I quickly read through this. Context: I'm Dutch and live in Utrecht, The Netherlands.
This booklet has one massive flaw: it is constructed using American best-practices. At best, a couple of examples could be considered almost acceptable. Most of them were woefully inadequate and consist of little more than a blob of quickly-fading green paint in ill-considered positions. Worst of all, several examples are clearly flawed, and to me seem even more dangerous than not having any infrastructure at all.
If the goal is to show to unimaginative people that it is indeed physically possible to create something resembling bike infrastructure, then it will do fine. But if you're trying to actually create a good, safe, well-used cycling network, then this is not the way to do it.
If you want good examples, go visit something like https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/ . This booklet almost reads as if it was written by someone who has only heard about cycling infrastructure, but never actually lived in a city which has it. The intention is there, but there's an even longer way to go.
Some trivial stuff to change:
- Add green dye to the asphalt instead of adding a layer of green paint. This means that it will not fade.
- Color the whole cycle path, not just a few small parts of it. You're trying to create a continuous network, remember?
- Don't use a zebra-crossing style striping at crossings. A continuous green bar would be way easier to see and interpret as something to stop for.
- Don't create turn boxes. They are always in dangerous positions and there are better alternatives.
But most important of all: don't just add cycle paths to your main car roads. You wouldn't add a sidewalk and crosswalk to an interstate, would you? Create the main cycle routes on secondary streets, and make them unattractive for cars.
I recently visited Amsterdam and was blown away by the cycling infrastructure there (I live in NYC and cycle daily).
I realized, though, that unlike many American cities, Amsterdam came of age way before the automobile. The US has a fetish with cars.
Therefore, it's impossible to compare the two countries' cycling infrastructures. The link you shared is so far beyond anything we have in the US; you can't simply say "this is how it should be done".
Instead, we have to start somewhere small and make incremental changes until a tipping point ocurrs. Add more bike lanes, introduce bike share programs, etc. Since I've lived in NYC the amount of cyclists has increased steadily. I'm hopeful this trend will occur as programs like OP are continually introduced.
Overall I agree with you, I just think the historical contexts are fundamentally different. American cities will approach Amsterdam...in a few hundred years :)
Thank you for this link. I moved to Amsterdam less than three years ago, and the difference between what is shown in the video and how the whole city is now is just unbelievable. It's a testament and a lesson on how it's possible to really vastly transform things for better, with time and will.
Hemonystraat, one of the streets cited in the video, now:
Fair enough, but Amsterdam originally loved bikes. From your link:
>At the start of the 20th century, bikes far outnumbered cars in Dutch cities and the bicycle was considered a respectable mode of transport for men and women.
I don't believe this was ever the case in a major US city.
Nonetheless, the activism bit is news for me so thanks for sharing. I'd still argue, though, that the activism is largely due to the fact that that there was a history of bikes before cars.
> I don't believe this was ever the case in a major US city.
This is completely inaccurate. Americans loved bikes at the start of the 20th century too. Cars didn't exist, or were unreliable, or incredibly expensive.
Amsterdam has a different layout than most US cities but it became a car city much like everywhere else. They fought to change. This is what the Dutchs did
Amsterdam also has high average wind speed. Headwinds can slow you down just as much as hills, and crosswinds make it harder to control the bike. Most energy spent while cycling goes to overcoming wind resistance, and it's easy to underestimate how important it is if you don't cycle regularly.
I live in UK/EU and use an e-bike. There are a few steep roads near where live that I would never attempt on my old bike that are a breeze to ride with the e-bike. I like that it's peddle assist only. I still get the benefit of the exercise, but I'm not dripping with sweat when I travel to work/meetings.
Ebikes whip up hills with ease that lower power cars struggle on. The main limiting factor is they are limited to 25km/h by motor power but even that isn't too bad.
I have a 250watt ebike. I’d agree pretty powerful, I usually use it one the lowest setting which provides minimal boost, even up hills.
I’m in The us and the assist cuts out at 20mph. I get that since I’m sharing the roads and paths with other bikes/joggers and cars (and the ocational electric skateboard/kick scooter). I tend to ride much faster with the ebike and can see how this added power can get me into more trouble.
In my experience the danger zone when cycling on a mixed traffic bike path (pedestrians, slow bikes, etc) starts at 25 km/h, which is about the double of the speed of the casual or low range cyclist. 20 mph (32 km/h) is too fast for the other traffic. They don't expect to have so little time to react and get scared (even if the cyclist does everything and saw them since long before, they only have to keep doing what they were doing). Furthermore with a normal bike it's a waste of energy so when traffic increases I slow down because the average speed doesn't change much if I sprint between each group of pedestrians/slow bikes. I understand that with an engine you can do a lot more of stop and go but please don't scare people too much, it makes them hate all cyclists.
Have you ever used a 250w ebike? They are incredibly powerful and they also come with gearing much lower than cars. The power on an ebike does not limit how steep you can go. I took a 250w ebike up a path so steep I had my chin on the handlebars to stop the front wheel lifting off the ground and the motor was powering me up fine.
I did, I had to pedal the exact hill I'm talking about and it definitely wasn't easy; I sweat through my suit because of that. Sold (back to the shop) the bike the next day. Instead of it I got an illegal chinese e-scooter that has 800w and is just perfect in every way. Never had a problem with the police, btw. Sadly I had to give my business to a Chinese supplier instead of local.
The only cities "designed for cars" are probably Phoenix, Tucson, and greater LA, every other American city saw its establishment and principal growth when walking, cycling, and horse riding was the norm.
I spent a few weeks in north New Jersey last year and, as someone who cycles to work every day in my hometown, I was appalled to find absolutely no infrastructure for bicycles. None at all. I felt trapped; it’s like if you don’t own a car you don’t exist. To add insult to injury, public transportation is almost non-existent. US cities have a very long way to go...
I completely agree. There was an article here on HN about American infrastructure problems which described the “uncuriosity” of the US and Canada when it comes to infrastructure projects - apparently studies like this looking only at North American examples are the rule, not the exception.
As an American I find that disappointing and concerning.
Thanks for the links to the Dutch cycling site, that’s really cool!
From what has been told to me by my fellow architecture / urban design studying friends, American urban design is not looked upon very favorably around the world.
Agreed - details matter a lot. For example many years ago, Camden in London put in green asphalt cycle paths - one was dangerously hilarious - you ran parallel to the main road, on a painted strip, on the side of a one way street - going against the traffic.
However the new cycle "superhighways" in London are a big improvement but oddly now I find the biggest challenge is to change the attitude of the cyclists - we have effectively been given roads - and so now need to obey the laws of the road - it's a toss up if every cyclist will stop at the traffic lights for these superhighways - frustrating if you are a fellow cyclist and dangerous if you are crossing
At some point however we are going to face the fact that roads are a cheap form of transport because they are shared and so are dangerous - the UK has 4500 deaths a year - and when we look at segregating cycle traffic to make it safer we realise it is effectively asking to build a railway- and we shall face the same as self driving vehicles get close to good enough but plateau out - and I bet the business case for self driving cars rarely has ever been coated with "we build segregated roads everywhere with huge fences to keep out pedestrians and other hard to avoid objects."
At some point however we are going to face the fact that roads are a cheap form of transport because they are shared and so are dangerous - the UK has 4500 deaths a year
As you can see road casualties have been dropping for quite a while, and for the last 5+ years the rate is around 1,700. Deaths per year haven’t been near 4500 since the 90’s. This also reflects another reality you ignore, which is that road fatalities are not evenly distributed. Being drunk, driving tired, owning an unsafe or poorly maintained car, driving too fast, all contribute to risk, and all are avoidable.
You also picked the UK, which has an extensive rail system.
Not trying to argue the 4500 death as that seems wrong according to your link. however, i never understood the focus on "killed" as that seems to be a combination of things, i.e. EMT, medical services, car safety for example. Why not measure the accident by impact (that would keep it consistent over time).
Per the same link all forms of injury have also dropped, from serious to minor. They’ve been dropping for decades, despite rising population, car ownership, and traffic rates (with the exception of 2010).
Sorry to be the annoying guy pointlessly arguing semantics, but how can it be a "superhighway" when there are lights blocking traffic? Projects like that would be just as much of an improvement without the deceptive branding. To me, it's a sign of disrespect: give them what they want, but mock them with exaggerated naming.
> "But most important of all: don't just add cycle paths to your main car roads. You wouldn't add a sidewalk and crosswalk to an interstate, would you? Create the main cycle routes on secondary streets, and make them unattractive for cars."
I was actually thinking about this recently. Where I bike in the Boston area many of the bike lanes are on the busiest roads where buses and trucks drive on too. I often take side streets that don't have bike lanes but fell safer. However, I don't think it's that easy to use mainly side streets, it really depends on the city street design.
Every incident I've had on a bike would have been prevented if this was the case for bike lanes in my city.
Just two days ago I had to slap a vehicle to let him know I was about to be crushed between him and parked cars, because he casually drove into the bike lane I was occupying without looking or indicating.
