After Spike In Deaths, New York To Get 250 Miles of Protected Bike Lanes 201
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Riding a bicycle in New York City is often a harrowing journey across a patchwork of bike lanes that leave cyclists vulnerable to cars. The dangers came into focus this year after 25 cyclists were killed on city streets -- the highest toll in two decades. Now Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council have agreed on a $1.7 billion plan that would sharply expand the number of protected bike lanes as part of a sweeping effort to transform the city's streetscape and make it less perilous for bikers. Its chief proponent, Corey Johnson, the City Council speaker, calls it nothing less than an effort to "break the car culture.'' Such ambitions show how far New York has come since around 2007 when the city, under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, started aggressively taking away space for cars by rolling out bike lanes and pedestrian plazas.
Under pressure from the City Council, the city would be required to build 250 miles of protected bike lanes in the coming years, along with a dizzying list of other street upgrades that safety advocates have long called for. The city now has about 1,250 miles of bike lanes, including 126 miles on city streets that are protected, meaning that a barrier separates the lanes from vehicles. The bill calls for the Transportation Department to release a plan every five years to make streets safer and to prioritize public transit, starting in December 2021. The city must hit targets every year, including building 150 miles of bus lanes that are physically separated from other traffic lanes or monitored by cameras over five years.
Under pressure from the City Council, the city would be required to build 250 miles of protected bike lanes in the coming years, along with a dizzying list of other street upgrades that safety advocates have long called for. The city now has about 1,250 miles of bike lanes, including 126 miles on city streets that are protected, meaning that a barrier separates the lanes from vehicles. The bill calls for the Transportation Department to release a plan every five years to make streets safer and to prioritize public transit, starting in December 2021. The city must hit targets every year, including building 150 miles of bus lanes that are physically separated from other traffic lanes or monitored by cameras over five years.
Good (Score:2, Insightful)
Buses and bikes have in common that mixing them with other traffic causes problems. I think adding buses is a sorry substitute for improving the rail systems, but more public transit is needed, and they clearly have no handle on the rail problems.
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In London bus lanes are a good working solution, bicycles and sometimes motorbikes and sometimes taxis are allowed in the bus lanes. Often the lanes are not 24/7 but only during rush hour.
What problem do bikes cause? Less Traffic? Faster journey times? Or is it that you don't think people shouldn't have to pay proper attention to where they are driving? Same for buses, a bus takes up much less space than 90 cars.
Re:Good (Score:4)
He didn't say that bikes cause problems. He said mixing them with other traffic creates problems - the other traffic is just as much part of the equation, and as a daily bicycle user I tend to agree. Bikes among cars are a recipe for problems, where separate bike-lanes are where I feel safer cycling and car drivers feel more at ease too. I feel less safe when cycling among cars, and it's not because I don't trust most of the drivers in our country to pay proper attention on the road. But accidents do happen and bicycle has a bag-of-dicks chance against a car.
I'm not sure what drinkypoos point was exactly, but I didn't think of it as any kind of attack against biking. I might be wrong though, idk.
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
It often comes down to the modal share, I don't like cycling around so much on the suburban roads nearby where not many people cycle, even a 1st class segregated cycle lane doesn't keep you safe from idiots that think they have priority simply because there are in a motor vehicle. Here the drivers often will cut you up to turn in to a side road regardless of road markings explicitly showing the priority.
In central London OTOH, drivers are far more aware because there are so many more people cycling around all day and the drivers on the roads in central London tend to be delivery / taxi / bus etc - drivers who are working and doing a lot more miles and have a lot more experience.
From what I've seen in media / on forums, UK is middling, US, Aus are bad, Continental Europe is pretty good with regards to driver and authority attitudes to wards cyclists. In bad countries when a cyclist gets hurt, they get blamed, in good countries the driver and infrastructure are more likely to get the blame. Unfortunately the UK is now in retrograde, more pedestrians and cyclists are getting hurt and more people are driving around in SUVs, climate warming, what climate warming? Ubiquitous smart phone usage likely isn't helping accident rates either.
