Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

citylab.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 561 posts

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#291

Post by wackro »

bkor wrote: post #220
asjw wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my 44 years on this planet, having traveled a lot in many biking friendly cities and living in one, the opposite is true. Cars respect pedestrian much more than bikers do As a walker I hate walking in Belgium or Berlin, where you have to share the sidewalks with bikes that usually go high speed, faster than the average car, don't look too much around them and treat pedestrian as obstacles (try to walk on a bike la…

> As a walker I hate walking in Belgium or Berlin, where you have to share the sidewalks with bikes that usually go high speed > Bikes should share roads with cars, they have wheels, they are not pedestrian friends. Biking is its own thing. You have walking speed, cycling speed, moped speed (or quick electric bikes), car speed. There are different speeds between them. They should NOT share the same space! Further, th…

Speed isn't the only issue. A lot of accidents in inner city areas are down to cyclists being in the blind spots of buses/lorries.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#292

Post by 7952 »

dcolkitt wrote: post #15
cgrealy wrote: post #3

I live in Christchurch, NZ. After a massive earthquake in 2011, I had high hopes that we might redesign the city for the next 100 years instead of the previous 50 (i.e. for people, not cars). Instead the city council built a few bike lanes and even then people lost their goddamn minds. "You're taking away parking space!" "All these bike lanes are slowing traffic" "No one wants to bike into the city" Meanwhile, cyclis…

The biggest counterpoint here is what about families? A mom with three young kids in tow pretty much needs a car to get around. Or elderly people? I can't really take my 90-year old grandma out to dinner if it requires her to bike her way to the restaurant. Thinking about non-car based transportation methods is great. But the reality is that large segments of society are always going to need some sort of car-based op…

Sometimes what is needed is less centralised facilities. So that shops and leisure are in closer proximity to where people live or work.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#293

Post by 0xcase »

blhack wrote: post #52

Wr tried. People threw them in the ocean and got cities to ban them. It’s going to take me a long time to get over how broken hearted I am about people’s reactions to various bike and scooter share programs. I understand not using the services, but people were openly hostile to them.

the problem here with these services were that there have been just too many and around popular spots/bars/etc these share bikes just piled up to a point where it was nearly impossible to use the sidewalk especially for people with impaired vision

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#294

Post by lazyjones »

rapnie wrote: post #254
Svip wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really helps that in neither Denmark nor the Netherlands, helmets are mandatory. Unlike in say Sweden, where casual biking is having a hard time taking off. But it kind of bothers me that Danes and Dutchmen seem to be rather disinterested in one another's achievements on this front. There is a lot of lessons from both sides, that never seems to be discussed in one another's media, to the point (anecdote alert!) wh…

I haven't been to Denmark so I can't compare, but I agree there is much to be learned by looking at how other countries fare. In the densely populated Netherlands we are facing very serious gridlock problems now with cars clogging the highways and railways at full capacity. We can't keep building new infrastructure (highways) at the pace we did before, because - besides being very expensive - we lack the space for it…

> We can't keep building new infrastructure (highways) at the pace we did before, because - besides being very expensive - we lack the space for it. New solutions may lie in promoting remote work, carpooling and shortening home/work commute distances.

You can build highways and rails in 3 dimensions. The bicycle simply cannot replace cars and trains in any meaningful way, despite the rise in numbers of single, childless urbanites.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#295

Post by lazyjones »

systemtest wrote: post #169
cgrealy wrote: post #3

I live in Christchurch, NZ. After a massive earthquake in 2011, I had high hopes that we might redesign the city for the next 100 years instead of the previous 50 (i.e. for people, not cars). Instead the city council built a few bike lanes and even then people lost their goddamn minds. "You're taking away parking space!" "All these bike lanes are slowing traffic" "No one wants to bike into the city" Meanwhile, cyclis…

I live in a 750 year old European city. The medieval center is 1 kilometer in diameter. They wanted to make the center accessible only for cars of residents and suppliers of stores (up to 11am for suppliers). There are four underground parking garages directly surrounding the center and the walking distance from a garage to any location is never more than 450 meter. Free wheelchairs are provided from the garages. Thi…

> I wonder how people survived back in 1438 without the ability to park their car right in front of the shops.

