Bike lanes

[pete6032]

Would you like more bike lanes in your community?

 

[Zorba]

I'd like more well designed bike trails with limited car crossings.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Hell I'd settle for sidewalks... Bike lanes would be a luxury.

 

[Ajay]

No, but the way the city sets them up is stupid. It's safer not to have them because they are confusing, and occasional just start, or stop in unexpected places. So, it's all in the implementation (and the city doesn't have the ability to widen the roads or anything like that).

 

[Charmonium]

Hell I'd settle for sidewalks... Bike lanes would be a luxury.

We fought that years ago. No one wanted to be responsible for their maintenance, winter snow shoveling, etc. Those would have been requirements.

A nearby town has really ancient sidewalks and they're more of a pedestrian hazard than anything. There are so many places where the walks are buckled, cracked, lifted up by huge tree roots, etc. My ex used to trip over them all of the time when I lived there. I could never understand that,.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

We just have a ditch that carries water to the sewers and I'm like bury that shit and put a sidewalk on top, not hard.

Those drainage ditches are not only useless but make walking and biking on these narrow ass roads even more dangerous.

But no, that would ruin the "aesthetic" and "character" of our bohemian little village.

 

[WelshBloke]

We fought that years ago. No one wanted to be responsible for their maintenance, winter snow shoveling, etc. Those would have been requirements.

A nearby town has really ancient sidewalks and they're more of a pedestrian hazard than anything. There are so many places where the walks are buckled, cracked, lifted up by huge tree roots, etc. My ex used to trip over them all of the time when I lived there. I could never understand that,.

Whose responsibility is the maintenance of the road the pavement is right next to and why can't they be maintained the same way?

 

[WelshBloke]

I'd have to know more about the bike lane. My city did this...

Norwich cycle path risks becoming 'meme for inept design'

Cyclists say the path, with tree pits built into it, risks turning Norwich into 'a laughing stock'.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[pete6032]

We just have a ditch that carries water to the sewers and I'm like bury that shit and put a sidewalk on top, not hard.

Those drainage ditches are not only useless but make walking and biking on these narrow ass roads even more dangerous.

But no, that would ruin the "aesthetic" and "character" of our bohemian little village.

I would imagine putting in storm sewer and sidewalks would lead to higher property tax bills.

 

[MrSquished]

There are some cities doing it right where building more bike lanes makes sense. Like New York City. The stories of when citi bike started and the doubters, and it's been an insane success.

Can't just build bike lanes for the sake of it though. You have to make other biking infrastructure like places to keep them safe. You need to tie in mass transit. You need to improve mass transit at the same time and deprioritize the car as the defacto form of transportation for everything anywhere anytime.

Bikes are a form of transit and like mass transit have been practically ignored by most places in the country.

There needs to be a plan, like with any transit, for bike lanes and bike infrastructure too.

I was just riding my bike in Manhattan on Saturday. I was stopped to cross 2nd avenue, which has a very very busy bike lane that runs north to south. I've been on it many times and it's always crowded. So crossing it I was waiting at the light and watched so many people ride by. On city bikes on their own bikes e-bikes regular bikes a road bike a cruiser whatever. People from all walks of life too. I had a nice moment to myself just watching them pass for 30 seconds And I remember grinning outwardly.

I'll try to find the link but I posted an article recently about Citibike because there was just an anniversary. And the statistics and quotes from people looking back that were involved is just fascinating to read.

But there is a big chunk of American society that thinks bicycles are nothing but a nuisance and have no redeeming qualities. About the same for mass transit. It's pretty sad.

 

[Fenixgoon]

i'm 1.5 miles from my work. i'd love to have a bike lane right down the main road to the entrance. hell, even if there were consistent sidewalks i'd probably walk there.

 

[Pohemi]

Hell I'd settle for sidewalks... Bike lanes would be a luxury.

Every town and city I've ridden a bicycle in, it is technically illegal to ride on the sidewalks. I was never ticketed for it, but been stopped by police and warned to get on the street and off the sidewalk. This was on busy/dangerous streets, which is why I was on the sidewalk to begin with. I HAVE been ticketed for speeding though, on a single speed BMX bike nonetheless. The ticket was $50 iirc.

