|
One thing I see a lot of around here is outlying parking lots attached to the transit system. Is there any sort of move to expand this sort of system, or places where it used more effectively than where I live in Boston? I used it regularly when commuting from outside the city - drive until I get to the subway network, park, pay 5 dollars for the full day of parking, and then take the subway into the city wherever I needed to go. That's still hellishly expensive, but a quarter of what it costs to park in the city with the major benefit of not having to park in the city. And then I stopped doing it because I hated having to wait 20 minutes an hour to get on a subway train that comes every five minutes, but then Boston has had some public transportation issues with overcrowding lately that they really really really don't seem to want to talk about.
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2015 21:35
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 05:27 |
|
|
nielsm posted:Except in Copenhagen where carrying your bike on the commuter trains (S-trains) was made free several years back, popularity boomed, and in response they have now heavily increased bike carrying capacity. It's still stuffed, but taking your bike onto the train in rush hour is actually possible and encouraged. Unless you're getting on or off one of a few of the most central stations. You can carry them for free all you want, the thing is you literally will not fit onboard with the exception of some of the commuter lines. Most of the commuter lines now use multilevel cars like this:   Where the only safe place to have your bike is in the handicapped seating area on the ends of the cars. Or they're arranged similar to this:  Where the only place you can fit your bike is in the areas right where the exterior doors are. Some of the other transit authorities in the area have new single level trains rolling out that have hooks for vertical storage of bikes on the train, but they only accommodate 4-6 bikes in a rail car that handles 110 people seated and another 50 or so standing.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2015 21:44
|
|
|
I always thought a better model was more of a "park and ride" but using bikes. Ride your bike to the metro/train then walk to your destination, or the reverse, which ever works out better. Making space inside an already cramped metro system seems a bit expensive. But if it's working it's working! For NYC though I would think bikes could replace a lot of mid-distance transit trips. It's not just about speed, it's about comfort too. A lot of people rather get some more activity and have a 20 min bike ride in the sun than 15 min in a crowded tunnel. And it's not like NYC's bike infrastructure is being built at the expense of transit, it's taking space from cars. It just means people have one more option to get around, and bikes are great for those trips that are a bit too long or slow to walk, but barely long enough for transit. I don't think it would be worth the cost to some how make taking your bike on the subway system pleasant. You'd need special train cars, more trains (bikes take up a lot of space inside a trains vs a person standing), but you'd also have to change a lot of very old stations to make them a bit more bike-friendly. The question of if it's worth investing in bike infra isn't a question of raw numbers of users. I don't care if the transit system is moving a billion people a second. If the upkeep/running costs on that transit system works out to be $100 per person but the bike infra works out to be $50 a person then that bike infra is a good investment, specially if it's seeing people switch from transit or car. Even if half the users it attracts are people who would otherwise have been walking, you're increasing their mobility, speed, and range at the very least.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2015 21:47
|
|
|
Please take advantage of me factchecking your sources so they don't get in the way of your ~narrative~
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2015 21:59
|
|
|
Baronjutter posted:A lot of people rather get some more activity and have a 20 min bike ride in the sun than 15 min in a crowded tunnel. Replace 20 minute bike ride in the sun with say 35 minute bike ride in the midst of traffic and honking cars, because there's no way you're going to go much faster than the slow traffic unless you want to risk getting creamed by cross street traffic. You really over romanticize biking to be honest, I just don't see the point when I can walk to transit, ride it, and walk to destination, or if I'm in an outlying area maybe drive a short distance to transit and then do the rest. If you're in the city there's little point in wrangling a bike around or finding secure storage for it to save a few minutes over walking. Also it's not sunny at all a lot of the time. Or it's below freezing. Or it's hot as hell because it's summer. Not very attractive when you can sit or stand on the subway which really has quite good heating and air conditioning year round.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2015 22:38
|
|
|
Right, that's the point of the infrastructure, to make cycling more pleasant. To separate you from those honking cars, to give you signal priority to not get stuck in traffic, to protect you at intersections. Newyork is a lot bigger than any dutch city, but I don't see any harm in trying to get the bike modeshare up. If sprawling Tokyo can do 14% I'm sure NYC can do better than 1%. But NYC isn't a problem city, they're doing fine. I think comprehensive cycle infrastructure would make the city even better, but NYC is doing fine without it. The problem is fixing the cities with 80+ percent private motor use, to do anything to get those numbers down.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2015 22:48
|
|
|
