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Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

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Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#71

Post by prawn »

adrianratnapala wrote: post #56
brokenmachine wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In NSW it is illegal to pass within 1m of a cyclist. I ride to work, and every single day people ignore that rule. I have never seen anyone fined for it. Our police/government just doesn't care, and attitudes like yours don't help. Cycling on the road is legal and until it isn't, just saying, "I don't see how it's safe" is irrelevant. I also drive, but I'm capable of not losing my mind and putting other people's live…

Now I cycle to work and recently let my drivers license lapse. But the 1m rule sounds draconian to me. It means drivers have to keep about two metres from the kerb. That's not always possible on Sydney roads. Sure, if the cars are moving fast then I would like a wide space. But in heavier / slower traffic (which was the common case when I lived in London), then I only need a "lane" wide enough for me to ride through.…

One thing that doesn't help is that there is more rubbish on roads closer to the kerb, and that items unlikely to tax a car can trouble a cyclist. So cyclists are forced further from the kerb than they might otherwise need to be.

I wonder if automated streetsweepers would be efficient enough that they could run much more regularly?

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#72

Post by prawn »

bigiain wrote: post #46
brokenmachine wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In NSW it is illegal to pass within 1m of a cyclist. I ride to work, and every single day people ignore that rule. I have never seen anyone fined for it. Our police/government just doesn't care, and attitudes like yours don't help. Cycling on the road is legal and until it isn't, just saying, "I don't see how it's safe" is irrelevant. I also drive, but I'm capable of not losing my mind and putting other people's live…

Yeah, but the last few weeks they've been heavily enforcing their new-ish $375 penalty for not wearing a helmet... Who would've guessed that NSWPolice would selectively apply the new laws and penalties???

Unfortunately, one is a lot more subjective than the other.

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#73

Post by prawn »

bigiain wrote: post #38
zo7 wrote: post #3

I don't think non-cyclists realize how much risk you take on when you ride in the city. In my town we really only have bike lanes on the two main roads that go up and down the bulk of the city, and they ride dangerously close to lines of parked cars. I was riding downhill once when someone opened their door in front of me without looking -- luckily I managed to get past, but had they opened it a few moments earlier I…

"Hey were you trying to kill me?" "Yeah, I was" And people wonder why revenge fantasy is so appealing: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~mjh/spike.html (I would have at least turned to the kids and said "Hey did you hear that? Your Dad's an asshole!")

I wouldn't antagonise someone who'd just tried to kill me. Not sure of phrasing that would get the guy to change his attitude, but I don't think involving his kids would get the best response.

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#74

Post by hx87 »

falcolas wrote: post #58
DarkTree wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, it's probably overly pessamistic; no, it's not fair. But I'm alive and uninjured. Don't you think that's a little bit of survivorship bias? I'm sure there are plenty of cyclist who have been killed who 100% agreed and rode in that way, but they obviously can't speak on the matter. Of course it is dangerous and potentially lethal when you get hit by a car, but how can you suggest that it's not beneficial to ha…

Would additional space for bikes hurt bikers? I think it depends. If there is enough room to add better bike lanes without affecting car traffic negatively, the it will probably help. But if cars are forced into smaller spaces, I think more cars "in a hurry" will disregard the lines in favor of a clear road. Sure, they will be in the wrong, but it won't help the dead cyclists any. And places like SF, with their alrea…

> but it won't help the dead cyclists any

Perhaps if more bicyclists wore GoPros as a normal part of their travels (or more CCTV were pointed at bike paths), the legal system will reduce the number of violations and thus deaths.

