On Friday I decided to count the number of drivers running reds, since everyone gives cyclists a hard for doing so.
My commute in San Francisco involves crossing 16 streets. It's not very far, about 2.5 miles.
On Friday I observed 35 cars run red lights--not even "it's yellow and time to speed up because drivers don't give a single flying crap about safety" but literally the cross traffic lane is green.
Cars are a terrible unsustainable mess, ruining the environment and ruining city livability. It's not surprising that the risks they impose on the rest of the world are resulting in less people willing to bike
My commute is down market st, 4th to Castro, which is particularly bad. I bike. What happens is that at _every_ major market st crossing, cars will run their red (actual red, not yellow), and then stop just before the crosswalk due to pedestrians beginning to cross. They'll remain stopped in the middle of cross lane traffic for essentially the entirety of the light (Hey, if they didn't get to go why should anyone get to?!) , though sometimes they'll try to wedge themselves through pedestrian traffic, because driving a car turns people into assholes and necessitates neglecting the safety of others. It is possible that pedestrians might not notice this nearly as often, due to being much less impacted by it. It's also a significantly worse problem during typical commute hours.
Due to the number of aggressively awful drivers in the city, I've ordered a dashcam for my bike, so I'll likely have some footage to demonstrate this soon. (Well, I hope not, but.)
Articles [0][1] cite a study [2] that people driving cars and bicycles admit to breaking the law at the same rate. I've just now found the study itself, so will be reading it's additional findings.
The Netherlands is generally the best or second best place in the world to get around, though, is it not? I've considered moving there just for the bike infra (Utrecht comes up a lot in conversations with my wife, and Zwolle).
My daughter is 1. By the time she starts school I want her to be able to ride a bike to school without dying.
I commuted by bike all the time my entire adult life, save a period of three months with no alternative. Then I got tired of getting screamed at and nearly being killed all the time, as well as hearing coworkers joke about murdering cyclists, and changed country. But that's one less bike commuter in the US.
It's because US cities are poorly planned, crumbling shit-holes with 4 lane highways criss crossing them. People are extremely hostile to bikers in most US cities, and there are literally no consequences to killing them much of the time.
American cities are so unpleasant to exist in on the ground level people prefer the safety of their smog machines at all times, even if you are going half a mile down the road for a carton of milk.
Everything is designed to funnel you out of the city into your extremely inefficient suburb so you can stop by taco-bell and wal-mart on your 50 minute commute home.
But hey, the answer is more roads right? Not incentivizing people to have less roads on the highway?
Aside from your last line, I basically agree with you. I walk on sidewalks, or drive. Biking in the city is just not my thing.
Conversely, I love cycling. I've been a bike mechanic, and my wife and I ride mountain bikes all the time. to me, it's just not worth going out on the street. The mindset is somewhat like, "if I'm going to get hurt cycling, it might as well be fun, and my own fault".
One point that you miss, at least in SF, is the considerable expense of having your bike stolen all the time. friends that commute either bring their bike into a dedicate secure area for work, or expect to have parts/the whole thing stolen. I used to cycle to the gym on a beater bike in a low traffic area, and when that beater bike got stolen, I gave up on any cycle commuting for anything.
I don't know what would drive the national trend, but here in Portland, which is a relatively bike friendly city, commuting by bike is [for a lot of people at least] a commitment and not a convenience. It takes longer, requires more prep before you leave, recovery time at your destination (shower, change clothes, whatever), etc. And in the winter when it's very cold and wet, it is especially unappealing. But ... we are a mid-size city, and the same people who have the luxury of commuting to an office by bicycle frequently also have the luxury of choosing their hours to avoid traffic. Figure in the recent surge in EV adoption and maybe a lot of folks who biked because it was the greener option are now feeling less guilt about using their car.
>requires more prep before you leave, recovery time at your destination
I don't understand these as a dane. Almost all that commutes by bike goes without showers when they arrive. Just ride a little slower. Also why would it take longer to leave? Taking on a pair of rain pants is about 40s.
It is unappealing to ride in the winter though, nothing is going to change that.
This is probably extremely variable by region. Everyone I know at our office who commutes takes a shower on arrival and most wear different clothes when riding that they pack with them.
I work downtown and most everyone I know who bikes from out west just skips the road altogether for the hill and takes MAX between the Zoo and Goose Hollow. I can't imagine trying to bike that every day :)
I think it'd be interesting to see the distribution of commute distances over the period in question. Anecdotally the #1 reason people tell me they don't commute on their bike is that they're busy and it just takes so much longer than driving because their workplace and home are so far apart.
My suspicion is that a part of the drop is due to the slow shift away from suburbs. Bike commuting from a suburb can be great (I've been a year-round commuter for over half a decade). However, the exurbs are too far away for bicycles, and inside urban areas you often have lots of other choices for getting to the office.
