Ask me about being a Traffic Engineer!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Ask me about being a Traffic Engineer!

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Nintendo Kid posted:

And the city's worth of protected bike lanes on arterials is going to be much less useful to getting people out of cars then a public transit line or two.

[Citation needed]

Portland's bike mode share is 7% vs a transit mode share of 11%, even though a single new MAX line costs an order of magnitude more than their current entire bike network, let alone the fact that they have five of those lines + all the bus investments. Again, that doesn't mean you shouldn't have transit, but bike lanes and bike paths are so incredibly cheap by comparison for how many people they serve that you'd have to be a fool to dismiss them.

quote:

Especially, as it is so often, when the city has decent amounts of elevation changes. Also if you're so impatient you can't handle having to spend a whole 18 minutes walking a mile, you're probably not the kind of person who will accept actual bike travel either.

It's nice addition when you already have a worthwhile public transit system, sure.

18 minutes isn't a killer, obviously, I'm just saying that's around the distance where biking starts to make much more sense than walking. You can do a mile on a bike in 5-6 minutes easily enough, even if you're not in good shape. Going from ~35 minute round trip to 10-12 minute round trip is a major savings.

As for elevation changes, some of the bike-iest cities in the US are the hilliest (notably, SF and Seattle). The quality of the infrastructure dominates those kinds of issues.

edit: Whoops, should've rounded the transit percentage up to 12% - http://bikeportland.org/2015/09/17/progress-for-portland-surge-of-5000-new-bike-commuters-bring-city-rate-to-7-159171

Cicero fucked around with this message at 03:05 on Nov 4, 2015

# ? Nov 4, 2015 02:53

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# ? May 26, 2024 14:16

Javid: Oct 21, 2004

A lot of people prefer the relative freedom of a bike rather than being crammed into a MAX car like sardines and paying for the privilege. A bike is also faster in a lot of cases where there's not a direct trimet run.

# ? Nov 4, 2015 03:05

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

Cicero posted:

[Citation needed]

Portland's bike mode share is 7% vs a transit mode share of 11%, even though a single new MAX line costs an order of magnitude more than their current entire bike network, let alone the fact that they have five of those lines + all the bus investments. Again, that doesn't mean you shouldn't have transit, but bike lanes and bike paths are so incredibly cheap by comparison for how many people they serve that you'd have to be a fool to dismiss them.

18 minutes isn't a killer, obviously, I'm just saying that's around the distance where biking starts to make much more sense than walking. You can do a mile on a bike in 5-6 minutes easily enough, even if you're not in good shape. Saving 10 or more minutes each way is a major savings.

As for elevation changes, some of the bike-iest cities in the US are the hilliest (notably, SF and Seattle). The quality of the infrastructure dominates those kinds of issues.

Portland's transit mode share is low because their transit system is still quite awful. This is really quite simple. It's also got a decent amount of flat land in some areas that's good for bikes being appealing. But I'd point out as well that a lot of those bikers, if for some reason they couldn't bike, would be likely to walk, while the transit system is pulling in people from across the inner suburbs as well as the city, due to its reach - and we all know it's the people in the suburbs who would be driving more otherwise!

But the people who tend to already be biking in SF and Seattle are either doing so in the few flat areas, or about as many people as you're going to get, even if you expanded bike facilities a lot - tons of people simply aren't into doing a lot of uphill biking.

Let's consider Boston: back in 2009 a survey of mode share found that driving alone was 37%, carpooling was 7.7%, transit was 34.5%, biking 2.1% and walking 14.1%. So the total non-auto share was 50.8%

Now in that year Portland's bike share was 5.8%, transit share of 11.5% and total non-auto share was 22.9%. Even though there's the known increase in bike share there, that's still quite a ways behind (and boston's had transit growth since there's been many improvements, including expanding late night service and scheduling tighter rapid transit spacing).

And while I was looking at those stats... San Francisco and Seattle both had bike share of 3% in 2009. That's not really impressive, since SF marks 31.8% transit in that year and 10.3% walking. Seattle marked 19.5% transit and 7.7% walking, and that was before recent expansions in transit service.

And the big daddy, NYC marked 55% transit, 0.6% bikes, and 10.3% walking - tied with SF for third place in walking commutes (Boston was first, DC was second at 11.1%). So like I said, when you have great transit, that plus walking takes care of just about anything, and most of what it doesn't a bike can't do.

Javid posted:

A lot of people prefer the relative freedom of a bike rather than being crammed into a MAX car like sardines and paying for the privilege. A bike is also faster in a lot of cases where there's not a direct trimet run.

Again this is because Portland kinda sucks at transit.

Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Nov 4, 2015

# ? Nov 4, 2015 03:07

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Nintendo Kid posted:

Portland's transit mode share is low because their transit system is still quite awful.

And yet, it's had billions poured into it. Want to guess how many people you could get biking by pouring billions into bike lanes and bike paths? I'd bet it would be way more than 12% of commuters.

quote:

But I'd point out as well that a lot of those bikers, if for some reason they couldn't bike, would be likely to walk

Some of them maybe, but I kind of doubt it for anyone who lives more than a couple miles away.

quote:

while the transit system is pulling in people from across the inner suburbs as well as the city, due to its reach - and we all know it's the people in the suburbs who would be driving more otherwise!

Sure, biking is more useful for those who are at least somewhat close in. For example, Google's HQ area in Santa Clara County gets 9% of commuters overall from biking, but if you look at people who live within 9 miles of work, that jumps to 21%.

It's obviously true that you're not going to get many people straight biking in from 10+ miles away. But even for those people, biking is still useful, because if you can shave off 10 minutes off the last mile after the transit stop by biking it, then the combined transit + biking mode may be more attractive than driving where transit + walking was not.

quote:

But the people who tend to already be biking in SF and Seattle are either doing so in the few flat areas, or about as many people as you're going to get, even if you expanded bike facilities a lot - tons of people simply aren't into doing a lot of uphill biking.

You have nothing to back this up. Even though these cities are bike friendly by American standards, they still have precious little in the way of protected infrastructure. Just converting all the existing painted bike lanes to protected ones would probably double the bike rate, let alone any other improvements like off-street trails, protected intersections, more bike racks in public spaces, etc.

quote:

Let's consider Boston: back in 2009 a survey of mode share found that driving alone was 37%, carpooling was 7.7%, transit was 34.5%, biking 2.1% and walking 14.1%. So the total non-auto share was 50.8%

Now in that year Portland's bike share was 5.8%, transit share of 11.5% and total non-auto share was 22.9%. Even though there's the known increase in bike share there, that's still quite a ways behind (and boston's had transit growth since there's been many improvements, including expanding late night service and scheduling tighter rapid transit spacing).

I'm not sure what the point of this example is. Yes, Boston is better at non-car modes of transportation overall than Portland. It's three times as dense as Portland, so it'd be pretty bizarre if it wasn't.

quote:

Again this is because Portland kinda sucks at transit.

And about every American city outside of possibly Davis, CA, sucks at bike infrastructure. Even Portland and Minneapolis. Some suck less than others, but they still suck if you compare them to cities overseas that have 15%+ bike rates.

America built almost no protected bike lanes until the last decade or so. The first protected intersections in the whole country only opened up this year. We haven't "kind of sucked" at supporting bikes, we've been absolutely abysmal in nearly every way.

# ? Nov 4, 2015 03:23

Javid: Oct 21, 2004

Portland's transit and bike options are far beyond what exists in the rest of the state other than maybe Eugene. I'm curious what "good" is if those suck.

# ? Nov 4, 2015 03:30

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

Cicero posted:

And yet, it's had billions poured into it. Want to guess how many people you could get biking by pouring billions into bike lanes and bike paths? I'd bet it would be way more than 12% of commuters.

Some of them maybe, but I kind of doubt it for anyone who lives more than a couple miles away.

Sure, biking is more useful for those who are at least somewhat close in. For example, Google's HQ area in Santa Clara County gets 9% of commuters overall from biking, but if you look at people who live within 9 miles of work, that jumps to 21%.