They parked their horse / carriage in front of the shops?

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#296

Post by brnt »

rapnie wrote: post #232

What I see a lot in this thread is people's either/or opinions. Love cars / hate bycicles or vice versa. No. It is a balancing act, where cars, bycicles and public transport co-exist, and infrastructure is developed strategically in smart ways and in a prolonged effort. When I was young in The Netherlands for the most part the cars still dominated the streets. Over time I've seen cities and road networks gradually be…

As a Dutchman who's lived in a few places abroad, the cycling 'problem' is quite simple: it needs to be the norm. No helmet, because neither do you require them for pedestrians. You can cycle in all weather, just as you would walking (a hard mental one, my non-Dutch partner can't get over the idea cycling is for sunshine). Public space design must start with safe (no sharp turns, looking at you France!) and separate cycling lanes. Perhaps the fact that urban cycling infra is a much cheaper/efficient use of public land could be more emphasized. In urban areas, cycling is faster, and electric biking is expanding your reach a few times over. There are people who bike a 30km commute without breaking a sweat (see bike highways).

Sure, there will always be situations where it will be difficult, such as steep areas (electric bikes can do a lot here, as well as accepting a little sweating which is normal in NL) or heat that exceeds body temperatures which in turn makes expiration impossible (no easy solutions for this one). But that leaves most of the urban areas on this globe perfectly suitable for cycling, which would be in everybody's favor, and their own first and foremost.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#297

Post by dancek »

adrianN wrote: post #256
dancek wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when there's a lot of snow, a bicycle is "wrong gear". (N.b. I ride in the snow for hundreds of kilometers every winter. I know you can take a fatbike to powder snow but that's just too strenuous for most people.)

Most cities don't get more snow than can be cleared from the roads.

But clearing snow takes time and equipment and main routes have the priority.

For example my commute of about 20km has about 10km that gets cleared early in the morning if humanly possible; maybe 9km that usually gets cleared during the evening; and maybe 1km that may take 3-5 days after a big snowstorm.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#298

Post by pyrale »

dcolkitt wrote: post #135
deanCommie wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask the Dutch. How do they do it? Or do you assume they do not have young kids or grandmas? Why is it that whenever people talk about designing cities for pedestrians and bikes, someone on hackernews thinks it means eliminating all cars entirely forever. For a forum ostensibly designed for entrepreneurs, it shows a tremendous lack of imagination. Answer: * Public transportation inside cities such as buses and trams *…

The difference is that Holland is entirely flat, has an average high of 71 in the summer, and rarely if ever gets icy. The Dutch experience simply doesn't translate to most of America because of the terrain and climate. Elderly people people will die if you make them walk in the Florida summer. 7 year old children lack the leg-strength to bike up California hills. Both groups are likely to slip and crack their heads…

Above all, the problems you cite are due to kids and elders needing to move long distances. This is not needed in cities not built for cars. Kids can walk to schools, and the elderly don't need to live away from the lively zone.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#299

Post by zimbatm »

> Too ambitious?

Not nearly enough. What we need are breathing cities. Cities that are more friendly to humans and that function well.

The problem with cars is that they are dangerous. On top of that they also create air and noise pollution and take a lot of space. Is it really worth living in a hostile environment when we have better alternatives available?

The article is too focused on bikes. There are a lot of different aspects to a breathing city and bike lanes are an implementation detail.

Re: We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes

#300

Post by adrianN »

dancek wrote: post #297
adrianN wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most cities don't get more snow than can be cleared from the roads.

But clearing snow takes time and equipment and main routes have the priority. For example my commute of about 20km has about 10km that gets cleared early in the morning if humanly possible; maybe 9km that usually gets cleared during the evening; and maybe 1km that may take 3-5 days after a big snowstorm.

Looks like there are seasonal jobs waiting to be created.
Post reply on HN