This doesn't match my experience. I see bikers mainly in the city bikeways, just not in the most crowded and well-transit-served downtown core. In suburds the miles add up too quickly and take up too much time. It may depend on how dense your cities are.
Biking looks time consuming, but if you use it as time for exercise and sunshine-time you would otherwise be doing on your free time, it's almost 0 marginal cost.
There's definitely a distance correlation for biking in the USA, where e-biking hasn't seen the explosive growth yet that is happening in Europe.
That said - the car is not necessarily faster than biking, especially in the city. Anecdotal example: I live about 1.5 miles from my workplace. Biking is about twice as fast as driving during rush hour because of traffic. So I bike!
That's really close! At that distance, traffic could be bad enough that walking might be faster!
Congratulations on arranging your life well, though. I think back fondly to the times I was 2-4 miles from work. Actually for about six months I was a few blocks away. That was great.
Anecdotally I've seen many people stop biking because its not safe and the risks become apparent to them over time. 5 people I know have been seriously injured biking in San Francisco. When you consider the risk of getting door-ed at 15mph or getting haplessly mowed down by blind merging open-wheel trucks, it's quite physically dangerous. Until we have a broad deployment of protected bike lanes, its just not worth the risks.
I'm a long time bike commuter who's stopped recently for those exact reasons. My biggest axe to grind is that American cities keep investing in bike share programs and other "bike friendly" initiatives that have no impact on rider safety.
American cities keep investing in bike share programs and other "bike friendly" initiatives that have no impact on rider safety.
That a broad generalization based only on your specific experience.
Chicago, for example, continues to build bicycle lanes separated by concrete medians, bollards, and in the case of the big new developments in the South Loop, bike lanes separated from traffic and sidewalks by trees.
The biggest downside to cycling in Chicago is the winter. Not just the cold and wind, but the fact that snow from the sidewalks is often shoveled into the bike lane.
I'm sure there are other American cities doing the same thing.
I think the one advantage unprotected bike lanes have is that they're easier to maintain. Re-paving is simplified. And you don't have to invest in tiny bike lane snowplows.
Protected bike lanes in the US are far too often built in ways that increase risk.
In Austin, I basically refuse to use the two most significant protected bike lanes near where I live and work because drivers far too frequently turn into the lanes at intersections without looking. The city put signs up telling drivers to look and yield at some intersections, but the signs don't seem to have had any effect other than covering the ass of the city.
Well built infrastructure would be preferred. But ultimately we need more than just infrastructure. Drivers need to change their dangerous behavior too.
> Until we have a broad deployment of protected bike lanes, its just not worth the risks.
And unfortunately this likely won't happen. Despite a large coalition of biking advocates in SF, the SFMTA won't lift a finger. It's a corrupt, incompetent organizations that won't green light anything other than useless pork projects. And once the moneys in...the execution is irrelevant to them. Just look at the Van Ness BRT, Central Subway, Transbay Center construction.
I commute by bicycle. I used to love it but I getting harder in the Bay Area. Between skate boarders, gig economy taxis, scooters, and zombie pedestrians and vehicle drivers face deep in their phone compounding danger upon danger I'm finding it less appealing as time passes.
Disregarding vehicle drivers I actually think the boom in pedestrian transportation (powered skateboards, scooters etc) is a huge plus for bikers. People on these forms of transportation get a taste of what bike commuting is like and will become allies for voting for improvements in infrastructure for themselves and cyclists.
As a cyclist, this makes me think you're part of the problem. If a pedestrian seriously endangers you, 9 times out of 10 it means you fucked up. Maybe they fucked up too, but it wouldn't have been a problem if you were paying attention.
If nothing else, we have a lot more experience noticing and avoiding pedestrians than they do with us. If we want to improve bicycle awareness and acceptance, we all need to behave responsibly.
In learning to drive, particularly the "hazard perception test" in the UK (watch a video and click if there's a potential hazard), I became a safer cyclist.
If I saw a small boy 50m away pulling at his mother's arm it used to be that I'd stop pedalling. Now, I'll also consider moving further into the road, I'll cover the brake, glance behind and potentially slow down.
My worst cycling injury (separated shoulder) is due to an oblivious pedestrian stepping directly out in front of me from between parked cars. For years I've wished I had just run her down instead of dodging and taking the impact myself.
Not in Stockholm. The western part of town saw a 19% increase this summer. The central parts had a 16% increase[1]. This I believe has to do with massive investments in infrastructure. Bike lanes have become more crowded, but I must say that it's a joy compared to cramming yourself into an overcrowded subway train.
Readit News
My commute in San Francisco involves crossing 16 streets. It's not very far, about 2.5 miles.
