The tables on the road were only there for the inauguration day, but bike lane is here to stay.
Lady in pink would be killed if she came to Amsterdam
I damn nearly got murdered by an angry speeding cyclist in Paris, near a canal. I crossed the lane without realizing, not being used to their presence. Bike lanes are simply nonexistent where I live, and I was only staying in Paris for a couple weeks. The dude got super mad at me, like super super mad. To this day I still fantasize about throwing him and his fucking bike in the canal. I really should have done it… why do I have to second-guess everything
Learn how to cry on command. That would probably have taken the wind out of his sails. I’m not a car freak. If I could get by in my suburban hell without one I would. That being said, if cars have to be aware of cyclists then cyclists need to be aware of pedestrians.
So if a pedestrian walked onto the road without looking or anything, you’d say the driver is at fault?
A cycle lane is to a bike as a road is to a car. A pedestrian is allowed to cross it after looking and checking that no vehicle is coming, and the pedestrian has to give right of way.
Cars have to be aware of cyclists when cyclists are driving on the road, since both have equal rights to be there. Same as a car has to be aware of another car or a cyclists of another cyclist. Both are allowed to use the road, so both need to be aware of each other.
If a car driver is expected to be aware of pedestrians, then a cyclist is to be expected to be aware of pedestrians. You can’t have it both ways. A cyclist can easily cause serious injury to a pedestrian.
Is a pedestrian expected to be aware of car drivers on the side walk?
Is a car driver expected to be aware of pedestrians on the highway?
Yes, and also yes. personal responsibility for your own safety doesn’t magically disappear because of paint on the ground.
Responsibility for the machine you’re operating that can harm others doesn’t magically disappear when it weighs less.
To be honest, it’s a wrong argument anyways. The cyclist was aware of the pedestrian on the bike lane and he stopped in time. So the whole argument doesn’t matter.
The actual point is whether the pedestrian was in the right to wander onto the bike lane, completely oblivious to his surroundings.
It’s by momentum. The greater the momentum the greater the responsibility.
Edit: To actually respond to your examples:
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No. It is the responsibility of the high mv cars not to enter the sidewalk, or to be incredibly cautious if they must.
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Yes. It is the responsibility of the high mv car to look far enough ahead to respond to low mv (or rather high delay v) obstacles ahead. If this sounds impractical, the design of highways and the illegality of a pedestrian entering one makes unavoidable incidents of car-hitting-pedestrian-on-highway low enough to be practical.
Ok, let’s put it differently: In the story we are talking about
- A cyclist was aware of the pedestrian walking on the cycling lane
- A pedestrian was unaware of the fact that he was on the biking lane
- The cyclist managed to stop safely before the pedestrian
- The cyclist got angry for the pedestrian not caring about whether he was allowed to walk where he did
- The pedestrian felt so justified in walking on the cycling lane that he considered throwing the bike off the river
So what’s your point? The cyclist shouldn’t have gotten angry and should have just been fine and dandy with the pedestrian walking on the cycling lane?
The equivalent would be a pedestrian walking on the road, and then drivers should be just fine with that. They aren’t and neither should they be.
If a driver shouldn’t need to be happy with a pedestrian wandering around on the road completely unaware of his surroundings, why should a cyclist be ok with the same circumstances?
You can’t have it both ways.
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That’s what the law says in France, at least. People are supposed to cross on crosswalks, but if they don’t and a car hits them the driver is at fault regardless. I can try to find a source in english if that’s important to you.
Anyway, context is king here and what I didn’t specify in my post above is that the space where it happened was quite crowded and ambiguous (especially for an alien like me who had seldom seen a bike lane at the time)
The whole concept of “being at fault” only applies to accidents. If you see someone breaking the law (e.g. walking across the road where it’s not allowed) and you then purposely ram them with your vehicle, then it’s not an accident and of course you are at fault then. If someone else breaks the law you would have to be an utter idiot to think that this gives you the right to legally murder that person.
I repeat: you’d have to be seriously braindead and messed up to belive that you can legally kill someone over a minor traffic violation.
If it’s an actual accident though, e.g. if the pedestrian darts out between parked cars so fast that the driver can’t stop in time, then it’s clearly the pedestrian’s fault (even in France) and the driver will not get in trouble.
Again, all of that is super basic.
A bike lane is not ambiguous. If you don’t inform yourself of laws and customs in a country you travel to, then it’s still your fault if you are too ignorant to understand basic traffic situations, and neither does ignorance excuse you from following the law nor does it make your wrong actions and lawbreaking right, nor does it give you any moral high ground.