It's obviously true that you're not going to get many people straight biking in from 10+ miles away. But even for those people, biking is still useful, because if you can shave off 10 minutes off the last mile after the transit stop by biking it, then the combined transit + biking mode may be more attractive than driving where transit + walking was not.

You have nothing to back this up. Even though these cities are bike friendly by American standards, they still have precious little in the way of protected infrastructure. Just converting all the existing painted bike lanes to protected ones would probably double the bike rate, let alone any other improvements like off-street trails, protected intersections, more bike racks in public spaces, etc.

I'm not sure what the point of this example is. Yes, Boston is better at non-car modes of transportation overall than Portland. It's three times as dense as Portland, so it'd be pretty bizarre if it wasn't.

And about every American city outside of possibly Davis, CA, sucks at bike infrastructure. Even Portland and Minneapolis. Some suck less than others, but they still suck if you compare them to cities overseas that have 15%+ bike rates.

America built almost no protected bike lanes until the last decade or so. The first protected intersections in the whole country only opened up this year. We haven't "kind of sucked" at supporting bikes, we've been absolutely abysmal in nearly every way.

If you poured billions into bike lanes in Portland it would probably not get any farther then doubling the bike share. Most importantly, it's going to do jack and poo poo for removing car usage from people coming from the suburbs, which tends to be the biggest source of car traffic in any city.

If your transit system has an actual last mile you need to travel for a significant portion of its users, it's still poo poo. And also you can't expect your transit system to be able fit nearly as many bikes as there are people in the vehicles. Bike share systems kinda help there, but can be problematic to actually run and expensive to use.

Those cities aren't going to see greatly increased bike usage even if you dumped a lot of bike infrastructure in, because they're already quite walkable and have pretty decent transit. And they in particular have those pesky hills and poo poo that discourage bike usage, at least in one direction if not both.

The point of the example is that even a relatively crippled transit infrastructure like Boston has (an entire large part of the city and a major inner suburb has just light rail vehicles with major loading problems!) can get way more people out of cars then having bike lanes.

I'd always rather have higher transit usage than bike share. It's simply more useful. And it's far more pleasant in unpleasant weather. We shouldn't be trying to quixotically get 15% bike share. We should be trying to get every city up to at least 30% transit+walking, if not 50% that or more.

Javid posted:

Portland's transit and bike options are far beyond what exists in the rest of the state other than maybe Eugene. I'm curious what "good" is if those suck.

Uh, any major Northeast city? poo poo, both SF and Seattle are pretty good compared to it as well. Chicago's great. There are several suburban areas of major cities that also have excellent transit.

Like yeah, Oregon is an awful place for transit, that doesn't make Portland nationally good by default.

# ? Nov 4, 2015 03:43

Kaal: May 22, 2002; through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

Entropist posted:

Hi, it rains in the Netherlands too!

No it drizzles and occasionally showers. And then it sleets, and sometimes snows. In Oregon it rains, and then it rains, and then it rains, and then there's summer and then it's back to rain. Western Oregon (as opposed to the deserts and plains on the eastern side of the state) has twice as much precipitation on average as the Netherlands, and little of that is snow. The Netherlands has pretty great weather for bicycling, at least compared to some states where it's just flat out impossible half the year. And just because you seem to think that covering yourself deodorant is better than taking a shower, doesn't mean everyone else thinks the same thing.

quote:

For me it is just like helmets, something that makes cyclists look special and like "others", putting the uninitiated off from cycling.

American roads are three times more dangerous for cyclists than Dutch roads, and the principal danger (cars) are much more likely to cause the kind of catastrophic head damage that a helmet would actually protect against. The Netherlands has many good things going on for it in regards to public infrastructure and cycling, but that doesn't mean that literally everything you do should be emulated without adaptation to the local context. Seeing as the Netherlands prides itself on constantly changing and improving its public cycling infrastructure, there is no cause for smugly decrying anyone that does things differently.

Javid posted:

Portland's transit and bike options are far beyond what exists in the rest of the state other than maybe Eugene. I'm curious what "good" is if those suck.

I mean Corvallis is fine, mostly because there's a free bus service and plenty of secondary streets for cycling. It's really just Bend and Salem that have issues. Well and of course all the residential suburbs that exist around Portland and Salem.

Kaal fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Nov 4, 2015

# ? Nov 4, 2015 03:43

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

I'm still not sure where the Davis (outside of the university) has good bike infastructure thing comes from. It doesn't. It isn't terrible, but it really isn't miles above even central sacramento.
What it does have is a large volume of bicyclists and a culture which sees bicycles as legitmate and normal road traffic. That is the big difference and why you can ride any road in davis, even without a bike lane or path and feel fine. I'm not sure how to replicate that because even 15 miles down the road in Sacramento people seem to hate bikes.

# ? Nov 4, 2015 03:47

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Javid posted:

Portland's transit and bike options are far beyond what exists in the rest of the state other than maybe Eugene. I'm curious what "good" is if those suck.

For bikes, the biggest thing is physically separated infrastructure, like trails or protected bike lanes: http://www.peopleforbikes.org/blog/entry/14-ways-to-make-bike-lanes-better-the-infographic

Protected intersections are also good: http://www.peopleforbikes.org/blog/entry/americas-first-protected-intersection-is-open-in-davis-and-working-like-a-c

Other things that affect bike friendliness: density, various road design things/traffic calming measures, availability of bike parking.

# ? Nov 4, 2015 03:47

Baronjutter: Dec 31, 2007; "Tiny Trains"

Yeah, helmet laws are good where cycling is dangerous. The goal should be to improve infrastructure to the point that people don't really need them anymore. Some dutch have this idea that if only americans got rid of helmet laws there would be this sudden critical mass of cyclists and everything would get better. It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation but the infrastructure really needs to come first. Our infrastructure shouldn't be paved from the crushed skulls of martyr cyclists.

Riding a bike in most of north america is terrifying and statistically deadly. I'd love to ride my bike to work every day, my 15 min walk is just long enough to make me lazy, but gently caress mixing in traffic with entitled anonymous drivers.

# ? Nov 4, 2015 03:49

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Baronjutter posted:

Yeah, helmet laws are good where cycling is dangerous. The goal should be to improve infrastructure to the point that people don't really need them anymore. Some dutch have this idea that if only americans got rid of helmet laws there would be this sudden critical mass of cyclists and everything would get better. It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation but the infrastructure really needs to come first. Our infrastructure shouldn't be paved from the crushed skulls of martyr cyclists.

Riding a bike in most of north america is terrifying and statistically deadly. I'd love to ride my bike to work every day, my 15 min walk is just long enough to make me lazy, but gently caress mixing in traffic with entitled anonymous drivers.

Almost nowhere (maybe somewhere does) in the US requires helmets for those over 18 anyhow. I'm not sure how it comes up unless those who wear helmets now should take them off?

# ? Nov 4, 2015 03:56

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Nintendo Kid posted:

If you poured billions into bike lanes in Portland it would probably not get any farther then doubling the bike share. Most importantly, it's going to do jack and poo poo for removing car usage from people coming from the suburbs, which tends to be the biggest source of car traffic in any city.

I've already agreed that for long commutes, transit is going to do the bulk of the work (although it can be paired with biking), so you can stop flailing at shadows.

quote:

If your transit system has an actual last mile you need to travel for a significant portion of its users, it's still poo poo.

What kind of retarded No True Scotsman is this tripe? In that case, I guess I'll assert that until every major intersection in a city looks like this

then it has a crap bike network.

quote:

And also you can't expect your transit system to be able fit nearly as many bikes as there are people in the vehicles.

Agreed. Folding bikes help a bit there, but not everyone is gonna do that.

quote:

Bike share systems kinda help there, but can be problematic to actually run and expensive to use.

Actually, looked at as a form of transit, bike share systems are cheap to run and cheap for people to use. An annual bike share pass usually costs in the same ballpark as a monthly transit pass.

quote:

Those cities aren't going to see greatly increased bike usage even if you dumped a lot of bike infrastructure in, because they're already quite walkable and have pretty decent transit. And they in particular have those pesky hills and poo poo that discourage bike usage, at least in one direction if not both.