This would also encourage safer riding by cyclists. Last year ago I had a serious crash because of another rider cutting across lanes of traffic to get ahead of me. Riders being forced to enter the bike lane at the intersection makes them more predictable.
This works great until it snows. Then the above-grade bike lane is generally not adequately cleared, and cyclists are forced back onto the street, which is now narrower by the width of the bike lane.
Make the bike lanes wide enough to allow a snowplow to pass. Additionally, plow cycle paths first and more often, as cyclists are more vulnerable to slippery road surfaces.
Agreed, there's no need to re-invent the wheel. Just do what the Dutch did: they have the best cycling infrastructure in the world and they have lots of experience.
> Add green dye to the asphalt instead of adding a layer of green paint.
We've had green bike lanes here for many years. I've never noticed any of them fade. We're supposed to lay new streets for one lane, for a problem which hasn't happened yet?
>We've had green bike lanes here for many years. I've never noticed any of them fade
The key word in your post is "here". These things vary by location - for example, anywhere that uses snowplows, a superficial treatment (paint, even thermoplastic) will wear away in a very short period of time. Centrelines here are repainted every year or two (or ten, on roads that aren't considered very important).
Of course places such as the Northeast (USA) are also the worst candidates for the SF dream of bike dominance. Where I’m from (Colorado) the idea of bike-first is something we roll our eyes at, and generally rightly assume that the loudest advocates live somewhere else, don’t have families, and only go back and forth to work.
That’s really not the whole country, no matter how much a minority of SV’ers want it to be. Parts of the country are really spread out, parts are brutally cold, windy, and rainy, and yes some parts are lovely and sunny and packed to the gills. The problem is that evangelists for Bike Jesus never seem to accept that, and there’s always one or two who claim to live in Antarctica with a family of 6, and all while only riding a bike.
The EU country with the highest rate of cycling is The Netherlands, followed by Denmark and Finland. The EU country with the lowest rate of cycling is Malta, followed by Cyprus and Spain.
Finland is sparsely populated and almost entirely subarctic. Malta and Cyprus are tiny islands with year-round sunshine.
You might think that bad weather and low population density are insurmountable obstacles to the widespread adoption of cycling, but you'd be objectively wrong. The key factor isn't climate or density or hills or infrastructure, it's culture.
Well Cyprus is hot and muggy as hell in the summer, I wonder if that’s a factor? Malta is lovely and sunny, hot in the summer, and has torrential rains in fall. It’s famously hot and dry in summer, and when the rains do come they’re so brutal they tend to wash out to sea... it’s a real problem. So maybe it’s culture, or maybe it’s easy to dismiss something as “cultural” when we don’t actually understand the practical reasons on the ground.
Let’s look at the other end of the scale, Denmark. Average summer day is 68F, which is terrific for a bike ride. The average winter high is 32F, which is freezing, but not terrible. Denmark’s wettest month is June with an average of 80mm of rain, contrasted with Malta which has three drenching month’s averaging between 97mm and 108mm.
Madison WI is also a great city for getting around by bike. Things have improved a lot since I moved here a couple decades ago.
The winter does deter people, simply as evidenced by seeing fewer fellow cyclists during my commute. One nice perk is that the city clears the bike paths quite promptly.
> Parts of the country are really spread out, parts are brutally cold, windy, and rainy, and yes some parts are lovely and sunny and packed to the gills.
Strongly agree on the spread out part, though that is (in part) a symptom of widely used planning doctrine in North America (parking minimums, maximum lot coverage, and very wide minimum lane widths). Cold, wind, and rain are all issues, but they can be overcome (and have been in some jurisdictions) - not for everyone, but if a few percentage do it it's better for everyone.
Most cycling activism I see focuses as much on advantages for drivers as anything. The North American population has been urbanizing at a high rate - for a few decades, that was accommodated with suburbs and car based transportation. Many cities are now at the point where key corridors are congested for hours morning and evening (and expanding these corridors, at great cost, would only buy a few years or a decade of congestion relief). Cycling (and transit) are both low capital cost methods to relieve congestion - get an extra 5% commuting by bike and another 10% going by bus, and you have a lot of growth room available for cars. But both these need density to be reasonable: if you have density to begin with (European and Asian cities), mass transit and cycling are obvious/sensible responses. If you're starting with a low density area, it takes incentives to get past some inflection point of density. (Or stop growing, but not many cities are doing that, and none willingly)
> The problem is that evangelists for Bike Jesus never seem to accept that, and there’s always one or two who claim to live in Antarctica with a family of 6, and all while only riding a bike.
Flamebaiting exaggerations like this really do no one any good, and are against the intention of this website. Check out the comment guidelines. [0]
> Of course places such as the Northeast (USA) are also the worst candidates for the SF dream of bike dominance
I would say the opposite.
Apart from the weather (which is a big part, but still), they are perfectly poised for biking.
North eastern cities dense, relatively flat and have no way of building more roads or accommodating new cars / parking spaces. Cycles also work very well in tandem with public transport ( when allowed on it).
On the other hand, I think SF and SV are not suited for bikes at all. Apart from last mile connectivity, everyone is still dependent on cars for every other task.
SF/SV are actually incredibly well-suited for biking.
Beyond the weather, Caltrain is unusually bike-friendly rail, with ~100 bike racks per train (on multiple special bike cars per train). Palo Alto boasts an 87 'bike score' (higher than Minneapolis or Portland) and a network of bike boulevards that discourage through car traffic. San Francisco is investing heavily in rearranging streets for protected bike lanes, and there are plenty of SF city dwellers without cars.
Cars do just fine in snowy places. I don’t see a reason why bikes shouldn’t. Just throw in the same effort that you do to keep car lanes open, and you’ll be fine. You can even put on pegged tires if the bikelanes tend to stay icy (like they do in Reykjavík), however be prepared to spend like 5x the effort when riding on pegged tires.
Studded tires aren't all that bad. Mine go on in December, and just came off last week. My normally 20 minute commute takes about 30 minutes during the winter, and I suspect it's not just the tires, but also the cold air and heavy clothing. I also spend a few more minutes gearing up before leaving the house.
Cars do just fine in snowy places. I don’t see a reason why bikes shouldn’t.
Stability, slippage, being exposed to freezing cold and wet, the lack of an engine assist, no heat, two fewer wheels, and did I mention cold?
Just throw in the same effort that you do to keep car lanes open, and you’ll be fine.
Open for a car and open for a bike are different. You can drive through some snow, slush and ice, but I hate biking on ice and slush. In addition to the safety factor, it a miserable experience. It’s also not unheard of for roads to get too bad for cars, never mind bikes.
All in all I’m sort of disappointed that the reaction to raising obvious drawbacks is weapons-grade denial. Trying to sell people on a less safe, less comfortable, less reliable, means of transportation by throwing infrastructure projects at it is a problem, and why so many people are sick and tired of bike evangelists. Never mind the fact that a lot of people have disabilities that prevent that kind of hard work, have families and long commutes (please don’t throw another infrastructure project at that), are too old or infirm to bike through a Colorado summer, never mind winter, and so on.
It’s really a form of quiet elitism dressed up as environmentalism and social consciousness at worst, and a lack of understanding of just how huge the US is at best. Bikes probably do make more sense if a majority of your population lives in one or two cities, otherwise it just doesn’t.
I think only a minority of bicycle advocates are talking about forcing people that now ride cars to ride bikes instead. That would be plain stupid. Most people are talking about making biking as safe and convenient as cars currently are, allowing people that want to ride bikes, to do it safely. That in it self should sway some commuting practice.
No one is trying to force the elderly, the pregnant and the handicapped to ride bikes. They can still use their cars, taxis and buses while the city is plowing the bike lanes for us healthy adults that like to ride our bikes to work.
Do note that while I say that harsh winters pose no problems to biking in general, I’ve found my self taking the bush in the worst winter weathers in Reykjavík. Which brings the point home that bike infrastructure is not mutually exclusive to other transportation.
Doesn't seem true where I live. Maybe you have a study to support this claim?\
> Bikes probably do make more sense if a majority of your population lives in one or two cities, otherwise it just doesn’t.
Cities in general seem to be conducive to bikes. Not sure why the whole country needs to live in just one or two cities or how that could logically follow.
Nationwide, you’re more than twice as likely to die while riding a bike than riding in a car, per trip, according to a 2007 study led by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention epidemiologist Laurie Beck. Bike riding is also about 500 times more fatal than riding in a bus. Though Beck didn’t run numbers on subway and commuter rail systems, they may be the safest form of transportation of all. Despite a series of well-publicized accidents and maintenance issues, Metrorail and Metrobus reported just two injuries per million riders in 2015.
Correct, bicycling has safety issues in many places. That's one of the key reasons for advocating for better support for bicycling: to make people less likely to die when they choose to ride.
Exposure statistics need to be examined thoughtfully. Should we examine KSIs against trips or time-periods? This is an old chestnut in these sorts of studies:
exposure rates such as the number of trips, distance,
or hours walked and cycled [...] are crucial in
measuring the safety of these 2 nonmotorized modes.
