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Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

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Re: Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

#401

Post by rsynnott »

datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #399
rsynnott wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of Berlin's is footpath-based, right? They seem to be talking about segregated bike lanes, so that arguably wouldn't qualify (though it _is_ likely much safer than on-road).

Oh I guess I didn’t know the distinction. As a user of both I actually prefer the footpath based to the segregated bike lanes, although it seems to work best on the widest of Berlins streets where all of the following can coexist laterally: - Storefront - Outdoor seating - Footpath (room for both ways) - Bike lane (one way) - Greenery (trees or shrubs) - Car door buffer - Parking lane - One or two lanes one way traff…

Inclined to agree; only real problem with the on-street ones (presuming there's enough room for them) is that visitors unfamiliar with them tend to walk in them and cause a nuisance. The first time I was in Berlin I nearly got hit by a couple of bikes before I realised that the slightly-differently-coloured footpath meant something...

Re: Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

#402

Post by retired »

dangus wrote: post #309
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a band-aid to bad regional transit connectivity Maybe. American suburbs are already spread out. It doesn’t make sense to run subways to every corner the way we do in urban centers. Doing last mile with shared transport—versus cars which park idle for most of the day around train stations—makes sense.

Did I say we should run subways to every corner? Here’s a nice video about how small suburbs and even farms don’t need to involve deep car dependence: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ztpcWUqVpIg Meanwhile, Arlington, Texas has over 200,000 people with no bus system. And before you say “oh it’s Europe it’s old” I will point out that the Netherlands had a huge car dependency problem in the mid-century and deliberately move…

To add, The Netherlands in the 1970s was going full-on towards suburbanization and urban sprawl. Even today it has one of the lowest amounts of apartments in Europe and the most urban sprawl. So if they didn't go for bicycles, it would have been America 2.0. Just look at Ireland.

In other countries bicycles aren't really needed because you can just walk everywhere.

Re: Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

#403

Post by retired »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #323
dangus wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did I say we should run subways to every corner? Here’s a nice video about how small suburbs and even farms don’t need to involve deep car dependence: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ztpcWUqVpIg Meanwhile, Arlington, Texas has over 200,000 people with no bus system. And before you say “oh it’s Europe it’s old” I will point out that the Netherlands had a huge car dependency problem in the mid-century and deliberately move…

> Here’s a nice video about how small suburbs and even farms don’t need to involve deep car dependence I’ll watch in detail-thank you. An important caveat, though, and it’s not about age but density. The Netherlands ex Amsterdam has just under 1,400 people per square mile. That’s still denser than every single U.S. state. (New Jersey and Rhode Island are the only two that break 1,000, and only the former if we exclud…

I'm not sure why you would compare states to cities?

And while The Netherlands as a country is dense, the cities are not, partially due to the massive amount of urban sprawl that The Netherlands has (compared to other European countries).

Amsterdam has a density of just under 5,000 people per square kilometer. That is way less than New York City, and less than any of the Burroughs except Staten Island. Manhattan comes in at 28,000, so over 5 times more. Amsterdam Metropole has only 950 people per square kilometer.

NYC, San Francisco and Boston are massively more dense than Amsterdam. Chicago, Philadelphia and Miami are about the same. Washington D.C. and LA are only slightly less dense.

Re: Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

#404

Post by retired »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #400
retired wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is Copenhagen. And Dutch cities. I don't know if there are any other European cities with extensive separated bike lanes. Valencia has some bike lanes but I wouldn't call them extensive. Only 143 kilometers versus 515 kilometers in Amsterdam, which has a similar population.

Malmö has some of the best bike lanes in the world, IMO even better than Amsterdam and Copenhagen, who I'd say are top tier. Literally 2 meters wide at some points and separated by divider from even walking traffic

Forgot that one. Yes, with its low density and flat ground Malmo is a good candidate for cycling and they did it well. It will not take long before they are up to Dutch standards.

Comparison with Amsterdam is maybe not fair as Amsterdam has the worst cycling infrastructure of The Netherlands.

Re: Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

#405

Post by ralferoo »

This is basically the same argument as a drug dealer saying "we can't not sell drugs because some of our customers expect drugs".

The law is the law. Passengers should be dropped off somewhere where the car can legally pull over and let them out. The law doesn't allow any other car to stop in a bike lane to drop off passengers, why should a robo-taxi be given an exemption to do so?

Re: Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

#406

Post by ralferoo »

tpm wrote: post #366
dualvariable wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One question the city probably can't answer is what disabled persons in the taxi are supposed to do. If you strictly enforce bike lanes the result is probably the rider needing to walk a few blocks. If the rider is disabled, that could actually be a huge burden. Since I've got an 80+ year old disabled parent with a walker this is an issue for me that does compete pretty aggressively with my support for bikes.