Nope. Also I know plenty of San Franciscans and Seattleites that would disagree with you about them having "pretty decent transit". I mean, by American standards, sure, but they still have a ways to go. And it's hard for SF to improve its rail infrastructure with subways because the soil underneath them makes it much more expensive than normal.

quote:

The point of the example is that even a relatively crippled transit infrastructure like Boston has (an entire large part of the city and a major inner suburb has just light rail vehicles with major loading problems!) can get way more people out of cars then having bike lanes.

And my point is that this is a dumb comparison. Boston has one of the best transit systems in the country (who's ahead of it, NYC and Chicago, maybe SF?), it's probably had 100x as much money spent on it as for bike infrastructure. Sure, transit for long-distance commuters, but for people closer in, supporting biking is cheap and effective. They're best viewed as complementary rather than competing, something you seem to have difficulty grasping.

quote:

I'd always rather have higher transit usage than bike share. It's simply more useful. And it's far more pleasant in unpleasant weather. We shouldn't be trying to quixotically get 15% bike share. We should be trying to get every city up to at least 30% transit+walking, if not 50% that or more.

That's just, like, your personal preference, man. Plenty of people prefer biking for short and medium distance trips when biking is made to be safe and comfortable.

# ? Nov 4, 2015 03:59

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

Cicero posted:

I've already agreed that for long commutes, transit is going to do the bulk of the work (although it can be paired with biking), so you can stop flailing at shadows.

What kind of retarded No True Scotsman is this tripe? In that case, I guess I'll assert that until every major intersection in a city looks like this

then it has a crap bike network.

Agreed. Folding bikes help a bit there, but not everyone is gonna do that.

Actually, looked at as a form of transit, bike share systems are cheap to run and cheap for people to use. An annual bike share pass usually costs in the same ballpark as a monthly transit pass.

Nope. Also I know plenty of San Franciscans and Seattleites that would disagree with you about them having "pretty decent transit". I mean, by American standards, sure, but they still have a ways to go. And it's hard for SF to improve its rail infrastructure with subways because the soil underneath them makes it much more expensive than normal.

And my point is that this is a dumb comparison. Boston has one of the best transit systems in the country (who's ahead of it, NYC and Chicago, maybe SF?), it's probably had 100x as much money spent on it as for bike infrastructure. Sure, transit for long-distance commuters, but for people closer in, supporting biking is cheap and effective. They're best viewed as complementary rather than competing, something you seem to have difficulty grasping.

That's just, like, your personal preference, man. Plenty of people prefer biking for short and medium distance trips when biking is made to be safe and comfortable.

The thing is that biking doesn't actually pair well with transit at all, and when it does it's usually in the form of biking from outlying area to transit, then transit and a walk in the destination area. Walking does most of the time. Not to mention that I don't know why you keep saying just "long distance" commutes. A mere 6 mile commute that involves going up and down those hills to the west of Portland is a pretty big pain in the rear end that most people wouldn't want to bike even if god's most perfect bike infrastructure was created for it.

It's not a no true scotsman dude. Good transit systems do aim to ensure your walking distance to and from the nearest transit point shouldn't be more than a mile at most. Ideally, you want half a mile or less.

A bike share system where a pass costs as much as the city's transit pass is overpriced though? That's too much money for what you're actually getting.

I said pretty decent transit in comparison to places like Portland. They're still second tier at best transit cities nationwide.

When are you going to realize that most people aren't going to want to bike, especially when it'll involve annoying or strenuous elevation changes? It's not really complementary to anything, and when transit starts to really go up you see biking plummet - because good transit results in biking being a thing that has no niche for the general public, cuz transit and walking will do them and having to deal with a bike in there to save another few minutes isn't worth it.

Far more people prefer transit or walking though. Again, especially when you got elevation stuff to deal with. Your idea that spending billions on biking in random cities is going to get Dutch level biking share unless they're places geographically and climatewise similar just doesn't make sense. Anywhere is better off with another good transit line rather then the same cost in bike infrastructure. I ain't saying tear up the bike paths or anything like that, just that they really shouldn't be the priority you seem to think they should be.

And the reason I'm so enthusiastic about supporting transit is because it's the only way to really bite into car usage, which absolutely must be reduced as soon as possible. We've seen time and again that even a rinky-dink light rail line can bite out a significant volume of car usage, let alone integrated systems with commuter rail, light rail, rapid transit, and hefty doses of buses to interconnect them (especially if your payment system makes transferring free or at least easy between modes!)

# ? Nov 4, 2015 04:20

Baronjutter: Dec 31, 2007; "Tiny Trains"

I hate to agree with Nintendo Kid but if your transit system has anything more than "last couple hundred meters" it's a pretty poo poo system. Bikes are great for riding TO the train station from your suburban house or what ever though. But once that transit system arrives in the city your workplace shouldn't be more than a 10min walk, and you shouldn't need to transfer more than once or wait more than 5 min for your connection.

Transit systems become good when you don't need to plan your life around a schedule. You just walk out onto the street knowing the tram comes every 5 min or so, which drops you off at the metro station you know runs every 3min, which takes you to a couple blocks from your destination. There should not be any stress about missed connections as the modes should all be frequent enough that they act more like big conveyor belt systems.

Hell, in the netherlands a lot of the inter-city trains run every 10-15 min. Those are trains taking you across the country. You just get on your bike and ride to the train station, lock your bike up, take the train to what ever other city you need to visit, use the local transit system (or just walk because nothing worth going to is more than a 20min walk from a train station) then do the reverse back home. Cities should be planned out that all major destinations and workplaces are very close to transit and the walkable city-centre, and suburban train stations fed with "bike and ride" facilities.

But most all the best planned cities I've been to, you didn't even really need transit because everything worthwhile was within a 30 min walk of the centre. America hosed up its land use big time but most of it is fairly fixable and adaptable if people just made an effort. Yes it will take time, but make it an actual plan and things can get surprisingly better in a surprisingly short time. Or at least stop actively making it worse.

# ? Nov 4, 2015 04:36

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

Baronjutter posted:

I hate to agree with Nintendo Kid but if your transit system has anything more than "last couple hundred meters" it's a pretty poo poo system. Bikes are great for riding TO the train station from your suburban house or what ever though. But once that transit system arrives in the city your workplace shouldn't be more than a 10min walk, and you shouldn't need to transfer more than once or wait more than 5 min for your connection.

Transit systems become good when you don't need to plan your life around a schedule. You just walk out onto the street knowing the tram comes every 5 min or so, which drops you off at the metro station you know runs every 3min, which takes you to a couple blocks from your destination. There should not be any stress about missed connections as the modes should all be frequent enough that they act more like big conveyor belt systems.

Hell, in the netherlands a lot of the inter-city trains run every 10-15 min. Those are trains taking you across the country. You just get on your bike and ride to the train station, lock your bike up, take the train to what ever other city you need to visit, use the local transit system (or just walk because nothing worth going to is more than a 20min walk from a train station) then do the reverse back home. Cities should be planned out that all major destinations and workplaces are very close to transit and the walkable city-centre, and suburban train stations fed with "bike and ride" facilities.

But most all the best planned cities I've been to, you didn't even really need transit because everything worthwhile was within a 30 min walk of the centre. America hosed up its land use big time but most of it is fairly fixable and adaptable if people just made an effort. Yes it will take time, but make it an actual plan and things can get surprisingly better in a surprisingly short time. Or at least stop actively making it worse.

One thing I did in suburban New Jersey was that I could walk or bike to a light rail station about a mile away, take that north to commuter rail into NYC, and then use the MTA's excellent system to go wherever. Or go south, tie into a suburban to city rapid transit system to go into Philadelphia, and use their decent transit system to get around. And really it all ran often enough that the worst case waiting scenario was a half hour tops at the light rail system. (Or if you happened to want to connect at the north end to NYC, there were no trains between 1 am and 3:48 am :v:

)

If I felt particularly lazy, I could wait for the bus that would stop at the edge of the subdivision to take that to the light rail station. And that same bus route loosely paralleled the light rail, with the same beginning and end points, so it could be used late at night and early morning when the light rail didn't run (from 10 pm to 6 am or so, most of the line used was reserved for heavy freight, and since much of it is still single track, there's no viable way to safely operate passenger light rail and freight simultaneously).

