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I bike to work everyday, in the 90 degree weather and in the rain. I get all my groceries on foot or by bike from a tj's two miles away. I don't own a car. Most of my coworkers bike too. If transit between my home and work existed I'd use it and I would pay a tax levy to create it. My biggest issue is cars trying to turn into me and refusing to use their mirrors. I ride in level 2 bike facilities mostly. I think even more than building more infrastructure a focus on driver education and enforcement of laws we have would make people feel a lot safer biking. I've never seen someone ticketed for parking in the bike lane or doing something dangerous to a cyclist.
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Sep 15, 2015 21:34
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Cicero posted:And the flip side of that is that many of the most passionate existing cyclists are of the hardcore, lycra-wearing, fancy road bike riding variety that care more about speed than safety. They would probably hate the bike lanes that I saw in Germany, which were basically an extension of the sidewalk, because it means you usually have to cross streets like a pedestrian, rather than like a car. In the industry we call those guys "pathletes". They are the reason that class 1 bike/ped trails have speed limits, because they like to slam into moms with strollers. These are these same types who agitate against local bike enforcement efforts.
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Sep 15, 2015 21:44
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bartlebyshop posted:My biggest issue is cars trying to turn into me and refusing to use their mirrors. I ride in level 2 bike facilities mostly. I think even more than building more infrastructure a focus on driver education and enforcement of laws we have would make people feel a lot safer biking. I've never seen someone ticketed for parking in the bike lane or doing something dangerous to a cyclist. Chicago has a pretty hefty fine if you door a cyclist; it's something like a grand minimum. Of course, what this also encourages is just hopping back into your car and driving off if you door someone. Enforcement is a really big part of improving things, because unenforced poor behavior by both parties leads to more of the same. I've met people who think that biking on the sidewalk is allowed and expected, and drivers who don't think that they have to always yield to pedestrians.
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Sep 15, 2015 21:48
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H.P. Hovercraft posted:In the industry we call those guys "pathletes". They are the reason that class 1 bike/ped trails have speed limits, because they like to slam into moms with strollers. H.P. Hovercraft posted:Enforcement is a really big part of improving things, because unenforced poor behavior by both parties leads to more of the same. I've met people who think that biking on the sidewalk is allowed and expected, and drivers who don't think that they have to always yield to pedestrians. I ride on the sidewalk wherever it feels like a deathtrap, but I go more slowly, if there are more than a handful of pedestrians I get off my bike and walk, and I just generally tried to avoid those routes. edit: Fun Fact - In Tokyo, sidewalk bike riding is the opposite of the US. You're supposed to ride there, and not the road. Cicero fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Sep 15, 2015 |
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Sep 15, 2015 21:56
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Cicero posted:Speed cameras can enforce speed limits, so you don't need officers. You're seriously arguing that spending millions on speed cameras to protect bike lanes is a reasonable use of either law enforcement or transportation budgets in California? Meanwhile, the police here don't investigate property crime and the city only has the money fix the streets from bad -> ok and can't afford the extra to go from ok -> good. But lets add speed cameras to catch people speeding on the bike routes.
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Sep 15, 2015 23:09
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Trabisnikof posted:You're seriously arguing that spending millions on speed cameras to protect bike lanes is a reasonable use of either law enforcement or transportation budgets in California? Plus, speed cameras can generate sufficient revenue to fund themselves and then some. I don't think they should be used a major revenue generator, but avoiding them because of the setup cost seems rather silly. quote:Meanwhile, the police here don't investigate property crime and the city only has the money fix the streets from bad -> ok and can't afford the extra to go from ok -> good. quote:But lets add speed cameras to catch people speeding on the bike routes. Cicero fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Sep 15, 2015 |
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Sep 15, 2015 23:25
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Trabisnikof posted:I'd honestly rather my police start enforcing property crime laws before they start enforcing speed limits on every street, but that's just me. Trabisnikof posted:Meanwhile, the police here don't investigate property crime and the city only has the money fix the streets from bad -> ok and can't afford the extra to go from ok -> good. I'm sorry your stuff got stolen/broken/vandalized.
