That's how bicycles came to the Netherlands. Many think bikes always existed since the beginning of time but that's not true: during the rebuild in the immediate post-war cities were designed around car-based transportation. Only after a couple decades, raised awareness about street safety , accidents causing death of children, the first Oil-shock and general tree-hugging '60s eco-friendliness did the country evolve into the cycling paradise it is now.
That is to say: anyone can do the same, anywhere. So get on with it.. :)
Amsterdam has figured it out for sure. They even have parking garages for bikes only and they're full. The city is a great reference for others looking to go a similar route. Painting lines on streets can showcase demand, which is smart because you need to validate your product/project with minimal cost. Long term, dedicated lanes are needed, for safety, and someone has to pay for them.
I love Holland and I love biking but you guys have it easy compared to, say, Seattle where I live part-time. The hills make it a very different problem. I bike a lot but will still drive/uber when I can't deal with being crazy sweaty for a meeting or something.
I was very disappointed when they decided NOT to install electric bikes in the bike share system here. Electric bikes are the only way you'll get the ridership numbers needed in a place with the topography of Seattle. I also suspect it rains more in Seattle than Holland.
I'm a biker in Boston; I cycle 5 miles to work and 5 miles home on a daily basis. I think the city is doing an amazing job with what they are given but so many of the roads are just too narrow for dedicated bike lanes. Most streets have "sharrows" which is great but honestly what it comes down to is a lack of understanding on how to share the road. I'm constantly honked and shouted at for commanding full use of the driving lane when no bike lane is present, which is perfectly legal but often results in aggression from drivers. I've even had cars tailgate me and hit my back tire with their car.
> so many of the roads are just too narrow for dedicated bike lanes
If a road is wide enough to drive speeds that are dangerous to cyclists it's wide enough to put a cycle lane. Cycle lanes aren't nearly as wide as people think, and car lanes aren't nearly as narrow as people think.
It is pretty frustrating to be forced to go 10 MPH on a 30 MPH road. The roads also aren't designed for traffic to go 20 MPH slower than it ought to be, traffic starts to build up, causing more delays and frustration. I think we should be more accommodating of bikers, but asking them to share the road and be treated the same as cars is not the answer.
Easily the biggest problem in the US with biking is that the infrastructure is, nearly without exception, absolutely atrocious.
Nobody would accept having only 'painted walk lanes' on busy streets to get around, much less having them appear and disappear from the road seemingly at random, and yet that's the default state of bike lanes in nearly all US cities.
If biking had as much infrastructure as even walking -- meaning, physically protected lanes on most streets -- Americans would bike in enormous numbers.
Minneapolis, MN is one of the exceptions. The city has invested in good bike lanes and as a result, people do bike in big numbers. Some folks bike year round, even when the temperature is well below freezing.
The city benefited greatly from some disused rail right-of-ways and turned them into completely separated bike highways. Many of the on-street bikeways that have been set up use plastic divider posts to signal to drivers separation. It's much cheaper than building grade-seperated lanes, but gives a real sense of protection to the bikers.
Bike lanes are a step in that direction. SF is starting to gain more protected bike lanes, it would definitely be nice to have more. The bike lane itself is a great initial way to measure bike interest.
Though honestly, nearly every street in the city should have at least a painted bike lane.
I've been a cyclist in DC (and Boston) for almost 20 years, and the changes over that time have been fairly astounding. Overall, DC is doing a pretty good job [0]. The gradual transition from a little stripe to demarcate the bike lane to protected cycle tracks that take up a full lane of traffic has made a huge difference.
It's on a narrow bridge quite dangerous for cyclists as cars tend to cut the turn to the left. After years of asking somebody decided to help themselves.
I'm a bit confused there, though. The signage clearly marks this as a road you're not allowed to enter from that side, regardless of vehicle and forbidden for pedestrians. The guerilla bike lane thus is not supported by the existing signage and if behaviour prior to this matched what the lane now codifies, then it's worrisome as well.
As a cyclist, I'm all for making cycling safer, but breaking road laws to achieve that goal is not the right way. That's a one-way street, clearly marked as not a sidewalk and definitely not a bike lane against the one-way street direction. Guerilla bike lane or not, imho it's a stupid and dangerous idea to walk or cycle there, especially in that direction.