Baronjutter posted:Right, that's the point of the infrastructure, to make cycling more pleasant. To separate you from those honking cars, to give you signal priority to not get stuck in traffic, to protect you at intersections. This isn't really possible. You're a few feet over from them, you still hear see and smell all of it. And the only vehicles that deserve signal priority is the buses, and they get it. You're perfectly protected at intersections so long as you obey the signals, when I talk about getting creamed by the side street traffic I'm talking people who think they know better than the signal and try to go faster than other surface traffic by blithely going through reds and not slowing for a yellow signal. Baronjutter posted:But NYC isn't a problem city, they're doing fine. I think comprehensive cycle infrastructure would make the city even better, but NYC is doing fine without it. The problem is fixing the cities with 80+ percent private motor use, to do anything to get those numbers down. Build grade separated rail transit in the city and commuter rail to feed in in the radial pattern that suits the landscape. It's that simple. Most people are simply far too lazy to bike long distances but they can be relatively easily enticed by nice climate controlled transit with reasonably comfortable seating, especially since they can simply drive to a park and ride of the new commuter rail.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2015 23:18
|
|
|
GlyphGryph posted:One thing I see a lot of around here is outlying parking lots attached to the transit system. This exists in some cities in the Netherlands. Usually there are a few huge parking garages at the very edge of the city. If you park your car there, you can buy a day parking ticket for € 5 which doubles as a 2-person return ticket to the city center. If you have more than 2 people in your car, it seems to depend on the city, some allow the 5 € ticket to be used for up to 5 people, some make you pay a small amount extra for each additional person. Baronjutter posted:I always thought a better model was more of a "park and ride" but using bikes. Ride your bike to the metro/train then walk to your destination, or the reverse, which ever works out better. It's not uncommon here for people to park an old-rear end bike at their destination station and use it to cycle the last stretch to work. Or they just have a year ticket for the Railways' bike rental service.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2015 23:22
|
|
|
Jeez, you can't just design for one mode, whether it's cars or bikes. Even if everyone lives in a dense, walkable urban center, we still need deliveries, intercity transport, farms, military convoys, and emergency services. If you design everything for bikes, you're making the exact same mistakes they did a hundred years ago with cars. We need a robust, flexible transportation network that can handle peds, cars, buses, trucks, bikes, trains, trams, skateboards, horses, buggies... pretty much everything. Building for one mode is dumb.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2015 23:47
|
|
|
Cichlidae posted:Jeez, you can't just design for one mode, whether it's cars or bikes. Even if everyone lives in a dense, walkable urban center, we still need deliveries, intercity transport, farms, military convoys, and emergency services. If you design everything for bikes, you're making the exact same mistakes they did a hundred years ago with cars. We need a robust, flexible transportation network that can handle peds, cars, buses, trucks, bikes, trains, trams, skateboards, horses, buggies... pretty much everything. Building for one mode is dumb. Yeah I don't see how this is controversial. Every mode has pros and cons, and diminishing returns from investments. 1/3 is a good target for private car use though, what the remaining 2/3 is depends on what works best for the city. But if that remaining 2/3 almost completely ignores some entire modes, I think they've missed an opportunity, missed some low-hanging fruit. http://www.streetsblog.org/2014/09/18/nyc-bike-commuting-has-doubled-since-2009-while-solo-driving-dropped/ It's pretty easy to show huge percentage gains when you're increasing from pretty much nothing to 1%. The Mayor and city planners seem to think it's a worthwhile goal and want to achieve 6% modeshare. As the infrastructure improves more and more people that would like to cycle but don't because it feels unsafe will do so. Cycling in NYC is up, transit use is up too. The gains are coming mostly from private motoring. Now of course the question is: what has a better ROI when it comes to reducing private motoring, investing the same money into transit expansion or bike lane expansion? And once built, which has lower "operating costs" per trip? Neither are "better" or should be pursued to some extreme or at the detriment to each other, but it seems to me in NYC's case it has nothing to lose chasing after a 6% cycling modeshare and I'd bet dollars to doughnuts it's cheaper to operate/maintain than a subway. So why not have a mix? If it's cheap compared to the other options, gets people out of their cars and potentially takes a small burden off transit why not go for it? The only reasons I can think to be against such a thing would be having data showing that the construction and operating costs of the bike lanes are significantly higher than the construction and operating costs of more transit (which would surprise the hell out of me), or that the bike lanes simply won't be used. Speaking of bikes and transit. You know what's really bad? Making shared bus lanes and cycle lanes. The buses get stuck behind the bikes or are constantly playing leap frog with them. Also who the hell wants to cycle with a stream of buses constantly trying to pass you or pull into stops (which then block the bikes). It feels like some planner just decided to make a ghetto-lane for not-cars. Come on guys, it's not hard. Buses and bikes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pvhkx0153k
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 00:30
|
|
|
Baronjutter posted:Now of course the question is: what has a better ROI when it comes to reducing private motoring, investing the same money into transit expansion or bike lane expansion? Transit, absolutely.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 00:56
|
|
|
From a recapitalization standpoint, that's not been the Dutch experience.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 01:26
|
|
|
Koesj posted:From a recapitalization standpoint, that's not been the Dutch experience. The dutch aren't dealing with people living 20+ miles out having to be dragged into taking anything besides a car though?