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Sep 15, 2015 23:27
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Cicero posted:This culture is already starting to change, with younger people favoring walk-, bike-, and transit-friendly areas moreso than previous generations. Actually investing in those things will accelerate the cultural change. quote:People are mostly rational actors when it comes to transportation choices. They don't bike because they correctly discern that biking in most of the US is fairly unsafe. They don't take transit because in most of the US it's much slower than a private car. Where transit is comparable in time to a car, people use it. Where biking is safe, people will bike. Those rational actors are also getting fatter every day on average.  You'd think this would create something of a wake-up call to getting more active, but if anything it's the opposite: we're seeing a growing trend of disregarding anything that's negative about being overweight as "fat shaming". Unless there's some huge reversal in this trend, there are a lot of people who won't bike from a health standpoint.Edit: Also since I realize it kinda sounds like I'm coming off as some anti-bike nut, let me clarify: I think building out public transit & bike infrastructure, as well as creating laws to better incentivize biking, are all pretty cool things and I'm all for them. Were I able to safely bike to work, I'd almost certainly do it over hating myself in traffic every day. I'm just skeptical that there will ever be as radical a shift to biking over driving as some goons are theorizing here. Sydin fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Sep 15, 2015 |
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Sep 15, 2015 23:32
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Sydin posted:Those rational actors are also getting fatter every day on average. I rationally fulfill my desire to be lazy.
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Sep 15, 2015 23:38
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Sydin posted:I'm skeptical as to how much this culture will stick 10-15 years from now when those same young people have families/stronger commitments. Biking 15 miles to and from work every day sounds great when you're young, single, and healthy, but far less when you're married, have to get the kids to school first, are starting to feel the years a bit in you knees from 30 miles of cycling a day, and can't really afford the extra time it takes to cycle vs drive. People like to throw around ~millennials~ as some fundamental shift in culture, when really it's just young people being young people like they always have been. We're just more aware of it because of the rise of social media. - More people who have fewer/no kids. - Online shopping makes it easier to live in a dense urban area, because the suburbs + car combo no longer has a huge advantage for buying large things. These days you can easily just order a big screen TV or even furniture off of Amazon, and it's probably cheaper to get it that way than from a brick and mortar big box store. - Car services like Zipcar, Car2Go, and Uber make it easier to get a car when you need it even when you don't own one. Previously, if you wanted access to a car in a dense urban area, you would have to deal with the hassle and expense of parking. And having a car was more of an all-or-nothing thing, because once you do own one, the insurance and price of the car are essentially fixed costs*, so you use it a lot more. - As America's population continues to expand, the inexpensive, 'outer ring' suburbs are getting farther and farther out, and that combined with more total people in most major metros means commute times are getting really bad. quote:Those rational actors are also getting fatter every day on average. On the plus side, IIRC once people do start biking regularly for trips, they tend to lose weight. * not really because depreciation depends on mileage, but that's how people tend to think of it. Cicero fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Sep 15, 2015 |
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Sep 15, 2015 23:44
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Cicero posted:I don't bike on El Camino where I live, I go onto the sidewalk (at jogging speed), because it's a death trap. I think they are planning on adding bike lanes as a part of bus improvements soonish, at least. Do you live in Sunnyvale? Because as I've pointed out elsewhere, lol nope. I finally started bicycling to work again just yesterday, but since my office location changed since I last biked earlier this year, I now move with traffic towards 101 rather than away from it, which means that instead of just dealing with Homestead and 280 I now have to deal with crossing El Camino, Caltrain AND Central Expressway. It's considerably more harrowing than my old commute (never mind the traffic lights pretty much guaranteeing that you're bunched up with a ton of cars that want to pass you) and definitely works against my wanting to commute by bike, since I don't have the benefit of riding through residential backstreets like I did going the other way. Our bike infrastructure here is nowhere close to what it needs to be.
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Sep 16, 2015 01:02
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ComradeCosmobot posted:Do you live in Sunnyvale? Because as I've pointed out elsewhere, lol nope. quote:I finally started bicycling to work again just yesterday, but since my office location changed since I last biked earlier this year, I now move with traffic towards 101 rather than away from it, which means that instead of just dealing with Homestead and 280 I now have to deal with crossing El Camino, Caltrain AND Central Expressway.