Life's great when you have good transit. Oh, and this was a good 20 miles outside of a major city.

Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 04:53 on Nov 4, 2015

# ? Nov 4, 2015 04:47

Khizan: Jul 30, 2013

Cicero posted:

quote:
If your transit system has an actual last mile you need to travel for a significant portion of its users, it's still poo poo.

What kind of retarded No True Scotsman is this tripe? In that case, I guess I'll assert that until every major intersection in a city looks like this

If I have to get off a transit stop and walk an actual loving mile to get to where I'm going, it's a lovely transit system and I'm probably just going to drive.

# ? Nov 4, 2015 04:49

Varance: Oct 28, 2004; Ladies, hide your footwear!; Nap Ghost

Khizan posted:

If I have to get off a transit stop and walk an actual loving mile to get to where I'm going, it's a lovely transit system and I'm probably just going to drive.

This. So much of this. I think we've got ~2% of the modal share, just because we can't get a proper foothold anywhere in the county. Forget frequency when you don't even have enough buses to directly service half the places people would want to go.

# ? Nov 4, 2015 05:05

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Nintendo Kid posted:

The thing is that biking doesn't actually pair well with transit at all, and when it does it's usually in the form of biking from outlying area to transit, then transit and a walk in the destination area. Walking does most of the time. Not to mention that I don't know why you keep saying just "long distance" commutes. A mere 6 mile commute that involves going up and down those hills to the west of Portland is a pretty big pain in the rear end that most people wouldn't want to bike even if god's most perfect bike infrastructure was created for it.

Most people in big metros don't live in really hilly areas, and biking can actually pair with transit just fine. It's not going to be as popular as walking + transit, true enough, but it would be a substantial minority of the pairings if you had as many protected bike lanes and bike signals as you do sidewalks and walk signals.

That's the thing about American cities: bike infrastructure is nearly always a joke compared even to transit and walking infrastructure, let alone car infrastructure. Walk signals are everywhere there's a traffic light, but bike signals are an obscure rarity or even completely unheard of. If you compare biking as it currently is in US cities to other modes of transportation, sure, it's terrible. But it's terrible because we made it that way.

quote:

It's not a no true scotsman dude. Good transit systems do aim to ensure your walking distance to and from the nearest transit point shouldn't be more than a mile at most. Ideally, you want half a mile or less.

I agree, that's a good objective. But if we're talking solid, frequent transit, it's always going to have gaps: places where separated-grade transit is too expensive to make, local bus service is too slow, there's a stop nearby but it doesn't go in the direction you want and so you have to awkwardly hook around at another station, etc.

Even when I was living in NYC, there were gaps like that. Heck, I just checked my old route into work from Brooklyn to the lower West side (I think, I forget the NYC neighborhood names) that I had for my internship, 42 minutes by walk+transit (no transfers); by bike, 40 minutes (6.7 miles). So even for a medium-distance trip in the best transit network in the country, taking a very popular route, transit is slightly slower than biking, and the trip only involved a half mile or so of walking, total.

quote:

A bike share system where a pass costs as much as the city's transit pass is overpriced though? That's too much money for what you're actually getting.

Let me clarify what I said before:

quote:

A year of bike share usually costs in the same ballpark as a month of transit.

quote:

I said pretty decent transit in comparison to places like Portland. They're still second tier at best transit cities nationwide.

If SF and Seattle are second tier, how many first tier cities are there? Chicago, Boston, NYC? Is that it?

quote:

When are you going to realize that most people aren't going to want to bike, especially when it'll involve annoying or strenuous elevation changes?

Yeah, people sure do hate biking for their commute:

Oh wait.

quote:

Then I met Oliver Smith, a Ph.D. Candidate in Urban Studies at the Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at PSU. Smith recently completed a research project titled, Commute Well-being Among Bicycle, Transit, and Car Users in Portland, Oregon (PDF of presentation poster) Based on surveys from 828 people taken during January through February of 2012, he found that commuting to work under your own power �increases commute well-being.� In other words, the happiest commuters are those who walk and bike.

quote:

It's not really complementary to anything, and when transit starts to really go up you see biking plummet - because good transit results in biking being a thing that has no niche for the general public, cuz transit and walking will do them and having to deal with a bike in there to save another few minutes isn't worth it.

Again, this isn't really true outside of the use case of "long commute into center of major metro during rush hour". There are plenty of trips that aren't that.

And you keep acting like biking is this huge hassle that people are practically crying out to avoid. It can certainly feel that way in US cities, but it doesn't have to where they're well-supported. Believe it or not, many people actually enjoy biking when it's comfortable to do so.

quote:

Far more people prefer transit or walking though. Again, especially when you got elevation stuff to deal with. Your idea that spending billions on biking in random cities is going to get Dutch level biking share unless they're places geographically and climatewise similar just doesn't make sense. Anywhere is better off with another good transit line rather then the same cost in bike infrastructure. I ain't saying tear up the bike paths or anything like that, just that they really shouldn't be the priority you seem to think they should be.

People use transit and walking more in the US because transit and walking are much better-supported than biking in every major metro. Protected bike lanes are a rarity even now in supposedly bike-friendly cities; there's probably a thousand times as many miles of sidewalk as there are miles of protected bike lanes. And no, you don't need to have a Dutch geography or climate to have lots of people biking. You just need to have the right support:

quote:

Not many cities can boast 27 percent of cyclists continue using their bikes several times a week all year-round, especially not in cities with eight and half months of winter or an average of 256 days of thermal winter and snow. Oulu, Finland (population 191.000), however, is no ordinary town. It is a town where 98 percent of the cycling network is maintained all winter and all routes have street lighting.

http://wintercyclingblog.org/2014/10/17/oulu-finland-winter-cycling-capital-of-the-world/

quote:

And the reason I'm so enthusiastic about supporting transit is because it's the only way to really bite into car usage, which absolutely must be reduced as soon as possible. We've seen time and again that even a rinky-dink light rail line can bite out a significant volume of car usage, let alone integrated systems with commuter rail, light rail, rapid transit, and hefty doses of buses to interconnect them (especially if your payment system makes transferring free or at least easy between modes!)

Except that dollar for dollar, investments in biking result in a much larger share of people biking than investments in transit result in people taking the bus or train. But it doesn't have to be a competition. Granted, I've only been in each city for a few days, but Munich's rail network made Boston's look like babby's first transit project. So it must have, like, zero cyclists, right? Nope, mode share of 17%, the highest of any major city in Germany, more than twice as high as Portland.

Again, my major point here isn't that biking is somehow superior to transit. I'm fine with huge investments into good transit networks. Those are very important. I'll be speaking in favor of a BRT line that's proposed for El Camino in the South Bay once the VTA starts having public hearings on it. My point is that biking serves a very useful role as a flexible & healthy transportation option that's cheap for the government and cheap for the user.

Cicero fucked around with this message at 05:51 on Nov 4, 2015

# ? Nov 4, 2015 05:43

Carbon dioxide: Oct 9, 2012

One thing I like to add is that cycling from a public transit exit point to your destination isn't that uncommon in the Netherlands.

While the transit network is dense, having to wait for a bus when you arrive by train can take a while. And sometimes buses don't take the most direct route. During rush hour they can be crowded. Some people like to get some fresh air before arriving at work or whatever.

A very common solution is for people to have a second bike which they have always parked at their destination train station. They use it every day to cycle from the station to their work. It's usually a bit of an old crappy bike because stations are popular places for bike thieves. One thing to keep in mind is that city workers will come in every few months and tag every bike. If the bike is completely unattended, e.g. the tag isn't removed within a week or two, they remove the bike (cutting the lock if necessary) and put it in the city's storage, where you can retrieve it for a fee. It's to prevent the bike storage to become full of bike wrecks, but sometimes it can be annoying.

Another thing some people do is bring a foldable bike with them. While you need to pay extra to bring a regular bike on the train, you can carry foldables for free. Those things are a bit expensive though.

And the third solution is to use one of the bike rentals that are usually located next to train stations. It's possible to add unlimited bike renting to a train season pass by paying extra, which is something regular users do. This isn't the cheapest option either, though.

