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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

#241

Post by rufus_foreman »

jupp0r wrote: post #239
rufus_foreman wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just hot, it's humid. 94F with humidity around 70% is a dew point of 83. Most scales will rate a dew point of above 70 as something like "miserable" or "intolerable". The only outdoor activity I want to be doing when the dew point is 83 is called "going inside where there is AC". No I will not be riding an ebike around when the dew point is 83.

It’s just hot and humid, you’re not on Mars. Of course it’s more convenient to take the car, but it’s not dangerous to use an ebike in those situations.

Does Mars have high humidity?

When was the last time you did something outdoors when the dew point was 83 or above?

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#242

Post by jvanderbot »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #235
jvanderbot wrote: post #108

Concur. I lived in minneapolis for a long time, and biked almost 100% (except winter). I have never felt more un-safe than when I tried to live this lifestyle in LA. In Minneapolis, you could ride along bike-specific greenways and literally stop at bike-only pubs, coffee shops, etc. It was quite accommodating. I'm sure much of that has changed with recent events, but I'm moving back and am cautiously optimistic.

> and biked almost 100% (except winter) So like 50%?

You know, late Nov to Apr, is 50% of the year, so yeah. I usually biked starting in March.

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#243

Post by rufus_foreman »

jvanderbot wrote: post #242
rufus_foreman wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and biked almost 100% (except winter) So like 50%?

You know, late Nov to Apr, is 50% of the year, so yeah. I usually biked starting in March.

So if there's bike infrastructure for March to November, there also has to be other infrastructure for November to March?

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#244

Post by notacoward »

bombcar wrote: post #182
notacoward wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> only shoehorn it in where "there's enough riders already" results in silly system

"Understand and accommodate" can cover a much broader and more ambitious range of actions than that. Look at the plain words. What I'm saying is that we should understand why people have made the decisions they have, what capabilities or benefits they expect, and trying to preserve those capabilities or benefits even if it's with a completely different kind of infrastructure. It's just basic requirements analysis.

You know what's truly silly, since you used the word? Ignoring others' knowledge, judgment, and agency. Pretending those things don't exist. "You're a dummy who has been duped, screw your feelings, ban cars tomorrow" is both un-empathetic and absolutely useless as a way to formulate policy, but I see it again and again and again from the extremists in these discussions.

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#245

Post by genocidicbunny »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #237
bombcar wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My city converted a lot of 4-lane roads to 2 traffic lanes, a centre-turn lane, and 2 wide bike lanes. It's great, cheap, and it really doesn't affect car traffic at all.

Anecdotally, where I live has been doing something similar, and it really depends on the specific road as to whether or not it's effective. One of the roads near me had this 'road diet' done to it, and the net result was that drivers actually ended up speeding more often on that road because they ended up driving faster to avoid driving next to cars in the narrowed lanes. Since the road diet occurred, I've basically not seen any cyclists using that road anymore because the car traffic has gotten more dangerous.

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#246

Post by frosted-flakes »

genocidicbunny wrote: post #245
frosted-flakes wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My city converted a lot of 4-lane roads to 2 traffic lanes, a centre-turn lane, and 2 wide bike lanes. It's great, cheap, and it really doesn't affect car traffic at all.

Anecdotally, where I live has been doing something similar, and it really depends on the specific road as to whether or not it's effective. One of the roads near me had this 'road diet' done to it, and the net result was that drivers actually ended up speeding more often on that road because they ended up driving faster to avoid driving next to cars in the narrowed lanes. Since the road diet occurred, I've basically…

These are all on curving roads through residential neighbourhoods, which might have something to do with it. Roads that really did not need 4 lanes to begin with. Some areas near schools also have enforced 40 km/hr speed limits.

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#247

Post by nerdponx »

bwanab wrote: post #201
astuyvenberg wrote: post #54

After spending a decade living and biking around Minneapolis, I recently moved to Boston. The comparison of bicycle infrastructure (and number of people cycling) is stark. Given how bad the vehicle traffic is in Boston, I expected lots of bike commuters. But there's no cohesive bicycle infrastructure here. Protected lanes barely exist, and even when they do, they suddenly end - leaving you on the side of a busy road.…

It’s really problematic. Next door Cambridge is devolving into civil war over bike lanes on Mass Ave. The trouble is that to put in the bike lanes something else has to give. What’s giving is parking spaces which the merchants consider essential to their livelihood. Every time this comes up on Nextdoor it becomes a shouting match. Personally, I stick to riding on the Minuteman. My calculation of the risk reward ratio…

Ironically if you had better bike infrastructure you wouldn't need all the parking.