But it's easier to change to winter tires, and you never have to scrape the windows. There's pros and cons to both.
I've done many cold winters with a bicycle, and with a car, and there's no clear winner. For me it comes down to how far I'm going, what I need to carry with me, the quality of the roads and drivers, whether there's a bus route, and availability of bicycle storage versus car parking. I've never found traction to be a serious issue. If it's bad enough to avoid the bike, it's bad enough to avoid the car, too, and I'll walk or take the (chained) bus.
I too bike all winter (on 4.6" studded tires), but I am not worried about falling: it is falling and having some dolt who cannot stop run over me that worries me.
Still, the feeling of well-being that comes from moderate exercise and the joy of seeing the world in another way makes up for it. Most drivers are smart enough and courteous enough that I would recommend it to anyone.
cars "do just fine" in snow iff drivers are snow-aware and have the experience. Drive in Vancouver in a snowy week. And they do have an order of magnitude more wheels.
I've always thought cities with a snowy season would be great candidates for bike lanes. Bicycling drops dramatically in the winter, so the bike lanes sit mostly unused. This makes them a good place to deposit excess snow.
Take another look at the book, every single bike lane is already seriously fading.
You're not supposed to lay new streets. First of all, you can tear up single lanes, so no need to do the whole street. Secondly, you probably should already be tearing up a significant fraction in order to provide proper separation. But most of all, there is no need to replace them: just add the green dye when you're replacing them on their regular maintenance schedule.
There is one terrible issue I encounter almost every time I ride to work. In the mornings the traffic is stopped all the way to work. The stopped cars leave gaps next to the side roads so cars coning from the other direction can turn across to reach them. Because there is a wall of cars in between the bike lane and the other side of the road, neither the turning car or I can each each other so the car blindly turns across the road assuming no bikes are coming.
Seems a reasonable assumption to me. If someone is waiting to let someone else pull into a sideroad shouldn’t you wait as well? It’s dangerous to overtake on the passenger side regardless of what vehicle you’re using. You should overtake on the driver’s side so people can see you easily.
I can't see if anyone is turning because cars leave a gap when no one is turning so if someone does show up they are able to turn. Also I don't think overtaking on the drivers side is allowed on a bike.
https://goo.gl/maps/63YCi5hzz6M2 There is a X-crossing right of this, but cyclists vastly outnumber cars here, and it's being removed.
In virtually all examples it is physically impossible for right-turning cars and cyclists to conflict, unless the driver is grossly negligent. There is no conflict due to phasing: one phase for straight-through cars and cyclists, one for right-turning traffic.
All of those intersections look great. Treating bicycles and cars as totally different streams of traffic certainly works in those locations. It would be a major change in other locations in other nations.
If "not grossly negligent" is the standard to which we're holding drivers, I don't really see the problem with the "X-crossing" displayed in skookumchuck's sibling comment. It's very clear that right-turning cars have to cross the bike lane to get to the turn lane, and any bicycles in the bike lane would be quite evident. Realistically, we can expect some automobile operators to do the wrong thing at that intersection, but that would be negligence.
The problem with an X-crossing like that is the angle at which the crossing happens. A driver needs to look all the way over his shoulder to see a cyclist he's about to hit. For the improved crossings you see in e.g. the netherlands the cars and cyclists cross at a 90 degree angle, meaning the driver has a much easier time spotting cyclists.
Practically, if bike lanes are adjacent to the street as they are in many places, cyclists can only really expect motorists not to hit them from behind. Motorists simply are not aware of what's going on around them. If the cyclist is next to an auto, she must always be ready to react to it. In fact, "next to an auto" is a somewhat tenuous location, because you can't always jump up on the curb. Passing (usually on the left) is fine, being passed is fine, between autos is fine, because all of those allow either the driver to observe the cyclist or the cyclist to react safely to sudden changes in direction by the auto.
If I'm approaching an intersection like that pictured and I'm even with an auto, I brake and take the lane behind it. If the auto moves to the right to turn, I pass it on the left in the main lane of traffic. No matter what the auto does, I re-enter the bike lane after I clear the intersection. No one needs to pass me while in the intersection, and I want to be both visible and able to react to right-turning autos from the street I'm crossing. Faster traffic makes this impossible, but faster traffic can see you from behind and will generally discourage turns from the cross street.
There are morons who try to race around you to hook in front of you, and this type of intersection offers no protection from that, but most drivers are not that thoughtless, even if they lack general awareness. You just have to deal with that asshole. Once he gets that front bumper even with me, I'm already ducking right and braking. In some instances, I'll also be grabbing my U-lock and preparing to damage his car with it.
Like I said, completely separating the traffic seems like a great solution, but it simply will not be universal any time soon. Until then, ride defensively.
So when I last visited Perth, I bought a bicycle and rode around a lot. Google Maps was helpful here in showing where the bike paths are. While other people might feel fine riding in traffic I never have and probably never will. Honestly I just don't trust drivers, particularly in this era of smartphones.
Anyway, there are vast differences in what people view as a bike path. Take Reid Highway as an example [1]. Those strips on either side of the road are the bike path. This is a highway with a speed limit of 90kph (~55mph), which probably means people are really going 120kph on what is essentially the hard shoulder.
There's no way in hell I'd ride on that. Personally I considered something like this stretch of Morley Drive [2] to be a good standard of biking infrastructure, for several reasons:
1. Wide bike path separated from the road
2. The road has a wide median strip. I can't tell you how much this helps in crossing busy roads.
3. The bike path isn't right up against the walls of residential properties. This can be a real nightmare for visibility of cars pulling out.
4. Bike paths shouldn't be clogged with pedestrian traffic either as in if it's a busy pedestrian area, have a separate pedestrian path.
Personally I just like to find long residential streets with minimal busy road crossings. You can fly down those things and don't have to second guess what cars are doing most of the time.
As for America in particular, I've said it once and I'll say it again the most anti-cyclist (and anti-pedestrian) rule is the ability to turn right at a red light and it's almost universal in the country. Even in places where it's technically illegal (eg the five boroughs of NYC) you have people who either don't know or don't care (eg once I told some driver fairly calmly after they did it and stopped at the traffic 50 feet down the road that it was illegal in NYC they told me to go F myself).
Designing to accommodate bikes is the right direction but I wonder if a city could be designed to have a actual physical separation between large vehicles and small ones. Just because of the physics people on bikes are likely to be injured or killed by much larger cars in the event of a collision.
The places where people ride bikes en masse, like Amsterdam, have physical separation. Very few people want to have cars whizzing by a few feet from their elbows. If you want people to seriously consider cycling as anything other than a hobby you need physical separation of bicycles from cars.
Unfortunately cycling advocacy organizations in the United States tend to be opposed to physical separation.
Drivers tend to see cyclists as intruders, and fail to give them the space and respect that they give other “legitimate” vehicles. The bike lobby exists to combat this. Things like Critical Mass rides, signage, and road paint are all about changing driver psychology and raising awareness about a cyclist’s right to occupy the travel lane. If you’re going around saying car and cycle traffic should not mix, you are its avowed enemy, same as the SUV drivers shouting at bikes to get out of the way.
Even very serious and activist cyclists around here are still most likely seasonal/recreational riders, and still want to use their cars, at least in the winter. (See “share the road” bumper stickers). They are not necessarily wild about reducing vehicle access.
I'm walking, cycling and driving, with more of the first and the latter, and I fully agree that we need more bikeable cities.
But I strongly dislike Critical Mass and bike activists in general. They are hateful (especially towards pedestrians) and don't know any other topic of conversation.
And they have this attitude where incremental improvements don't count, we need to have a day X where all streets are torn up and bike utopia is built overnight.
As a driver and infrequent cyclist I’d say the reason cyclists are irritating is because they’re not as predictable as cars or motorcycles, and they’re also way more fragile. When one is around I have to keep one eye on them the whole time to make sure they have space.
One thing I would change is to mandate proper turn signals on bicycles. Some people aren’t good at hand signals, and you have to take your hand off the brake to make them, which just seems ludicrously unsafe to me.
The problem is not mixing, the problem is mixing at different speeds. Bikes and cars mix perfectly fine at 20-mph speeds.
But if there are 6 lanes and cars are driving 55mph, adding a bike lake with a dash of paint just isn't enough due to the dangerous speed differences. It's like adding a sidewalk and crosswalk to an interstate: safer than nothing, but don't expect it to work well. Bikes really should not be on roads like this.
Because physical separation when not done fully usually means a bike path you can't get anywhere on. Being on the main road allows you to go anywhere a car can. Being on a separated path makes it a pain when the separated path is a secondary thought.
Cycle lanes tend to be designed for speeds below that which a cyclist of even average ability is capable (otherwise, they would tend to more closely resemble roads).
Sheltered from motorised traffic, they cater to a wider age, experience and ability range, and the fact that they are typically narrower than roads exacerbates problems that arise from mixed-ability/experience users sharing same facility.