Yea, exactly my point. I’m not denying that I should have been aware of the presence of the bike lane but it falls on the guy on a vehicle to be acutely aware of his surroundings and wary of potential collisions. I say this as a driver and a bicycler
Let me get this straight: You walked into a bicycle path because you weren’t aware of your surroundings. The bicycle stopped because the cyclist was aware of their surroundings.
Getting reamed out in public must have sucked, and was probably overkill. But this sounds like someone safely avoided an accident when you made a mistake.
I say this as a cyclist who uses my Big Girl voice on dedicated bike paths and someone who’s accidentally walked onto a bike path.
When I first started cycling in a heavy bike-commuter city I got yelled at, a lot, because there isn’t a lot of public education on safely navigating bike lanes. Embarassing, yeah, but I learned fast.
I was being inconsiderate and dangerous in traffic, and it’s the other guy’s fault
No no I was on foot
Was it a cycle path or a foot path?
If it was a cycle path, then you are allowed to cross it on foot, but you aren’t allowed to walk on it.
If you blindly wandered onto a road and a driver got angry because he almost hit you because of that, would you also believe you had the right to throw his car off a bridge?
Neither (or both?), it was an overcrowded walkable canal bank in the height of summer with faint paint marks to delimit the path of the bike “lane”. I was in the wrong in any case, what I’m complaining about is the dude’s reaction. My point is you have to be able to share the space and safely navigate what is inevitably going to be a crowded area at that time of year, especially when riding a bicycle which can be dangerous in its own right.
So it was a bike lane that you were on. Being to dumb to understand what a bike lane is and that a bike lane is for, you know, bikes is not an excuse.
You complain about that dude’s reaction but wanted to commit theft/vandalism and think you are justified in that?
You are the idiot who actively made riding a bike dangerous in that situation and still believe you are justified?
Let me guess, you are American?
You’re still part of traffic when you’re on foot. And yes, it was 100% your fault and the cyclist was right to be pissed.
If you walk onto a freeway, on foot, you are being reckless. It’s the same for bike lanes. Look where you walk.
That literally doesn’t change what he said.
I mean, honest mistake on your part, but still your mistake. Dude shouldn’t have raged at you for an honest mistake, but you should rage at them even less, as they didn’t even do anything wrong (except raging).
You’d be a somewhat justified if it happened in a pedestrian only zone or sidewalk, as it frequently does in my city but you were the one in the wrong area.
If the cyclist is anything like me, he was super mad because he almost killed the other guy.
My hard line opinion is that roads are dead spaces. There is no opportunity for anything to grow or flourish; this includes things like community. More roads = more dead space.
If you want to activate a space, i.e. bring community back, reduce road space. And, of course, with reduced road space you need to counter balance with better infrastructure for other modes of transport to get people moving to and from.
Basic town planning! Looking at you… Local council…
Don’t look up parking lot rules in america, dead space like it’s going out of style just so crowds can shop on black Friday and Christmas.
Ohoho… I have seen those rules and having visited both California and Texas last year, I can safely say that I don’t want any of that where I live. California was marginally better than Texas though but not by much.
It was insane to me that it was a 3hr public bus ride to NASA, and that included a 20 minute walk from where the bus drops you off.
…And those Stepford Wives-like suburban hellscapes with nothing but roads and freeways for miles.
Madness.
Madness? THIS IS AMERICA! ~Don’t catch you slippin’ now~
Get off the bike path grandma
In my experience cycling in London, it wouldn’t be a bike lane without some doofus walking on it 😅
That bitch just walkin’ in the bike lane.
Bet there’s some kind of psychological trick you can play on cyclists, distracting them with pictures of people walking in bicycle paths.
Everyone else in that scene could be raw-fucking mid-sized Gumby sex dolls and I’d still be like “Get out the damn bike lane!”
I think many cyclists refuse to acknowledge how much they carry over from car brains. Minor inconveniences should be common and expected. Some bikers react to someone jogging on a bike path as if their life were threatened. Save the anger for legitimately dangerous situations like sprinting into the lane without looking or excessive speed.
I’m not sure if you ever used a bike lane, or watch the countless videos of people riding on them, but it’s very VERY rare to have unobstructed bike lanes. So… sure, one grandma who isn’t paying attention, who cares, ok a truck that has to do deliveries and forcing you to go on the car lane, not going to kill you… then again, and again, and 2 cars parked there, another delivery… usually before you finish your trip you even wonder if there was a bike lane in the first place.
