is the fundamental problem. I don't have a bone to pick with oil and gas companies. It's a resource, we need to address climate change, w/e, but fossil fuels are useful and should be used within reason. But I do have a bone to pick with this idea that Americans are making a choice because I think they're not making a choice w…

And why would their choices be so different to their counterparts in Europe? Especially Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, France, UK etc? Their counterparts in China? If the infrastructure is built for a certain vehicle then it's not really a choice is it?

Culture, history, and wealth. Americans are more individualistic and anti-social than Europeans, and much more so than Chinese. Some have theorized that the exodus of the most disagreeable 1/4 of the Swedish population to the U.S. in the 19th century laid the groundwork for the modern Swedish welfare state: https://slate.com/business/2019/01/scandinavian-socialism-mi....

This is a continuing phenomenon. The fastest growing ethnic group in the U.S. today is Asians. But when polled, only 7-8% of Asians in Asia would migrate if they had the opportunity: https://news.gallup.com/poll/245255/750-million-worldwide-mi.... The ones that come here are the anti-social ones like my parents, who don't mind leaving behind their kin and ancestral ties to make their home in a foreign country. (They live in a suburb with no sidewalks and drive an SUV, of course.)

History: The American continent has been populated by migration. My wife's family landed on the east coast in the 1700s and kept moving west until they reached Oregon in the 1800s. This has both created a culture of valuing unrestricted mobility, and also as a practical matter meant that most development is greenfield. In Germany even tiny villages have been settled for hundreds of years--there are roads, old churches, etc., that force development into a particular pattern. My town in Maryland was mostly farmland just 50 years ago, and most of the stretch between here and DC is still farmland. The giant freeway connecting the two was built through 20 miles of nothing in the 1950s. But note that greenfield development happens in Europe too, and there's plenty of car-dependent suburbs in parts of Germany.

Wealth: Americans are significantly richer than Europeans, and vastly richer than Chinese. Many, many Chinese people would love to have a house on an acre of land and drive around in an air conditioned car all day. And Americans can afford to actually do that.

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