Features of cycle lanes[1] tend to put cyclists in closer proximity to pedestrians than they would be on a road, and this creates a lack of physical and psychological separation that further reduces practical speed (and utility). They also create new challenges such as situations[2] requiring a cyclist to observe a 270°-arc on the approach to a junction. In the last example, it doesn't matter if I have right of way, and it doesn't matter if I'm wearing a helmet; all it takes is a motorist not to be paying attention or to misjudge my speed and I could be the victim of a fatal accident, and that's not a risk that I'm willing to take.
About the first example: something like this should only be used in a highly urbanized area, where it's impossible to bike very fast anyways. A path like this shouldn't cater to cycling above 15mph, and the speed limit for cars is probably going to be around 25mph. A path like this isn't going to be a major through-road.
About the second example: The problem is legality. First, note the setback. This already greatly improves visibility. Second, the cyclist doesn't need a 270-degree arc: due to the setback, the cyclist (with right-of-way) will be visible to the driver at a 45-degree angle. Hitting them would be gross negligence.
I agree that it's not a risk you should be willing to take. The problem is fixing the traffic laws. Cyclists (and pedestrians!) should be considered as vulnerable. In The Netherlands, the driver will almost always be considered to be at fault in car-cyclist accidents, unless gross negligence by the cyclist can be proven. Killing a cyclist can easily result in a 2- to 4-year jail sentence if the driver is at fault. "He had right-of-way, but I just didn't see him" should never be a valid defence.
Or yell loudly at them. If the bike paths are obvious, people will quickly get used to them, especially if they themselves also bike on them regularly.
But multi-use paths where pedestrians mix with cyclists should be avoided at all costs.
The US simply isn't going to tear up a significant chunk of streets in any city and lay down enough bicycle-only infrastructure any time soon.
So, it's a lot more effective to co-opt the existing infrastructure and lobby for speed limit changes, access changes, road humps, etc.
> I've seen that: dedicated, separated bike paths are unused, and cyclists continue to ride in the street with the cars.
Generally this is on bike paths that were put in to satisfy some "green initiative" but don't actually go anywhere useful. It also sometimes happens on "bike paths" that cross too many roads; you're better off riding on a parallel roadway that's actually optimized for traffic flow.
I have rarely seen idle bike paths when they exist in a downtown where people work.
I bike commute in Boston. I avoid a 1 mile stretch of grade separated cycle track because there are so many problems with it, I don't even know where to begin.
- Cars emerging from side streets don't stop at the cycle track so there's a constant T-bone risk.
- Parking (the only parking lane on the road) obscures drivers' vision leading to a high right-hook risk.
- The grade separation disappears at driveways and side streets so you're constantly going up and down like a rollercoaster.
- Because the city plows it and homeowners suck at shoveling their sidewalks, people walk in the cycle track like it's a sidewalk.
- Actually, people walk in the cycle track regardless of the season.
- The "entrance" is marked by a seriously deadly right-hook risk at a Y-shaped fork. And when you're not at risk of getting hooked, there's probably a car blocking the entrance while waiting to turn into traffic.
I mean it is a seriously deranged and broken cycle track. Even with cars road raging, honking, and revenge-cutting-off me, it's better than getting smeared against someone's door panel.
I don't know if you're referring to Beacon Street in Somerville, but...
Even though I actually haven't ridden that way since they built the cycle track, I live in the neighborhood and the cycle track has looked awkward to me since they put it in. Back when I commuted home down Beacon I would bomb down the slight downhill to the Star Market at 25 or so, pretty far out into the "car" lane, because I wanted to be able to see, and have time to react to, any cars attempting to pull out of the side streets.
To the grandparent's point, the cycle track is really only compatible with laid back putt-putting. I think if you were to carry any speed at all, you'd eventually get T-boned by a car pulling out of the many poor-visibility side streets ... or you'd T-bone the car yourself ... with your face.
So if I'm out on a ride (not just going to the store or something) I think I'll avoid the expensive new cycletrack, thank you.
Yes, this is Beacon St in Somerville. If they had just put it on the uphill side, this wouldn't be a problem. Unless you're a pro cyclist or an e-biker, you're not going to match car speeds going uphill. There are far fewer driveways and every single side street is a 100 yard dead end due to the train tracks.
Going downhill (cycle track side), I have no problem keeping up with traffic. During rush hour, I usually end up having to slow down for cars in front, which sucks a lot but that's life.
I'm not sure how expensive this project is (it's still not finished!) but it must be at least a million dollars flushed down the drain. And that's not even mentioning those dumb HAWK lights that will be ripped out because no one knows what to do.
It's still a safer alternative to a bike lane on the street with cars and parked cars on your right. You always in the danger zone of getting doored. There are areas where cars are not allowed to park next to the road bike lane which makes a huge difference when riding along driving cars. It's one less thing to worry about and it allows the cyclist to ride on the right side of the lane safely.
Also, while your points are all valid, they also apply to pedestrians. The difference is that a cyclist needs to slow down on each side street or driveway to make sure there's no car coming and many cyclists for some reason think they are in a race.
When you see people out on the sidewalk, most of them are walking ... some of them are jogging ... and some of them are running. I don't think the runners think they are in a race (though they may or may not be training for one.)
Could it be? Easily. The hard part is converting from one to the other.
Example, the town of Houten, as seen on this map [1]. Red is cycle-only or cyclist-first, white is regular road. Note the ring road around the town, which carries most long-distance car traffic. The inner roads, where cars mix with cyclists, are only used to reach specific addresses and do not carry any through traffic. This principle has been proven to scale to larger cities as well.
Is anyone catching the irony that building cities for bikes is pretty much like building cities for cars, just in a somewhat smaller scale? You need fast lanes, parking lots, bad weather handling, crossings, cross roads, etc.
Will we in 20 years have even denser cities and then try to ban the bikes?
How about fighting the trend to ever denser cities? Allow for three or four story buildings and leave it at that. Demand lots of space between buildings. Build intelligent subways. And plant some effing trees now and then.
What is ironic about it? There are already pedestrian-only zones in many cities, aren't there?
Ironically, the aim should be towards the opposite you're suggesting. By increasing the density and removing space between buildings, you are creating a city where it is more viable to use bikes or walking as your main mode of transportation. Subways are useless if your final destination isn't easily walkable from your stop. Your goal shouldn't be to create a city for cars, your goal should be to create a city where it is easy to get somewhere.
I do mostly agree with the three or four story height, though. This is the proper height to use for most suburb-style developments, higher is only really needed in the CBD.
I appreciate a lot of the ideas of accommodating bikes, and think it's a laudable goal. But it's not practical everywhere.
As an example, I have lived in Houston in the past for some time. It is huge - I commuted roughly 20 miles each way. That's not "bikeable". And not everyone goes to the same place. Some work downtown, but not nearly as many as you'd think. The energy corridor is in an entirely separate area. Many people work in the Woodlands. Some people have jobs out in Katy. Some work in the industrial areas or near the ship channel.
And don't even get me started on the heat. Nobody wants to bike when it's 95 degrees out, even if you can shower once you reach your destination.
Many of the proposed solutions are centered around cities like New York: small metropolitan areas to which everyone commutes with at least reasonable weather and with reasonable distances. It's also very difficult to design good public transportation for such a city as I described, especially since many of the places I listed are technically different cities.
With that said, I would be interested in hearing ideas for how to solve a problem like this. I and friends of mine have debated how to solve such an issue before, and come away without an answer. If someone has an idea, let me know.
You're completely right, most cities just aren't built for cycling.
The solution is probably zoning. First, create smaller zones, resulting in more diversity. Second, allow some light commercial use inside residential areas. Ideally, stores like small supermarkets should always be within a 20-minute walking distance inside towns or cities. Third, create denser plots: discourage single-story buildings, leave less space empty on the plots, and create narrower roads.
The problem is the conversion, but it's doable over a longer period of time. If the proper laws are in place, this is probably doable over a year or 50-75.
Interesting point, as Houston currently has none. Arguably good for growth and business, though.
> smaller zones, resulting in more diversity.
Not sure I understand this part. Diversity of what? How?
> allow some light commercial use inside residential areas
This will be harder to deal with than it at first seems. Due to the earlier-mentioned lack of zoning, many neighborhoods have HOAs.
> discourage single-story buildings
How?
For what it's worth, I'm not sure I like the sort of cities that are considered "bikeable". Houston was nice in part because it was so open and wide. There was lots of green space everywhere you looked. Compared to cities like NYC, I'd argue Houston looked a lot better. Many more "sprawling" cities have much more pleasant, open atmospheres , rather than the dull, lifeless cement that pervades every inch of many other cities.
> narrower roads
Not sure this is a good idea. Many people in Houston own larger, comfier cars. A lot own trucks. Not all need to, but some do: many people have ranches, and Texas is so big that there's a lot of driving. This means a bigger car is sometimes necessary to fit enough stuff. It can also be nice when you have to sometimes do almost 250 mi day-trips.
On the heat issue, you need a shower after being outside and at all active for any significant length of time. Let's consider water usage: How much water would all those extra changes of clothes use? All those extra showers?