But there is a big chunk of American society that thinks bicycles are nothing but a nuisance and have no redeeming qualities.

Every small town (including where I currently live) in my state seems to have plenty of people who are actively hostile towards cyclists on the roads.

As I stated above, it's illegal to ride on the sidewalk, but riding on the road in towns like this involve people yelling out their windows at you, throwing objects at you, even swerving threateningly towards you. And of course these small towns do not have bike lanes. It's actually a hazard to ride a bicycle in places like this, IMHO.

Only Madison (WI) has anything close to cycling infrastructure. Much of it was born of the UW in the center of the city, but they've done decently expanding further out and away from campus with more bike lanes, especially on busy streets. There are also several different bicycle paths around the city that many people use.

That speeding ticket was on a street on campus with a 15MPH limit, lol.

 

[Charmonium]

Whose responsibility is the maintenance of the road the pavement is right next to and why can't they be maintained the same way?

Yeah, towns can be weird like that. Property taxes in NJ have, historically, been an extremely hot issue. I'm not really sure why. At one point it was probably due to the influx of families with kids. The towns schools have always been highly rated. The past decade or so it seems that they're more focused on condos and apartments but I guess the schools built for the boomers have the capacity. And what's a new school when you've got dozens of new "ratables." There's also a whole section of town devoted to offices, warehouses and light industry. That was looking a bit shaky a couple of years ago. End tangent.

We do have storm sewers though and some of the newest homes have sidewalks put in anyway. It's a little strange walking along the road (dead end) and finding a slab of sidewalk.

 

[WelshBloke]

Yeah, towns can be weird like that. Property taxes in NJ have, historically, been an extremely hot issue. I'm not really sure why. At one point it was probably due to the influx of families with kids. The towns schools have always been highly rated. The past decade or so it seems that they're more focused on condos and apartments but I guess the schools built for the boomers have the capacity. And what's a new school when you've got dozens of new "ratables." There's also a whole section of town devoted to offices, warehouses and light industry. That was looking a bit shaky a couple of years ago. End tangent.

We do have storm sewers though and some of the newest homes have sidewalks put in anyway. It's a little strange walking along the road (dead end) and finding a slab of sidewalk.

Pretty much every city/town road has a pavement in the UK and a lot of rural roads do as well.

 

[MrSquished]

Pretty much every city/town road has a pavement in the UK and a lot of rural roads do as well.

It can be pretty fucked up in the US. I remember about 14 years ago I went to Houston on a business trip. I stayed at a hotel downtown across from this giant mall called the galleria. I wasn't really an adult cyclist at the time so had never ridden in New York City. But I'd been a pedestrian in New York City for all my life. And at all sorts of times and in all sorts of forms of sobriety, being a big bar and club guy for some years.

It was the first time it occurred to me trying to cross the street that this shit has zero concept in mind for pedestrians. I am literally a little scared right now. Because people on foot is a complete afterthought. I'm not worried about crazy drivers or anything except the fact that I'm not supposed to be here at all.

There's this pretty good YouTube channel about transit and he's definitely bike biased but it is still so on point regarding the statistics of transit.

What inspired him to start that YouTube channel and get into a different transit? A business trip he had in Houston that showed him how fucking insane it could be when things are only designed around one form of transportation for an entire city, the car.

 

[biostud]

There are plenty in my area and drivers are used to bikes in the traffic. But I also live in one of the most bike friendly countries in the world.

 

[MtnMan]

A street for a whole section of town was put on a "diet", and two travel lanes were eliminated for bikes. Traffic is horrific, queues to a traffic light has taken up to 7 cycles to actually get through...

...and maybe once a week we see a unicorn... errr I mean someone on a fucking bike.

But making a two-minute drive into a 10-minute drive is good for air quality and the environment, as idling cars in traffic don't pollute... Right?

 

[BoomerD]

I like them...concentrates the targets.