> i milanesi hanno percorso in media 18,6 miglia
> in bici per andare al lavoro...
> velocità media a Milano 14,8 miglia all’ora
"The Milanese cyclist averages 18.7 miles per day to go to work... at an average speed of 14.8 mph". Is my translation okay? That seems improbable [time & distance, not speed]: the _average_ Milanese cyclo-commuter takes over an hour each way? Currently 36C/97F in Milan.
Or is this per week? Is it current to talk in "miglia" in modern Italian? (though even km would be high IMHO).
However the argument against cycle tracks focuses on resident car parking and becomes extremely political. So a key part of developing a good end to end cycle network, given that a network is only as good as its weakest link, is parking control. This is where paint fails and you create these bitty networks where drivers feel happy to park their cars in the cycle lanes, because they can.
A more interesting approach is to look at road capacity. A typical road consists of:
Converting this to:
footpath|cycle track|lane|lane|cycle track|footpath = additional 14,000 cyclists per hour = 35,000 people
Providing a 67% increase in road capacity while protecting pedestrians, reducing congestion, and making a population healthier is a big win for any urban environment. Politcally this is finally becoming easier, but it is a fundemental recognition that our roads are not there to store private property.
More interstingly is that many cities are focusing on routes to centres of employment. The focus needs to be more on connecting schools to communities. An immense amount of congestion is caused by parents dropping their fat little kids off at school.
Analysis I did on UK Census 2011 data looking at range traveled across 112 towns and cities in England and Wales indicate 6 million residents drive to work in the city/town they live in. 1 million live within a 20 minute (2km) walk of work 3.5 million live within a 20 minute cycle ride of work.
Looking at Bath,UK that's about 20,000 local car journeys in a city that is 3miles in diameter. Add in the 5,000 kids being dropped off at school and you end up with 40,000 local car journeys.
BUT unless people feel there is a safe alternative choice this is not going to change and for some reason the UK seems fixated on strategic networks and hub centric public transport systems. Not actually fixing local journeys.
The arguments for segregated cycle tracks (physical
barriers) rather than cycle lanes (paint) can be answered
by one question: "Would you let your child cycle here?"
Where I live, when segregated cycle tracks meet T junctions the layout is often like so:
| C |
----------------------------------| a |--------
Cycles ◅ | r | ▷
----------------------------------| s |--------
divider | |
----------------------------------- Δ ---------
Cars
-------------------------------------------------
This means cyclists using the segregated path have to stop to give way to cars at every T junction - whereas cyclists who don't use the segregated path can maintain a constant speed, with joining cars giving way to them.
This leads to a demographic split in cyclist behaviour. For children and cyclists who aren't in a hurry, the segregated path is more friendly - but for 'serious' cyclists and people in a hurry, staying on the road makes more sense. Especially if there's a high density of T junctions, which isn't unusual in some urban areas.
Fortunately, in my country there aren't any laws that force cyclists into bike lanes, so it generally isn't a problem. But any urban planner who wants 100% of cyclists segregated from traffic is going to have a difficult time on their hands :)
As someone who doesn't take a lot of taxis and related services while traveling, I've wondered about how many rides people take when I would just be inclined to walk. I actually don't bike on roads-wasn't in an environment where I really could growing up-but I usually just walk in many of the cities I travel to even if it's a mile or three.
Please don't design cycle infrastructure for children. Bikes can be toys, but they can also be so much more. Designing for children locks bikes into the toy-role. Do I have to arm myself with a car to be treated like an adult?
So far I have shied away from simulating on-road cycle lanes, e.g. where motor vehicles and bikes are separated by a line of paint.
Firstly because the quality is so variable - hilarious examples about on the internet, and many cyclists would argue that a bad cycle lane is worse than none at all as it creates an expectation they should be riding in it rather than sharing the road.
Secondly because data on what's there - width, quality, obstructions - is so thin on the ground. (any time anyone wants to use deep learning to harvest this from streetview please go right ahead!)
Where am I going with all this? It's heartening to see a case where lines painted on the road actually made a tangible difference. I wonder how much came down to the temporary nature though - like some kind of campaign - as cultural effects are known to have a huge impact on cycling as well.
There have been a lot of lanes going in around Dublin, and frankly, most of them are useless.
