The Steady Rise of Bike Ridership in New York
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Re: The Steady Rise of Bike Ridership in New York
#2I feel like this is happening in Toronto too. At least south of Bloor where most of my friends live. Once I read the study that cyclists actually live longer (even without a helmet) on average than motorists due to better heart function I was convinced to just make the switch. It actually gets you around faster too since you can go between the stopped cars at lights, although the street car tracks really suck.
Re: The Steady Rise of Bike Ridership in New York
#3I've made the switch 4 years ago and never looked back. I thought it'd be struggle to take the bike when (good) public transport is available (Berlin, Germany) but I've found that it doesn't require any willpower: I prefer the independence and that I get to see the city, and not just the subway walls.
Anything within a 10km radius is absolutely no problem. During the day I'm faster than a car, and at night it's just fun. Rain is a still problem, even though I noticed I don't actually mind getting wet that much. Once inside, you dry within half an hour.
Re: The Steady Rise of Bike Ridership in New York
#4I'm not too surprised by this since car ownership is quite expensive over the life of the car. Combine that with the rapidly increasing costs of living, high rents, stagnate wages, etc and things start to give. Not to mention the overwhelming feelings of depression, rage and frustration that comes with sitting in traffic congestion common to East Coast cities for hours on end everyday. I just wish a good, reliable rail network between cities also existed in the US.
Re: The Steady Rise of Bike Ridership in New York
#5One thing the article mentions but the headline misses is the need for more and better bike lanes all over the city. De Blasio hasn't been emphasizing this nearly as strongly as Bloomberg did. But the numbers show that replacing one lane of traffic with a protected bike lane can actually ease congestion and increase average car speeds and total throughput (Lafayette St. in Soho is apparently an excellent example of this.)
It's also worth noting that the counting is done only at the river crossings, one park, and one crosstown street in Midtown. A lot of bike trips within Manhattan are missed by the count, as are any trips taken within an outer borough. I don't know that that affects the growth rate numbers but it certainly underestimates the total percentage of trips in the city that are made via bicycle.
Re: The Steady Rise of Bike Ridership in New York
#6I work in Brooklyn, in a building that houses Etsy, Amplify Education (my company), Tough Mudder (until recently), and others.
In the annual bike commuting challenge put on by Transportation Alternatives, our building is overflowing with bikes -- all of those companies achieved double-digit participation rates. Granted, these are tech and lifestyle companies that draw a young and idealistic workforce, but it's pretty cool to see.
Re: The Steady Rise of Bike Ridership in New York
#7I feel like this is happening in Toronto too. At least south of Bloor where most of my friends live. Once I read the study that cyclists actually live longer (even without a helmet) on average than motorists due to better heart function I was convinced to just make the switch. It actually gets you around faster too since you can go between the stopped cars at lights, although the street car tracks really suck.
I have cycled extensively in Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. I have had the worst experiences in Toronto.
Yesterday, I attached a camera to my bicycle and had 0 incidents where I felt a driver was putting my life at risk.
The camera is very visible.
Re: The Steady Rise of Bike Ridership in New York
#8I feel like this is happening in Toronto too. At least south of Bloor where most of my friends live. Once I read the study that cyclists actually live longer (even without a helmet) on average than motorists due to better heart function I was convinced to just make the switch. It actually gets you around faster too since you can go between the stopped cars at lights, although the street car tracks really suck.
I've found commuting along the Danforth corridor to be surprisingly orderly in the evening.
Coming off the bloor/danforth bridge at about 5:15, clusters of cyclists often take over one of the two east bound lanes, and it makes for a wonderful ride. I wish there were some way to synchronize my ride west in the morning with the critical number of cyclists to achieve the same result.
I drive along the same route some days, and these clusters don't appear to have any negative impact on car flow. Stopped cars ignoring the no stopping signs on the other hand cause a great deal of congestion.
Re: The Steady Rise of Bike Ridership in New York
#9This is happening all over the nation. Here in small Durham, NC, we've seen biking more than double over the last 6 years. Most of the increase is young creative workers who've come for Durham's growing tech and advertising scene. It's also causing some growing pains -- we had three cyclists killed last year by cars.
Re: The Steady Rise of Bike Ridership in New York
#10I live in DC and just moved into the city about a year and a half ago, changing my 60 min+ car commute to a 20-30 minute bike commute. It is absolutely the best decision I've ever made in my life.