And each and every one of these obstructions forces you to waste energy into your breaks and you physically have to push to get the speed back up.
If you’d have to pedal cars, people would also drive very differently.
Great point. I mostly focused on the power that cars give to people, revving the engine isn’t a random gesture, it’s a show of power when most people usually have… pen, papers, keyboards… few have power tools but even then, it’s not very powerful. A car or a truck though that’s typically what the average human can exert the most raw power. Nothing psychological or economical. It’s not like having a fancy house that cost a lot of money or showing of, no it’s being in control of a powerful machine. I do assume it is rewiring the brain of drivers… but now that you mention it, it is also coupled with effortlessness. It’s not like being strong when you go to the gym, here it’s entirely decoupled from your strength. This must rewire drivers even more than I initially imagined. Thanks for the hindsight!
Totally on your side with your arguments, just wanted to add what annoys me most with these obstacles on bike lanes.
The real bike lane was the detours we made along the way.
Being against people walking on the highway has nothing to do with “car brain”
It’s common sense
Or… just spitballing here, people could walk on the sidewalk. The one beside the bike lane. For walking.
Sure, inconvenience is a part of life, but common sense tells you not to shit in someone’s sink.
Sure, but if you choose to be reactionary rather than understanding you’ll often be in the wrong. My city has some new bike paths where it’s easy to accidentally wind up walking on the bike paths. We are still in a state where many conflicts are due to infrastructure. Are we trying to build better streets for everyone or are we just gonna shift from cars to cyclists owning the streets? When I bike my first thought after safety is being considerate and understanding, not demanding.
The entire reason for doing things like this, is that everyone gets their own space for traveling. Cars have their space, bikes have their space and pedestrians have their space. In countries where this kind of city planning is a thing, people rely on their mode of transportation to get from a to b in time. If there’s some dick blocking the bicycle lane, then it is more than an inconvenience.
This. Biking is a form of commute, not a hobby. Every obstruction means you waste your speed and energy into your break pads and you have to physically push to get the speed back up.
Yes, my comment about a Gumby orgy was a serious, reactionary statement about people walking in bike lanes. And somehow an argument for giving cyclists priority on all streets when cars are no more. And a disregard for poor infrastructure.
People should walk where it’s safe to walk. Sometimes they don’t, which is less safe. There should be safe places for people to walk.
I’m still gonna yell at people who walk in the damn bike lane.
People should walk where it’s safe to walk.
Not everyone’s experience is the same. We live off a shared use paved trail that runs for 5.8 miles through our city. It’s part of the 600 mile U.S. Bicycle Route (USBR) 45/45A and it’s not safe to walk because of cyclists.
Cyclists regularly come from the rear at high speeds without announcing their presence. Often while people are walking their dogs on the part of the path that deviates through the park and along the river.
The world would be a nicer place if people showed a little more tolerance and patience toward each other.
Edit- list of fragile brigaders:
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Brother, you seem to be terminally online. Please go for one of those walks you are blathering on about.
If something I wrote is upsetting when taken out of context, you might want to put it back in. World might be a nicer place.
“There should be safe places for people to walk.”
We are trying to build a better infrastructure, where pedestrians enjoy safe and pleasant walk, cyclist enjoy safe and pleasant ride, commuters do commute, etc. In order to achieve that, it’s important that the spaces are predictable. If you’re in a shared space, you expect a bicycle, if you’re in a pedestrian area you shouldn’t be on a lookout for fast things. Same goes the other way, if you’re on a bike in a shared space, you should expect pedestrians be everywhere and should always be on a lookout, but if you’re riding a designated bike road, you should be able to enjoy the ride, not crawling with pedestrian speed dodging around.
If this rule doesn’t work, the infrastructure doesn’t work. You can’t expect people using cycling infrastructure for commute if they can’t be sure infrastructure is usable, so they wouldn’t, so everyone is riding cars and we’re back to square one.
Non shared bike paths are set up for everyone’s safety. People who ignore that don’t just put themselves in an unsafe situation, they do it to everyone else.
When I’m riding a bike fast and someone’s in the path, I have to brake, and then get back up to speed after them. In a car that’s just pressing a pedal, but on a bike it takes work. It makes me sweat and huff. Making me sweat and huff is mean.
Get out of the road greg
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I can understand.