Some of them are grade separated from the main road by a inch high curb. Just high enough to catch a wheel and cause a wreck.
Most of them just collect road debris like the shoulders.
Some of them are de-facto parking lanes.
Some of them are confusing enough that it's seriously unclear what the lane actually means. (I say this as someone who had to go through the whole driver licensing scheme here after 20 yrs driving in the US, so I've seen all the rules from the POV of an experienced driver.)
What the hell are those cycle turn boxes in the middle of the car lanes? They have a solid border, so they're 'mandatory'. They're unavoidable by cars. And if you're in one, you better have right of way already, because squishy. (and fwiw, the one other cyclist I saw at that junction was using the crosswalk).
And then there's the cycle lanes near Greystone where they exist for one block, then there's something that looks like a crosswalk for bikes, and they dissappear for a block, then they reappear again.
At some point, you just have to assume that some one with a can of paint is taking the piss and you just ride in a straight line like any other vehicle.
I noticed that the lane itself is a safe distance from the door zone and has a sensible, safe boundary marker between the cycle lane and standard highway. A cycle lane done properly - ironically, with some spray paint!
Ironically (perhaps?) I think in the US the cities are often doing a good job but suburbs are awful.
At least where I live, I can bike in my own neighborhood but to get from my neighborhood to the commercial districts where the actual jobs are I need to essentially go on a highway and share the road with 40 MPH cars.
When neighborhoods are spread out it makes biking hard. Where I am at least, neighborhoods tend to be connected to main (high speed) roads like Christmas lights. Thing is they aren't even far away... work to my house is 5 miles. An easy bike ride. Except part of that ride is a highway that I'd need a death wish to bike on and there are no back roads.
In my state it is illegal for anything but a motorized vehicle to be on the highway (and rightfully so as most traffic is 70 mph+ outside of rush hour). With rare exception I've seen cyclists on most of the busy multi-lane surface streets where it is 45+ and traffic is going 10-15 faster than that.
What metro area are you in? It seems odd that there are no surface streets at all between two points just a few miles away.
London has been doing a great job lately at improving cycle infrastructure. There is a new concept of a "cycle superhighway" - sometimes that means a segregated bike path, like CS3 that goes from The Tower Of London, straight through to Westminster, sometimes it is paint on the ground. However it is much clearer to motorists as they paint the entire line bright blue.
What I've noticed too is you get increasing returns the more you build. Given a scenario where a chosen route is covered 50% by acceptable infrastructure, it makes you think if it's worth taking a bike. Improve some strategic junctions and roads, and the coverage of acceptable infrastructure may increase to 90%, at which point it's a no brainer taking the bike.
In SF there are plenty of bike lanes that are painted a vivid green (the whole lane, with a white lane marker line). I think it's fantastic. It's really very difficult to not notice that the bike lane exists.
That hypothesis does not seem to apply to Lisbon, Portugal so far. We have now around 60km of dedicated bicycle paths in Lisbon (not just cycle lanes, but actual separated paths) all built in recent years (and plans to double that very soon).
But, simply put, they are barely used.
A few things are different in Lisbon from a lot of Northern Europe cities: it's very hilly and windy, it has temperatures close to 40 degrees in the summer (we have AC throughout the tube network) and in the winter, when it rains it really pours (not that drizzle that you get in London for example).
I may be too early to call it, but not all cities are alike and many people here are very skeptic about whether general adoption will ever be reached.
I was just in Lisbon (lovely city). Hills aside, the metro is so good, it seems like a bike is just unnecessary (you have to store a bike, can't easily walk into shops, etc etc).
Interesting. For the cyclists out there, would you pay out of pocket for a bi-directional elevated bike/walk-run track, with access from every street intersection, Japanese-style underground bike garages and automatically-cleaning showers/toilets at public transit intersections? If so, how much? I would, at $0.25-0.50 per mile, $0.25 per hour storage, and $2 per use of showers. I don't know if that would pencil out even in heavy cyclist commuter traffic, though.