And now to the single largest issue: flooding. Remember hearing about Hurricane Harvey? Flooding is getting worse because of denser stuff. I know many people who have been flooded by storms that wouldn't have flooded them ten to fifteen years earlier.
Smaller zones? Denser plots? Less space empty? All of these will cause people to die the next time a storm hits. Many people are already discussing increased permeability requirements for this exact reason.
All of this comes down to the same root issue: many people simply wish to force all cities into a mold they believe works for theirs. There is a very "coast-centric" view in many places, new urban planning trends are premised on cities like SF, NYC, etc. Cities with decent weather, no flooding, a central commute destination, etc. It's worth rethinking how to do this for other cities that don't conform to the mold of coastal cities, because trying to force every town into that mold is impossible to do well.
Exactly. Many people don't realize that Houston is not just hot but humid. How much water would all those extra changes of clothes use? All those extra showers?
A long unpleasant bike ride for your daily commute: also yes
I think biking works if it's either a last mile type of thing via bike share programs combined with public transit, or if you are biking in a denser city. In NYC with lane splitting, sometimes you can be faster than cars.
This might sound pedanatic but I hate when transportation choices are framed as for cars or for bikes. Transportation is for people. Talking about and designing our street infrastructure as if it’s designed for machines like cars and bikes leads us to designing systems that aren’t very friendly to humans (one needs to look no further than the ever increasing incidents of deaths for people walking or riding a bike).
I'm not sure what the point of your comment is to be honest. Transportation choices are made between different modes of transportation all the time. There's no universally good option.
Take NYC where light changes happen about every 45 seconds. This is necessary for pedestrians to be able to get anywhere and because the blocks are fairly narrow (in the north-south direction) in Manhattan.
I've visited the Bay Area many times and it's a nightmare as a pedestrian. You need to cross, say, Castro and El Camino Real and you might be waiting 3+ minutes for the light change to cross those 6 lanes of traffic (and you probably have to be on your guard for inattentive drivers turning right at red lights even when you have right-of-way.
I used to walk back to Mountain View from the Google campus along Shoreline in the afternoons. That's where the on ramp is onto 101 South and it uses a light-less system (I don't believe it's a full clover leaf?). Crossing that on ramp to continue down Shoreline was essentially an exercise in waiting for some driver to take pity on you to let you cross.
Clearly a choice has been made in favour of cars.
Urban planners also go out of their way to restrict traffic to 20mph in pedestrian-heavy areas by narrowing lanes and decreasing distances between lights because there's a huge increase in injuries and death to pedestrians by going 30mph.
So a choice is made in favour of pedestrians here.
Some of the other 101 crossings in the Bay Area (3rd Ave/101 in San Mateo, Hillsdale Blvd/101 in San Mateo at least) are lightless and are really dangerous for both cyclists and pedestrians.
The peninsula is a car-choked hellscape however on a population-weighted basis I guess it is a little better. Many more people live in the walkable places than in the others.
One of the issues here is that it's very likely that e-bikes will start to dominate regular bikes in near future. Because of their fast acceleration they may well be more suited to the roads that cars currently dominate than to the typical "bike lane" environment. Certainly the difference between an e-bike and a regular bike is much bigger than would be expected at first glance.
Last year the Dutch bought more e-bikes than 'normal' bikes. And in terms of the euro total amount it was even much more. [1]
The difference isn't that big in The Netherlands. Legally, e-bikes are limited to 15mph, and the electric motor can only provide assistance. Faster pedelecs are classified as mopeds and are mostly not allowed on bike paths for obvious safety reasons.
In practice, I've not yet noticed this domination. Getting passed by an e-bike does happen, but it's not very common.
It may seem contrary to common sense but e-bikes primarily replace a car, rather than a regular bike, for running chores within the range of about 10-15km. It's the range, and lack effort (sweat) that is compelling rather than its speed.
The waste and cost of putting even a small percentage of road miles underground is truly astounding. This isn't comparable to going to the moon. It's comparable to turning every single family home into a thirty story skyscraper.
Even if total troglodyting is far beyond moonshot: I applaud every investment in burying cars, because they are the only investments in car throughput that don't make driving more attractive. If you want to actually go faster and not just share the stop-and-go with even more peers, insist on the tunnel experience.
Why do journalists continue to compare American cities to Copenhagen or Amsterdam when it comes to bicycle infrastructure and safety? I argue it is primarily the climate followed by size.
In Denmark the climate is mild, with few hot summer days and even fewer snow days that would make bicycling impossible. Comparing Boston average temperatures to Copenhagen, Jan-Feb on average are 4 degrees C lower and July-Aug are 7 degrees C hotter [1][2] in Boston. Then there are lists of America's worst bicycling cities ranking Dallas, TX at the top, where average July-Aug highs are 15 degrees higher than in Copenhagen [3]. Climate wise the cities are very different.
If you can't bike to work everyday because of the weather then infrastructure of bikes cannot replace car infrastructure. In Denmark bicycle infrastructure can replace car infrastructure because the climate makes it possible to bike work every month of the year. In even mild climate cities like Boston it becomes much harder to be dependent on bicycles with hotter summers and colder winters.
That's looking at the climate. Next, the Boston Urban area is 4.600 sq km with 4 million people, whereas Copenhagen is only 606 sq km with 1.6 million people [Wikipedia]. Some back of the napkin calculations would make average travel distances 3 times greater in Boston.
Because of the differences in climate, size and population between Copenhagen and Boston, I do not consider bicycles a viable solution for Boston's transport challenges and I extend this line of thinking to most American Metropolitan centers.
> Why do journalists continue to compare American cities to Copenhagen or Amsterdam when it comes to bicycle infrastructure and safety? I argue it is primarily the climate followed by size.
Because they're the world leaders and something to aspire too
Dave Amos, one of the authors of this publication, has a YouTube channel called City Beautiful [1] in which he covers issues around urban planning. It is absolutely worth a watch.
I drove to the office 5 days last year. My bicycle is my primary form of transportation and I have to say, it’s a wonderful way to live.
I doubt the US or local states/cities will properly implement bicycle infrastructure anytime soon. Imaginative or not there’s just too much money to be made by having everyone purchase cars.
Bike lanes in the US have always been in the areas where it is more dangerous to ride. The mere presence of a bike lane instead of an undecorated shoulder seems to confuse many as to what is possible or acceptable.
Riding and moving at speed with traffic will always be safer than getting boxed in.
Bike only trails are typically filled with weaving inline-skaters, people walking four abreast, and other hazards. Again, you're safer and faster when you stick to the roads.
This typifies the attitude of "there aught to be a law" held by individuals (usually those who have no intention of cycling seriously) waiting for the state to take action and spend money to solve a non-problem.
The self-starter's solution is to take action and build up your cycling skills.
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For "Rethinking streets":
The download link sends you to a registration form, but you can fill in any random email address - no confirmation is sent and it directs you to the download page at http://www.rethinkingstreets.com/download.html .
This booklet has one massive flaw: it is constructed using American best-practices. At best, a couple of examples could be considered almost acceptable. Most of them were woefully inadequate and consist of little more than a blob of quickly-fading green paint in ill-considered positions. Worst of all, several examples are clearly flawed, and to me seem even more dangerous than not having any infrastructure at all.
If the goal is to show to unimaginative people that it is indeed physically possible to create something resembling bike infrastructure, then it will do fine. But if you're trying to actually create a good, safe, well-used cycling network, then this is not the way to do it.
If you want good examples, go visit something like https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/ . This booklet almost reads as if it was written by someone who has only heard about cycling infrastructure, but never actually lived in a city which has it. The intention is there, but there's an even longer way to go.
Some trivial stuff to change:
- Add green dye to the asphalt instead of adding a layer of green paint. This means that it will not fade. - Color the whole cycle path, not just a few small parts of it. You're trying to create a continuous network, remember? - Don't use a zebra-crossing style striping at crossings. A continuous green bar would be way easier to see and interpret as something to stop for. - Don't create turn boxes. They are always in dangerous positions and there are better alternatives.
But most important of all: don't just add cycle paths to your main car roads. You wouldn't add a sidewalk and crosswalk to an interstate, would you? Create the main cycle routes on secondary streets, and make them unattractive for cars.
I realized, though, that unlike many American cities, Amsterdam came of age way before the automobile. The US has a fetish with cars.
Therefore, it's impossible to compare the two countries' cycling infrastructures. The link you shared is so far beyond anything we have in the US; you can't simply say "this is how it should be done".
Instead, we have to start somewhere small and make incremental changes until a tipping point ocurrs. Add more bike lanes, introduce bike share programs, etc. Since I've lived in NYC the amount of cyclists has increased steadily. I'm hopeful this trend will occur as programs like OP are continually introduced.
Overall I agree with you, I just think the historical contexts are fundamentally different. American cities will approach Amsterdam...in a few hundred years :)
No, Amsterdam also loved cars. It was activism that turned it into a bicycle heaven.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam-bic...
Hemonystraat, one of the streets cited in the video, now:
https://www.google.it/maps/@52.3567496,4.9026422,3a,58.5y,13...
>At the start of the 20th century, bikes far outnumbered cars in Dutch cities and the bicycle was considered a respectable mode of transport for men and women.