The 'crappy bike parked at destination station' option is used a lot, though.

# ? Nov 4, 2015 11:47

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

Cicero posted:

Most people in big metros don't live in really hilly areas, and biking can actually pair with transit just fine. It's not going to be as popular as walking + transit, true enough, but it would be a substantial minority of the pairings if you had as many protected bike lanes and bike signals as you do sidewalks and walk signals.

That's the thing about American cities: bike infrastructure is nearly always a joke compared even to transit and walking infrastructure, let alone car infrastructure. Walk signals are everywhere there's a traffic light, but bike signals are an obscure rarity or even completely unheard of. If you compare biking as it currently is in US cities to other modes of transportation, sure, it's terrible. But it's terrible because we made it that way.

I agree, that's a good objective. But if we're talking solid, frequent transit, it's always going to have gaps: places where separated-grade transit is too expensive to make, local bus service is too slow, there's a stop nearby but it doesn't go in the direction you want and so you have to awkwardly hook around at another station, etc.

Even when I was living in NYC, there were gaps like that. Heck, I just checked my old route into work from Brooklyn to the lower West side (I think, I forget the NYC neighborhood names) that I had for my internship, 42 minutes by walk+transit (no transfers); by bike, 40 minutes (6.7 miles). So even for a medium-distance trip in the best transit network in the country, taking a very popular route, transit is slightly slower than biking, and the trip only involved a half mile or so of walking, total.

Let me clarify what I said before:

If SF and Seattle are second tier, how many first tier cities are there? Chicago, Boston, NYC? Is that it?

Yeah, people sure do hate biking for their commute:

Oh wait.

Again, this isn't really true outside of the use case of "long commute into center of major metro during rush hour". There are plenty of trips that aren't that.

And you keep acting like biking is this huge hassle that people are practically crying out to avoid. It can certainly feel that way in US cities, but it doesn't have to where they're well-supported. Believe it or not, many people actually enjoy biking when it's comfortable to do so.

People use transit and walking more in the US because transit and walking are much better-supported than biking in every major metro. Protected bike lanes are a rarity even now in supposedly bike-friendly cities; there's probably a thousand times as many miles of sidewalk as there are miles of protected bike lanes. And no, you don't need to have a Dutch geography or climate to have lots of people biking. You just need to have the right support:

http://wintercyclingblog.org/2014/10/17/oulu-finland-winter-cycling-capital-of-the-world/

Except that dollar for dollar, investments in biking result in a much larger share of people biking than investments in transit result in people taking the bus or train. But it doesn't have to be a competition. Granted, I've only been in each city for a few days, but Munich's rail network made Boston's look like babby's first transit project. So it must have, like, zero cyclists, right? Nope, mode share of 17%, the highest of any major city in Germany, more than twice as high as Portland.

Again, my major point here isn't that biking is somehow superior to transit. I'm fine with huge investments into good transit networks. Those are very important. I'll be speaking in favor of a BRT line that's proposed for El Camino in the South Bay once the VTA starts having public hearings on it. My point is that biking serves a very useful role as a flexible & healthy transportation option that's cheap for the government and cheap for the user.

Hilly areas are all around many major metros that don't otherwise have other issues that make biking a hassle, like long periods of high heat or deep cold. There are tons of reasons that biking becomes unpleasant, I'm focusing on the hill aspect for Portland because it's the biggest issue, especially for people from the suburbs.

Buddy it's going to be terrible in most cities regardless of anything else, due to the conditions on the ground. You can make the entire city covered with bike lanes and trails but if it's still cold as hell or other such issues for large portions of the year then bike usage quickly becomes a part time thing, and by becoming a part time thing it loses share significantly.

Most typically, your transit system has its gaps in the outlying areas, rather than in the "inbound zone" where people are traveling to. And those outlying areas are typically the suburbs and outer reaches of the city, so working on bike lanes in the core doesn't do much of anything.

But as you should have noticed, people are far more willing to walk a little and then stand or sit on public transit then they are to bike the whole way. It's simply far less effort, and transit+walking being less effort is why 6 years ago the NYC bike modal share was 0.6% (and these days I think it's up to 2%?). People will choose the least effort path.

If we place SF and Seattle in second tier (and honestly, LA could make that tier if they keep on the transit expansion), Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC, Chicago, Boston, NYC, and the suburbs around all of them except Baltimore count as first tier.

Buddy the fact that some small minority of commuters enjoy biking in no way implys that if we ended up with a 20% share there'd be all of them enjoying it.

People also use transit and walking because even if you had a perfect bike route, it's still far more effort to bike that route than it is to do a little walking and then sit or stand for a while. I already mentioned this but ti's still true.

Look, you're fooling yourself if you think just dumping money into bike infrastructure is ever going to get any American big city to the biking levels of Dutch cities. Sure tossing a few bucks in is good to get you to 9% or whatever, but you'd have to do some pretty wild things to get that to 20% let alone 40% or 50%. Like mass redevelopment and re-situation of population and businesses.

But biking doesn't really serve a very useful role to most people, even if you made the greatest bike infrastructure in the world, when you're putting it in most American development patterns. The typical American suburbia or sprawly city is far more adaptable to transit usage then most people think, but not nearly so much so for biking instead.

# ? Nov 4, 2015 16:24

Baronjutter: Dec 31, 2007; "Tiny Trains"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBZGAQLP2xw
Cargo bikes full of kids. So chill, so relax, what commute.

# ? Nov 4, 2015 18:18

Carbon dioxide: Oct 9, 2012

Baronjutter posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBZGAQLP2xw
Cargo bikes full of kids. So chill, so relax, what commute.

I like that you can put your kid in a lockable box.

# ? Nov 4, 2015 19:55

SixFigureSandwich: Oct 30, 2004; Exciting Lemon

I had the Mission Impossible theme playing when watching that. It works

# ? Nov 4, 2015 20:32

Baronjutter: Dec 31, 2007; "Tiny Trains"

I'm pretty sure tom cruise could legit fit in some of those boxes.

# ? Nov 4, 2015 20:42

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Nintendo Kid posted:

Hilly areas are all around many major metros that don't otherwise have other issues that make biking a hassle, like long periods of high heat or deep cold. There are tons of reasons that biking becomes unpleasant, I'm focusing on the hill aspect for Portland because it's the biggest issue, especially for people from the suburbs.

Buddy it's going to be terrible in most cities regardless of anything else, due to the conditions on the ground. You can make the entire city covered with bike lanes and trails but if it's still cold as hell or other such issues for large portions of the year then bike usage quickly becomes a part time thing, and by becoming a part time thing it loses share significantly.

Most typically, your transit system has its gaps in the outlying areas, rather than in the "inbound zone" where people are traveling to. And those outlying areas are typically the suburbs and outer reaches of the city, so working on bike lanes in the core doesn't do much of anything.

But as you should have noticed, people are far more willing to walk a little and then stand or sit on public transit then they are to bike the whole way. It's simply far less effort, and transit+walking being less effort is why 6 years ago the NYC bike modal share was 0.6% (and these days I think it's up to 2%?). People will choose the least effort path.

If we place SF and Seattle in second tier (and honestly, LA could make that tier if they keep on the transit expansion), Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC, Chicago, Boston, NYC, and the suburbs around all of them except Baltimore count as first tier.

Buddy the fact that some small minority of commuters enjoy biking in no way implys that if we ended up with a 20% share there'd be all of them enjoying it.

People also use transit and walking because even if you had a perfect bike route, it's still far more effort to bike that route than it is to do a little walking and then sit or stand for a while. I already mentioned this but ti's still true.

Look, you're fooling yourself if you think just dumping money into bike infrastructure is ever going to get any American big city to the biking levels of Dutch cities. Sure tossing a few bucks in is good to get you to 9% or whatever, but you'd have to do some pretty wild things to get that to 20% let alone 40% or 50%. Like mass redevelopment and re-situation of population and businesses.

But biking doesn't really serve a very useful role to most people, even if you made the greatest bike infrastructure in the world, when you're putting it in most American development patterns. The typical American suburbia or sprawly city is far more adaptable to transit usage then most people think, but not nearly so much so for biking instead.