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
"What problem do bikes cause? Less Traffic? Faster journey times? Or is it that you don't think people shouldn't have to pay proper attention to where they are driving? Same for buses, a bus takes up much less space than 90 cars."
Let me address bike LANES in my area (Los Angeles)
o Shorter (2-3 car lengths) on right turns vs. rush hour stretches of more than a half block. Modest traffic in AM and PM will turn a 2 lane road in to an effective 1 lane road with all the right-hand turns dramaitcally increasing traffic -- not "less traffic". City touts "we didn't remove any lanes!" while ignoring the impact the new layout.
o LONGER journey times, not shorter (see above)
o Spill over traffic in to resendital streets as folks attempt to avoid the high traffic corridors dramatically impacted by bike lanes.
o increase deaths -- yes. LA has managed to spend hundreds of millions of dollars with vision zero to ELIMINATE road deaths and INCREASE those deaths dramatically.
Bike lanes may make sense for some cities and in some areas for specific purposes -- but in a city like LA -- it's not DESIGNED for high, modest or even LOW bike commutes. The average commute to work in LA is about 10 miles -- and in LA there's very few distances where you dont end up hitting a mountain pass in about 10 miles. My own is 35 miles one way. It used to be 6 (and I biked to work most of the time). Far too many have long car commutes to work and we're still a LONG way away from the promise of "telecommuting".
With the exception of bike lanes around major park areas, bike lanes are very VERY under utilized where they are installed and have caused increases in traffic. As someone who used to bike to work -- the safest route for me was to avoid high traffic corridors and bike through side streets only crossing major streets when necessary. THATS where bike lanes should go -- at least in LA. But good luck -- because one necessarily needs to remove at least 1 parking lane for bikes.
All that said, if planned better -- like from the core of the city OUT it could be planned out better over time rather than the "blind folded dart board" method my town appears to be using.
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Your post shows an incredible lack of historical knowledge.
LA was designed as a city with huge light rail (Trolley) network. They were called street cars, and were incredible. It was incredibly successful, having almost a monopoly on inner city travel, with few if any buses or cars.
GM, Firestone Tires, Standard Oil of California and others actively worked to destroy this system. They were caught, arrested and convicted of monopoly attempts on 'supply', but not convicted on attempts to monopolize control.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me translate your first clause: "Car drivers are entitled little shits that think they are the only ones on the road and thus don't have to pay attention."
Correct.
One of the fisrt things you have to learn if you cycle is to go right down the middle of the lanes and block any cars behind you. If you ride on the side of the road then there'll be a constant stream of asshole drivers squeezing past you with 1" to spare.
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The US needs to build proper infrastructure, if they don't want their cars delayed by bicycles.
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In NYC, that applies to bikers. How many bike couriers don't cross through the red signal or weave in and out of traffic like it's an obstacle course. The fact more of them don't get killed is a miracle onto its own.
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Well, you tried, but you failed.
I believe that we should accommodate cyclists in reasonable ways. You can tell that's true because of the subject I chose. It wasn't "fuck them", now was it?
As someone who drives on the CA1 regularly, I can tell you that cyclists are every bit as entitled as drivers. Many think nothing of holding up whole lines of traffic so that they can enjoy a sightseeing trip along the coast, and they often use the full lane even when there is ample room to pull off. The law requires one
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Ditto (Score:3, Insightful)
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SF is like the suburbs compared to NYC traffic. I happily drive through downtown SF in my rented SUV when I visit with my family but wouldn't dream of trying to drive through Manhattan.
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I've done all those things too, and driving was by far my favorite. But it's been almost two decades since I lived there. I gave it up when my car was stolen from under my open window while I slept. I'm not fighting that kind of competence in crime.
I haven't seen any signs that traffic has gotten amazingly worse, though, since there's still such a housing shortage. It's hard to move more people into the city where they can become a problem.
I lived in bernal heights and worked in potrero hill, so maybe that'
That's great, but.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't count the number of times I've watched cyclists plainly ignore traffic signs or obligations to yield to pedestrians at controlled intersections or the like. As much as I think this is great for reducing the number of cars that need to on the road, I feel like the last thing that the city will need is more cyclists who don't actually have a clue about how to behave on public roads.