I don't believe this was ever the case in a major US city.
Nonetheless, the activism bit is news for me so thanks for sharing. I'd still argue, though, that the activism is largely due to the fact that that there was a history of bikes before cars.
This is completely inaccurate. Americans loved bikes at the start of the 20th century too. Cars didn't exist, or were unreliable, or incredibly expensive.
E.g., https://www.vox.com/2015/6/30/8861327/bike-lanes-history
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam-bic...
I’m in The us and the assist cuts out at 20mph. I get that since I’m sharing the roads and paths with other bikes/joggers and cars (and the ocational electric skateboard/kick scooter). I tend to ride much faster with the ebike and can see how this added power can get me into more trouble.
I really enjoy the boost though.
Which is sad, but also my 250 W engine takes me up all hills on roads and only very steep mountains offroad are too much
The only cities "designed for cars" are probably Phoenix, Tucson, and greater LA, every other American city saw its establishment and principal growth when walking, cycling, and horse riding was the norm.
As an American I find that disappointing and concerning.
Thanks for the links to the Dutch cycling site, that’s really cool!
However the new cycle "superhighways" in London are a big improvement but oddly now I find the biggest challenge is to change the attitude of the cyclists - we have effectively been given roads - and so now need to obey the laws of the road - it's a toss up if every cyclist will stop at the traffic lights for these superhighways - frustrating if you are a fellow cyclist and dangerous if you are crossing
At some point however we are going to face the fact that roads are a cheap form of transport because they are shared and so are dangerous - the UK has 4500 deaths a year - and when we look at segregating cycle traffic to make it safer we realise it is effectively asking to build a railway- and we shall face the same as self driving vehicles get close to good enough but plateau out - and I bet the business case for self driving cars rarely has ever been coated with "we build segregated roads everywhere with huge fences to keep out pedestrians and other hard to avoid objects."
Well that’s untrue.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reported_Road_Casualties_Gre...
As you can see road casualties have been dropping for quite a while, and for the last 5+ years the rate is around 1,700. Deaths per year haven’t been near 4500 since the 90’s. This also reflects another reality you ignore, which is that road fatalities are not evenly distributed. Being drunk, driving tired, owning an unsafe or poorly maintained car, driving too fast, all contribute to risk, and all are avoidable.
You also picked the UK, which has an extensive rail system.
Also, what happened in 2010?
Superhighways and quietways are being merged and rebranded Cycleways soon.
I was actually thinking about this recently. Where I bike in the Boston area many of the bike lanes are on the busiest roads where buses and trucks drive on too. I often take side streets that don't have bike lanes but fell safer. However, I don't think it's that easy to use mainly side streets, it really depends on the city street design.
Just two days ago I had to slap a vehicle to let him know I was about to be crushed between him and parked cars, because he casually drove into the bike lane I was occupying without looking or indicating.
This would also encourage safer riding by cyclists. Last year ago I had a serious crash because of another rider cutting across lanes of traffic to get ahead of me. Riders being forced to enter the bike lane at the intersection makes them more predictable.
We've had green bike lanes here for many years. I've never noticed any of them fade. We're supposed to lay new streets for one lane, for a problem which hasn't happened yet?
The key word in your post is "here". These things vary by location - for example, anywhere that uses snowplows, a superficial treatment (paint, even thermoplastic) will wear away in a very short period of time. Centrelines here are repainted every year or two (or ten, on roads that aren't considered very important).
That’s really not the whole country, no matter how much a minority of SV’ers want it to be. Parts of the country are really spread out, parts are brutally cold, windy, and rainy, and yes some parts are lovely and sunny and packed to the gills. The problem is that evangelists for Bike Jesus never seem to accept that, and there’s always one or two who claim to live in Antarctica with a family of 6, and all while only riding a bike.
Finland is sparsely populated and almost entirely subarctic. Malta and Cyprus are tiny islands with year-round sunshine.
You might think that bad weather and low population density are insurmountable obstacles to the widespread adoption of cycling, but you'd be objectively wrong. The key factor isn't climate or density or hills or infrastructure, it's culture.
https://www.cyclinguk.org/article/campaigns-guide/cycling-le...
Let’s look at the other end of the scale, Denmark. Average summer day is 68F, which is terrific for a bike ride. The average winter high is 32F, which is freezing, but not terrible. Denmark’s wettest month is June with an average of 80mm of rain, contrasted with Malta which has three drenching month’s averaging between 97mm and 108mm.
https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/these-are-the-most-bikeable...
The winter does deter people, simply as evidenced by seeing fewer fellow cyclists during my commute. One nice perk is that the city clears the bike paths quite promptly.
Strongly agree on the spread out part, though that is (in part) a symptom of widely used planning doctrine in North America (parking minimums, maximum lot coverage, and very wide minimum lane widths). Cold, wind, and rain are all issues, but they can be overcome (and have been in some jurisdictions) - not for everyone, but if a few percentage do it it's better for everyone.
Most cycling activism I see focuses as much on advantages for drivers as anything. The North American population has been urbanizing at a high rate - for a few decades, that was accommodated with suburbs and car based transportation. Many cities are now at the point where key corridors are congested for hours morning and evening (and expanding these corridors, at great cost, would only buy a few years or a decade of congestion relief). Cycling (and transit) are both low capital cost methods to relieve congestion - get an extra 5% commuting by bike and another 10% going by bus, and you have a lot of growth room available for cars. But both these need density to be reasonable: if you have density to begin with (European and Asian cities), mass transit and cycling are obvious/sensible responses. If you're starting with a low density area, it takes incentives to get past some inflection point of density. (Or stop growing, but not many cities are doing that, and none willingly)
> The problem is that evangelists for Bike Jesus never seem to accept that, and there’s always one or two who claim to live in Antarctica with a family of 6, and all while only riding a bike.
Flamebaiting exaggerations like this really do no one any good, and are against the intention of this website. Check out the comment guidelines. [0]
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I would say the opposite.
Apart from the weather (which is a big part, but still), they are perfectly poised for biking.
North eastern cities dense, relatively flat and have no way of building more roads or accommodating new cars / parking spaces. Cycles also work very well in tandem with public transport ( when allowed on it).
On the other hand, I think SF and SV are not suited for bikes at all. Apart from last mile connectivity, everyone is still dependent on cars for every other task.
Beyond the weather, Caltrain is unusually bike-friendly rail, with ~100 bike racks per train (on multiple special bike cars per train). Palo Alto boasts an 87 'bike score' (higher than Minneapolis or Portland) and a network of bike boulevards that discourage through car traffic. San Francisco is investing heavily in rearranging streets for protected bike lanes, and there are plenty of SF city dwellers without cars.
Stability, slippage, being exposed to freezing cold and wet, the lack of an engine assist, no heat, two fewer wheels, and did I mention cold?
Just throw in the same effort that you do to keep car lanes open, and you’ll be fine.
Open for a car and open for a bike are different. You can drive through some snow, slush and ice, but I hate biking on ice and slush. In addition to the safety factor, it a miserable experience. It’s also not unheard of for roads to get too bad for cars, never mind bikes.
All in all I’m sort of disappointed that the reaction to raising obvious drawbacks is weapons-grade denial. Trying to sell people on a less safe, less comfortable, less reliable, means of transportation by throwing infrastructure projects at it is a problem, and why so many people are sick and tired of bike evangelists. Never mind the fact that a lot of people have disabilities that prevent that kind of hard work, have families and long commutes (please don’t throw another infrastructure project at that), are too old or infirm to bike through a Colorado summer, never mind winter, and so on.
It’s really a form of quiet elitism dressed up as environmentalism and social consciousness at worst, and a lack of understanding of just how huge the US is at best. Bikes probably do make more sense if a majority of your population lives in one or two cities, otherwise it just doesn’t.
No one is trying to force the elderly, the pregnant and the handicapped to ride bikes. They can still use their cars, taxis and buses while the city is plowing the bike lanes for us healthy adults that like to ride our bikes to work.
Do note that while I say that harsh winters pose no problems to biking in general, I’ve found my self taking the bush in the worst winter weathers in Reykjavík. Which brings the point home that bike infrastructure is not mutually exclusive to other transportation.
Doesn't seem true where I live. Maybe you have a study to support this claim?\
> Bikes probably do make more sense if a majority of your population lives in one or two cities, otherwise it just doesn’t.
Cities in general seem to be conducive to bikes. Not sure why the whole country needs to live in just one or two cities or how that could logically follow.
Nationwide, you’re more than twice as likely to die while riding a bike than riding in a car, per trip, according to a 2007 study led by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention epidemiologist Laurie Beck. Bike riding is also about 500 times more fatal than riding in a bus. Though Beck didn’t run numbers on subway and commuter rail systems, they may be the safest form of transportation of all. Despite a series of well-publicized accidents and maintenance issues, Metrorail and Metrobus reported just two injuries per million riders in 2015.