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 01:32
|
|
|
Nintendo Kid posted:The dutch aren't dealing with people living 20+ miles out having to be dragged into taking anything besides a car though? We very much are, but that's beside the point I was trying to make. From an investor (read: government) standpoint, the ROI on biking has turned out way better than transit. The net social benefit of the former can hardly be overstated, while the latter hasn't really been able to compete as a mass transportation solution with either the bike or the car. Increased investment in PT was part sold as a measure for increased social cohesion when it turned out that it couldn't compete with other modes on a narrow monetary basis in the 1980s. But outside the few places dense enough to function moderately well, it tends to be used almost solely by groups who really don't need all that subsidy coming to them. Plus, huge parts of the public transportational complex have to be accounted for as institutional spending on consumption - either directly on rolling stock/vehicles, salaried employees, and operations, or as a subsidy to the operating agent. And gently caress me if it isn't perverse that relatively high-income groups have benefited the most from government consumption on PT while lower income groups were pushed further and further away from their working spaces through privatized gentrification.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 01:50
|
|
|
Nintendo Kid posted:The dutch aren't dealing with people living 20+ miles out having to be dragged into taking anything besides a car though? NYC's bike infra investments aren't targeting those people, it's targeting people making trips of the time/distance that bikes make the most sense. NY is great for walking and great for transit, but there's a large untapped market of people that don't live 20+ miles out that would be happy to cycle instead of drive or take transit. It's not an either/or thing though, bring better transit to the 20+ mile away people and improve cycling for people in the city. I'm trying to find actual studies on the ROI of various transport investments, but most I'm finding are of course specific to certain cities/countries. Many require money to read. But from the abstracts and summaries they're all saying that cycle infra has an amazing return that is on par or even higher than transit spending, specially when you include the knock-on effects from boosts in health. http://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/dft-discovers-cycling-s-benefit-to-cost-ratio-is-off-the-scale/017088 No one's saying to stop investing in transit, transit is great, I'm obsessed with transit and choo-choo trains. I don't even ride a bike my self, but it seems really silly to ignore or discount a cheap and effective way to get around that is being effectively used in cities of all sizes. I'm not sure if you're just against cycling in general, or just in NYC. If it's just NYC I don't really care to keep arguing hypothetical based on both our general gut feelings and experience, time will tell if their investments were worth it. But bikes anywhere are great for mid-distance trips, or just speeding up short trips, and they're great for the "last mile" of a mostly transit based commute. And from every article and study I've read, they absolutely are not a waste of money to invest in. I'm just an amateur though, if you have some studies that show the cost of bike lanes is a terrible investment in NYC or elsewhere I'll read them, I'm genuinely interested in the subject. Heck maybe you could forward them to the mayor to alert him to this waste of money that could have been better put to use digging some new subway tunnels or running some more trains (if they're even coming from the same budget?)