Require cyclists on public roads to get a license to do so, which proves they have at least passed a basic competency course for respectable road safety.
Re: That's great, but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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"the feeling of vulnerability bikers have as drivers squeeze by 10 inches or less away from them"
Is it not illegal to "share the lane" as it were? It most certainly is here.
0.9 m buffer zone (Score:2)
Sharing the lane is fine, so long as there's enough room for the motorist and the cyclist with 0.9 m or 36 inches of space between them. But often it becomes more difficult to fit motorist, 0.9 m, cyclist, 0.9 m on the other side, and a parallel-parked vehicle on one side of the street.
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Oh, I fully agree that dedicated lanes are ideal.
But I wish to hell that some sort of course was still required for people to go out on a public road, because I'm 90% sure that the idiots I will spot or that nearly plow right through me when I'm legally crossing at a crosswalk don't have a friggen clue
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Oh, I fully agree that dedicated lanes are ideal.
But I wish to hell that some sort of course was still required for people to go out on a public road, because I'm 90% sure that the idiots I will spot or that nearly plow right through me when I'm legally crossing at a crosswalk don't have a friggen clue
That's actually quite reasonable suggestion - as long as it's not turned into an overpriced driving school money making scheme. I think that passing a simple (and free) course about good road behaviour and traffic laws would be ideal.
Where's the money for dedicated lane retrofits? (Score:2)
You propose to ban sharing the lane. What solution would you recommend to fund retrofitting all* existing roads to add dedicated bike lanes so that cyclists can continue to use them without needing to share?
* Other than controlled-access highways with a minimum speed, for the sake of argument.
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I can't count the number of times I've watched cyclists plainly ignore traffic signs
I'm willing to bet you never even bothered to start counting the number of times cars do all the things you mentioned because you knew it would be futile from the onset, but thanks for trying with the cyclists.
Boring (Score:5, Interesting)
from the /. summary:
...Bill de Blasio and the City Council have agreed on a $1.7 billion plan...
When you create corridors for bikers you leave less space for cars, creating traffic congestion. Spending money does not solve the fundamental problem that there is too much traffic and not enough space. It's closed-sum because you can't move skyscrapers.
Unless...
Elon Musk estimates [citylab.com] the price of Boring Company tunnels at $10 million / mile. So for $1.7 billion, you he could build 170 miles of tunnels. For reference, Manhattan is 13.4 miles long.
It is not necessarily the bikers who should be shunted underground, tunnels could relieve above-ground traffic in any form, making space for bikers.
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Simple, just add very expensive toll booths to reduce congestion, increase use of the bike lanes, and pay for the project. Wish I was joking.
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Well, obviously, the ones taking up the most space should be penalised for it. That's cars, in case you hadn't noticed. In both absolute numbers, and space per passenger.
Also, the hard rule: the more infrastructure you create for cars, the more people will drive. This is not contestable. So it is time the drivers start sacrificing; the rest of us have been paying for them for 75 years, and now the bill is due.
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Well, obviously, the ones taking up the most space should be penalised for it. That's cars, in case you hadn't noticed. In both absolute numbers, and space per passenger.
Excellent point.
Also, the hard rule: the more infrastructure you create for cars, the more people will drive. This is not contestable. So it is time the drivers start sacrificing; the rest of us have been paying for them for 75 years, and now the bill is due.
Indeed.
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When you create corridors for bikers you leave less space for cars, creating traffic congestion.
I hate traffic congestion. If traffic gets any worse I may start cycling to work.
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It's a good point, but IMO the wrong direction.
For probably less money, less risk, and ultimately a nicer NY they could go UP.
cf https://www.thehighline.org/ [thehighline.org]
Minneapolis and St Paul (for weather reasons 8 months of the year) are entirely connected at the first+ level above ground (1st floor for Euros, 2nd floor in US parlance) by skyways. NY has a milder climate so using the principle (and hell, probably some of the existing foundations still buried in the pavement) they could build some significant park/bi
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How crazy is this?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Every one of these articles that talks about safer cycling devolves into people with cars discussing why its OK to be an asshole to people on bikes. I just don't get it. If a bike hits your car, the biker gets hurt. If a car hits a biker, the biker gets hurt.
