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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

#181

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

thegrim33 wrote: post #166
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…

"We're literally making ourselves poor trying to do this." I guess you'd need to explain why we've had this infrastructure for the entire history of our country, and it didn't "make us poor" before. You're implying it so obviously doesn't work, yet it's been the default setup for every city in the country for a long time now. It very obviously has worked in the past.

We really haven't. The interstate system is only 70 years old (and was built at a time the US was incredibly rich)

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#182

Post by bombcar »

notacoward wrote: post #151
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…

> taking thousands of dollars from families and forcing them to send it to far away places Not sure if it's what you meant, but that phrasing reverses cause and effect. The arrangement of homes, offices, and retail precedes most individual housing choices. In other words, people chose to live in places, already knowing what the transport implications would be. They weren't yanked out of their car-free utopia and forc…

This is one of the things that is so annoying about US public policy; mass transit needs to be built to where people are not yet so that it can support growth in those areas, trying to only shoehorn it in where "there's enough riders already" results in silly systems that don't do anything very effectively.

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#183

Post by user_7832 »

Paianni wrote: post #94
alangibson wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right in your criticism of the study. Luckily the Netherlands has already proven that for bike infrastructure, if you build it they will come.

According to Figure 6 from the study linked below, the trend in cycling levels in the Netherlands was essentially flat from the mid-80s to the mid-2000s. I recall (but cannot find) a source with statistics that suggest a minor increase since then, but much of the current infrastructure was in place 15 years ago. http://web.archive.org/web/20150211090849/http://www.policy....

Speaking as someone living in the NLs, I don't see any reason for cycle use/ownership to change much. Folks who can cycle likely already do, and those who can't/don't want to are unlikely to start (with the exception of e bikes making it easier).

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#184

Post by donatj »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #58
donatj wrote: post #32

Minneapolis 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…

> 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. How many cyclists you've personally witnessed using the lane is irrelevant. Look up the stats from a bike count. > In my honest opinion Minneapolis is 75% of the year too hot or too cold for all but the most keen bikers. Just goes to show the…

> How many cyclists you've personally witnessed using the lane is irrelevant. Look up the stats from a bike count.

I don't think it is, when it comes to the value of the infrastructure. I can undeniably note that the number of humans going by in cars is orders of magnitude higher than bicycle.

> 43% of Minneapolis bicyclists ride year-round

Compared to how many people who don't cycle at all because of the weather? This is meaningless.

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#185

Post by bombcar »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #161
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…

This seems like such a convoluted way of measuring what happened. There are very easy and very concrete ways to measure if businesses saw a drop in spending. You could look at tax receipts for the area, for one. Instead they chose to ask peoples feelings about sales numbers...

Way WAY too many "studies" are done this way - the famous "50% can't afford a $500 unexpected expense" study for example is a survey asking people if they could spend $500 without worry.

It's cheaper, but it's not better. True investigations watch results over time and compare actual items (that still have to be determined to be significant).

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#186

Post by bombcar »

john61 wrote: post #173
aBioGuy wrote: post #6

If you make it pleasant to ride a bike - people will do it. Where I live, there is an off-street bike path that was completed about 10 years ago. Since then many new businesses have opened along the path. The economic impact of pulling people OUT OF A CAR and INTO THEIR environment is perhaps under-appreciated.

It is also much more intersiting for the biker. On many occasions I met people or interesting art / shops etc. while biking, I would have missing those travling by car or bus. You are much more connected to your environment. You do not need an artificial entertainment system, the world itself is your entertainment, as it should be.

Slow travel is like going to a bookstore to get the latest O'Reilly book. If you walk or ride your bike to your destination, you're traveling slow enough to notice what you're passing, and you may notice something you've never seen before, or stop in at a store you've always passed on by, just like walking to the tech section in the bookstore would take you past all the other rows of books, which have a chance of catching your eye.

If you drive, you're going to your destination and are unlikely to be derailed or sidetracked, just like ordering a book from Amazon doesn't get much visibility into anything else, even with all their AI.

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#187

Post by bombcar »

dominotw wrote: post #120
aBioGuy wrote: post #6

If you make it pleasant to ride a bike - people will do it. Where I live, there is an off-street bike path that was completed about 10 years ago. Since then many new businesses have opened along the path. The economic impact of pulling people OUT OF A CAR and INTO THEIR environment is perhaps under-appreciated.

> If you make it pleasant to ride a bike - people will do it. Just to put this context 211 isn't significant at all. Also 138 was on day with 55 deg weather and 211 was on 75 deg weather. more people ride bikes on a perfect 75deg day.

73 "car trips" saved is still a valuable metric; that can make/break other roads and reduce traffic overall.

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#188

Post by jyounker »

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…

Small towns are great places for bike paths and bike infrastructure. If you don't believe so, then I suggest visiting the Dutch countryside.

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#189

Post by alistairSH »

grumple wrote: post #111
alistairSH wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if weather permits Reminds me of an old cycling adage (possibly predates modern cycling, not sure): There's no such thing as poor weather, only poor clothing choices. I hate to come across as a Nordic fetishist, but there are several cold northern cities known for their year-round cycling. Bike paths are plowed and/or heated. And people just layer up. Oulu, Finland comes to mind - paths are designed to drain well so…

Bike paths / lanes in the US are typically not plowed reliably, or worse, street snow is plowed into the bike lanes. I can ride in rain short of a hurricane, I cannot ride through snow and on ice.

Yep, that's problem for sure.

Where I live, local footpaths are cleared almost as fast as roads (local HOA/town management does it). The main mixed-use trail sometimes gets plowed, depends on the municipality and timing/availability (it's 50 miles long, almost straight, and spans 4+ counties/towns).

Bike lanes that are adjacent to roads are usually full of snow from the car lane. And intersection corners are usually 12+ inches of wet slush/ice water that catches and doesn't drain. So walking or riding in these areas is impossible. It sucks - I usually walk to work (1 mile from office) but can't in the snow because I can't cross major intersections without walking through that wet slush at the corners. Such poor design.

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#190

Post by rayiner »

ericmay wrote: post #125
AlecSchueler wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Is the Netherlands building 4 to 8 lane highways, tearing down buildings in major cities and building overpasses, and expanding streets so that they can easily fit and park Ford F-150 size trucks? Are there multi-acre shopping malls, Wal-Marts, and associated parking lots? > If the infrastructure is built for a certain vehicle then it's not really a choice is it? Right... that's why I don't agree that anybody is choo…

I'm not familiar with the Netherlands, but "multi-acre shopping malls" and "associated parking lots" definitely exist in Germany. This is just outside Munich: https://www.google.com/maps/@48.3030026,11.633975,3a,75y,1.2...

This is just minutes from downtown Ulm: https://www.google.com/maps/@48.4025064,9.9727005,3a,75y,87....

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