We have some new dedicated cycle lanes in our city (I mean, they are a few years old now. But fairly unique in our country).
I feel bad for the cyclists. They have a dedicated path, which pedestrians are super ignorant of (they are better marked than this picture).
My parents think they are a menace when they visit, because they are unaware of them and get menaced by cyclists.
Except, that’s literally what roads are. They just grew up with roads and (even faster) cars.So, I am understanding of the transition.
And everyone needs to call everyone out over it. It will make everyone saferI got pretty heated after an event bicycling home. Pedestrians all ignorant walking on the bike lane. That was fine so long as they moved but someone yelled at me and I very angrily yelled back.
People criticize cyclists in the road, they’d criticize you riding on the sidewalk (rightly so), but when we have a dedicated bike lane they walk all over it and act like you’re the asshole.
This is beautiful
I thought you were replying to the comment on top
The after picture looks so much more welcoming, clean, and active. Like the place is suddenly more alive.
But small businesses will suffer if people have nowhere to park 😡
Tap for spoiler
/s
Leave it like this (well replace the asphalt for nice tiles) and you’ll actually get more people to come by and stay for a coffee, use the stores, etc…
They probably still need a serviceable road for deliveries. Probably no alley. Trucks can be heavy as for efficiency they load them up. Can’t use tile roads, they don’t hold up over time.
It depends on the type of tiles you use. Paris has a lot of tiled roads in pedestrian centric areas, they’ve been there for decades and are not more damaged than asphalt. They’re changed every 15 years or so, from my experience living with a neigbborhood like this nearby.
Every 15 years is terrible for road length, you’re kinda proving my point. Costly replacement too. It just doesn’t work for any type of road that needs to carry loads.
Or any place with extreme weather, or a lot of rain, or etc.
Tiles aren’t for heavy traffic.
Sure, but that doesn’t make them not viable for pedestrian centric areas. The point isn’t durability or low cost, it’s enjoying a city center.
And they’re not replaced because they’re broken, they’re replaced because they turn ugly.
Shops can use a rug, there’s lot more efficient, durable and less costly options that provide the same or better.
They break, and they’re ugly from wear. They’re worn because they’re not the right material for the use case. And no one wants to cart a hand dolly on broken tile. You’re really doing a fantastic job giving more reasons why tile shouldn’t be used when heavy loads are anticipated……
And yet the trend in cities like Paris is to move to these type of roads instead of asphalt… You should call them, tell them they’re wasting their money
Timed deliveries.
Yes they do it at night, but they still need some road that can handle the load. Tile just doesn’t hold up.
The black road isn’t tiled?
That is clearly asphalt
The user I responded to suggested to replace it with tile, I was providing a few reasons why it couldn’t be.
It just looks sweaty and smelly to me. Why all the tarmac when it’s been explicitly and expensively rebuilt for a new purpose?
Because it’s probably still a road (even its road markings are new), and they just closed that section for some pedestrian event.
Oakland, California is redoing all the downtown roads. Going from four lanes to two lanes with physically separated bike lanes and tiny gardens. I welcome it.
All is bit of a stretch. Oakland’s budget is in rough shape right now. They’re doing a few roads here and there, and they usually start with some low cost experimentation in areas with plastic cones and paint to test first.
I both live and work in downtown Oakland. They appear to be working toward all downtown roads from my perspective. Two of the four sides of the building that I live in have been redone and they’re doing sections of the street that I walk to work and others that I see when I’m out and about. Traffic is gnarly by the lake where they’ve closed lanes.
I can’t honestly believe that some people would rather have the hellscape in the top photo, rather than the paradise in the lower one.
Communities, and society as a whole, need more of the “after”, please!
Paradise is a stretch. Paradise to a non-cyclist like me would be a robust tram system with cheap monthly pass. This looks nicer I agree, but if you’re not a cyclist you’re still driving.
Paradise to a non-cyclist like me would be a robust tram system with cheap monthly pass. This looks nicer I agree, but if you’re not a cyclist you’re still driving.
Ironically, there’s a subway directly under where this photo is taken, so robust public transportation can still move people to these destinations. No need to drive to these shops now, since you can get there without needing a car.
Before this transformation, there was barely a sidewalk, and almost no people enjoying this public space.
Here’s another angle of that street, so you get a better idea:
Two things strike me the most.
The first is that in the “before”, there’s just all wasted space and no people.
Now you now see elderly and children enjoying that space, people talking, people sitting down to eat or rest. You don’t have to be a cyclist to appreciate that this is what streets should look like.