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Sep 16, 2015 01:12
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Cicero posted:I'm aware of and very saddened by the decision to not have dedicated bus lanes, but I think they're still doing some (albeit much more minor by comparison) bus improvements, and as a part of that there should be bike lanes. Or did they remove the bike lanes too? Dunno. I haven't actually read the modified plan. I'd actually like to read it though. I really should start taking part in some of these local planning meetings now. I missed out on the chance to work on some El Camino Corridor improvements and on Butcher's Corner, but there is one on repurposing the old nursery location near ECR and Wolfe into a Hampton Inn. No real opinions on that though since it doesn't go either way on housing. Cicero posted:Yeah, I'm pretty lucky in that I can pretty much just take residential streets up to Evelyn, and it has bike lanes going the whole way until where I get onto Stevens Creek Trail, which runs right next to where I work. Yeah. The biggest problem I'm finding is crossing Caltrain since there are basically no crossings that aren't major thoroughfares; even the at-grade crossing on Sunnyvale Ave is kinda poo poo because of all the drivers that want to avoid Mathilda (not to mention the Caltrain station being right there). At least I'm not working north of 101.
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Sep 16, 2015 01:27
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ComradeCosmobot posted:Yeah. The biggest problem I'm finding is crossing Caltrain since there are basically no crossings that aren't major thoroughfares; even the at-grade crossing on Sunnyvale Ave is kinda poo poo because of all the drivers that want to avoid Mathilda (not to mention the Caltrain station being right there). At least I'm not working north of 101. You mentioning crossing Caltrain so I went over to Google Maps and this made me laugh:  I present to you: American bike infrastructure.
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Sep 16, 2015 01:45
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Cicero posted:15 miles each way is too far for biking to work, but aside from that I'm simply more optimistic than you are. I think we're seeing a general cultural change. The Netherlands was once heading the same way as the US, becoming very car-dominant. In the 70s the number of traffic fatalities became a major issue, and they reversed course. Changing culture is hard, but it's not impossible. There's a bunch of factors at work here: People do not live in the suburbs because it's easy to buy large things there. People live in the suburbs because they're "safe for the children". There is racism baked into that, but there's also the belief that kids need wide-open spaces to play in, as well as the deplorable status of schools in many cities. Look at me. I didn't consider living in San Francisco because (A) I like a larger garden and (B) the SF public schools and the SF government are unbelievably corrupt and dysfunctional. Sometime go look at how many bonds have been issued to earthquake-proof the schools, multiple times for the SAME SCHOOLS. I am happy to agree with you that biking is a great thing, and that people who enjoy or benefit from bikes should definitely keep it up and be facilitated. I'm all in favor of designing an optimal combination of pedestrian, bicycle, mass transit, and automobile travel. Where I disagree is that given:
that "just bike" in any way addresses the problems of global warming. You are choosing to overlook the large population of people who genuinely can't bike. My mom and dad are in their 80s. If they fall -- and old age is prone to falls -- they could break a hip, which is a life-threatening situation. Their retirement community is on a busy street; even if they didn't fall, it would be unsafe to bike to the shopping mall. I'm disabled. My kids want to get places in the city that aren't adequately served by Caltrain + Bart + Muni. Biking doesn't address any of our problems, nor is it likely to. To change the world, you have to meet people where they are. Not tell them what their needs should be, but find a different way to meet the needs they are currently satisfying.
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Sep 16, 2015 01:56
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Cicero posted:Yeah I've only biked up to the northern part of Sunnyvale once, and it was an awful experience. You forgot to mention that the divided road at the top of your map is Central Expressway, which has a "bike lane" without physical separation next to traffic with a speed limit of 50 MPH.
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Sep 16, 2015 01:58
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Some thoughts about the opposition to biking in last 2 pages from a Dutch person who is now living in the bay area: Weather - the weather is so much better for biking here than it is in the Netherlands. Infrastructure - the infrastructure at the moment sucks for biking. That said, your roads are much wider than hours so it should be easier to facilitate dedicated bike-lanes, for example by removing parking from one side of the street and turning those spaces into a bike-lane. Bring bikes on the Bart - We do not really have the option to bring our bikes into public transportation. The buses do not have bike racks in the Netherlands and you buy an extra ticket for your bike. When I worked in a different city I just had two bikes, one in the city I lived in, one in the city I worked in. Speed vs. casual bikers - I agree, bikers are much slower and more chill in the Netherlands compared to here. That said, as soon as I got here I felt stressed in traffic when I did not go fast trying to keep up with cars. "Pretending to be a car" seems to be the safest strategy because unfortunately a lot of drivers do not take bikers into account. Doing groceries - It is not an all or nothing thing. In the Netherlands we did groceries by car once every two weeks and I used my bike for smaller things. Old people biking - Biking is actually one of the ways of exercising that put the least strain on joints etc. Old people are not supposed to fall and they don't really do so (as far as I know) in the Netherlands, however you would probably need really good bike-paths and really mindful drivers to make sure the environment is safe enough for them. Biking for pleasure is kind of a stereotypical "old people" thing.