I envision a high-tech track that uses redox batteries around its foundations, replaceable solar panels around the sides, is very brightly-lit, uses every 10 meters PTZ lenses on fiber optics leading back to a centralized, multiplexed bank of 2K and 4K video cameras backed by a deep-learning vision system, and easily-accessible emergency boxes every 20 meters to put female customers at ease. Emergency boxes vend bike repair kits (tire, chain, hex wrench, etc.), vend first aid kits, have an omnidirectional microphone listening for calls for aid, and of course a Big Red Button. Water is captured, filtered and stored for a cleaning robot to use later to maintain the track, solar panels, and awnings. Clear awnings automatically come out of housings, then raise and lower to shield from excessively-hot sun and inclement weather. Cleaning robot runs along a high-speed rail hanging on outside of track, multi-purposed to perform simpler replacement-style maintenance duties (replace vending supplies, replace awning, etc.).
What are you talking about? Can you define some of the problems you're trying to solve? It feels like you're writing a parody of something. The post is about keeping bike lanes simple and cheap so we'll just build them already. Yours is the opposite, no?
This doesn't really prove anything. My observations from Vancouver where a lot of time and money has been spent on bike lanes over the last few years: (I'm a non car owner, mostly pedestrian)
- Pilot projects are not representative of actual long term use. When Burrard bridge lost a footpath to a temporary cycle lane, as a regular pedestrian commuter I saw a brief spike in cycle traffic but then a big drop off again.
- Cycle lanes have a negative impact on both car and foot traffic. The Burrard cycle lanes increased the length of my commute on foot (footpaths were converted to cycle lanes that went empty much of the time) and disrupted car traffic causing delays to drivers.
- Expensive but poorly thought out physically separated bike lanes made intersections more dangerous for cyclists (who would go faster and slow down less for cars) and pedestrians (cyclists are silent and frequently ignore traffic lights)
- On street parking is frequently lost to new cycle lanes that frequently sit unused.
- There are a lot of 'fair weather cyclists' who only ride in good weather. Pedestrian traffic seems much less weather dependent.
A pilot project like this doesn't necessarily reflect actual long term usage and also ignores the many negative effects and costs associated with cycle lanes. Existing cities that grew up around mixed pedestrian and car traffic are not necessarily well suited to increased bike traffic. Bikes are dramatically more dangerous to both cyclists and pedestrians and take up disproportionate space relative to their contribution to transport options.
You don't cite a single source for any of these propositions.
Frequently sit unused? Brief spikes and big dropoffs? How do you know? I'll bet your local department of transportation is conducting traffic counts though. I know mine does.
"Bikes are dramatically more dangerous to both cyclists and pedestrians" Really? How many pedestrians were killed by cyclists in your city last year? How many by motor vehicles?
Sounds like Vancouver is seeing fastest growing number of cycling trips in the world - do you think it's possible your experiences might not have been representative, or is there an effect you believe the stats aren't capturing?
For anyone who has even read a bit on infrastructure, this is a no brainer. The problem with alternative transportation is you have to go all in to see the benefits. Half assing it won't work. But half assing it is what a lot of places do, and then they say "see, ridership didn't increase, going further is just a waste of money."
Anecdotal I know however my wife only learnt to cycle properly this year. She is (rightly) terrified of riding on the road. If we had a better dedicated cycle road network (not paths but actual bicycle dedicated roads) she would be able to use it as a mode of transport. She has expressed interest however the network, while pretty good in Singapore (the park connector network is a good safe cycling option), is not continuous enough to allow commuting as an option.
As someone who didn't bike as a child and won't bike on a road, I suspect that there isn't just about anywhere one can commute on a bike and totally avoid roads with cars on them. Including places like Amsterdam or other cities with a lot of dedicated lanes.
They could have at least made a better effort to keep cyclists and cars separate.
In the photo a cyclist is still on the road which should not happen.
I also remember seeing a video where a guy got some kind of ticket for not cycling in a cycle lane, so he made a point by cycling only in the cycle lane and deliberately crashes into a police car because they were parked in the cycle lane...
From the picture, it looks like spray paint. For permanent road markings, the paint would have to be DOT approved, professionally painted by the transit authority, etc. Spray paint would go away a lot sooner than the paint for road markings.
One of the problems with more bicycle infrastructure I see is the current regulatory environment promotes the extremes only.
A nice intermediate step would be if states would make moped registration less onerous. As it stands most states require a motorcycle license ($), insurance ($) and registration ($) for anything more than a bicycle with an engine kit. If more people rode those parking would be less of an issue and it would be easier to get support for bike infrastructure since bike infrastructure is common with moped infrastructure in many cases.
