bikecrate

Our city is building separate bike lanes in the downtown area. I am not a fan. The intersections are dicey. They have two way flow on one way streets. Transitioning out of them to normal streets becomes a problem. I'd rather just go with the flow of traffic.

raria

You completely missed my points. I said we need separate but equal because judges, juries, DAs etc are not penalising drivers when they do hit cyclists. There is a belief in the USA that: 1) if you cycle on the road your intruding on a car's terittory and 2) If you are hit then your decision to cycle on the road mitigates the drivers responsibility.

I presented this example as an extreme case of someone who was so blatantly anti-cyclist, so blatantly in the wrong yet he was only sentence to not even 1/37th of the possible jail time.

As for France vs USA. Look at https://www.cyclehelmets.org/1258.html Do you see a trend on the french fatalities and the trend in the USA fatalities? Which trend would you prefer as a cyclist.

Maelochs

No dude. You are Completely missing my points to try to prove your point.

First ... many people here have ridden on the road all our lives---without separate bike lanes.

Second--separate bike lanes only work in certain situations, and only are even Possible in certain situations .. and in the specific situation you used to "prove" your point, wouldn't have helped.

Third---because it is NOT POSSIBLE to build separate lanes in all places, but it is ALWAYS POSSIBLE to reform the justice system ... why not choose the obviously better, the universal, and the right and just option?

I agree ... in some cases separate lanes Might help. Above, you can read a post by a poster who actually lives where separate lanes have been installed---and doesn't like them.

Separate lanes Can be an answer in certain situations. Holding drivers responsible for their action is Right All The Time.

As I mentioned before, drunk drivers used to get let off with a laugh ... now they lose their licenses. Also, crimes against many minorities which used to be ignored are now taken much more seriously (thought here is a long way to go.) Same with sexual assault---victim-blaming still happens, but nothing like how it used to be.

Anyway ... you just go on ignoring everyone who wants an honest discussion. It will get you far in life.

Jim from Boston

Separate but Equal is the Only Way To Ensure Bike Safety As a lifestyle cyclist for four decades, including a cross-USA tour, I have posted about separate bike lanes including this commendable, contrarian quote by @B. Carfree.

Furthermore, I'm not going to avoid cycling waiting for Nirvana to arrive.

Jim from Boston

BTW, I just noted this article this evening:
Seattle Not Boasting Its Bike Lanes The Daily Caller

prathmann

I think everyone get your points, but some of us disagree with your proposed solution. Your argument is that because there's a problem with the justice system not taking injuries to cyclists seriously enough we need to completely revamp our road infrastructure system. Given the huge expense and time required to do this, it would seem preferable to correct the problem with the justice system instead. The efforts of MADD and other groups were very successful in changing the attitudes of both society in general and the justice system to the problem of drunk driving. There are efforts underway to similarly change the attitude toward those who injure vulnerable road users (incl. both pedestrians and cyclists) with additional penalties. There is also increasing availability of video to aid in prosecution either by cyclists having cameras or by its availability from the city or business infrastructure in the vicinity. I see gradual improvement through these efforts as much more likely to be successful than asking for the huge capital outlay needed to redesign much of our road system.

Daniel4

What I learned the past few elections in both Canada and the US is that any new legislation, newly planned infrastructure can be cancelled by the next government who wins on the populous vote that what was supposed to be an improvement with far-sighted benefits are viewed as negatively impacting themselves in the short-term.

You can implement changes to the judicial system or build better traffic infrastructure but the vast majority of voters are motorists compared to cyclists so view such changes as targetting themselves as villians.

Jim from Boston

[

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daniel4

What I learned the past few elections in both Canada and the US is that any new legislation, newly planned infrastructure can be cancelled by the next government who wins on the populous vote that what was supposed to be an improvement with far-sighted benefits are viewed as negatively impacting themselves in the short-term.

You can implement changes to the judicial system or build better traffic infrastructure but the vast majority of voters are motorists compared to cyclists so view such changes as targetting themselves as villians.

Nicely said, @Daniel4. I agreed on this thread on the Living Car Free forum, “Your Motivation For Becoming Car-Free or Car-Light

Quote:

Originally Posted by prj71

I'm not car free or car light.

I drive a truck with a big V8 motor and put on about 20,000 miles a year mostly grouse hunting, trout fishing and mountain biking adventures. I use the truck to transport me and all my gear to hunting spots, trout streams and mountain bike trails.

My wife puts about 10,000/year on her car running to work, miscellaneous other errands and some recreational stuff.

I also have a fitness hybrid bike and sometimes commute by bike to work if I'm feeling ambitious in the morning and if the weather is nice.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SHBR

Why post here?

I can think of much better ways to waste time

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim from Boston

Actually, I think that @prj71’s post is relevant to this thread, at least as an opposing (majority) point of view.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim from Boston

I grew up in the Motor City where car is King, mass transit is a pauper and I know that attitude, even extant in Boston.

raria

Thanks. If you read through my initial post I also mentioned physics. Huge trucks of 1000s of tonnes of weight and bicyclist just can't coexist on roads without fatalities. But if you add in the justice systems biases you see why, as I posted earlier, https://www.cyclehelmets.org/1258.html the cylists fatalities are static in the US and have gone done much in countries such as France.