Ok, we're just arguing in circles at this point. To summarize, you think biking is inferior to walking and transit, and therefore even if all those modes had awesome infrastructure, relatively few people would bike. You haven't presented any evidence that indicates that this is the case, just a bunch of assertions, but that's what you think would happen. Fine, there are no large American cities with awesome bike infrastructure yet, so neither of us can really tell for sure.

I think biking is equally good but different, and is useful in different use cases. It's not as useful overall for handling traffic into big cities for work, but is more useful for shorter trips, and this is particularly true in low/medium-density areas or when transit routes do not align well with where you need to go (if you have to take multiple bus/train routes there's usually a high switching cost).

(Also, as for your rankings, SF has higher transit ridership than Chicago, Baltimore, Boston, and DC, and even Seattle is slightly higher than Baltimore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_high_transit_ridership)

Cicero fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Nov 4, 2015

# ? Nov 4, 2015 20:51

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

Cicero posted:

Ok, we're just arguing in circles at this point. To summarize, you think biking is inferior to walking and transit, and therefore even if all those modes had awesome infrastructure, relatively few people would bike. You haven't presented any evidence that indicates that this is the case, just a bunch of assertions, but that's what you think would happen. Fine, there are no large American cities with awesome bike infrastructure yet, so neither of us can really tell for sure.

I think biking is equally good but different, and is useful in different use cases. It's not as useful overall for handling traffic into big cities for work, but is more useful for shorter trips, and this is particularly true in low/medium-density areas or when transit routes do not align well with where you need to go (if you have to take multiple bus/train routes there's usually a high switching cost).

(Also, as for your rankings, SF has higher transit ridership than Chicago, Baltimore, Boston, and DC, and even Seattle is slightly higher than Baltimore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_high_transit_ridership)

Uh yeah, of course relatively few people would bike. You keep talking up "how much you can increase with just a little money", but that's only huge increases when you start from very little. It's not exactly easy for people to bike a dozen plus miles from the suburbs even with god's own biking infrastructure. And then when you have real transit working it eats a huge chunk out of biking's share. As a random example city, I don't think Portland will ever exceed 18% modal share even if they continue doing a ton of work to build bike infrastructure.

You keep talking about "transit not aligning" as if it's some sort of immutable Fact Of Life and not simply a symptom of you having bad transit. Most of the time those cases can be solved with walking, or maybe just taking a car trip - or simply choosing an alternate place to go. And you can even do this in the suburbs, let alone in cities!

SF's ranked lower in the transit tier because its system is still rather insufficient, and currently crippled by minimal reach and bottlenecks for suburban service. As reflects well on them, the region's really trying to solve those issues, finally. Honestly more then anything else they've been held back by years of bullshit California politics where the Republicans made it really difficult to do proper spending. Chicago's also kinda weird because they have an excelelent transit system with abnormally low ridership.

DC's in a weird situation at the time of those statistics being done where they were and still are in the midst of a major expansion of the Metro system, with the Silver Line along a major regional commuting corridor. They finally opened phase one in summer of 2014, and the second and final phase is scheduled for a 2020 opening.

# ? Nov 4, 2015 21:26

Entropist: Dec 1, 2007; I'm very stupid.

Nintendo Kid posted:

Biking between 2 and 5 am isn't exactly ideal though, and it doesn't cost a lot of money to use public transit. Places with great public transit do in fact exist, and it essentially obsoletes bikes a need. Walking and the public transit can do just about anything, and you end up biking just of the fun of it rather than need. And frankly, biking is just unpleasant when you have a lot of elevation change to deal with.

And in really great cities, public transit is just straight up 24 hours, as it should be.

Amsterdam has good 24h public transport, but biking is still superior. It is cheaper, and for many routes it is also faster. Trams and buses are slower than bikes, only the metro is faster. And you can bring your bike on the metro.
Also, biking between 2 and 5 am is perfect. The roads are more quiet, and you have no other option in many places when the public transportation network shuts down. This is one of the main reasons why I kept biking when I lived in Germany, the place where I lived wasn't serviced by buses after midnight.

I guess I won't bother to reply to the rest of the arguments because people always boil it down to American exceptionalism. America isn't as exceptional as you think guys, there is sprawl and low-density population and hot weather and cold weather and rain and long distances in various other parts of the world where people do manage to cycle too.
Sometimes in the Netherlands it rains for several days straight and people still bike! Or there's a storm, or there's a heat wave, and they still bike. Why? Because they are used to it and the facilities and culture make it the normal thing to do and as natural as walking. This is also why Dutch people often keep biking when they go abroad, or try to bring their bike on holidays. How would you live without one...

# ? Nov 4, 2015 22:33

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

Entropist posted:

Amsterdam has good 24h public transport, but biking is still superior. It is cheaper, and for many routes it is also faster. Trams and buses are slower than bikes, only the metro is faster. And you can bring your bike on the metro.
Also, biking between 2 and 5 am is perfect. The roads are more quiet, and you have no other option in many places when the public transportation network shuts down. This is one of the main reasons why I kept biking when I lived in Germany, the place where I lived wasn't serviced by buses after midnight.

I guess I won't bother to reply to the rest of the arguments because people always boil it down to American exceptionalism. America isn't as exceptional as you think guys, there is sprawl and low-density population and hot weather and cold weather and rain and long distances in various other parts of the world where people do manage to cycle too.
Sometimes in the Netherlands it rains for several days straight and people still bike! Or there's a storm, or there's a heat wave, and they still bike. Why? Because they are used to it and the facilities and culture make it the normal thing to do and as natural as walking. This is also why Dutch people often keep biking when they go abroad, or try to bring their bike on holidays. How would you live without one...

I fail to see how it counts as "good" if most of it is significantly slower than biking.
I think you missed the meaning - this city's practically dead in the early morning (largely as a consequence of the rail public transit being 5 am to 1 am or so on weekdays and 5 am to 2:30 am on weekends). So there wouldn't be much of a reason to be biking out 2-5 am. But if you wanted to the car traffic's dead so you're just fine on the surface streets..

It's not "American" exceptionalism it's also Canada, and a lot of the rest of the world. The Dutch have gotten used to bike transport so they're more willing to put up with it, but the way things are going over here it's always going to be niche, since good transit gobbles the share right up.

Also what you people call a "heat wave" is considered mild for June to August in like half of the big urban centers of America. :laugh:

# ? Nov 4, 2015 22:55

SixFigureSandwich: Oct 30, 2004; Exciting Lemon

Temperatures hit close to 40c last July, that's hardly mild unless you live in a literal desert.

# ? Nov 4, 2015 23:32

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Nintendo Kid posted:

Uh yeah, of course relatively few people would bike. You keep talking up "how much you can increase with just a little money", but that's only huge increases when you start from very little. It's not exactly easy for people to bike a dozen plus miles from the suburbs even with god's own biking infrastructure. And then when you have real transit working it eats a huge chunk out of biking's share. As a random example city, I don't think Portland will ever exceed 18% modal share even if they continue doing a ton of work to build bike infrastructure.

Again, where's the evidence for this? I've provided examples of when people in cities bike in poor weather or people enjoying their bike commute (shocker!), you've just throwing out assertions with nothing to back it up.

quote:

You keep talking about "transit not aligning" as if it's some sort of immutable Fact Of Life and not simply a symptom of you having bad transit. Most of the time those cases can be solved with walking, or maybe just taking a car trip - or simply choosing an alternate place to go. And you can even do this in the suburbs, let alone in cities!

Again, you're defining "good transit" as "transit that is always better than biking".

"Transit is better than biking. Why? Well, because good transit that beats biking is always better! Simple!"

Nintendo Kid posted:

I fail to see how it counts as "good" if most of it is significantly slower than biking.

This is what I mean by No True Scotsman. You're literally saying "it's only good transit if it's comparable or faster than biking". Well by that metric, obviously good transit will always be better than biking, because you've explicitly defined it that way.

