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'Are Bike Lanes Really Safe?' asks Jane Brody

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'Are Bike Lanes Really Safe?' asks Jane Brody

Old 04-09-20, 01:35 PM
  #26  
livedarklions
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Originally Posted by Leisesturm
Some ... perhaps the majority of cyclists would so abuse legislation like that that regular motor traffic would essentially be held to the moving average of the average cyclist. Civil disobedience would soon ensue. Lives would be lost ... more lives than presently. It would not be pretty at all. I would go as far as to suggest that non-essential motor traffic should never have been allowed in city centers. Of course, legislation like you suggest might get more out on bicycles. For a taste of what that could be like ... well, what are the roads like right now in your locale? I'm personally enjoying being on the half empty streets quite a bit. May things never get back to normal ...

Nonsense--that's basically the law in MA, and nothing like that is occurring. No one seems to want to spend a lot of time in the middle of the lane at 15 mph, and cars get pretty much the same amount of room to pass as they do anywhere else.

I ride in NH and MA. NH is a FRAP state, MA allows use of the entire lane. People ride just about the same in both places.
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Old 04-09-20, 01:46 PM
  #27  
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Originally Posted by Leisesturm
There is nowhere where bicycles have blanket protection to use the full lane. It is always under some kind of proviso: 1. a sharrow, which allows complete access to the full lane only on roads designated as sharrows. Motor traffic can avoid those roads and if they can't, the inconvenience is temporary. OR 2. only for the specific purpose of object avoidance in a bike lane then a bicycle must let motor traffic pass unobstructed. Legislation like proposed would make every urban road a defacto sharrow. There would be no way for motorists to blow off steam. I don't see that working. I don't see it not having unintended consequences.

Wrong. Please show anywhere in MA law where there is any such proviso.
You're just making things up.
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Old 04-09-20, 02:55 PM
  #28  
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Originally Posted by livedarklions
Wrong. Please show anywhere in MA law where there is any such proviso.
You're just making things up.
You just aren't happy unless you are fighting with someone. A look at your posting history is pretty eye opening. Here. www.massbike.org/laws - "You may ride two abreast, but must facilitate passing traffic. This means riding single file when faster traffic wants to pass (ed. not when you think it's safe), or staying in the right-most lane on a multi-lane road." That doesn't sound like carte blanche to hog travel lanes. Which was my point. In response to a poster who suggested "It would be a huge money and time saver to simply have the laws say, "Bicycles may use the full lane. Deal with it." Then it would become an expected aspect of driving culture." In Portland a lot of the roads in fact say exactly this. But not all of them. Which (again) was my point. Look, we are all cranky and bored right now but I don't really appreciate your quibbling over a point I made a week or more ago. Keep up or leave me alone. But if not ... well I have time on my hands as well. Bring it.
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Old 04-09-20, 08:38 PM
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Originally Posted by Leisesturm
You just aren't happy unless you are fighting with someone. A look at your posting history is pretty eye opening. Here. www.massbike.org/laws - "You may ride two abreast, but must facilitate passing traffic. This means riding single file when faster traffic wants to pass (ed. not when you think it's safe), or staying in the right-most lane on a multi-lane road." That doesn't sound like carte blanche to hog travel lanes. Which was my point. In response to a poster who suggested "It would be a huge money and time saver to simply have the laws say, "Bicycles may use the full lane. Deal with it." Then it would become an expected aspect of driving culture." In Portland a lot of the roads in fact say exactly this. But not all of them. Which (again) was my point. Look, we are all cranky and bored right now but I don't really appreciate your quibbling over a point I made a week or more ago. Keep up or leave me alone. But if not ... well I have time on my hands as well. Bring it.
You slagging on anyone's posting history for being contentious is hilarious. Also hilarious is your absurdly selective quoting of that website. You're quoting the rules for riding two abreast in the same lane, which is a right bicyclists have and no other vehicles on the road do. Classic example of how not to read a statute.

From the same website:
  • Motorists must stay a safe distance to the left of a bicyclist (or any other vehicle) when passing. Motorists are also prohibited from returning to the right until safety clear of the bicyclist.
  • Motorists must pass at a safe distance. If the lane is too narrow to pass safely, the motorist must use another lane to pass, or, if that is also unsafe, the motorist must wait until it is safe to pass.
Sounds a lot like "bikes are going to be in the traffic lane, deal with it" to me.

In practice, riders don't really want to be in the middle of the traffic lane, which was my original point. You're just plain wrong about how we behave when we're given this discretion.

Nerdiest internet tough guy act ever, btw.