The entire idea that cars should "own the road" needs to go. It's time to give the streets back to people.
--
Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. - Mark Twain
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It's about selfish car owners being selfish, and literally nothing else. Even with projects that help bicycles and don't take anything away from cars they raise their voice, because it seems that they believe that any increase in cycling means less cars, and less cars makes them afraid that bikers are gonna take their cars away - so in their mind they already have justification to be total assholes to cyclists, but in the internet they need more than their own selfishness to justify their thinking, and that
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It's time to give the streets back to people.
There are more people in cars on the road than people on bikes.
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"The entire idea that cars should "own the road" needs to go. It's time to give the streets back to people."
You have to offer people in cars a reasonable alternative. Neither bicycles nor chevrolegs are adequate automobile substitutes. And for many, nor is any form of mass transit. We built this nation (as we know it today) around the car, and we'll have to rebuild it once more if we want to end the dominance of the automobile. Those roads were literally built for cars.
"Every one of these articles that talk
Comparisons like this probably aren't fair, but (Score:2)
NYC is 50 times bigger (population-wise) than the town where I live.
And even with this expansion they'll still only have about 5 times as many miles of bike lanes.
I should probably check area too: (NYC is between 5 and 6 times bigger) Okay, by that comparison I guess they're not much different.
The comparison is ridiculous anyway.and I didn't even consider the surrounding area.
Protected bike lanes can be overrated. (Score:5, Insightful)
Protected bike lanes, if done correctly, can probably improve safety.
But around here, we have a lot of poorly designed protected bike lanes.
For example, how many drivers look behind them when making a left hand turn? Not many. Yet we have designed two-way bike protected bike lanes that run along one side of the road, meaning that every left hand car driver is going to cross the path of a bike coming from behind them. Or we put a two-way offstreet bike lane where a sidewalk would normally go, which leads to the same problem. Not a smart design.
We also put protected bike lanes between the curb and the line of parked cars. This leads to a situation where turning vehicles have to be looking for bicyclists behind parked vehicles.
Quite frankly, any bike infrastructure that puts bicyclists where drivers aren't expecting them is dangerous. It doesn't matter how "protected" the lane is - surprises lead to crashes, and due to the speed and weight of most motor vehicles, such crashes will end badly for cyclists.
Ideally, there should be a multi-prong approach - teaching drivers to respect bicyclists. Teaching bicyclists to respect traffic control. Teaching traffic control systems to recognize bicyclists. And finally, for routes that have a large amount of bicyclist traffic, building dedicated infrastructure, which may include protected bike lanes.
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Part of the problem are also (dumb) pedestrians who just outright ignore the bike lane:
Wheelie across the Brooklyn bridge [youtu.be]
You are right though -- education is the second step towards changing the problem. Motorists, Bicyclists, and Pedestrians need to respect one another. Sadly it is just a few that give a bad name for everyone else.
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> Motorists, Bicyclists, and Pedestrians need to respect one another.
They do, but it's important to note that there is an asymmetry here. The pedestrian is in charge of under 100kg of soft flesh at 6kph, the cyclist in charge of the same plus 10kg of metal at 15kph, the driver in charge of 1000kg at 100kph.
So the respect needs to reflect this and the onus needs to be on the person in control of a car, rather than the person on their feet. It's the same logic that we apply to say that ownership and use an
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You have that very backward. The person walking and the cyclist are both more manoeuvrable while being less visible (while being significantly less regulated and less likely to be punished for breaking laws).
Respect needs to be both ways but a canoe always yields to a grain tanker.
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I and every other bicycle professional out there would agree with you. Physically separated infraestructure protects against collisions from over-taking vehicles, but they make intersections much, MUCH more dangerous.