MADD worked because many people saw it as wrong. But as @Daniel4 mentions below most people will see this as this as bias against motorists and I'll contend most people see cyclist deaths a different way than a drunk driver caused death because they view the cyclist contributed to their own death.

jon c. 

In the US, drivers tend not to be penalized to a significant extent for hitting anything. If you're not intoxicated, it's an "accident" and drivers are given traffic citations if anything. I'm not sure there is really a unique disregard for cyclists.

Maelochs

Learn to ride your bike.

I have ridden across the U.S. south to north and west to east, as well as all around several states. i have shared the road with 18-wheelers and delivery trucks, pick-ups, cars, motorcycles, and other bikes.

I have ridden on interstate highways where the traffic was doing 70-80 mph, and small connector roads where the trucks were doing 35. And still, here I am.

Byt he way ... please do the Tiniest bit of research. Trucks in the U.S. are limited to 42 tons---84,000 Pounds.

Unless you regularly ride on roads used by battleships and aircraft carriers, you aren't meeting anything weighing thousands of tons.

Youu know, people have not Refuted your proposal. People have analyzed it and offered alternatives. People have pointed out where your proposal would and would not work.

Instead of digesting all this and learning and growing, you have taken to wildly exaggerating to prove a point which obviously doesn't convince any of the veteran road riders posting here.

Something like 800-900 riders die on the roads of America each year. A lot of them are drunk and riding without lights, with total disregard for traffic laws, and without sufficient awareness of traffic around them. (You can either google it, or look for links in other threads on this site ... some of the helmet threads should provide a lot of info.)

Some riders who are doing nothing wrong get hit by drunk, stupid, or mean drivers ... but that seems to be exceedingly rare.

And in a lot of the crash videos posted on this site, every experienced rider immediately sees where a cyclist put him-or herself in harms’ way---trying to ride head-down past a semi-trailer while ignoring its turn signals, or riding in a turn lane and then going straight.

In a lot of cases the driver was also not sufficiently attentive---but you would get a lot further training cyclists to ride heads-up than trying to build bike lanes where the cost would be prohibitive.

Tell me---why don't you seem to really know anything about your own topic?

You haven't come here with facts and figures, costs for the kinds of projects where they have actually been built (city budgets are usually public documents.) You haven't shown projections about the number of lives you think these projects you propose might save, and a dollar-per-death figure.

You haven't listened to alternatives.

In a Jim-From-Boston post above, it was suggested that what would provide greater safety would be separate bike lanes Not in a dense urban environment, where the number of side streets, and intersections make separate lanes problematical, but along major high-speed connecting roads---the roads cyclists have to share with fast-moving cars to get from city center to city center.

Those long, two- and four-lane roads, often with no shoulder, usually not well lit, where cars travel from 45-65 mph in my experience, are often through undeveloped land between towns and cities ... easy to build safe bike lanes there, instead of trying to shoehorn bike lanes into places where there is no room.

Another suggestion was building Serious bike lanes, eight feet wide, where if a car did move into the lane the rider could move out of the way.

I am glad that the solution that one city in France has chosen works … for you, at least. I like seeing systems which work. But to imagine that that is a universal solution is ridiculous.

As I noted in an earlier post, there is a poster here who lives in a city with segregated bike lanes and he finds them inconvenient and even risky because there are so many intersections, which were Not designed with bikes in mind, and “bike lane” markers don’t magically make cars stop.

I sort of understand why you are trying to “defend” your idea … but no one is attacking it. We are Discussing it and analyzing it. Not everyone agrees with all parts of it, and the people who do not have presented sound, logical objections. Not everyone disagrees with all parts of it …

But this idea you had is not some precious jewel which cannot even be polished … it is an idea, or a group of ideas, and as such consists of conceptual artifacts which can be examined, dissected, analyzed, and discussed.

What did you Think happened on internet forums?

If the fact that not everyone immediately accepted and fell in love with every aspect of you initial post bothers you, get off the internet.

Might I suggest cycling as an alternative activity?

Daniel4

Having stated what I stated, I believe in separated bike lanes and infrastructure based on the impasse and attitude of drivers that bad driving is the acceptable norm that cannot or will not be changed. If driving were to improve, then there would be no need of separated bike lanes. The infrastructure is for the protection of the minority who are the vulnerable road-users. But motorists don't see things that way. They view bike lanes as being "shoved down their throats" instead of bike lanes as the reponse to their own carelessness.



Fences make the best neighbours.

Maelochs

See above mentions of changes in drunk-driving habits. In which case the majority drivers would never vote to fund infrastructure for the minority, and the only way it would happen would be if it were indeed "shoved down their throats" by government decree.