Do yourself and everyone else a favor and try not to lecture incorrectly about laws in jurisdictions we ride in and you don't. I have tens of thousands of miles of riding in MA, and I'm extremely familiar with the statutes and a fair amount of the local ordinances.

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Old 04-11-20, 12:31 PM
  #30  
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Originally Posted by CrankyOne
This: https://streets.mn/2013/10/04/do-we-...-bike-lanes-2/

There are a lot of reasons why you don't see bike lanes in Europe like you do in the U.S. They are simply a not good idea.
Bicycling in The Netherlands didn’t happen overnight. It took years of effort to accomplish what they have today. In the 1960’s they were not much different than the U.S. They were on the same car-dominant trajectory.

One major difference may be that The Netherlands didn’t have a contingent of ‘cyclists’ running stop signs and pushing for share-the-road vehicular cycling—bicycles doing battle with cars. They started off with segregated bicycle facilities that 40 years ago were safer and more inviting than what we build today and call state of the art. They started with the idea that all children should be able to safely ride their bikes to school or the store. How many rational parents would let their 8-year-old ride by themselves to school on those Park and Portland bike lanes?

We can continue with this interim step of bike lanes for the daring 2% and wait 40 years for something better, or we can skip this step and go directly to a much safer and more inviting infrastructure for everyone that will get many more people riding much sooner.
I'm sorry but this just isn't true. It's thrue that the Netherlands was on a car dominant trajectory but not at the same stage or even the same trajectory. We had a war, occupation and a country to rebuild, so mass driving only happened in the 60's. And it happened fast, the country fell madly in love with the car but still lots of people were cycling or at least had been cycling a lot till recently, they still remembered. So the conflict was not only pretty deadly, it was also very clear. People were losing cycling, and losing their streets for kids to play in, and they knew it. That coincided with 60's counterculture changing the mainstream and harmonizing with it: ordinary conservative parents wanted the streets back for their kids just as much as the hippies and the revolutionairies, and breaking down 17th to 19th century blocks to make space for highways through town and parking lots didn't go down well with everybody either. Also the Netherlands was particularly hard hit by the oil crisis.

Infrastructure didn't make the difference, it was law. Progressive politicians in my hometown for example decided that cars could only drive certain streets in certain directions in city centres to make sure they didn't pass through, but only drove there if their destination was there and they had to take their time. This greatly reduced the number of cars, which made the bicycles come back and the centres enjoyable for shoppers, diners and drinkers again. Specific cycling infrastructure followed the demand created, but there was still a lot pre WWII cyclepathes in the countryside and there were things like 'woonerfs', neighbourhoods with often cul de sacs where cars had to drive at walking pace like any time a kid could run out in front chasing a football, because they did. .

About two decades later in the 90's, bikes were made equal to cars in terms of priority, and drivers liability changed threefold. They had to anticipate to cyclists normal behaviour, legal or not, including drunk cyclists or irresponsible kids, the burden of proof was on the driver and even if managed to prove he could do nothing about it, he would be liabel for the part of the damage caused by his choice of vehicle, as in cars can cause a lot of medical costs by beeing heavy and fast, and are more expensive to repair than a bike. That ignited a change in driver mentality, not just though driving lessons and exams to get the licence, but by the late 90's drivers had resigned to the fact they couldn't hurry with cyclists and pedestrians around. Peace broke out, Dutch cyclists were and still are as anarchistic as any cyclists and the rules of the road are more a consideration in a decision than closely followed. Running red lights is common place, it's just done a bit friendlier, with more consideration for the cars now.

An important difference is that drivers have to expect cyclists everywhere all the time, except for the highways. Numbers of cyclists matter, their number made it work before the infrastructure was at the current level and even before the liability laws changes. It wasn't a safe back then and certainly didn't feel as safe, but safe enough to work. So I understand where the author of this article want to go, but it's very much like building a bridge. You don't need to justify a bridge by pointing at the number of people swimming across the river, but you also can't design a bridge without considering that it has to be structurally sound during construction. A brigde that can only stay upright when it's finished and doesn't with parts still having to be constructed won't get build. So you're not only have to design a cycling city but also design the process to get there and get the important number of cyclists growing.

This video makes some good points, his whole channel makes a lot of sense. Amsterdam is actually quite cycling unfriendly by Dutch standards and he's very enthousiastic about Amsterdam, but that's not the point of this video.
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Old 04-13-20, 07:25 PM
  #31  
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Depends on how they are built. The Main one here in Lincoln is separated from driving lanes by a 4 foot island that has rocks and bushes on it. It is also protected by barrier poles at intersections, and has its own street lights that let cyclist go first.
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