Edit: I don't care how the moped is powered. I'm just pointing out that a moped that can keep up with 30mph traffic is a huge increase in utility over a bicycle while not taking up appreciably more space.
Having been in Taipei where mopeds were illegal until ~20 years ago and then unleashed on the city like a plague I can only hope that if any city were to do this they would add the caveat that the mopeds must be electric.
In many states, riding a moped, scooter, or motorcycle with a maximum top speed or engine displacement is legal without need for a motorcycle license, insurance, registration, etc.
[+] [-] eecc|8 years ago|reply
That is to say: anyone can do the same, anywhere. So get on with it.. :)
[+] [-] cdnsteve|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flippyhead|8 years ago|reply
I love Holland and I love biking but you guys have it easy compared to, say, Seattle where I live part-time. The hills make it a very different problem. I bike a lot but will still drive/uber when I can't deal with being crazy sweaty for a meeting or something.
I was very disappointed when they decided NOT to install electric bikes in the bike share system here. Electric bikes are the only way you'll get the ridership numbers needed in a place with the topography of Seattle. I also suspect it rains more in Seattle than Holland.
[+] [-] Tommyixi|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Doxin|8 years ago|reply
If a road is wide enough to drive speeds that are dangerous to cyclists it's wide enough to put a cycle lane. Cycle lanes aren't nearly as wide as people think, and car lanes aren't nearly as narrow as people think.
[+] [-] coldpie|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TulliusCicero|8 years ago|reply
Nobody would accept having only 'painted walk lanes' on busy streets to get around, much less having them appear and disappear from the road seemingly at random, and yet that's the default state of bike lanes in nearly all US cities.
If biking had as much infrastructure as even walking -- meaning, physically protected lanes on most streets -- Americans would bike in enormous numbers.
[+] [-] justinph|8 years ago|reply
The city benefited greatly from some disused rail right-of-ways and turned them into completely separated bike highways. Many of the on-street bikeways that have been set up use plastic divider posts to signal to drivers separation. It's much cheaper than building grade-seperated lanes, but gives a real sense of protection to the bikers.
[+] [-] bluejekyll|8 years ago|reply
Though honestly, nearly every street in the city should have at least a painted bike lane.
[+] [-] jrf6|8 years ago|reply
[0] - http://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/03/08/street-by-street-dc-bu...
[+] [-] maxerickson|8 years ago|reply
I occasionally see people walking to the hospital here, in the lane on a 25 MPH street.
[+] [-] pmontra|8 years ago|reply
It's on a narrow bridge quite dangerous for cyclists as cars tend to cut the turn to the left. After years of asking somebody decided to help themselves.
[+] [-] ygra|8 years ago|reply
As a cyclist, I'm all for making cycling safer, but breaking road laws to achieve that goal is not the right way. That's a one-way street, clearly marked as not a sidewalk and definitely not a bike lane against the one-way street direction. Guerilla bike lane or not, imho it's a stupid and dangerous idea to walk or cycle there, especially in that direction.
[+] [-] zwp|8 years ago|reply
Or is this per week? Is it current to talk in "miglia" in modern Italian? (though even km would be high IMHO).
[+] [-] awjr|8 years ago|reply
However the argument against cycle tracks focuses on resident car parking and becomes extremely political. So a key part of developing a good end to end cycle network, given that a network is only as good as its weakest link, is parking control. This is where paint fails and you create these bitty networks where drivers feel happy to park their cars in the cycle lanes, because they can.
A more interesting approach is to look at road capacity. A typical road consists of:
footpath|parking|lane|lane|parking|footpath = 19,000 pedestrians + 2000 drivers per hour => 21,000 people.
Converting this to: footpath|cycle track|lane|lane|cycle track|footpath = additional 14,000 cyclists per hour = 35,000 people
Providing a 67% increase in road capacity while protecting pedestrians, reducing congestion, and making a population healthier is a big win for any urban environment. Politcally this is finally becoming easier, but it is a fundemental recognition that our roads are not there to store private property.
More interstingly is that many cities are focusing on routes to centres of employment. The focus needs to be more on connecting schools to communities. An immense amount of congestion is caused by parents dropping their fat little kids off at school.
