Anyone Read The Art of Urban Cycling by Robert Hurst?
11-07-21, 07:15 AM
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, the separated-infrastructure situation has changed dramatically in NYC, Minneapolis, Chicago, and DC, among other places, and everyday ridership by people who aren't bike hobbyists has increased dramatically. Hurst's outlook might have made sense in the '90s, when nobody could imagine that U.S. streets could change. Nowadays, it seems mostly irrelevant.
11-07-21, 08:07 AM
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I don't even know how you'd test such a proposition. Sorry, but that's a ridiculous assertion. Basically, "if x was riding like y, then this wouldn't have happened" is not testable because you'd have to prove a counterfactual event. Data just doesn't work that way.
11-07-21, 08:18 AM
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Honestly, I don't think anyone reads these books to learn to ride safely. Experienced riders read them to see whether or not the author agrees with them.
I think this whole "intensive cyclist ed" approach has been a colossal failure, and pretty much everyone else has moved on. This thread should probably go into the VC sub.
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11-07-21, 08:42 AM
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I don't even know how you'd test such a proposition. Sorry, but that's a ridiculous assertion. Basically, "if x was riding like y, then this wouldn't have happened" is not testable because you'd have to prove a counterfactual event. Data just doesn't work that way.
11-07-21, 08:44 AM
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Honestly, I don't think anyone reads these books to learn to ride safely. Experienced riders read them to see whether or not the author agrees with them.
I think this whole "intensive cyclist ed" approach has been a colossal failure, and pretty much everyone else has moved on. This thread should probably go into the VC sub.
I think this whole "intensive cyclist ed" approach has been a colossal failure, and pretty much everyone else has moved on. This thread should probably go into the VC sub.
11-07-21, 08:44 AM
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In the seventeen years since Hurst's book came out, and the eleven years since this thread started, the separated-infrastructure situation has changed dramatically in NYC, Minneapolis, Chicago, and DC, among other places, and everyday ridership by people who aren't bike hobbyists has increased dramatically. Hurst's outlook might have made sense in the '90s, when nobody could imagine that U.S. streets could change. Nowadays, it seems mostly irrelevant.
Where can I read about the dramatic increase in everyday ridership in NYC, Minneapolis, Chicago, and DC that indicates a significantly higher percentage of the population in those cities are everyday bicycle riders?
11-07-21, 09:49 AM
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Can you please post a credible reference that substantiates the dramatic increase in everyday ridership by people who aren't bike hobbyists. Please no reference to stats that document dramatic increases only in percentage terms based on total growth of everyday ridership numbers that increased from an abysmally low percentage of the public to a slightly less infinitesimally low percentage of the population.
Where can I read about the dramatic increase in everyday ridership in NYC, Minneapolis, Chicago, and DC that indicates a significantly higher percentage of the population in those cities are everyday bicycle riders?
Where can I read about the dramatic increase in everyday ridership in NYC, Minneapolis, Chicago, and DC that indicates a significantly higher percentage of the population in those cities are everyday bicycle riders?
https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloa...n-the-city.pdf
11-07-21, 09:56 AM
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Here you go. Slides 11, 12, and 18 will be of particular interest:
https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloa...n-the-city.pdf
https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloa...n-the-city.pdf
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11-07-21, 11:16 AM
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No, tell us. Possibly something about "growth" all the way to 48,000 bicycle commuters (including bicycle hobbyists) in a city where approx 3.7 million people commute everyday?
Questionable reports of bicycle ridership growth in NYC and misrepresentation of incomplete and inaccurate data about bicycle ridership to support a desired agenda are nothing new in NYC.
See https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2...s-in-new-york/
Extract:
Questionable reports of bicycle ridership growth in NYC and misrepresentation of incomplete and inaccurate data about bicycle ridership to support a desired agenda are nothing new in NYC.
See https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2...s-in-new-york/
Extract:
But some critics are now arguing that bicycling is not nearly as popular in New York as the Transportation Department has claimed — and the dissent is coming from some of the region’s pre-eminent bicycling enthusiasts.
Current and former cycling advocates, although supportive of the city’s efforts, have questioned the accuracy of data that is often used to justify the expansion of bike lanes (and the elimination of traffic lanes).
“There has definitely been a significant increase in cycling in New York,” said John Pucher, a professor of planning at Rutgers University and the author of a wide-ranging report on cycling (pdf) released Monday. “But it’s not clear how big the increase has been, because there has not been a good measure of it.”
The numbers released by the Transportation Department, Dr. Pucher added, “are totally unrepresentative of New York City as a whole.”
The Transportation Department said the number of New Yorkers who bike to work grew by 26 percent in 2009, and that bicycle commuting has doubled in seven years. Using that data, Transportation Alternatives, an outspoken advocacy group, estimated that 236,000 New Yorkers ride bikes every day.
But those numbers are based on counts taken at popular biking spots like the East River bridges, the Hudson River bike path, and the Manhattan terminal of the Staten Island Ferry. Critics argue that these figures cannot be extrapolated to reflect bicycling trends elsewhere in the city, where gains have been slower.
Dr. Pucher said the city’s methodology may be inflating the actual growth of ridership in the city by as much as 100 percent. “It’s not a minor overstatement,” he said.
Current and former cycling advocates, although supportive of the city’s efforts, have questioned the accuracy of data that is often used to justify the expansion of bike lanes (and the elimination of traffic lanes).
“There has definitely been a significant increase in cycling in New York,” said John Pucher, a professor of planning at Rutgers University and the author of a wide-ranging report on cycling (pdf) released Monday. “But it’s not clear how big the increase has been, because there has not been a good measure of it.”
The numbers released by the Transportation Department, Dr. Pucher added, “are totally unrepresentative of New York City as a whole.”
The Transportation Department said the number of New Yorkers who bike to work grew by 26 percent in 2009, and that bicycle commuting has doubled in seven years. Using that data, Transportation Alternatives, an outspoken advocacy group, estimated that 236,000 New Yorkers ride bikes every day.
But those numbers are based on counts taken at popular biking spots like the East River bridges, the Hudson River bike path, and the Manhattan terminal of the Staten Island Ferry. Critics argue that these figures cannot be extrapolated to reflect bicycling trends elsewhere in the city, where gains have been slower.
Dr. Pucher said the city’s methodology may be inflating the actual growth of ridership in the city by as much as 100 percent. “It’s not a minor overstatement,” he said.
11-07-21, 03:01 PM
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Two examples here. If Hurst cautioned riders to avoid door zones and a cyclist was doored into traffic and killed, wouldn't that be a reasonable test. If Hurst advised riders not to ride into the blind spot of slow moving large trucks, dump trucks, and cement trucks, and a rider was killed when he entered the blind spot of a truck that subsequently turned into the rider, wouldn't that be a reasonable test?
I know you and a number of people on A&S think there's some value in second-guessing the dead, but it really proves nothing other than hindsight is 20/20.
And that's not even considering the obvious fact that disinterested accounts of what actually happened are hard to come by, and the facts of these crashes are highly likely to be contested.
Also, it seems pretty obvious to me that I could get into a situation where I have to choose between the door zone or somebody's blind spot.
Finally, does he have a patent on those rather obvious rules? I'm sure I didn't learn them from him directly or otherwise.
11-12-21, 05:52 AM
#36
OwainGyndwr
Remember receiving this book as a Christmas gift in 2007. I'd been a commuting cyclist starting in Chicago since 1987. It pretty much underscored what I'd learned by trial and error in 20 years of 4 season cycle commuting. It was a fun read, though. Wicked sense of humor.