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 01:55
|
|
|
NYC's bike investments are almost always tied to either already planned pedestrian improvements or selectively reconfiguring parking and street width that's primarily for better traffic flow, but also means you create space that's used for bike lanes and the like. For example many of the avenue bike lanes involve the bike lane also serving as a dedicated turning traffic only lane which formerly a through traffic and turning lane. They're rarely a completely bike focused thing, it's just that other goals happen to converge. Bikes really aren't great for mid distance trips when the transit system runs 24 hours a day at high frequency, is the thing. They kinda help once you get into outer boroughs where you're well beyond the subway, but those are also the areas that have seen the least investment in any sort of bike stuff, your "bike lane" is just "here's a normal street that's low traffic because you're in outer Queens". Bikes are also TERRIBLE for a last mile of a transit commute in NYC because the current transit systems are so packed during rush hours that you can't easily bring your bike with you, unless it's one of those expensive folding bikes. Maybe when the city gets a trillion dollars to upgrade all the 4 track subway trunks to 6 or 8 tracks to move more people, or the funding to build even more parallel lines throughout the city to relieve congestion the subway cars will finally be empty enough for that guy who wants t bring his bike onboard to not cause undue trouble, but that's a long way away. The city still doesn't have many of the original planned expansions from the 30s that got cut off by World War II, and they would inarguably bring a better return. Major plans like additional "crosstown" lines in the outer boroughs that go between the otherwise somewhat radial to Manhattan lines are still missing. There are stations acting as terminals on several lines that weren't meant to have been gone past back in the 40s. Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 02:32 on Apr 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 02:20
|
|
|
Bike shares.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 02:34
|
|
|
Having room for exactly two bikes on a bus that holds forty people always struck me as a little idiotic. gently caress the third cyclist I guess?
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 04:31
|
|
|
Javid posted:Having room for exactly two bikes on a bus that holds forty people always struck me as a little idiotic. gently caress the third cyclist I guess? When those bike racks on the front of buses were first introduced they were seldom used, they were seen more like a wheel-chair ramp, a nice "just in case" to look progressive and accessible. Obviously in most cities these filled up pretty quick as people figured out they could get a lot farther or a lot faster with their bike plus a bus, or they were just lazy fucks who would take a bus for 1km of their 2km commute. I'm not sure what the solutions are though. People loading/unloading bikes from a bus can really delay the bus (my dad was a driver for a very long time, when people knew what they were doing it was fast but there was always the person who took way too long). Putting the racks outside of where the driver can easily see is dangerous because it runs the risk of the bus driving away while someone is using the rack. Other than the existing racks on the front of a bus, I'm not really sure how to safely increase bike capacity on buses. Build a train that has room for bikes? Just ride your bike the whole way? Take the bus and walk? Build a greater density of bus routes so you don't need a bike for those last few blocks? In an idea world the bus would not be used for those really long commutes, you'd have some sort of choo-choo to take you. The bus should fill a similar role as a bike, for medium length commutes or as part of a feeder system for a train/metro. Perhaps other people have ideas or examples where it works, but I don't think trying to jam more bikes on buses is really worth it. One of the biggest costs of operating a bus is the driver, while with a train you have just 1 person (or a robot if you're cool) running a whole train 10x or more the capacity of a bus. It's much more economical to have space for bikes on a metro or suburban train than a bus. There's just no room either. I guess you could make a standing-only low floor articulated bus with space for bikes, I've seen trams like that, but even then those are big long trams.   I don't think that trailer would fly in north america though. I think a tram is about as small as you can get while still being practically bike-friendly. Or this:  Here is a concept bus that can fit bikes, doesn't leave a lot of room for people though. Rail based transit can much more safely and comfortably have people stand, but it's a real pain in the rear end to stand for a long time on a bus. 
Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Apr 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 05:08
|
|
|
In the Netherlands we can't have bikes in buses or trams, at least not on ones I've seen. In the metro or train you can, but it costs extra. People generally use their bike to get to a bus stop, and then leave it there. Most of the time this is fine, you're going to some destination that is probably more central than your house. When this is not the case and it's a regular trip, such as a difficult commute, some people will also have an old bike that's permanently in a bike rack at the destination station and ride from there to their destination on it. Or use the bike-sharing system if there is one.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 10:57
|
|
|
nielsm posted:Except in Copenhagen where carrying your bike on the commuter trains (S-trains) was made free several years back, popularity boomed, and in response they have now heavily increased bike carrying capacity. It's still stuffed, but taking your bike onto the train in rush hour is actually possible and encouraged. Unless you're getting on or off one of a few of the most central stations. I'll just elaborate on this point. In Copenhagen if you're taking an S-train in from the suburbs you grab one of these coaches  You get in and it looks like this https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B_J5MXCWoAA1lJI.jpg:large this is tied together with the hanicap area and the area for people with baby strollers (you still want those folks to be able to use public transit, right?)  If there's low bike traffic, there's still substantial standing/sitting room  There isn't room for bikes on the busses, but in some sense that's by design. If you can take a bike, it's a better option than the bus because they have some very serious bike infrastructure. The bus however is a pretty good option if you can't take a bike. It's a really good system.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 11:11
|
|
|
There's one case I know about. The Westerscheldetunnel. This is a car tunnel under a rather wide river. It's not accessible for cyclists. When the tunnel first opened, it replaced a ferry service that DID allow cyclists on board. The next river crossing is a many kilometer detour. To allow cyclists to cross the river anyway, the government struck a deal with the bus service. You can take your bike on the bus, during the daytime service only (so not at night). You're supposed to book a bicycle spot at least an hour in advance (you don't have to, but those with reservations get priority). It costs 2 euro to bring a bike along. There's place for 3 bicycles on the bus (inside, near the middle door). If there are more reservations than that for a single trip, the bus company hires a van + trailer from some private transport company, which follows the bus through the tunnel, bringing the bikes along. It... works, I guess. But advance reservations are not convenient and I don't think it's used a lot. In this case, driving a car through the tunnel or using transit only is probably more convenient.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 13:43
|
|
|
I'm surprised they did't just include a small space for bikes in the tunnel, like make the emergency exit hallway a bit wider and stick bikes or something in there. Or build a swing/lift bridge above. Seems like something that might happen one day? Or is the route not quite important enough to justify a bridge?
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 15:01
|
|
|
Baronjutter posted:I'm surprised they did't just include a small space for bikes in the tunnel, like make the emergency exit hallway a bit wider and stick bikes or something in there. Or build a swing/lift bridge above. Seems like something that might happen one day? Or is the route not quite important enough to justify a bridge? It's a toll tunnel as well, which complicates things a bit.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 15:07
|
|
|
Ah it's also way the heck in the middle of nowhere as part of a highway system. Unless you're going on some big 20+ km countryside bike ride that tunnel isn't going to bother you. I was thinking like a tunnel between two halves of a city.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 16:26
|
|
|
If a bridge would have been feasible for the location, they'd likely have built one rather than go to the expense of a tunnel, to be honest.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 17:02
|
|
|
Carbon dioxide posted:There's one case I know about. The Westerscheldetunnel. The old car ferries were sold but a bike ferry replaced them in exactly the same spot as the old ferry was. Nintendo Kid is right, this is not so much a river as a sea arm. It is 5-6KM wide and would need 70 meters of clearance to allow the ships going into Antwerp to pass. Also almost no one would bike over it (because North sea winds can be very annoying and uncomfortable, take a ride over the zeelandbridge in mild winds and drizzle to sea what i mean). Also regarding bicycles on the subway: You can take your bike but only outside of rush hour, which limits the use to commuters. With the train on busy routes you are going to have the same problem: It is allowed in theory but not a pleasant experience in any way. But you can rent a bicycle for €3,15 per day at any station so why bother bringing your own. NihilismNow fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Apr 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 17:25
|
|
|