I've done many cold winters with a bicycle, and with a car, and there's no clear winner. For me it comes down to how far I'm going, what I need to carry with me, the quality of the roads and drivers, whether there's a bus route, and availability of bicycle storage versus car parking. I've never found traction to be a serious issue. If it's bad enough to avoid the bike, it's bad enough to avoid the car, too, and I'll walk or take the (chained) bus.
Still, the feeling of well-being that comes from moderate exercise and the joy of seeing the world in another way makes up for it. Most drivers are smart enough and courteous enough that I would recommend it to anyone.
You're not supposed to lay new streets. First of all, you can tear up single lanes, so no need to do the whole street. Secondly, you probably should already be tearing up a significant fraction in order to provide proper separation. But most of all, there is no need to replace them: just add the green dye when you're replacing them on their regular maintenance schedule.
Like this:
https://goo.gl/maps/HJnyxbs1hnJ2
https://goo.gl/maps/VatZztEiXTJ2
https://goo.gl/maps/PpSaGeChwS12 Note the advanced bike stop line.
https://goo.gl/maps/zJZNRTYQ5ZL2 Note the bike-only tunnel.
https://goo.gl/maps/CWLmL1DTsBs
https://goo.gl/maps/dGJSZnQVfw82
https://goo.gl/maps/rvf9hP3DvV62
https://goo.gl/maps/sYNKHgEBsZk Note the two-way left turn for cyclists.
https://goo.gl/maps/63YCi5hzz6M2 There is a X-crossing right of this, but cyclists vastly outnumber cars here, and it's being removed.
In virtually all examples it is physically impossible for right-turning cars and cyclists to conflict, unless the driver is grossly negligent. There is no conflict due to phasing: one phase for straight-through cars and cyclists, one for right-turning traffic.
If "not grossly negligent" is the standard to which we're holding drivers, I don't really see the problem with the "X-crossing" displayed in skookumchuck's sibling comment. It's very clear that right-turning cars have to cross the bike lane to get to the turn lane, and any bicycles in the bike lane would be quite evident. Realistically, we can expect some automobile operators to do the wrong thing at that intersection, but that would be negligence.
If I'm approaching an intersection like that pictured and I'm even with an auto, I brake and take the lane behind it. If the auto moves to the right to turn, I pass it on the left in the main lane of traffic. No matter what the auto does, I re-enter the bike lane after I clear the intersection. No one needs to pass me while in the intersection, and I want to be both visible and able to react to right-turning autos from the street I'm crossing. Faster traffic makes this impossible, but faster traffic can see you from behind and will generally discourage turns from the cross street.
There are morons who try to race around you to hook in front of you, and this type of intersection offers no protection from that, but most drivers are not that thoughtless, even if they lack general awareness. You just have to deal with that asshole. Once he gets that front bumper even with me, I'm already ducking right and braking. In some instances, I'll also be grabbing my U-lock and preparing to damage his car with it.
Like I said, completely separating the traffic seems like a great solution, but it simply will not be universal any time soon. Until then, ride defensively.
Anyway, there are vast differences in what people view as a bike path. Take Reid Highway as an example [1]. Those strips on either side of the road are the bike path. This is a highway with a speed limit of 90kph (~55mph), which probably means people are really going 120kph on what is essentially the hard shoulder.
There's no way in hell I'd ride on that. Personally I considered something like this stretch of Morley Drive [2] to be a good standard of biking infrastructure, for several reasons:
1. Wide bike path separated from the road
2. The road has a wide median strip. I can't tell you how much this helps in crossing busy roads.
3. The bike path isn't right up against the walls of residential properties. This can be a real nightmare for visibility of cars pulling out.
4. Bike paths shouldn't be clogged with pedestrian traffic either as in if it's a busy pedestrian area, have a separate pedestrian path.
Personally I just like to find long residential streets with minimal busy road crossings. You can fly down those things and don't have to second guess what cars are doing most of the time.
As for America in particular, I've said it once and I'll say it again the most anti-cyclist (and anti-pedestrian) rule is the ability to turn right at a red light and it's almost universal in the country. Even in places where it's technically illegal (eg the five boroughs of NYC) you have people who either don't know or don't care (eg once I told some driver fairly calmly after they did it and stopped at the traffic 50 feet down the road that it was illegal in NYC they told me to go F myself).
[1] https://goo.gl/maps/MfLB58HyZHJ2
[2] https://goo.gl/maps/wAnsF4HUqPA2
Unfortunately cycling advocacy organizations in the United States tend to be opposed to physical separation.
Even very serious and activist cyclists around here are still most likely seasonal/recreational riders, and still want to use their cars, at least in the winter. (See “share the road” bumper stickers). They are not necessarily wild about reducing vehicle access.
But I strongly dislike Critical Mass and bike activists in general. They are hateful (especially towards pedestrians) and don't know any other topic of conversation.
And they have this attitude where incremental improvements don't count, we need to have a day X where all streets are torn up and bike utopia is built overnight.
One thing I would change is to mandate proper turn signals on bicycles. Some people aren’t good at hand signals, and you have to take your hand off the brake to make them, which just seems ludicrously unsafe to me.
But if there are 6 lanes and cars are driving 55mph, adding a bike lake with a dash of paint just isn't enough due to the dangerous speed differences. It's like adding a sidewalk and crosswalk to an interstate: safer than nothing, but don't expect it to work well. Bikes really should not be on roads like this.
Sheltered from motorised traffic, they cater to a wider age, experience and ability range, and the fact that they are typically narrower than roads exacerbates problems that arise from mixed-ability/experience users sharing same facility.
Features of cycle lanes[1] tend to put cyclists in closer proximity to pedestrians than they would be on a road, and this creates a lack of physical and psychological separation that further reduces practical speed (and utility). They also create new challenges such as situations[2] requiring a cyclist to observe a 270°-arc on the approach to a junction. In the last example, it doesn't matter if I have right of way, and it doesn't matter if I'm wearing a helmet; all it takes is a motorist not to be paying attention or to misjudge my speed and I could be the victim of a fatal accident, and that's not a risk that I'm willing to take.
[1] https://i.imgur.com/CkAxcE5.jpg [2] https://i.imgur.com/0q9PadV.jpg
About the second example: The problem is legality. First, note the setback. This already greatly improves visibility. Second, the cyclist doesn't need a 270-degree arc: due to the setback, the cyclist (with right-of-way) will be visible to the driver at a 45-degree angle. Hitting them would be gross negligence.
I agree that it's not a risk you should be willing to take. The problem is fixing the traffic laws. Cyclists (and pedestrians!) should be considered as vulnerable. In The Netherlands, the driver will almost always be considered to be at fault in car-cyclist accidents, unless gross negligence by the cyclist can be proven. Killing a cyclist can easily result in a 2- to 4-year jail sentence if the driver is at fault. "He had right-of-way, but I just didn't see him" should never be a valid defence.
But multi-use paths where pedestrians mix with cyclists should be avoided at all costs.
The US simply isn't going to tear up a significant chunk of streets in any city and lay down enough bicycle-only infrastructure any time soon.
So, it's a lot more effective to co-opt the existing infrastructure and lobby for speed limit changes, access changes, road humps, etc.
> I've seen that: dedicated, separated bike paths are unused, and cyclists continue to ride in the street with the cars.
Generally this is on bike paths that were put in to satisfy some "green initiative" but don't actually go anywhere useful. It also sometimes happens on "bike paths" that cross too many roads; you're better off riding on a parallel roadway that's actually optimized for traffic flow.
I have rarely seen idle bike paths when they exist in a downtown where people work.
- Cars emerging from side streets don't stop at the cycle track so there's a constant T-bone risk.
- Parking (the only parking lane on the road) obscures drivers' vision leading to a high right-hook risk.
- The grade separation disappears at driveways and side streets so you're constantly going up and down like a rollercoaster.
- Because the city plows it and homeowners suck at shoveling their sidewalks, people walk in the cycle track like it's a sidewalk.
- Actually, people walk in the cycle track regardless of the season.
- The "entrance" is marked by a seriously deadly right-hook risk at a Y-shaped fork. And when you're not at risk of getting hooked, there's probably a car blocking the entrance while waiting to turn into traffic.
I mean it is a seriously deranged and broken cycle track. Even with cars road raging, honking, and revenge-cutting-off me, it's better than getting smeared against someone's door panel.
Even though I actually haven't ridden that way since they built the cycle track, I live in the neighborhood and the cycle track has looked awkward to me since they put it in. Back when I commuted home down Beacon I would bomb down the slight downhill to the Star Market at 25 or so, pretty far out into the "car" lane, because I wanted to be able to see, and have time to react to, any cars attempting to pull out of the side streets.
To the grandparent's point, the cycle track is really only compatible with laid back putt-putting. I think if you were to carry any speed at all, you'd eventually get T-boned by a car pulling out of the many poor-visibility side streets ... or you'd T-bone the car yourself ... with your face.
So if I'm out on a ride (not just going to the store or something) I think I'll avoid the expensive new cycletrack, thank you.
Going downhill (cycle track side), I have no problem keeping up with traffic. During rush hour, I usually end up having to slow down for cars in front, which sucks a lot but that's life.