Education and enforcement by far outweigh engineering in the realm of bicycle safety. However, education is so difficult and time-consuming for most to imagine that people would rather throw billions of dollars at an engineering solution because they can understand physical barriers.
Many of the
Revenue? (Score:2)
The fourth power of axle weight (Score:3)
Engineers estimate road surface wear as proportional to the fourth power of axle weight. This means a 200 pound (90 kg) bicycle with cyclist causes an estimated one ten-thousandth of the wear and tear on the road surface compared to a 2,000 pound (900 kg) automobile with motorist. At that rate, road use tax for cyclists becomes too cheap to meter.
Auto drivers held to very low standards (Score:3, Insightful)
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And yes, people should be at least apprehensive on their morning commute. They're driving large, dangerous vehicles, and they should be very, VERY fucking careful. If it's too scary (and I admit, it should be), then people should adjust their lifestyles accordingly. I think it's twisted that as a
After Spike In Deaths, New York To Get 250 Miles.. (Score:2)
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Enforce the traffic laws (Score:2)
I don't know about anyone else but local cops have all but given up on enforcing traffic laws. Ghetto rules now apply so blow through all the stop signs and red lights with impunity. Remember that the car with the most dents has the right of way. I'm not saying I want Virginia style laws where speeding is like manslaughter or towns that exist solely to generate tickets. But seeing people ticketed for dangerous driving would be nice. Black drivers have a new move now at red lights. They creep along the curb
The problem with bike lanes (Score:3)
Picture in the article (Score:2)
Did anyone else notice that the picture in the article is of a cyclist turning to head the wrong way down a one way street?
I ride my bike to work almost every day and the number of fellow cyclists who do not follow any rules of the road bothers me just as much as the cars that don't. I have almost been hit by fellow riders who were shocked that I stopped at a stop sign. As far as the barriers, I think it will help, you would not believe the number of people that are unable to stay out of the bike lane. Bar
It won't stop... (Score:2)
It won't stop a terrorist in a rented truck from mowing down everyone in a "protected" bike lane though.
Problems on both sides (Score:3)
More bike deaths because LOTS more bicyclists (Score:2)
Re: Will that even help (Score:5, Interesting)
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Wow, people are getting literally twice that to drive out here in California, in areas anyway. Transit bus driver jobs pay so well here I'm seriously considering giving up the usual Californian vice. That's a federal requirement. We have a bus, so I already know how to drive one, though ours is only 30' long. But it's not rocket surgery. The biggest problem is that they don't let you go armed, though some buses at least have a jack handle for manual operation of the chair lift (which is generally electro-hy
Re: Will that even help (Score:4, Informative)
Transit drivers in NY make around $75,000 a year. I don't know why people lie about things you can just go look up.
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Transit drivers in NY make around $75,000 a year. I don't know why people lie about things you can just go look up.
And with cost of living in NYC it is effectively the same as making $30k in a reasonably priced city.
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Because they think most people are too lazy to look it up, and are probably right.
Often the post a link that debunks their own claim, assuming that people will think that citing a source gives them credibility without the need to check out.
But note you avoiding damage... (Score:3)
I have biked extensively in NYC and had a few close calls with box trucks
Me too, but notice both you and I actually didn't get hit? It's because we were biking at a reasonable speed. It's the people that are going too fast that get hurt by the trucks because they can't avoid last minute changes.
Re: But note you avoiding damage... (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, I haven't died because the dice just haven't rolled craps yet. I do my best to be safe. My one bike wreck; it was lightly raining, biking at a reasonable speed my foot slipped off the pedal and I literally fell over into the street at slow speed. I've had my chain break as I accelerate to cross an intersection, leaving me sitting in the intersection with a one way stop and a car coming at me. Random shit happens on bikes all the times, you try your best to avoid it, but at some point something dangerous will happen. You will fall, probably into a road at an inconvenient moment and you'll be at the mercy of the other people on the road. Hopefully they aren't one of the man-boys on Slashdot with murder fantasies.