The MBTA bus redesign ought to help too.

But there is no reason why downtown dense city areas should be so car-dependent. It's not like people will stop going to shops along Mass Ave if they can't drive there!

What's worse is that even in surrounding suburbs, which have wide roads, the bike infrastructure is basically nonexistent, and car traffic is correspondingly horrible.

Not to mention the economic benefits to small businesses of having downtown bike infrastructure. Imagine how places like Malden would benefit (especially since there is already a bike path there).

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#248

Post by rayiner »

drewcoo wrote: post #211
rayiner wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the one example people always trot out, and even that one is questionable: https://la.curbed.com/2017/9/20/16340038/los-angeles-streetc... . The streetcar system was already in dire financial straits when those companies bought it. > But Bianco points out that this plan wouldn’t have been feasible if the streetcar companies National City Lines purchased weren’t already struggling. > By the 1930s, LA’s streetca…

Social benefit and profit are different things. Profit is actually private benefit, usually at society's expense, both in subsidies and in externalized costs. And a for-profit system that's not pulling in enough money will let its service, sanitation, and safety degrade, causing a downward spiral of profitability and ridership.

Public benefit and profit are different, but related. For example, say that it costs Ford $100 make an SUV. They sell it for $200. It generates $10 of negative environmental externalities. And someone buys it for $300.

The benefit generated by the car is $300 - $100 - $10. That amount is split between producer profit and consumer surplus. Note, the more value the buyer gets from the car, the bigger the total surplus, and the greater profit the producer can obtain. Profit and benefit aren’t the same thing, but they generally move in the same direction.

Generally when something is unprofitable, it’s because people don’t value it enough compared to what it costs to produce. Externalities can change that somewhat, but typically not by that much.

Externalized costs for vehicles is extremely well studied: https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/attachments/road-safety/18076.... For example, the externalized costs for my Toyota 4Runner are $0.13-0.21 per mile depending on whether you include crash costs or not. That’s at $50 per ton of CO2, which is probably too low. At $100 per ton that goes up to about $0.25/mile. That’s about $10 for the average 40 mile round trip commute. If you raised gas prices enough to fully internalize that cost, that would be like $200/month. Most 4Runner owners would probably just pay that. Some might get a slightly more fuel efficient car, or live a little closer to home. But those externalities aren’t so big that most people would give up the convenience of personal transit to use public transit instead.

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#249

Post by swader999 »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #241
jupp0r wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s just hot and humid, you’re not on Mars. Of course it’s more convenient to take the car, but it’s not dangerous to use an ebike in those situations.

Does Mars have high humidity? When was the last time you did something outdoors when the dew point was 83 or above?

The radiation is more of a concern on Mars but they do have some decent single track.

Re: Investigating the effects of bike lanes in Minneapolis

#250

Post by tablespoon »

aiisjustanif wrote: post #223
tablespoon wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Requiring people to drive a car 20 miles, 40 minutes, whatever to just live their lives is so stupid it defies belief. That's pretty misleading and tendentious framing. There's no law requiring people to drive that much: even in the most suburbanly zoned suburb, if you pick someplace close to your job, you have to drive far less than "20 miles, 40 minutes." If you have a more of a commute, it's probably due to opti…

>> to just live their lives > if you pick someplace close to your job, you have to drive far less than "20 miles, 40 minutes." I’d make a good wager that “living their lives”, did not mean going to work. It’s going to the park or the “nice, bustling area” of town a.k.a. the walkable area like the farmers market. > but those businesses just wouldn't be viable at the density I also want to live in. The density you want…

> I’d make a good wager that “living their lives”, did not mean going to work. It’s going to the park or the “nice, bustling area” of town a.k.a. the walkable area like the farmers market.

Did you know that suburbs also have parks, shopping, etc. right?

> The density you want to live in doesn’t sound like it promotes social interactions,

FYI, "promoting social interactions" does not require density.

Honestly, it seems you have the strange idea that a particular kind of urban living (that you probably prefer or idealize) is the only kind of good living, and therefore feel the need to take a piss on every other type.

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