I'm not sure how expensive this project is (it's still not finished!) but it must be at least a million dollars flushed down the drain. And that's not even mentioning those dumb HAWK lights that will be ripped out because no one knows what to do.
Also, while your points are all valid, they also apply to pedestrians. The difference is that a cyclist needs to slow down on each side street or driveway to make sure there's no car coming and many cyclists for some reason think they are in a race.
When you see people out on the sidewalk, most of them are walking ... some of them are jogging ... and some of them are running. I don't think the runners think they are in a race (though they may or may not be training for one.)
Example, the town of Houten, as seen on this map [1]. Red is cycle-only or cyclist-first, white is regular road. Note the ring road around the town, which carries most long-distance car traffic. The inner roads, where cars mix with cyclists, are only used to reach specific addresses and do not carry any through traffic. This principle has been proven to scale to larger cities as well.
[1]: https://www.bikeauckland.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/h...
Will we in 20 years have even denser cities and then try to ban the bikes?
How about fighting the trend to ever denser cities? Allow for three or four story buildings and leave it at that. Demand lots of space between buildings. Build intelligent subways. And plant some effing trees now and then.
Ironically, the aim should be towards the opposite you're suggesting. By increasing the density and removing space between buildings, you are creating a city where it is more viable to use bikes or walking as your main mode of transportation. Subways are useless if your final destination isn't easily walkable from your stop. Your goal shouldn't be to create a city for cars, your goal should be to create a city where it is easy to get somewhere.
I do mostly agree with the three or four story height, though. This is the proper height to use for most suburb-style developments, higher is only really needed in the CBD.
As an example, I have lived in Houston in the past for some time. It is huge - I commuted roughly 20 miles each way. That's not "bikeable". And not everyone goes to the same place. Some work downtown, but not nearly as many as you'd think. The energy corridor is in an entirely separate area. Many people work in the Woodlands. Some people have jobs out in Katy. Some work in the industrial areas or near the ship channel.
And don't even get me started on the heat. Nobody wants to bike when it's 95 degrees out, even if you can shower once you reach your destination.
Many of the proposed solutions are centered around cities like New York: small metropolitan areas to which everyone commutes with at least reasonable weather and with reasonable distances. It's also very difficult to design good public transportation for such a city as I described, especially since many of the places I listed are technically different cities.
With that said, I would be interested in hearing ideas for how to solve a problem like this. I and friends of mine have debated how to solve such an issue before, and come away without an answer. If someone has an idea, let me know.
The solution is probably zoning. First, create smaller zones, resulting in more diversity. Second, allow some light commercial use inside residential areas. Ideally, stores like small supermarkets should always be within a 20-minute walking distance inside towns or cities. Third, create denser plots: discourage single-story buildings, leave less space empty on the plots, and create narrower roads.
The problem is the conversion, but it's doable over a longer period of time. If the proper laws are in place, this is probably doable over a year or 50-75.
Interesting point, as Houston currently has none. Arguably good for growth and business, though.
> smaller zones, resulting in more diversity.
Not sure I understand this part. Diversity of what? How?
> allow some light commercial use inside residential areas
This will be harder to deal with than it at first seems. Due to the earlier-mentioned lack of zoning, many neighborhoods have HOAs.
> discourage single-story buildings
How?
For what it's worth, I'm not sure I like the sort of cities that are considered "bikeable". Houston was nice in part because it was so open and wide. There was lots of green space everywhere you looked. Compared to cities like NYC, I'd argue Houston looked a lot better. Many more "sprawling" cities have much more pleasant, open atmospheres , rather than the dull, lifeless cement that pervades every inch of many other cities.
> narrower roads
Not sure this is a good idea. Many people in Houston own larger, comfier cars. A lot own trucks. Not all need to, but some do: many people have ranches, and Texas is so big that there's a lot of driving. This means a bigger car is sometimes necessary to fit enough stuff. It can also be nice when you have to sometimes do almost 250 mi day-trips.
On the heat issue, you need a shower after being outside and at all active for any significant length of time. Let's consider water usage: How much water would all those extra changes of clothes use? All those extra showers?
And now to the single largest issue: flooding. Remember hearing about Hurricane Harvey? Flooding is getting worse because of denser stuff. I know many people who have been flooded by storms that wouldn't have flooded them ten to fifteen years earlier.
Smaller zones? Denser plots? Less space empty? All of these will cause people to die the next time a storm hits. Many people are already discussing increased permeability requirements for this exact reason.
All of this comes down to the same root issue: many people simply wish to force all cities into a mold they believe works for theirs. There is a very "coast-centric" view in many places, new urban planning trends are premised on cities like SF, NYC, etc. Cities with decent weather, no flooding, a central commute destination, etc. It's worth rethinking how to do this for other cities that don't conform to the mold of coastal cities, because trying to force every town into that mold is impossible to do well.
A long unpleasant bike ride for your daily commute: also yes
I think biking works if it's either a last mile type of thing via bike share programs combined with public transit, or if you are biking in a denser city. In NYC with lane splitting, sometimes you can be faster than cars.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2011/aug/1...
Note: the obvious pun wasn't intentional, but I'm leaving it in because it's a pun.
Take NYC where light changes happen about every 45 seconds. This is necessary for pedestrians to be able to get anywhere and because the blocks are fairly narrow (in the north-south direction) in Manhattan.
I've visited the Bay Area many times and it's a nightmare as a pedestrian. You need to cross, say, Castro and El Camino Real and you might be waiting 3+ minutes for the light change to cross those 6 lanes of traffic (and you probably have to be on your guard for inattentive drivers turning right at red lights even when you have right-of-way.
I used to walk back to Mountain View from the Google campus along Shoreline in the afternoons. That's where the on ramp is onto 101 South and it uses a light-less system (I don't believe it's a full clover leaf?). Crossing that on ramp to continue down Shoreline was essentially an exercise in waiting for some driver to take pity on you to let you cross.
Clearly a choice has been made in favour of cars.
Urban planners also go out of their way to restrict traffic to 20mph in pedestrian-heavy areas by narrowing lanes and decreasing distances between lights because there's a huge increase in injuries and death to pedestrians by going 30mph.
So a choice is made in favour of pedestrians here.
* Decorative bike racks that make securing a bike more difficult.
* An expectation that people will feel comfortable riding feet away from vehicles traveling 35-40 MPH
* Shrugging off increased injuries on one redesigned street.
To add, choices should be more holistically focused on generations of people into the future and the environment.
This isn’t the Wild West anymore. We got to start thinking long term.
Last year the Dutch bought more e-bikes than 'normal' bikes. And in terms of the euro total amount it was even much more. [1]
[1]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/01/bike-country-n...
In practice, I've not yet noticed this domination. Getting passed by an e-bike does happen, but it's not very common.
1. All car streets need to be under ground in tunnels
2. All vehicles must be 100% electric
3. Over ground traffic is limited to: walking, wheel chairs, bikes, scooters and wide load special permit vehicles.
Forget Trump’s plan for going to the moon another time, can we do this instead?
In Denmark the climate is mild, with few hot summer days and even fewer snow days that would make bicycling impossible. Comparing Boston average temperatures to Copenhagen, Jan-Feb on average are 4 degrees C lower and July-Aug are 7 degrees C hotter [1][2] in Boston. Then there are lists of America's worst bicycling cities ranking Dallas, TX at the top, where average July-Aug highs are 15 degrees higher than in Copenhagen [3]. Climate wise the cities are very different.
If you can't bike to work everyday because of the weather then infrastructure of bikes cannot replace car infrastructure. In Denmark bicycle infrastructure can replace car infrastructure because the climate makes it possible to bike work every month of the year. In even mild climate cities like Boston it becomes much harder to be dependent on bicycles with hotter summers and colder winters.
That's looking at the climate. Next, the Boston Urban area is 4.600 sq km with 4 million people, whereas Copenhagen is only 606 sq km with 1.6 million people [Wikipedia]. Some back of the napkin calculations would make average travel distances 3 times greater in Boston.
Because of the differences in climate, size and population between Copenhagen and Boston, I do not consider bicycles a viable solution for Boston's transport challenges and I extend this line of thinking to most American Metropolitan centers.
[1] https://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php3?s=90527&cit...
[2] https://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php3?s=8160&city...
[3] https://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php3?s=95227&cit...
Because they're the world leaders and something to aspire too
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGc8ZVCsrR3dAuhvUbkbToQ
I doubt the US or local states/cities will properly implement bicycle infrastructure anytime soon. Imaginative or not there’s just too much money to be made by having everyone purchase cars.
Riding and moving at speed with traffic will always be safer than getting boxed in.
Bike only trails are typically filled with weaving inline-skaters, people walking four abreast, and other hazards. Again, you're safer and faster when you stick to the roads.
This typifies the attitude of "there aught to be a law" held by individuals (usually those who have no intention of cycling seriously) waiting for the state to take action and spend money to solve a non-problem.
The self-starter's solution is to take action and build up your cycling skills.
Cycling is incredibly dangerous according to many here, but is it more dangerous than heart disease?
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