But ... I am not sure the hostility some assume drivers have towards cyclists is real and what hostility there is might not be so focused. I think objections to bike infrastructure are based more on economics---"I sit every day in traffic for an hour for a 20-minute drive, and I see two bike-riders all day. yet instead of fixing the roads sop cars can actually get where they are going, they want to build more roads for bike-riders ... who don't even exist?"

That is the biggest issue ... as cyclists we think we are the norm, but even on a day where I mostly ride bike trails I see more cars than I do cyclists. As a cyclist I am very interested in cyclist safety ... but I am also a realist. I am outnumbered by at least 100-1, so for practical reasons at least, I don't expect a lot of the very limited budget to be spent on me.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving had an easier case, but Cyclists Against Dumb Drivers could have the same effect over time. And i'd bet mist local governments would rather buy a little TV time to play a PSA than build more roads (which cost some outrageous amount like $8-12 Million per mile.)

It comes down to best use of resources.

Further ... in a lot of cases bike lanes are simply impossible, in other places impractical, and in a lot of areas potentially dangerous (as a poster here with direct experience has noted.)

Further, for Most situations, I'd bet a solid wall of bendable plastic bollards would do as much for cyclist safety as steel or concrete barriers capable of stopping a speeding car ... and I'd bet instances of a speeding car actually cutting across a designated bike lane in a city is pretty rare (because otherwise, on this site, we'd be hearing about it.)

Before we start looking at tearing up roads and tearing down buildings to build lanes for bikes which might never show up anyway, we'd need to figure out where all the accidents are happening. Are a lot of people getting hit in the city? As I recall something like half the 800 cyclists killed while riding were intoxicated .... And in my experience, the skilled urban riders aren't at risk so much because they use common sense and have a healthy survival urge.

All the deliberate run-downs and drunk-driver assaults seem to happen on more rural roads ...

One can argue that more people would ride in urban areas if they felt it was safer ... but then, what would constitute "more"? Unless there were hordes of cyclists on the roads in city centers, segregated lanes might be really inefficient wastes of public funds .. and if there were hordes of cyclists, driver behavior would change anyway.

In China (in my experience) people view traffic laws as suggestions ... but somehow they managed to maneuver around huge fleets of cyclists in dense, busy city centers---without physically separated lanes.

I guess what i see, is people are giving up on changing driver behavior after basically no effort, and instead demanding that kids gt no school books so that the 17 cyclists that use a few roads a few times a week can have personal highways. it isn't going to happen and in my view, isn't right.

Good People make good neighbors.

Cranky old poets who hate humankind might prefer stone walls ... but sane, intelligent people don't need physical barriers to keep them in line. And bad people will simply ignore the physical barriers---or fight over exactly where the property line might be.

As I have said repeatedly ... in some certain situations segregated lanes Might be the best solution for maintaining cycling safety ... but everyone is looking for a panacea and there are many, many diseases which cannot be cured with a single nostrum, no matter how well advertised.

Every street is different.

Also ... it seems to me that All these threads are started by a minority of a minority .. a very few folks who ride in cities, don't feel safe, and don't like it. Sort of, a very tiny wheel is squeaking Really loudly and just won't quit.

Show me numbers about cycling safety in urban environments, then we can talk.

squirtdad

Separate will never be equal, and has a high risk for separate and unequal: I.e limit bikes to the segregated infrastructure

Also many 'Separate" designs offer only the illusion of safety over painted bike lane, as an example a segregated lane, that does not have a barrier sufficient to stop a car or the design where parked cars are the buffer, introduction the problem of visibility at street crossings and pedestrians, etc using the lane

bikes have to go door to door, and most front doors of homes are not going to have a segregated bike infrastructure in front of them

over all not real world, workable idea. It can be a small part of the solution, but it is not the solution

MoAlpha

InOmaha

Odd. The last time I was in Paris, I didn't see seperated bike infrastructure. Or a higher amount of bike lanes then any other dense city. I dont remember anything that looked like what was in the OP. There were a lot of smaller motorized scooters mixed with traffic. If I saw a bike, it was one of those heavy gray rental bikes mixed in with rather heavy local car traffic. But maybe they just stuck out so I noticed them.

Like this,

squirtdad

this was similar to my observations when I spent week in paris 2 years ago.......lot's of crazy scooter riders, bikes in the mix with car traffic and not much infrastructure. I was staying i the vicinity of the Eiffel tower

raria

The example I referred to was in many areas (but of course not downtown near the Eifel tower!) there are dedicated bus lanes which bikes are allowed to use.

It's a clever win win situation as public transportation is faster than cars (due to the dedicated lanes) and cyclists get their own pathway (most of the time).

Leebo

Can't compare the US to Europe. Over there people actually want to ride bikes and do their share for the environment( for the most part) Longtime MA commuter. Cars are king, until gas hits say $ 6, not much will change. I used to ride the tandem with my daughter to soccer games, maybe 3 miles. All the parents thought that was such a long way. Lol. There have been some bike, positive changes like bike lanes and bike paths, slowly.