Contemplating real world risks is difficult. Everyone has a cognitive survival bias. We believe we can beat the odds, because imagining the world as full of random dangers is stressful and paralyzing. So, we make assumptions that the people who died must have been idiots or doing something wrong, because that's the only way to maintain the fantasy that we are somehow beating the house. The problem is when that bias informs policy or individuals behavior (bikers/drivers/pedestrians taking undue risks that endanger themselves and others).
So, yeah, dangerous bikers will die at a higher rate, but safe bikers will also die. Adding protected bike lanes will change the distribution of adverse events and reduce the consequences.
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For those of us not familiar with your colloquialisms (slang), what the hell is a "box truck". Is it like a "box cutter" (also some form of Yankee slang). Took ages to figure out what the hell that was.
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Box trucks are especially dangerous
In the cited article you'll note that it was "a cycling enthusiast who had just moved to the city". So, perhaps someone who wasn't familiar with riding in dense traffic.
We are getting set to have the same conflicts in Seattle. There is a section of roadway that the cycling activists (not actual riders) say they "simply MUST have" that runs through a commercial/industrial section of town. The city originally proposed a bicycle route parallel to but a few blocks away. But the activists won't have anything ot
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Ive see two bike deaths in NYC, one was a guy zipping out from between two cars without looking and the other was a guy blowing a red light.
i would like to see the data on these 25 deaths they registered, willing to bet in many of them the biker was at fault.
Re: Will that even help (Score:3)
Re:Will that even help (Score:5, Insightful)
Aaah yes, the 20mph quantum speed. Quantum because it's simulteneously outrageously, recklessly fast (when cycled), and unbelievably, unreasonably slow (when someone tries to set or enforce a 20 limit, or a driver is stuck behind a cyclist doing 20).
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I feel like a lot of the bike deaths are from frankly asshole bikers.
Speaking of which, are those legendary crazy messenger bikers still a thing in NYC, or have they been replaced by Slack messages?
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Bike messengers are still a thing because of Uber Eats, et al..
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I feel like a lot of the bike deaths are from frankly asshole bikers. I say that as someone who has biked to travel across NYC and other big cities a few times, I go at a moderate pace and am careful about traffic but others are weaving in and out of other bikes and traffic. If you get seriously hurt on a bike from any accidental collision, it seems like you are going way too fast for conditions. In a crowded city you just cannot safely go that fast... protected bike lines may help a little but not much.
Agreed
The linked article has a picture of an intersection where a boy was killed. Did anyone notice that the cyclist in the picture is going the wrong way up a one-way street and on the wrong side of the road?
Welcome to America, wrong-way cyclist (Score:2)
As a bicycle commuter in a midwestern US city, I occasionally see wrong-way cyclists. I greet them with a smile and "Welcome to America!"
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Less roads, less cars...
That helps with city politics.
Re:Will that even help (Score:4, Informative)
I feel like a lot of the bike deaths are from frankly asshole bikers. I say that as someone who has biked to travel across NYC and other big cities a few times, I go at a moderate pace and am careful about traffic but others are weaving in and out of other bikes and traffic. If you get seriously hurt on a bike from any accidental collision, it seems like you are going way too fast for conditions. In a crowded city you just cannot safely go that fast... protected bike lines may help a little but not much.
Maybe it's part of the general expectation in the USA that everything has to be as extreme as possible or it's not worth doing. People on bikes there like to be riding expensive bikes and clearly working out as they ride, showing everybody around them who's boss.
Over in Europe they're much more relaxed.
Turning left without weaving (Score:2)
I go at a moderate pace and am careful about traffic but others are weaving in and out of other bikes and traffic.
I was taught that cyclists are supposed to stay in the right half of the right lane, or behind the right-side wheels of motorists in front, in order to facilitate overtaking. (USA drives on the right.) But for a cyclist preparing for a left-hand turn, this raises the question of exactly when and how to change from the rightmost through lane to the left turn lane. Is there a safe way for a cyclist to cross two lanes of through traffic to reach the turn lane without "weaving"?
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to make a left in heavy traffic, you stay far right, go through intersection, and stop at the far side of the intersection at the crosswalk. wait for light to change. then go left.
