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US Cities Are Becoming More Dangerous for Cyclists and Pedestrians

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Re: US Cities Are Becoming More Dangerous for Cyclists and Pedestrians

#221

Post by cletus »

joshe wrote: post #182
pcsanwald wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would upvote this by 1000 if I could. I lived in the bay area for 2 years, and one way streets + right on red is a recipe for disaster for pedestrians because drivers will never look to their right. Interestingly, people in SF rarely jaywalk, and I wonder if it's related to this.

I love jaywalking in SF just for this reason. I'm usually crossing in the middle of a block. I can see all the cars and I know where they are going. Plus I wait for lights much less often.

Yep, same. I believe there's been studies on these kinds of things, like the insanity of jaywalking laws as pedestrians tend to be safest when they cross streets when they don't have right of way as they're far more likely to be aware of their surroundings and cautious, particularly when the stakes for the pedestrian are much higher than the driver (ie an accident will tend to end worse for the pedestrian than the car or the driver).

Re: US Cities Are Becoming More Dangerous for Cyclists and Pedestrians

#222

Post by jdlyga »

Manhattan definitely has this problem. It's a pedestrian city where most people walk and take the subway everywhere. Meanwhile, there's a ton of cars everywhere, mostly Ubers and people driving through to get to New Jersey, that act like the whole island is their personal highway. It's super dangerous, like putting a gun range in the middle of a playground.

Re: US Cities Are Becoming More Dangerous for Cyclists and Pedestrians

#223

Post by bobl »

magduf wrote: post #159
ams6110 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US dwarfs Sweden in size and cultural diversity. There are many places to live in the US that are as nice or nicer than Sweden. There are many places that are not.

There is no place in the US that beats Sweden on metrics like quality of life and healthcare affordability. These things are nationally driven, and there are no US states with socialized healthcare.

Sweden probably has a slightly undeserved reputation in this area. These days mainly the financing is socialized, which is still something. The services themselves are privatized. So the quality can vary wildly depending on location and provider. Or even almost randomly. It is more similar to a capitalist system in that regard. I think maybe Norway or Finland might be better examples of countries offering egalitarian service today.

Re: US Cities Are Becoming More Dangerous for Cyclists and Pedestrians

#224

Post by amanaplanacanal »

rconti wrote: post #163
notacoward wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also bigger blind spots. On the bigger trucks it's practically impossible to see over the right front fender, so any pedestrian or cyclist approaching from that entire quarter - not just at intersections but even more so at driveways - will be in mortal danger.

Not just trucks; cars, too. Crash safety standards have made them impossible to see out of. I have a small hatchback from 2000 that you can see out of amazingly well, compared to my wife's 2008 4 door hatchback which is harder to see out of. Higher tailgate, higher rear 3/4. Then I bought a 2016 hatchback which was harder, still to see out of. Now we have a 2018 sedan that's virtually impossible to see out of with th…

The NTSB does seem to be a lot more interested in the safety of the folks inside the vehicle than those outside. This same viewpoint is reflected in using road design principles that make perfect sense for the highway, where there are no pedestrians, being use inside the city where there definitely are.

Re: US Cities Are Becoming More Dangerous for Cyclists and Pedestrians

#225

Post by jak92 »

sethhochberg wrote: post #91
0xCMP wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a personal conviction too that anywhere in South Florida which figures out how to change focus to walking/biking safely will reap very nice appreciation in real estate and taxes. Yes, the weather is very hot, but the issue is not the heat but the fact everything is so far away and there isn't a safe way either-way of getting there without a car. I'm a fan of how I understand Japanese zoning works + some of the…

The city of Miami Beach (not the city of Miami on the mainland) really does try, and I think they're doing a lot right - decent transit as a side effect of a tiny geographical area, lots of emphasis on walking and cycling and having a healthy populace, progressive environmental policies, etc... but they're a relatively tiny and extremely expensive locale, so their successes aren't exactly broadly enjoyable.

Probably the best place to cycle in South Florida. Then again, it is a true urban area and very walkable.