"No true transit system would be beaten by biking! It only counts as good transit when it wins!"

quote:

I think you missed the meaning - this city's practically dead in the early morning (largely as a consequence of the rail public transit being 5 am to 1 am or so on weekdays and 5 am to 2:30 am on weekends). So there wouldn't be much of a reason to be biking out 2-5 am. But if you wanted to the car traffic's dead so you're just fine on the surface streets..

I think the point is that biking is inherently more flexible than transit. Even a fantastic transit system will have gaps. Even Tokyo has ~14% bike mode share with possibly the most robust transit system in the world, and with many (most?) employers banning their employees from biking to work, and with very little bike infrastructure (people bike on the sidewalk, mostly).

# ? Nov 4, 2015 23:38

Khizan: Jul 30, 2013

Entropist posted:

America isn't as exceptional as you think guys, there is sprawl and low-density population and hot weather and cold weather and rain and long distances in various other parts of the world where people do manage to cycle too. Sometimes in the Netherlands it rains for several days straight and people still bike! Or there's a storm, or there's a heat wave, and they still bike. Why? Because they are used to it and the facilities and culture make it the normal thing to do and as natural as walking.

The record high in the Netherlands is about our average summer day down here in Texas. Your heatwave is what we'd consider "refreshingly cool", most likely.

The other thing to consider is that our society has been based on cars for a long time now, and we're used to that. You say that people in the Netherlands bike everywhere because that's what they're used to. We drive everywhere because that's what we're used to, and if you want to get us out of the cars you're going to have to overcome that inertia. Specifically, you're going to have to convince us that the alternative is SO much better that it's worth changing how we do everything. You are not going to convince a significant portion of the population down here that they really want to get out of their air conditioned cars in favour of 5+ mile bike rides in high temperatures with stifling humidity.

Khizan fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Nov 4, 2015

# ? Nov 4, 2015 23:40

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Nintendo Kid posted:

The Dutch have gotten used to bike transport so they're more willing to put up with it

Also

at again, the assumption that biking is just so inherently awful as a mode of transport that the Dutch just "put up with it". I bet all those Dutch people are just itching to stop biking, it sucks so much, right?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34498871

Man, people in that video sure look miserable riding their bikes around. Ugh.

# ? Nov 4, 2015 23:43

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

John Dough posted:

Temperatures hit close to 40c last July, that's hardly mild unless you live in a literal desert.

How close exactly? We have major metro areas where 41 C is the average daily high for a whole month.

And considering your typical summer high is somewhere around 23 one would expect most of your "heat waves" to be on the order of 28-32.

Cicero posted:

Again, where's the evidence for this? I've provided examples of when people in cities bike in poor weather or people enjoying their bike commute (shocker!), you've just throwing out assertions with nothing to back it up.

Again, you're defining "good transit" as "transit that is always better than biking".

"Transit is better than biking. Why? Well, because good transit that beats biking is always better! Simple!"

This is what I mean by No True Scotsman. You're literally saying "it's only good transit if it's comparable or faster than biking". Well by that metric, obviously good transit will always be better than biking, because you've explicitly defined it that way.

"No true transit system would be beaten by biking! It only counts as good transit when it wins!"

I think the point is that biking is inherently more flexible than transit. Even a fantastic transit system will have gaps. Even Tokyo has ~14% bike mode share with possibly the most robust transit system in the world, and with many (most?) employers banning their employees from biking to work, and with very little bike infrastructure (people bike on the sidewalk, mostly).

That people in other places who've habituated to using the mdoe of transport over many decades will put up with it says nothing for people who have multiple alternatives right at hand, i.e. Americans, will do.

Yes if your transit isn't better than biking, which is pretty slow unless you're really grinding at it, it's not good. How is that not a reasonable standard? Are you just mad because it disqualifies a lot of transit systems? Because we shouldn't be handing out A-ranks just because a city isn't completely half-assing it.

Again it's not a no true scotsman. It's a simple statement on quality. Transit fulfills this criteria in many places all over the world

Biking isn't usefully more flexible than transit for most people. If Tokyo can have such great biking usage with "no infrastructure" then doesn't that argue against your calls for building said infrastructure at that?

Khizan posted:

The other thing to consider is that our society has been based on cars for a long time now, and we're used to that. You say that people in the Netherlands bike everywhere because that's what they're used to. We drive everywhere because that's what we're used to, and if you want to get us out of the cars you're going to have to overcome that inertia. Specifically, you're going to have to convince us that the alternative is SO much better that it's worth changing how we do everything. You are not going to convince a significant portion of the population down here that they really want to get out of their air conditioned cars in favour of 5+ mile bike rides in high temperatures with stifling humidity.

And of course on the other hand, even a lovely light rail line can at least offer air conditioning, avoiding some or all traffic. It sells quite well, one might say, so long as you put it in first.

Cicero posted:

Also at again, the assumption that biking is just so inherently awful as a mode of transport that the Dutch just "put up with it". I bet all those Dutch people are just itching to stop biking, it sucks so much, right?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34498871

Man, people in that video sure look miserable riding their bikes around. Ugh.

It's not that it's awful, it's that it has its own downsides which years of Dutch design and culture has adapted around. If the Dutch had been America-rich at the same time as America, they'd probably also have fallen into driving cars a ton and then the infrastructure, settlement patterns and all the rest would have become car focused. and you'd be chatting up the Danes as the great bikers or whatever.

Also oh really BBC, people who exercise a lot live longer? You gonna run a report that the sky is blue next? What a trash report.

# ? Nov 4, 2015 23:48

Entropist: Dec 1, 2007; I'm very stupid.

Nintendo Kid posted:

I fail to see how it counts as "good" if most of it is significantly slower than biking.

It's good as in you can get close to most places every 10-15 minutes. But buses and trams can't go too fast and have to wait for traffic lights, crosswalks etc. and aren't allowed everywhere, and you still have to walk a bit to and from the stop. Cyclists can park anywhere, have more direct routes, have priority more often and need to wait for lights less often. So overall, biking is faster, and I believe this is quite normal in Dutch cities at least. It doesn't mean that the public transportation is bad, it just serves a different crowd (tourists, people from out of town and those who can't / don't want to bike).

Of course, driving is even slower than public transportation for most city trips the way the roads are laid out, and with the lack of parking space.

Cicero posted:

Also at again, the assumption that biking is just so inherently awful as a mode of transport that the Dutch just "put up with it". I bet all those Dutch people are just itching to stop biking, it sucks so much, right?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34498871

Man, people in that video sure look miserable riding their bikes around. Ugh.

It's more like enlightenment, really :v:

Nintendo Kid posted:

That people in other places who've habituated to using the mdoe of transport over many decades will put up with it says nothing for people who have multiple alternatives right at hand, i.e. Americans, will do.

Hard to believe how much nonsense this poster above me is posting. The Dutch were plenty rich at the time when biking became popular, in fact, it was a pushback against a car-centric culture. Here's the story again: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/how-the-dutch-got-their-cycling-infrastructure/
It's also not true that we have no alternative - there are people who use the car as their main mode of transport and this is quite viable. People just prefer to bike, and for many kinds of trips it's more effective.

Entropist fucked around with this message at 00:12 on Nov 5, 2015

# ? Nov 5, 2015 00:04

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

Entropist posted:

It's good as in you can get close to most places every 10-15 minutes. But buses and trams can't go too fast and have to wait for traffic lights, crosswalks etc. and aren't allowed everywhere, and you still have to walk a bit to and from the stop. Cyclists can park anywhere, have more direct routes, have priority more often and need to wait for lights less often. So overall, biking is faster, and I believe this is quite normal in Dutch cities at least. It doesn't mean that the public transportation is bad, it just serves a different crowd (tourists, people from out of town and those who can't / don't want to bike).

Of course, driving is even slower than public transportation for most city trips the way the roads are laid out, and with the lack of parking space.

Sounds like over-optimizing for bicycle trips has hurt public transit then.

# ? Nov 5, 2015 00:12

will_colorado: Jun 30, 2007

What does it take to get a control city changed on the big green interstate signs?

Just political clout, size of the city, does the interstate have to actually go through it?

I've noticed that some of the signs around Cheyenne changed the I-25 south signs from Denver to Fort Collins. (Even though 25 doesn't go through Fort Collins, or just barely goes by the city)

# ? Nov 5, 2015 00:12

Entropist: Dec 1, 2007; I'm very stupid.