On Friday I observed 35 cars run red lights--not even "it's yellow and time to speed up because drivers don't give a single flying crap about safety" but literally the cross traffic lane is green.
Cars are a terrible unsustainable mess, ruining the environment and ruining city livability. It's not surprising that the risks they impose on the rest of the world are resulting in less people willing to bike
If I had to guess, I'd say that I've seen at most 35 cars run red-lights in the last year.
Am I just not noticing them? Are we counting "running a red-light" differently? I'm having a hard time figuring out why our numbers are so different.
Due to the number of aggressively awful drivers in the city, I've ordered a dashcam for my bike, so I'll likely have some footage to demonstrate this soon. (Well, I hope not, but.)
[0]: https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-07-18/survey-finds-bicyclis... [1]: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/03/16/busting-the-myth-of-t... [2]: https://jtlu.org/index.php/jtlu/article/view/871/875
My daughter is 1. By the time she starts school I want her to be able to ride a bike to school without dying.
American cities are so unpleasant to exist in on the ground level people prefer the safety of their smog machines at all times, even if you are going half a mile down the road for a carton of milk.
Everything is designed to funnel you out of the city into your extremely inefficient suburb so you can stop by taco-bell and wal-mart on your 50 minute commute home.
But hey, the answer is more roads right? Not incentivizing people to have less roads on the highway?
Conversely, I love cycling. I've been a bike mechanic, and my wife and I ride mountain bikes all the time. to me, it's just not worth going out on the street. The mindset is somewhat like, "if I'm going to get hurt cycling, it might as well be fun, and my own fault".
One point that you miss, at least in SF, is the considerable expense of having your bike stolen all the time. friends that commute either bring their bike into a dedicate secure area for work, or expect to have parts/the whole thing stolen. I used to cycle to the gym on a beater bike in a low traffic area, and when that beater bike got stolen, I gave up on any cycle commuting for anything.
I don't understand these as a dane. Almost all that commutes by bike goes without showers when they arrive. Just ride a little slower. Also why would it take longer to leave? Taking on a pair of rain pants is about 40s.
It is unappealing to ride in the winter though, nothing is going to change that.
My suspicion is that a part of the drop is due to the slow shift away from suburbs. Bike commuting from a suburb can be great (I've been a year-round commuter for over half a decade). However, the exurbs are too far away for bicycles, and inside urban areas you often have lots of other choices for getting to the office.
Biking looks time consuming, but if you use it as time for exercise and sunshine-time you would otherwise be doing on your free time, it's almost 0 marginal cost.
That said - the car is not necessarily faster than biking, especially in the city. Anecdotal example: I live about 1.5 miles from my workplace. Biking is about twice as fast as driving during rush hour because of traffic. So I bike!
Congratulations on arranging your life well, though. I think back fondly to the times I was 2-4 miles from work. Actually for about six months I was a few blocks away. That was great.
That a broad generalization based only on your specific experience.
Chicago, for example, continues to build bicycle lanes separated by concrete medians, bollards, and in the case of the big new developments in the South Loop, bike lanes separated from traffic and sidewalks by trees.
The biggest downside to cycling in Chicago is the winter. Not just the cold and wind, but the fact that snow from the sidewalks is often shoveled into the bike lane.
I'm sure there are other American cities doing the same thing.
I think the one advantage unprotected bike lanes have is that they're easier to maintain. Re-paving is simplified. And you don't have to invest in tiny bike lane snowplows.
In Austin, I basically refuse to use the two most significant protected bike lanes near where I live and work because drivers far too frequently turn into the lanes at intersections without looking. The city put signs up telling drivers to look and yield at some intersections, but the signs don't seem to have had any effect other than covering the ass of the city.
Well built infrastructure would be preferred. But ultimately we need more than just infrastructure. Drivers need to change their dangerous behavior too.
And unfortunately this likely won't happen. Despite a large coalition of biking advocates in SF, the SFMTA won't lift a finger. It's a corrupt, incompetent organizations that won't green light anything other than useless pork projects. And once the moneys in...the execution is irrelevant to them. Just look at the Van Ness BRT, Central Subway, Transbay Center construction.
As a cyclist, this makes me think you're part of the problem. If a pedestrian seriously endangers you, 9 times out of 10 it means you fucked up. Maybe they fucked up too, but it wouldn't have been a problem if you were paying attention.
If nothing else, we have a lot more experience noticing and avoiding pedestrians than they do with us. If we want to improve bicycle awareness and acceptance, we all need to behave responsibly.
If I saw a small boy 50m away pulling at his mother's arm it used to be that I'd stop pedalling. Now, I'll also consider moving further into the road, I'll cover the brake, glance behind and potentially slow down.
[1] https://www.stockholmdirekt.se/nyheter/rekordmanga-har-valt-...