The added context of the underground subway system definitely helps. In pure terms of use of space i definitely agree that we allocate way too much space to cars and car infrastructure. It’d be nice to see these ideas implemented as a broad ideology. Where i live we are moving further and further away from public transportation infrastructure.
It’d be nice to see these ideas implemented as a broad ideology.
Attend every public consultation that your municipality makes available when it comes to new projects and development. It often only takes a few people to make or break certain plans (good or bad ones).
Where i live we are moving further and further away from public transportation infrastructure.
North America? Some cities seem to be moving forward (i.e. San Francisco), while others are going way backward (i.e. Toronto).
In Montreal, Quebec, they are making huge progress in the same way that France has. De-growing certain roads, and giving them back to the communities. It’s incredible to see!
Hopefully, as some cities adopt more people-centric design, it catches on. And it has to, because cities that keep pushing car dependency will bankrupt themselves.
Moving from a car to a bike is a choice, though. Become a cyclist :)
Complete idiot local business owners keep trying to remove the bike lanes in San Diego because “their customers need to parallel park there”. Up to and including a fucking bike repair shop. Even when people have this better way right in front of them they reject it
Yes, idiot business owners.
Why do they believe they are in competition with people? As if having more people in front of their shop (vs. parked cars) is somehow bad?
What they should be worried about is online businesses stealing their market share.
And what better way to offer something more than what online businesses do then by making your brick and mortar shop friendly to people!
In defense of business owners, when their customers are trained from birth to drive everywhere, their customers expect parking. When there is no parking, they lose business
Every major US city receives immense backlash from local businesses when roads/parking are unavailable due to added bike lanes, traffic calming projects that reduce parking, or much-needed major construction projects such as water main or sewer work. This is happening right now in downtown Burlington, VT, for example
https://m.sevendaysvt.com/news/main-street-construction-is-hurting-burlington-businesses-43270506
There’s no easy answer in most cases
There can be other forms of parking, but on-street parking on a street like that is by far the worst type.
In my city’s downtown area, we have four lanes going one way, with parking taking up two.
We also have a few unused, large parking buildings and many empty parking lots within walking distance of every shop, restaurant, and service building.
As it stands today, my downtown is hostile to pedestrians, cyclists, and the disabled. Businesses would thrive if the area was designed for people.
Constriction hurts businesses, for sure. Road maintenance tends to be a huge reason for that, and frequent road maintenance is needed when areas only supports cars.
I’m unable to open the link due to being blocked, but do they have the data to prove sales went down?
Every study I’ve seen shows shops always sell more when they have more foot traffic from pedestrianization and protected bike lanes. Businesses tend to complain initially, but when the cash starts flowing in, they never want it removed afterwards
The linked article talks about business owners that are complaining about reduced sales while construction is going on… It’s not even a completed project that they are complaining about.
They’re typically small businesses, what reason do they have to lie about business being down?
I’m sure they have the data, and I’m sure if a local government or journalist wanted to, they could look at tax records to see revenue impact
I don’t think anyone would argue that such enhancements are a bad thing in the long run if 1) If the enhancements ultimately bring in more shoppers/customers, 2) there is still parking available in the area, and 3) the businesses can survive 6-12 months of reduced revenues
My response was really directed at comments implying that the businesses are essentially whining. There’s a very real impact during construction, and certain businesses could be hurt by reduced parking, particularly in the states where the car is king
Lie? Nah, they’re just ignorant. They don’t check the numbers.
Look at all the foot traffic for the shops. I have no idea why shops complain about this.
I like everything except the road-style bidirectional bike lane. They should split the directions of the bike lane. Head on collisions are very bad. Splitting the lanes makes those essentially impossible. It also makes it much easier for pedestrians to cross since they only need to deal with one direction of traffic at a time.
Just put that plant boulevard between the directions of the bike lane and create pedestrian islands to stand on.
Also make accessing the shop on the other side possible without riding on the road, this kind of layout mean you’re forced to ride on the road for the whole stretch if you using a bakfiet.
But either way, it’s a one step forward.
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It’s beautiful 🥹
I know, Smart Fix updated their sign!
We do a pedestrian mall in our downtown district from June to September. I absolutely love it and it has been a huge driver of local business. I would love to see some of our streets become pedestrian only but that would also mean my town acknowledging that pedestrians deserve a path at all in the winter.
I don’t see the immigrants in the second picture
Voilà la vie vrai