 

[Exterous]

I'm for it but it has to be part of a plan that is actually considerate of people outside the immediate area. If its not? Hell no. I'll admit I am heavily biased by the implementation locally which is the epitome of FYGM. Major commuter city because its way too expensive for large segments of the population to afford but has lots of businesses, office, tech centers so there is a lot (for Michigan) of traffic heading into and out of the city every day. They removed a lane from all the major arteries into and out of the city for a bike lane and a number of side roads lost their dedicated turn lanes to have a bike lane. Now traffic piles up like crazy as people get stuck at most of the intersections waiting for a car turning who is waiting for the crosswalk traffic to clear.

The problem is that there was zero consideration for anyone who lived outside the city core. There is a bus system but basically only serves the city core. Not to mention the bus route timetables all had to be adjusted for the longer bus commute times due to said bike lanes and increased congestion. I live ~25min away but there is no bus route available to me (They cancelled the route due to low ridership. The bus ride would take 1 hour 45min and only ran into the city at 5am and 6 am and out of the city at 5pm and 6pm. Oh and it cost more per month than my monthly parking pass. I'm shocked there was low ridership!) Zero consideration for any light rail\metro options despite a few key connections that would be huge wins. Hell I'd be ok if there were large commuter lots outside the city next to a light rail system that dropped you off at key places around the downtown core.

It's also Michigan where biker ridership is almost zero Dec-March and again June-August. I counted on my walk to the parking garage not long ago and counted something like 150 cars in the car lanes and one cyclist one in the bike lane

So its great if you're rich or bought your house 15 years ago and never moved but a giant fuck you to everyone else.

 

[Iron Woode]

Oh, hell no!

We have way too many that has cost us millions that sit empty 99% of the time. We simply don't have enough cyclists to warrant the ones we have.

 

[MrSquished]

This is the problem with american urban planning. You can't just randomly put down a hodge podge of bike lanes here or there and plop them down and do nothing more and expect people to use them. One it goes against most American's instincts - exercise? Two it goes against the ingrained mentality that the car is god for every trip even if it might not be. American car culture teaches us to be dismissive of any alternative trans - from bikes to buses to trains. It's shameful.

Bike lanes have to be put in as part of a larger cohesive transit plan as well as outreach to educate the public.

I am in love with NYC's bike infrastructure, and it still has a real long way to go!

 

[Fenixgoon]

This is the problem with american urban planning. You can't just randomly put down a hodge podge of bike lanes here or there and plop them down and do nothing more and expect people to use them. One it goes against most American's instincts - exercise? Two it goes against the ingrained mentality that the car is god for every trip even if it might not be. American car culture teaches us to be dismissive of any alternative trans - from bikes to buses to trains. It's shameful.

Bike lanes have to be put in as part of a larger cohesive transit plan as well as outreach to educate the public.

I am in love with NYC's bike infrastructure, and it still has a real long way to go!

There are some sidewalks in my small town that just end. Well, what the hell is the point of having a sidewalk if it doesn't link up with something else??

 

[MrSquished]

There are some sidewalks in my small town that just end. Well, what the hell is the point of having a sidewalk if it doesn't link up with something else??

It's just wacky right?

Oh last Sat I saw this beautiful woman riding with a nice dress on, just pedaling her Citibike. I'll see that if I ride evenings here and there Reminds me of a photo I took some years back of these two girls riding Citibike's in nice clothes on a weekend evening on the West Side Greenway just either coming from or going out. Just a lovely little scene. Bikes! oh and a random photo from a big 200+ cyclist social ride that happens once a week in the city (not me in the photo). The dog looked like a baller!

 

[pete6032]

i'm 1.5 miles from my work. i'd love to have a bike lane right down the main road to the entrance. hell, even if there were consistent sidewalks i'd probably walk there.

Is it walkable?

 

[Zorba]

We fought that years ago. No one wanted to be responsible for their maintenance, winter snow shoveling, etc. Those would have been requirements.

A nearby town has really ancient sidewalks and they're more of a pedestrian hazard than anything. There are so many places where the walks are buckled, cracked, lifted up by huge tree roots, etc. My ex used to trip over them all of the time when I lived there. I could never understand that,.

The problem is we'll throw the full weight of the government behind subsidizing the car, but absolutely no other form of transportation. Why will the city fix a busted street, but not a sidewalk that is also in their right of way? Also because cities push the maintenance off on to others, the don't enforce strict construction standards and a lot of sidewalks are built like shit.