Analysis I did on UK Census 2011 data looking at range traveled across 112 towns and cities in England and Wales indicate 6 million residents drive to work in the city/town they live in. 1 million live within a 20 minute (2km) walk of work 3.5 million live within a 20 minute cycle ride of work.
Looking at Bath,UK that's about 20,000 local car journeys in a city that is 3miles in diameter. Add in the 5,000 kids being dropped off at school and you end up with 40,000 local car journeys.
BUT unless people feel there is a safe alternative choice this is not going to change and for some reason the UK seems fixated on strategic networks and hub centric public transport systems. Not actually fixing local journeys.
[+] [-] michaelt|8 years ago|reply
This leads to a demographic split in cyclist behaviour. For children and cyclists who aren't in a hurry, the segregated path is more friendly - but for 'serious' cyclists and people in a hurry, staying on the road makes more sense. Especially if there's a high density of T junctions, which isn't unusual in some urban areas.
Fortunately, in my country there aren't any laws that force cyclists into bike lanes, so it generally isn't a problem. But any urban planner who wants 100% of cyclists segregated from traffic is going to have a difficult time on their hands :)
[+] [-] ghaff|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] usrusr|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sideshowb|8 years ago|reply
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966692316...
(above is out of date, more recent work under review: http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/sdna/european-transport-conference-... )
So far I have shied away from simulating on-road cycle lanes, e.g. where motor vehicles and bikes are separated by a line of paint.
Firstly because the quality is so variable - hilarious examples about on the internet, and many cyclists would argue that a bad cycle lane is worse than none at all as it creates an expectation they should be riding in it rather than sharing the road.
Secondly because data on what's there - width, quality, obstructions - is so thin on the ground. (any time anyone wants to use deep learning to harvest this from streetview please go right ahead!)
Where am I going with all this? It's heartening to see a case where lines painted on the road actually made a tangible difference. I wonder how much came down to the temporary nature though - like some kind of campaign - as cultural effects are known to have a huge impact on cycling as well.
[+] [-] wiredfool|8 years ago|reply
Some of them are grade separated from the main road by a inch high curb. Just high enough to catch a wheel and cause a wreck.
Most of them just collect road debris like the shoulders.
Some of them are de-facto parking lanes.
Some of them are confusing enough that it's seriously unclear what the lane actually means. (I say this as someone who had to go through the whole driver licensing scheme here after 20 yrs driving in the US, so I've seen all the rules from the POV of an experienced driver.)
For example: https://www.google.com/maps/@53.6089878,-6.1934201,90m/data=...
What the hell are those cycle turn boxes in the middle of the car lanes? They have a solid border, so they're 'mandatory'. They're unavoidable by cars. And if you're in one, you better have right of way already, because squishy. (and fwiw, the one other cyclist I saw at that junction was using the crosswalk).
And then there's the cycle lanes near Greystone where they exist for one block, then there's something that looks like a crosswalk for bikes, and they dissappear for a block, then they reappear again.
At some point, you just have to assume that some one with a can of paint is taking the piss and you just ride in a straight line like any other vehicle.
[+] [-] proactivesvcs|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway2016a|8 years ago|reply
At least where I live, I can bike in my own neighborhood but to get from my neighborhood to the commercial districts where the actual jobs are I need to essentially go on a highway and share the road with 40 MPH cars.
When neighborhoods are spread out it makes biking hard. Where I am at least, neighborhoods tend to be connected to main (high speed) roads like Christmas lights. Thing is they aren't even far away... work to my house is 5 miles. An easy bike ride. Except part of that ride is a highway that I'd need a death wish to bike on and there are no back roads.
[+] [-] pc86|8 years ago|reply
What metro area are you in? It seems odd that there are no surface streets at all between two points just a few miles away.
[+] [-] jblok|8 years ago|reply
What I've noticed too is you get increasing returns the more you build. Given a scenario where a chosen route is covered 50% by acceptable infrastructure, it makes you think if it's worth taking a bike. Improve some strategic junctions and roads, and the coverage of acceptable infrastructure may increase to 90%, at which point it's a no brainer taking the bike.
[+] [-] sidlls|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mvitorino|8 years ago|reply
But, simply put, they are barely used.