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#75

Post by hx87 »

Frondo wrote: post #45
SomeHacker44 wrote: post #44

As a life-long New Yorker (Manhattan and more recently Brooklyn) I just don't understand why anyone would ever ride a bike in NYC, period. I even stopped rollerblading in NYC when some asshole driving backwards (presumably to get a parking spot) nearly killed me and did knock me silly. I have a motorcycle license I got one summer when I had free time. I learned that cars and pedestrians are your enemy, and that you w…

Heh, just today I was biking down a hill in a segregated lane. Green lights ahead of me, all the way to the waterfront. Some guy in the crosswalk, going against the signal (I have green lights for several blocks), left to right across the street. I'm half a block away but I'm going downhill and going pretty fast. I yell, "Watch out!" He keeps moving, so I start to veer to the left to go around him to the left. THEN h…

Years of living in third world countries have taught me that if you are going to disregard traffic rules, at least have the courtesy to do so in a predictable manner.

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#76

Post by usrusr »

Larrikin wrote: post #7

I don't mind giving up the road to cyclists in cities. I just hope that one day they are finally treated like cars. Bikes on city roads should have to be registered with plates. Bikes in many places in Japan are registered and it makes it a lot easier to figure out when someone is riding a bike they aren't supposed to have. The plates would hopefully go along with police actually enforcing the traffic laws on cyclist…

Plates identify owners, not drivers. A cyclist exposes a lot more identifiable features than a driver hiding behind steel and carefully shaded, angled, and semi-mirrored glass.

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#77

Post by prawn »

wwalser wrote: post #31
toomanybeersies wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've had guns pulled on you for riding a push bike? Only in America. The worst I ever got when I rode my bike (I also got lazy) was a driver threatening to beat me up (while his wife and kids were in the car) after I had the nerve to turn from the turning lane at the traffic lights. On the other side, my brother pulled a screwdriver on a cyclist once (he's a real piece of work).

Pulling a gun is one thing. Actually pulling the trigger though? Four whole months in prison… http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/11/23/charles-diez-gets-120-...

And when he's riding with his wife and kid. Incredible.

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#78

Post by prawn »

sampo wrote: post #39

I googled for some statistics: USA 1% of all trips is by cycle [1] 743 cyclist fatalities per year (2013) [2] population 320 million. Denmark 17% of all trips is by cycle [3] 33 cyclist fatalities per year (2013) [3] population 5.6 million. Cyclist fatalities per 1 million people: USA: 2.3 Denmark: 5.9 ...per cycling frequency: USA: 232 Denmark: 35 I guess I was expecting worse. American cyclists die only 7x more tha…

I imagine that the more cyclists there are, the better the awareness and appreciation of their choice to ride, and the better the infrastructure.

In Australia, there are a lot of people who seriously despise people choosing to ride. They will excuse the attitude in a number of ways ("Some cyclists run red lights to get head starts!"), but the hatred is deeper. Either us vs them, or jealous that others have made a decision they are unwilling to make? It's baffling.

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#79

Post by prawn »

zodiac wrote: post #51
bsimpson wrote: post #17

As a well-traveled cyclist, I yearn for the truely separated roadways my peers ride in other places. In Holland, for instance, their cycletrack treatment is closer to a special sidewalk for bicycles than a repainted stretch of highway. Each mode of transportation (walking, riding, driving, mass transit, etc.) has its own path. This separation of concerns (segmented by both mass and speed) makes getting around safer a…

> I've tried getting off my bike and asking people (as kindly as possible) to move, explaining how parking in the bike path puts me life at risk. The nicest response I've gotten was being told to go fuck myself Wow, this makes me so angry. Is it possible to call the cops on them?

Can you wear a camera and publicly shame those that act like that? Or are there legal issues?

Re: Guerrilla Bike Lanes in San Francisco

#80

Post by prawn »

ph0rque wrote: post #2

I wonder if these guerillas could paint a fake curb that looks real enough that cars wouldn't want to cross it?

This is an idea I have proposed before. A 2D painted kerb that looks 3D when viewed from the perspective of a driver. One response was that it would take a while to adjust road marking standards, etc. I figured it'd be worth a cheap trial with cameras watching car behaviour though.
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