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Sep 16, 2015 02:14
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Arsenic Lupin posted:People do not live in the suburbs because it's easy to buy large things there. People live in the suburbs because they're "safe for the children". There is racism baked into that, but there's also the belief that kids need wide-open spaces to play in  I'm sure it has nothing to do with housing prices or wanting to own vs. rent or any of that. Just a bunch of dumb racists out in the suburbs.
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Sep 16, 2015 02:26
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uncertainty posted:Infrastructure - the infrastructure at the moment sucks for biking. That said, your roads are much wider than hours so it should be easier to facilitate dedicated bike-lanes, for example by removing parking from one side of the street and turning those spaces into a bike-lane. They did this around the campus of SJSU and a good portion of the downtown area of SJ a few years ago. And you would not believe the amount of  I heard from basically everybody. It'll clog traffic! There aren't that many bikers anyway! Why can't they just use the sidewalk?! And guess what? It didn't end up clogging traffic once people adjusted to it, it increased the amount of bikers, and it made the city much more walkable because there weren't a mass of bikers threatening to run you down on the sidewalk. And yet I still hear the occasional person bitching about it, despite it again having zero noticeable negative consequences. For some reason the thought of removing lanes/narrowing streets just brings all the ill-informed shitheads out of the woodwork. Edit: Actually I really like how they did 4th street's bike lanes, so I want to show it off:  Granted this only works on very wide streets, but I love it. On top of preserving the side street parking, it creates a great barrier for the bike lane. Sydin fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Sep 16, 2015 |
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Sep 16, 2015 02:28
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FCKGW posted:I'm sure it has nothing to do with housing prices or wanting to own vs. rent or any of that. Just a bunch of dumb racists out in the suburbs. I live in the suburbs. That doesn't change the fact that white flight is a thing.
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Sep 16, 2015 02:47
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Cicero posted:Yeah I've only biked up to the northern part of Sunnyvale once, and it was an awful experience. I lived in this neighborhood and biked to work. Logical East-West (perpendicular to 101) was a pain. Lawrence is a death trap. That fair oaks bridge in particular too is one I would avoid. I would bike further down Evelyn to the caltrain station, under the pedestrian underpass to cross the tracks. I also biked on central into San jose for years with never a problem.
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Sep 16, 2015 02:57
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Ron Jeremy posted:I lived in this neighborhood and biked to work. Logical East-West (perpendicular to 101) was a pain. Lawrence is a death trap. That fair oaks bridge in particular too is one I would avoid. I would bike further down Evelyn to the caltrain station, under the pedestrian underpass to cross the tracks. Since when is there an underpass at the Caltrain station there? That's news to me and it would probably help me out since I don't really like the afternoon traffic at the Sunnyvale Ave at-grade crossing.
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Sep 16, 2015 03:37
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H.P. Hovercraft posted:I really want to empathize with these pathletes, but they really seem to be fanatics about it to the exclusion of literally every other mode of transportation. Dude. Community meetings are full of insane weirdos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjX1IaU1A0w
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Sep 16, 2015 04:19
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FCKGW posted:ok but what if im fat I know people kind of ignored this because it's an obvious troll -- but the answer is to get an electric bike. Seriously.
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Sep 16, 2015 04:35
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ComradeCosmobot posted:Since when is there an underpass at the Caltrain station there? That's news to me and it would probably help me out since I don't really like the afternoon traffic at the Sunnyvale Ave at-grade crossing. Lawrence station. Bout a half mile away from the fair oaks bridge posted above on the map.