The car can stop in the car lane to drop off. Especially with a disabled person on board. Is that not legal in your city?

In the UK (which the article seems to be about, although it keeps talking about other cities too), it depends on the specific road markings. If it's a solid white line between the bike line and the road, absolutely no vehicles are allowed into the cycle line except bikes. If it's a dashed line, they can enter it as long as it's not being used by cyclists.

In general though, special affordances for parking and dropping off disabled passengers is only given to those with a blue badge. AFAIK in general taxis carrying disabled passengers without a blue badge have no more rights than any other vehicle. Only companies that specifically care for disabled passengers can get their own company blue-badge rather than relying on their passengers having one.

Re: Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

#407

Post by xscott »

tomhow wrote: post #363
xscott wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Please don't do this on HN. It's against the guidelines to post “internet tropes”, and the purpose of HN is for curious conversation, whereas a link to this kind of URL is low-effort snark. Also, your comment upthread breaks several guidelines; particularly the lines “some weird role-play poser fetish I guess” and “But be honest - you don't really care about evidence”. Please make an effort to observe the guidelines…

The actual trope in this conversation is "citation needed". That's a phrase which pretty much everyone here, yourself included, knows is the superficially civil (politely hostile) way of saying "you're full of shit".

Telling someone they're sealioning is just using a recently coined word. You also know that person wasn't sincerely asking for evidence - they were sealioning, and very hostile about it.

As for mocking cyclist fashion, that's just a case of falling on the wrong side of the fence. It's completely acceptable here, encouraged even, to mock certain groups and not others. In any given conversation, snark is allowed so long as it points in the agreed direction. And it's self-reinforcing, because anyone who goes against the grain is weeded out - as in your moderation here.

Anyways, I'm not sure what you could do differently. The alternative chat forums do seem consistently worse, so maybe this is as good as it gets.

Re: Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

#408

Post by dualvariable »

petre wrote: post #338
dualvariable wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One question the city probably can't answer is what disabled persons in the taxi are supposed to do. If you strictly enforce bike lanes the result is probably the rider needing to walk a few blocks. If the rider is disabled, that could actually be a huge burden. Since I've got an 80+ year old disabled parent with a walker this is an issue for me that does compete pretty aggressively with my support for bikes.

Designated drop off points with disabled person priority is the answer. How do you dropp off a disabled person in a lane with clogged street side paking? Shouldn't you be against street side parking by the same logic?

> Designated drop off points with disabled person priority is the answer.

You have to actually put those drop off points on every street corner, though, and is the lowest priority for city planners, and gets rolled out at a glacial pace over decades--while disabled people have needs today. Having been forced to confront how well designed our infrastructure is for disabled access and put it to the test, I can tell you that a lot of existing ADA infrastructure can best be described as "performative" and a lot of it is entirely missing.

Re: Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

#409

Post by Teever »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #136
Shadowed_ wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they could fine them. And increase fine for each repetition so rich can't just pay to be jerks.

All the fines in the world won’t save you from getting mowed down by a distracted driver on their phone. Drinking and driving has heavy fine deterrents, yet people still do it anyway. You know what stops a drunk or distracted driver from killing someone? A cement barrier

That's the wrong way to look at it. People still drink and drive because the deterrents aren't heavy. It's a bit tautological but if they were heavy enough then by definition they would be deterrents, but they aren't, so they aren't.

The correct solution to this kind of problems and others is to fix the obviously broken fine system. The first fine for anything should sting and it should make anyone who gets it think twice about doing the thing that they did to get the fine. subsequent reoffenses should make it uneconomical for anyone to reoffend.

Fine should be scaled to your income and have an escalating multiplier for reoffense within the same category of offense with a cool down period of a few years if they don't break the law.

Re: Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

#410

Post by foxyv »

maest wrote: post #311
bartwr wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience cycling regularly in NYC: bike lanes separated by curb, stoppers, or poles are more dangerous as cars stop at their entrances/exits and I am literally trapped or cannot enter them before/after an intersection. I'm not against them in principle, but without extremely strict enforcent of laws (let's say a ticket 5% of someone's annual income and a loss of DL on a repeated offense - this stuff endangers pe…

I semi regularly see big cop SUVs parked here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/MydRmrTkiJMxt3Pi7?g_st=ac On the bike lane, which is physically separated from the road. The cop car takes the whole width of the lanes. It also means the cop had to get on the bike lane here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/frGXL1NpcCW18iRN9?g_st=ac and then drive for a couple of blocks _on the physically separated bike lane_.

This is why bike lanes should be some non-integer multiple of a car width. 1.5 car widths allows the continuation of bike traffic despite an emergency vehicle in the lane unless someone blocks it intentionally.
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