Baronjutter posted:Ah it's also way the heck in the middle of nowhere as part of a highway system. Unless you're going on some big 20+ km countryside bike ride that tunnel isn't going to bother you. I was thinking like a tunnel between two halves of a city. Exactly. I found a report about it from the province. It's mainly used by recreational cyclists in the summer months. You can't really use it for cycling to work or school. This also has some historical reasons. The old ferries were also somewhat hard to use, as it took quite a while to get to the other side, and they were relatively expensive. And the only other way to get from that southern part to the rest of the Netherlands is by going around through Belgium. That Southern bit is in many ways more closely related to Belgium than to the rest of the Netherlands, and people living there go shopping or even go to work in Belgium sooner than they'll cross the tunnel. NihilismNow posted:The old car ferries were sold but a bike ferry replaced them in exactly the same spot as the old ferry was. In any case, I found an interesting study on the use of bicycle clothing from Norway. Now, in Norway biking isn't as popular as in the Netherlands, partially because of the mountaineous terrain and large distances. It's still quite common within cities, I think. For Norwegian speakers or those with Google Translate, here's the article. I'll just post the graphs here and explain them, I think those are fine without the flavour text. Note that I don't speak Norwegian, I'm trying my best to make sense of these words.  I'll start with this one. Left: Non-helmet wearers. Right: Helmet-wearers. The bottom bar means they don't have any other 'equipment'. The other bars mean they use 1, 2, 3 or 4 of the following pieces of equipment: Bicycle pants, bicycle shoes, bicycle jacket, bicycle computer. This graphs show that helmet users often use the helmet as part of a whole set of gear.  Light: without jacket. Dark: With jacket. This graph shows responses to a survey, on a bunch of questions that the researchers relate to 'aggressive' riding style. From left to right: Likes to go fast. Rushes through traffic. Rides faster than others. Dislikes being passed by another cyclist (I think. Not sure about this last one). This shows that those wearing cycling jackets tend to be more aggressive than those who don't. The researchers saw a similar outcome for other types of clothing, except for those who only wear a helmet. Those who only wear a helmet and no other bicycle clothing are not more aggressive than those without bicycle clothing. And now we're getting to the more interesting part.  Left: Cyclists without a helmet. Right: Cyclists with a helmet. The bars show how often they were in an "Oops" situation, which means they barely avoided being in an accident. From top to bottom: Often, sometimes, seldom, never. This shows that helmet users are in near-accidents more often. The following graph is related.  From left to right: Slow cyclists without helmet, slow cyclists with helmet, fast cyclists without helmet, fast cyclists with helmet. The graphs show in how many accidents they've been. Top bar: no accidents, second bar, 1 accident and the bottom bar means they've been in 2 accidents. Now, this graph shows that fast cyclists are in accidents more often. That's not much of a surprise, it's harder for them to brake in time to prevent a collision. Additionally, it's likely this group coincides with the lycra-wearing group. The race cyclists, that are apparently more aggressive road users, as well. The researchers explain that this is probably why helmets don't seem to reduce accidents: they are mostly used by risk-takers anyway. Another interesting difference is that between slow cyclists with and without a helmet. As far as I can tell, the article doesn't say much about that. A possibly explanation could be that slow cyclists feel much safer when they wear a helmet, making them much more prone to taking risks. Carbon dioxide fucked around with this message at 17:31 on Apr 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 17:28
|
|
|
Yeah a bridge wasn't really feasible AFAIK because of it having to cross the Scheldt estuary, which is the main shipping channel to the Port of Antwerp. This Dutch Wiki list has a nice overview of which tunnels actually provide for bike traffic if anyone's interested. I'd say that except for the Westerscheldetunnel, only the road tunnels under the IJ/North Sea Channel (which cuts across North Holland through Amsterdam) are the examples of where added biking facilities might have been useful. With the A22, the S116 through Amsterdam there are nearby ferries though, and the Zeeburgertunnel has the old bridge nearby. The Westerscheldetunnel is very much the outlier here. partly e;f;b
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 17:37
|
|
|
I used to be pretty pro-helmet laws, it was absolutely pounded into us since birth that if you don't wear a helmet you will die or be stuck in a coma taking up valuable hospital bed space. But all european stats and studies show they aren't really needed (at least not mandatory) and they do make cycling less attractive, specially fucks up rental systems. Of course on the flip side it's easy to say you don't need a helmet when you aren't being forced to ride in high speed traffic next to huge trucks. Some cycling activists in north america think if we just get rid of helmet laws suddenly everyone will bike around, but I think the infrastructure has to come first. Then again if more people cycled there'd be more pressure for the infrastructure. It probably really should be up to the individual cities to have helmet laws or not, based on local infra and accident stats. Then again even here in Victoria nearly everyone I know who rides a bike fairly regularly has been hit and quite a few have absolutely trashed helmets they keep around to remind them to be defensive as gently caress and keep wearing their helmet.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 17:47
|
|
|
Having a helmet saves your life or prevents more serious injuries when you go over the bars a non-trivial amount of times. It is not a 'trucks' thing. It is a '8m/s human body' thing. Bicycling isn't ludicrously dangerous but things do go wrong. As a race of endurance runners, our evolved resilience doesn't line up particularly well with bicycle postures, and having added protection for the scrapes and falls is fairly reasonable. More comfortable clothing/helmets are available if you are serious about cycling.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 18:39
|
|
|
Can we please not poo poo up this thread with helmetchat?