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Sep 16, 2015 04:39
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Sydin posted:They did this around the campus of SJSU and a good portion of the downtown area of SJ a few years ago. And you would not believe the amount of They did the car lane->bike lane conversion on 10th and 11th street from Hedding down to a bit past 280 and it is great for biking. It also helps that Hedding connects to the Guadalupe trail so you can go all the way up to 237.
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Sep 16, 2015 06:29
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CPColin posted:^^ Good news. Ah yes, the GEN_SUPERMARKET_STORE is having difficulty with competing? They buy all the underpreforming stores from Vons so they can merge with Ralph's with no identity in CA and expect success? Is that right? Am I reading this correctly? Hell I know ALDI is entering the market and I haven't even see a friggin store yet. And fresh and easy is holding on by a thread ;_;.
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Sep 16, 2015 08:54
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DEHUMANIZE YOURSELF AND FACE TO WALMART NEIGHBORHOOD MARKET well ideally don't do this but drat that's how it's looking these days Also it's not really the shopper's fault that if they cared about high-end grocery they'd go to Gelson's or Trader Joe's or whatever you guys have in the bay and that maybe Haggen should have tried a loss leader ever.
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Sep 16, 2015 08:58
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My Vons HAD quality products ironically. Full suite of organic selection and good selection of pro-gmo veggies. Haggen got rid of it, jacked the prices up, and they don't even try hiding their private label selection is in fact vons private label. Walmart market just opened up about a month ago..... 
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Sep 16, 2015 09:15
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Sir Unimaginative posted:high-end grocery ... Trader Joe's
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Sep 16, 2015 09:16
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Sydin posted:They did this around the campus of SJSU and a good portion of the downtown area of SJ a few years ago. And you would not believe the amount of That looks great, and a lot safer than most of the bike-lanes in the Netherlands. I do wonder if it ever causes problems in that it seems like visibility may be impaired in situations where (for example) a car plans to turn right and does not realize there is a biker behind the cars going straight ahead? I think the expectations thing is a big problem, especially combined with bikers being (having to be) more obnoxious in the US. When I just arrived, I was shocked with how much all the bikers broke the rules (skipped lights, biked on the curbs etc.) and just were general assholes in traffic. Two weeks later I was one of them. So it does not surprise me that non-bikers are generally negative about bikers and will not support any changes to the status quo to support them, especially when there are some reasons to expect that it may affect them negatively (like removing lanes).
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Sep 16, 2015 11:54
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FRINGE posted:Huh? He meant Whole Foods but he's from Indiana so he's struggling with the language.
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Sep 16, 2015 15:25
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incoherent posted:Hell I know ALDI is entering the market and I haven't even see a friggin store yet.
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Sep 16, 2015 16:17
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As of today it'll be San Junípero Serra!
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Sep 23, 2015 17:11
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Trabisnikof posted:As of today it'll be San Junípero Serra! Which means, as came up recently in the USPOL thread, we won't be seeing a Sally Ride statue in the US Capitol any time soon. (Brown already nixed the idea earlier this year) [The other statue no one talked about replacing has already been canonized: St. Ronald Reagan]
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Sep 23, 2015 17:25
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Thanks Pope Francis for legitimizing the genocide of my ancestors. 
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Sep 23, 2015 18:37
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Hitlers Gay Secret posted:Thanks Pope Francis for legitimizing the genocide of my ancestors. In other news, Pope Francis is still an old white devout Catholic. I mean don't get me wrong, I applaud his socialist leanings, but outside of that he's a shitter and nobody should be surprised at that.
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Sep 23, 2015 19:48
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Hitlers Gay Secret posted:Thanks Pope Francis for legitimizing the genocide of my ancestors. What did he say?
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Sep 23, 2015 20:08
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Artificer posted:What did he say? He's canonizing Junípero Serra today. Also, its kinda funny to imply that this is the time that the Catholic Church legitimized the destruction of native peoples. Not all the times they sent these missionaries, but the time canonize one.
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Sep 23, 2015 20:09
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Trabisnikof posted:He's canonizing Junípero Serra today. I didn't say the Catholic Church, I said Pope Francis. His canonizing of this dirtbag means he's okay with it. I'm not even Catholic, I just liked what he was doing humanitarian-wise. Now I wish he'd never meddle with the United States ever again. God damnit now I sound like a Republican. 
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Sep 23, 2015 22:39
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