Nintendo Kid posted:

Sounds like over-optimizing for bicycle trips has hurt public transit then.

You can't over-optimize for the option that people enjoy the most

# ? Nov 5, 2015 00:15

Baronjutter: Dec 31, 2007; "Tiny Trains"

The poor dutch are cursed with longer life so they must suffer the misery of high cycling mode share even longer, a cruel twist of fate. North American cyclists are blessed with their very high chance of being mercifully put out of their misery by a compassionate motorist. Why didn't they just take transit?? This crowded (and totally sweat and smell free) subterranean tube is a celebration of life and freedom compared to the stinky sweaty hell of self-powered transport.

# ? Nov 5, 2015 00:16

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Nintendo Kid posted:

That people in other places who've habituated to using the mdoe of transport over many decades will put up with it says nothing for people who have multiple alternatives right at hand, i.e. Americans, will do.

This is flatly not true. The Dutch still walk, they drive, they take transit. In fact, their transit mode share is almost exactly the same as America's:

http://www.emta.com/IMG/pdf/brochure.pdf
http://traveltrends.transportation.org/Documents/CA10-4.pdf

quote:

Yes if your transit isn't better than biking, which is pretty slow unless you're really grinding at it, it's not good. How is that not a reasonable standard? Are you just mad because it disqualifies a lot of transit systems? Because we shouldn't be handing out A-ranks just because a city isn't completely half-assing it.

Like I said, it's a No True Scotsman that invalidates further discussion. I'm suggesting that biking is faster than transit for shorter trips even when transit is good. You're saying that that is impossible by definition, because any good transit must be faster than biking to be considered good in the first place. There is something seriously broken in your head if you can't recognize such an obvious no true scotsman argument such as that.

Consider if I did the same thing: I assert that good bike infrastructure is virtually always superior to transit, it's always faster I say. When you suggest counterexamples indicating that this is not true, I simply respond with, "well, if transit is faster than biking, clearly the bike infrastructure isn't actually good. QED"

quote:

Biking isn't usefully more flexible than transit for most people. If Tokyo can have such great biking usage with "no infrastructure" then doesn't that argue against your calls for building said infrastructure at that?

Hmm, well there's a couple things at work here:

1. Riding on the sidewalk being the norm means the cyclists sort of automatically get a ton of protected infrastructure. However, that isn't necessarily replicable elsewhere, simply because people don't want cyclists riding where they're walking (and it's outright against the law in many places in the US).
2. I'm also suggesting that, were Tokyo to have more bike-specific infrastructure and if Japan altered their workplace liability laws to not be hostile to bikes (or maybe it's just a cultural change there, it's hard to tell from far away) so that people could commute by bike, the bike share would probably be higher yet.

quote:

And of course on the other hand, even a lovely light rail line can at least offer air conditioning, avoiding some or all traffic. It sells quite well, one might say, so long as you put it in first.

Air conditioning I'll grant you, although good bike infrastructure has fewer problems with traffic than you might think, if you have protected lanes, separated cycle paths, bike-friendly roundabouts, bike scrambles, etc.

quote:

It's not that it's awful, it's that it has its own downsides which years of Dutch design and culture has adapted around. If the Dutch had been America-rich at the same time as America, they'd probably also have fallen into driving cars a ton and then the infrastructure, settlement patterns and all the rest would have become car focused. and you'd be chatting up the Danes as the great bikers or whatever.

Ah, so you're just unaware of Dutch bike history. Understandable, it's not exactly common knowledge. The truth is that Dutch streets were dominated by cars in the 50s, 60s, and up into the 70s. It wasn't until the 70s that there was a concerted push to "�Stop de kindermoord� (stop the child murder)" and make cities more friendly to walking and biking: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/how-the-dutch-got-their-cycling-infrastructure/

An intersection in Amsterdam in 1972. No trees, cars completely dominate the whole street. From what I've read, this was not unusual in the Netherlands at the time.

Same intersection as seen in Street View in 2011. Trees, narrowed roadway, bike parking, more room to walk.

quote:

Also oh really BBC, people who exercise a lot live longer? You gonna run a report that the sky is blue next? What a trash report.

It's not just that. It's that statistically, you gain an hour of life for each hour biking. That's for an average cyclist, you can't extrapolate that towards immortality, of course. In any case, I mostly posted the video because just looking at it you can see how people aren't biking around aren't all miserable like you're trying to portray, it's a perfectly pleasant activity.

edit: haha beaten on the link

# ? Nov 5, 2015 00:19

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# ? May 26, 2024 14:16

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

Entropist posted:

You can't over-optimize for the option that people enjoy the most

By this standard the massive car dependence of America is good.

Cicero posted:

This is flatly not true. The Dutch still walk, they drive, they take transit. In fact, their transit mode share is almost exactly the same as America's:

http://www.emta.com/IMG/pdf/brochure.pdf
http://traveltrends.transportation.org/Documents/CA10-4.pdf

Like I said, it's a No True Scotsman that invalidates further discussion. I'm suggesting that biking is faster than transit for shorter trips even when transit is good. You're saying that that is impossible by definition, because any good transit must be faster than biking to be considered good in the first place. There is something seriously broken in your head if you can't recognize such an obvious no true scotsman argument such as that.

Consider if I did the same thing: I assert that good bike infrastructure is virtually always superior to transit, it's always faster I say. When you suggest counterexamples indicating that this is not true, I simply respond with, "well, if transit is faster than biking, clearly the bike infrastructure isn't actually good. QED"

Hmm, well there's a couple things at work here:

1. Riding on the sidewalk being the norm means the cyclists sort of automatically get a ton of protected infrastructure. However, that isn't necessarily replicable elsewhere, simply because people don't want cyclists riding where they're walking (and it's outright against the law in many places in the US).
2. I'm also suggesting that, were Tokyo to have more bike-specific infrastructure and if Japan altered their workplace liability laws to not be hostile to bikes (or maybe it's just a cultural change there, it's hard to tell from far away) so that people could commute by bike, the bike share would probably be higher yet.

Air conditioning I'll grant you, although good bike infrastructure has fewer problems with traffic than you might think, if you have protected lanes, separated cycle paths, bike-friendly roundabouts, bike scrambles, etc.

Ah, so you're just unaware of Dutch bike history. Understandable, it's not exactly common knowledge. The truth is that Dutch streets were dominated by cars in the 50s, 60s, and up into the 70s. It wasn't until the 70s that there was a concerted push to "‘Stop de kindermoord’ (stop the child murder)" and make cities more friendly to walking and biking: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/how-the-dutch-got-their-cycling-infrastructure/

An intersection in Amsterdam in 1972. No trees, cars completely dominate the whole street. From what I've read, this was not unusual in the Netherlands at the time.

Same intersection as seen in Street View in 2011. Trees, narrowed roadway, bike parking, more room to walk.

It's not just that. It's that statistically, you gain an hour of life for each hour biking. That's for an average cyclist, you can't extrapolate that towards immortality, of course. In any case, I mostly posted the video because just looking at it you can see how people aren't biking around aren't all miserable like you're trying to portray, it's a perfectly pleasant activity.

edit: haha beaten on the link

Their transit mode share being identical to America's is bad, because overall America's share is dreadfully low. The overall American transit mode share is 5% as of 2013 data.

It's not a no true scotsman. I'm sorry that you really want to call more transit good than should be called good though.

I would rather suspect Tokyoite bike share to not change all that much, because most other forms of transporation are still jsut a sgood as before. It would most likely result in the bike share being safer and more comfortable.

If you have bike infrastructure up the rear end it's still not going to get you going all that fast without putting some serious effort to the gears. Many light rail systems run as fast as 50-60 mph between stops, even in cases where they're running on or between roads. Even slower ones will still do a good 25-35 when surrounding traffic is crawling.

Again, I'm not saying absolutely everyone who bikes is miserable. I'm saying it would be a miserable experience for a lot of people, in America (and Canada etc), even with great infrastructure, because of various geographical and climate conditions. Which would combine to there never being all that much people biking.

# ? Nov 5, 2015 00:36

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