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Was this guy an asshole biker?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Considering the regularity that people are killed in crosswalks, on sidewalks, in doughnut shops, and virtually anywhere else, and always by motorists, shows who is the real menace. It's motorists.
Mixing cyclists into traffic doesn't cause problems. Mixing motor vehicles does.
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CA requires cars and other vehicles to keep 36 inches away from bikes.
In my city, many of the roads have been re-marked so that there is a bike lane about 3 feet wide, then a marked "island" about 3 feet wide. Naturally, this means that the remaining lanes have been narrowed down so that wide vehicles take up all the width of the lanes and frequently go into the neighbouring lane.
I hope it makes it safer for bikes, because it's more dangerous for cars.
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CA requires cars and other vehicles to keep 36 inches away from bikes.
IN states where this is a requirement, you will see bikers using the "3 feet of separation" hand signal that is supposed to keep drivers aware of the law.
Unfortunately, this gesture looks just like a certain other highway gesture that elicits road rage.
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CA requires cars and other vehicles to keep 36 inches away from bikes.
IN states where this is a requirement, you will see bikers using the "3 feet of separation" hand signal that is supposed to keep drivers aware of the law.
Unfortunately, this gesture looks just like a certain other highway gesture that elicits road rage.
That actually made me chuckle... And yes, it is funny - in dark humour fashion.
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CA requires cars and other vehicles to keep 36 inches away from bikes.
But do they require that cyclists keep 36 inches away from other vehicles? Like where cars are waiting in line for a traffic light and the bicycles squeeze by in the foot or two space to the curb. Every few years, we have a cyclist killed trying to sneak by a dump truck that is in the right lane, turning right. They used to put up those ghost bicycles where one got killed. But they stopped when they figured that a bunch of grey bikes hanging on poles all over was discouraging riding.
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The plan, as stated, costs $6.8 million per mile.
$6.8 million per mother fucking mile.
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Read more.
The 1.7 billion is for the entire 5-year street safety plan, which covers a whole lot of stuff in addition to the bike lanes. It's not even remotely 6.8 million per mile.
However, when governments cough up 6.8 million per lane mile for a freeway, you probably don't even give it a second thought.
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If done correctly, when they do end up getting hit too hard for the paint to protect them. It could double as a chalk outline, marking where they fell.
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I'm pretty sure that only an idiot would think that it means a layer of paint. That's just stupid, and you know it. Pretending to be so bad at understanding what people actually mean by something that you have to ask questions like 'does physically separated mean a layer of paint in between, because paint is physical?' may be common behaviour on the internet and could make stupid people feel smart about themselves, but it's not very intelligent activity, it's just being a smartass.
I mean, read this aloud an
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I'm pretty sure that only an idiot would think that it means a layer of paint.
You spelled "car driver" wrong.
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When they say 'physically separated', what do they mean? Paint is certainly physical, and they could layer the coats for multiple times the protection of just a single coat stripe.
Around here the cycle lanes are separated from the cars by a row of kerbstones embedded in the street.
Maybe they're thinking of something like that.
Re: Not cool (Score:2)
Imagine in front of buildings you have a sidewalk, then a bike lane, then a parking lane, then a car lane.
Re: Bad Assumption (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
You are wrong in this case, the door openings deaths.
In the linked article above, https://www.amny.com/transit/c... [amny.com], you can see it wasn't gutter snipes.
All the cyclists that died from the opening car door all died because the drivers side door was opened into the traffic lane and the cyclist fell/knocked into traffic and was run over. Not the cyclists fault.
Re: (Score:3)
If the bicyclist was able to be hit by a car opening a door, that is the cyclists fault.
God, I hope someone hasn't let you pass the driving test.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, and nothing ever is the fault of car drivers - they are all experienced and careful, none of them ever does anything stupid, while all bicycle drivers are obviously lunatics and maniacs just waiting to drive in front of you.
Re: (Score:2)
How dare people bike in the biking lane!
Re: (Score:2)
they get filled with pedestrians
It must be really annoying to have such slow and unpredictable obstacles in your path.