Re: US Cities Are Becoming More Dangerous for Cyclists and Pedestrians

#226

Post by amanaplanacanal »

ryantgtg wrote: post #146
zanny wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a town here the main street has a posted speed limit of 25 that absolutely nobody obeys and the average speed of traffic is always around 40. If you take a road with a "natural" speed and try to artificially restrict with a speed limit, unless you are prepared to have officers posted on that road at all times ticketing people will ignore the limit entirely and go the "natural" speed of the road. I see it al…

In California (and I believe many other states), what you describe would be considered a speed trap, and it isn't allowed. Speed limits are supposed to be set by measuring how fast people drive on the roads. If 85% of drivers go 40, then that's the speed limit. If a city/county hasn't surveyed a street recently, then an officer cannot park their vehicle and hand out tickets for speeding (though they can give a ticket…

The roads are engineered wrong. If you design a road for 40, then set the speed limit at 25, it's not going to work. You have to re-design the road for the 25 MPH speed limit. There are several ways to do this, and they are well known.

Of course cities are chronically underfunded for infrastructure, so this is really hard to do in practice.

Re: US Cities Are Becoming More Dangerous for Cyclists and Pedestrians

#227

Post by WorldMaker »

randcraw wrote: post #136
jetrink wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another anecdote about Florida: I bike almost every day during good weather in Chicago and though I know it isn't the safest activity, I've never had a serious incident. I traveled to Florida last Fall and was struck by a car on my very first bike ride there. I was on a dedicated bike path that was separated from the road by a grass strip and was hit by a car turning into a driveway. It was 11am on a sunny day, but t…

I'm guessing the driver faced almost no penalty for running you down. That's the main reason this problem persists, IMHO, no serious consequences for the cretins. Go to jail or lose your license for a year plus impound your car -- only that kind of response will save pedestrian lives.

In the US it is interesting to compare the AAA to the NRA, in terms of the amount of lobbying they've done over the decades to avoid serious repercussions in driving accidents and as much as possible shift blames to pedestrians, including the long interesting weird history of creating the "crime" of jaywalking.

https://www.salon.com/2015/08/20/the_secret_history_of_jaywa...

Re: US Cities Are Becoming More Dangerous for Cyclists and Pedestrians

#228

Post by amanaplanacanal »

ryantgtg wrote: post #175
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as "laws CA has that most places don't have" that seems like one of the few reasonable ones. (and I say that as someone who has spent way to much time reading up on traffic and vehicle speed related things). In addition to delivering reasonable speed limits in most places it prevents towns from lowering speed limits in key areas to enable law enforcement rent seeking and probably saves countless hours of argui…

Another perspective is that "speeding leads to increased speed limit." Generally, many streets are not designed in a context-sensitive way, but instead designed to fit the standards of a limited functional roadway classification system (arterial, collector, local). The passive safety approach of the '60s, as championed by the NHTSA, assumed that crashes are inevitable, and so the safety focus was put on preventing in…

Unfortunate when that "soft landing" is a pedestrian or somebody on a bicycle :( At least the driver wasn't injured, I guess.

Re: US Cities Are Becoming More Dangerous for Cyclists and Pedestrians

#229

Post by WorldMaker »

brewdad wrote: post #162
bloomca wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reality is in America drivers are not accustomed to bikes passing them on the right when they are turning right. It certainly wasn't part of anything I learned in driver's training In modern Oregon's DMV driver's book they specify this case and tell you that they have the right of way, they also include this question in the test. Not sure how it helps on the roads to cyclers, but at least they teach about it.

Cyclists in a bike lane in Oregon always have right of way, meaning right-turning cars must yield to approaching bikes before turning, with one GIANT caveat. Judicial rulings have come down stating that the bike lane does not continue into an intersection since there is no paint delineating the bike lane. The one part of the road where a cyclist is most vulnerable to getting hit is also the one stretch where a cyclis…

The easy solution seems to be to just paint the stripes through the intersections. There's no good reason not to.

Compare it to NYC's efforts here where they've intentionally been adding a lot of stripes into intersections for traffic calming reasons alone to force drivers to pay more attention to their overall surroundings, especially on dangerous left turns.

https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pedestrians/left-turn-tra...

Re: US Cities Are Becoming More Dangerous for Cyclists and Pedestrians

#230

Post by amanaplanacanal »

chasd00 wrote: post #58
baud147258 wrote: post #28

Why the article doesn't mention of distracted and inattentive pedestrians? It might be possible that the sudden increase in deaths is due to the rise of handheld distractions. Also the same could be true of drivers and cyclist using their handheld.

this shouldn't be downvoted. I've sat a green light while a pedestrian walked right out in front of me without even looking up from their phone. They only realized what they did in the middle of the road and then darted back.

Absolutely correct. On the other hand, if the pedestrian had the green and got hit, the fact that they were looking at their phone wasn't the problem. We need to differentiate between two separate scenarios.
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