Bikers really need their own infrastructure that's kept entirely apart from where cars are. Bikes and cars sharing the same road is terrifyingly unsafe for both.
this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2023
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"unsafe for both"? What is the bike going to do to the car? Scratch the paint? Get blood on the tires?
That said, I agree that separated bike infrastructure saves lives and encourages biking by making people feel safer.
Easy enough to imagine a driver (understandably) swerving to avoid killing a cyclist and losing control of the car
Not to mention the psychological effects if an accident does happen.. 'Unsafe' doesn't have to only mean physical injury or death..
That's a little melodramatic. I'm 100% on the cyclist side (don't even have a driving licence) but even I can see mixed traffic is dangerous for both.
What driver hits a bike unexpectedly (assuming no intent) and doesn't react in a potentially dangerous way? People crash cars trying to avoid deer even.
As someone who biked everywhere, daily, for years, I would have loved so much to have my own dedicated infrastructure, if only our own separate, Barrier-protected lane in the street.
I've been to cities where they have added in lanes separate from the road, going all over town, and they're usually packed with people using them.
People want this kind of thing.
In some ways, it really feels like city streets were made for people from outside the city driving in for a specific purpose, and public transit, sidewalks, and bike paths are for the people who actually live there.
The whole previous phase of ever-widening streets/highways and paving any open ground for parking almost feels like an attempt to make the cities more like a theme park you drive to and leave at the end of the day. I'm glad things seem to be trending the other way now, with more emphasis on infrastructure I can use living here.
I mean I get your point, but still agree with op. Running somebody over is unsafe and nothing terrifies me more than backing up in parking lots where kids might dart out unexpectedly.
There's bad drivers everywhere, but I'd hazard a guess that most of them do not want to kill a cyclist either..
I mean, if a car doesn’t see a cyclist until the last moment, swerves to avoid it, and hits something else, the cyclist being there created a dangerous situation for the driver.
Even just considering a driver hitting a cyclist, the driver still has to live with that outcome for the rest of their life. Unless your expectation is that the driver is a psychopath who only cares about the condition of their vehicle, which I suppose is a possibility.
Have you ever hit anything with a car before?
Um. No?
Ever seen a deer go thru the windscreen and kill the driver? Same thing can happen with a human
My bike is a fat bike with diy motor kit. It's really damn heavy. I wouldn't be surprised if it's on par with a light deer now. I wouldn't want to hit it at all but definitely not with anything smaller than an f150.
Even if they're separate, general-purpose lanes and bike paths and sidewalks have to cross sometimes. The biggest problem with the infrastructure pictured isn't the bike lane itself, it's the inadequate intersection treatment.
In particular, the car slip lane should've been removed and a stop bar before the bike lane crossing should've been added.
Agreed.
If a city wants to reduce cars on the road, buses/trains/subways yeah that helps a little bit.
But make a dedicated network where it's only pedestrians, bikes and electric vehicles under a certain speed limit. Especially if it's covered in some way,
There a TON of people that would absolutely prefer that over cars
I hate riding my bike in the street for exactly this reason. I really shouldn't be of the mindset that every time I get on my bike could be my last.
The Woodlands Development north of Houston did this very well in the first phase of development. Bike paths wound through the woods on the backside of property while streets wound through the front. This gave more street facing property while bike travel was typically shorter distances. It was really amazing. It was abandoned for more square property lines and conventional development in later phases.
If you can't picture a 10 year old using it, then it's bad.
Doom loop had a funny take on this. https://southseattleemerald.com/2023/12/03/doom-loop-18-defensive-scowling-for-the-urban-biker/
Defensive scowling has helped save my life against gigantic SUVs on more than one occasion. Did you know that road monsters cannot legally pulp you without your consent?
Goddamn it even looks like one of those speed boosters in video games. Probably Happy Wheels if I had to guess.
This is the highway......
It's just behind a traffic light. Not very safe, but also not as dangerous as it looks.
Links picture with a semi-truck in the bike lane 🤣
No this is America, where we put an 8-lane speedway in the middle of a shopping area and say it will help traffic.
Looks like Houston
Florida. Where trucks will drive into the median to hit a cyclist.
Looks like what I usually end up doing in Cities: Skylines
why is the top half of this more pixelated than the bottom half
I think it's all pixelated, it's just not as noticeable on the pavement.