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 18:45
|
|
|
I am anti-helmet laws and although I have a helmet I don't ride with it unless it's a downpour or something. I am not a particularly fast or risk-taking cyclist so if a car hits me with something more than a tap I'm probably dead anyway. So my defense against getting hit is being aware of my surroundings and being sufficiently lit up/visible. Wearing a helmet hurts the awareness of surroundings part because I sweat more from my head and it runs into my eyes. It's not easy to take off if it's bothering me and it's a hassle to take in to work. It slightly restricts my field of vision and if I move my head around quickly (e.g. checking for a car) it can move a little on my head, distracting me (this is outside of Copenhagen, where I pretty much didn't need to worry about cars at all). I am generally quite suspicious of people who don't bike to work giving helmet advice, especially those who only drive. Although the sport cyclists/lycra crowd are almost as bad. Biking to work in CT was terrifying the few times I did it, although I did wear a helmet then. edit: ^^^ sorry! I was typing this while you posted that
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 18:51
|
|
|
Anias posted:More comfortable clothing/helmets are available if you are serious about cycling. That's the point. In place with a lot of cycling most people are not serious about cycling and ride a bicycle that is about to fall apart. They also (mostly) don't ride road bicycles but comfortable bicycles with a upright seating position. For a lot of people "you have to wear a helmet" is translated as "you might as well ride a moped now".
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 19:02
|
|
|
NihilismNow posted:That's the point. In place with a lot of cycling most people are not serious about cycling and ride a bicycle that is about to fall apart. They also (mostly) don't ride road bicycles but comfortable bicycles with a upright seating position. For a lot of people "you have to wear a helmet" is translated as "you might as well ride a moped now". Bicycles as transportation, and tight-pants cyclists are two different, totally unrelated groups, with totally different goals and requirements. One wants to get to work without owning/operating a car, and the other generally has unresolved inferiority and rage issues.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 19:16
|
|
|
Baronjutter posted:Ah it's also way the heck in the middle of nowhere as part of a highway system. Unless you're going on some big 20+ km countryside bike ride that tunnel isn't going to bother you. I was thinking like a tunnel between two halves of a city. We have the same thing in Vancouver, only shittier!  They are, at least, planning on building a bridge sometime in the next decade, but for now it's pretty bad for cycling. http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/popular-topics/driver_info/route-info/massey/massey.htm http://engage.gov.bc.ca/masseytunnel/faq
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 21:33
|
|
|
Oh yeah that tunnel. How the hell does anyone that isn't a vehicle get across there? Also I've been reading more and more about one-way streets being bad. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/17/why-one-way-streets-really-are-the-worst/ Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Apr 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 21:34
|
|
|
Baronjutter posted:Also I've been reading more and more about one-way streets being bad. The big point of this seems to be that two lanes in the same direction (and easy passing as a result) can make roads significantly less friendly to pedestrians and cyclists and less attractive to live on. Converting them to a road with single lane two way traffic OR narrowing them enough for single lane one way traffic both appear to work. GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Apr 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 22:12
|
|
|
A one way road because the road is too narrow for much more is fine or even good, specially if the alternative is no sidewalk. But in a lot of places, specially north america, city's street-grids would be first made up of a bunch of fairly wide 2+ lane streets. Traffic planners then would do some math and figure out they could move more cars if they turned them into one-ways, specially in combo with highways. So a highway would come into a city, then split into two one-way streets. So instead of having a 2 way street with parking you'd have a 4-lane one-way street and then the next block over the same thing going the other way. Parts of my city are this way. You can have two streets of similar widths with one feeling fairly safe and pleasant and the other one feeling more like a highway. The main problem though with a lot of urban design and traffic engineering is through traffic. The city centre should be a destination, the end of a trip, other trips should not pass through. If you do this well enough you can nearly eliminate private motoring from the city centre. Downtown land is precious, it's hosed up to waste it on huge interchanges or freeways. A lot of ring systems were obviously built to help traffic bypass the city centre, but a highway will always act a bit like a city wall or moat, they create good sides and bad sides, just like railways did (wrong side of the tracks).
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 22:43
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 05:27 |
|
|
The city here is like that. The highway was first, in wagon trail form, and the city grew around it somewhat. Now there's no going back without punching a new highway through the mountains on either side.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 22:52
|
|