A few things are different in Lisbon from a lot of Northern Europe cities: it's very hilly and windy, it has temperatures close to 40 degrees in the summer (we have AC throughout the tube network) and in the winter, when it rains it really pours (not that drizzle that you get in London for example).
I may be too early to call it, but not all cities are alike and many people here are very skeptic about whether general adoption will ever be reached.
[+] [-] cpursley|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yourapostasy|8 years ago|reply
I envision a high-tech track that uses redox batteries around its foundations, replaceable solar panels around the sides, is very brightly-lit, uses every 10 meters PTZ lenses on fiber optics leading back to a centralized, multiplexed bank of 2K and 4K video cameras backed by a deep-learning vision system, and easily-accessible emergency boxes every 20 meters to put female customers at ease. Emergency boxes vend bike repair kits (tire, chain, hex wrench, etc.), vend first aid kits, have an omnidirectional microphone listening for calls for aid, and of course a Big Red Button. Water is captured, filtered and stored for a cleaning robot to use later to maintain the track, solar panels, and awnings. Clear awnings automatically come out of housings, then raise and lower to shield from excessively-hot sun and inclement weather. Cleaning robot runs along a high-speed rail hanging on outside of track, multi-purposed to perform simpler replacement-style maintenance duties (replace vending supplies, replace awning, etc.).
[+] [-] tbihl|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattnewport|8 years ago|reply
- Pilot projects are not representative of actual long term use. When Burrard bridge lost a footpath to a temporary cycle lane, as a regular pedestrian commuter I saw a brief spike in cycle traffic but then a big drop off again.
- Cycle lanes have a negative impact on both car and foot traffic. The Burrard cycle lanes increased the length of my commute on foot (footpaths were converted to cycle lanes that went empty much of the time) and disrupted car traffic causing delays to drivers.
- Expensive but poorly thought out physically separated bike lanes made intersections more dangerous for cyclists (who would go faster and slow down less for cars) and pedestrians (cyclists are silent and frequently ignore traffic lights)
- On street parking is frequently lost to new cycle lanes that frequently sit unused.
- There are a lot of 'fair weather cyclists' who only ride in good weather. Pedestrian traffic seems much less weather dependent.
A pilot project like this doesn't necessarily reflect actual long term usage and also ignores the many negative effects and costs associated with cycle lanes. Existing cities that grew up around mixed pedestrian and car traffic are not necessarily well suited to increased bike traffic. Bikes are dramatically more dangerous to both cyclists and pedestrians and take up disproportionate space relative to their contribution to transport options.
[+] [-] gregwtmtno|8 years ago|reply
Frequently sit unused? Brief spikes and big dropoffs? How do you know? I'll bet your local department of transportation is conducting traffic counts though. I know mine does.
"poorly thought out physically separated bike lines made intersections more dangerous"? You really need a cite on that because this study--conducted in Canada--says the opposite: http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2012.3...
"Bikes are dramatically more dangerous to both cyclists and pedestrians" Really? How many pedestrians were killed by cyclists in your city last year? How many by motor vehicles?
[+] [-] jnty|8 years ago|reply
http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2016/02/eco-counter-cycling-index...
[+] [-] BigIQ|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rorykoehler|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghaff|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kennydude|8 years ago|reply
In the photo a cyclist is still on the road which should not happen.
I also remember seeing a video where a guy got some kind of ticket for not cycling in a cycle lane, so he made a point by cycling only in the cycle lane and deliberately crashes into a police car because they were parked in the cycle lane...
[+] [-] maaaats|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cbhl|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IshKebab|8 years ago|reply
Normal white lines etc are made by melting plastic onto the road. They're very thick.
[+] [-] jeron|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Piccollo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dsfyu404ed|8 years ago|reply
A nice intermediate step would be if states would make moped registration less onerous. As it stands most states require a motorcycle license ($), insurance ($) and registration ($) for anything more than a bicycle with an engine kit. If more people rode those parking would be less of an issue and it would be easier to get support for bike infrastructure since bike infrastructure is common with moped infrastructure in many cases.
Edit: I don't care how the moped is powered. I'm just pointing out that a moped that can keep up with 30mph traffic is a huge increase in utility over a bicycle while not taking up appreciably more space.
[+] [-] rorykoehler|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Theodores|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] the_gastropod|8 years ago|reply