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The Economist has published an article (paywalled, sorry) on the state of cyclists in New York, which dropped the day I was leaving the city. It was the first time I had visited as an adult. I came away with some respect for it (loved the food, service, and how fast everyone walked). The point of the story is supposedly that cyclists are now being treated unfairly:
I’m a cycling nut, so the issue is close to my heart. In a T2 city, I feel like our role is that of a scapegoat. People fantasize about killing cyclists pretty regularly, and none of them understand the challenges and tradeoffs we have to deal with. At this point, I've just thrown up my hands in despair at this ever being better, so I just get on the road as little as possible.
The people on two wheels in NYC are a different breed. Each of the longtime residents I asked - 100% - are now more scared of cyclists than cars. My 3 day trip felt the same to me. Every car was attentive and respectful of me as a pedestrian. The cyclists were fast, heavy, and disregarded almost every crosswalk signal or red light, despite having their own lanes. What’s the quantitative danger?
Notice the sleight of hand here. What’s included are E-Bikes, scooters, and mopeds - each of these truly motorized vehicles. The number of people killed by analog cyclists nationwide has been, for many years, single digits. This is important. E-bikes allow users to achieve speeds and momentum totally beyond their skill, and are often part of poorly maintained machines that are part of sharing programs. My mind is blown that even 8 people have been killed - that's an enormous number even in a place as dense as NYC. It probably means a huge number of serious injuries as collateral damage.
Put simply, the fixie riders racing through the city are psychotic but not dangerous to pedestrians.
As you’d expect, the lede is buried, along with the Culture War. The cyclists zipping through the city on E-bikes are exclusively yapping in a foreign language on speakerphone, with DoorDash bags on the back of their cycles. Nothing should get in the way of private taxis for burritos.
To recap how insane this is:
It’s so similar to LA, albeit with fewer vehicle fires and bricks on heads. The fix just cannot be the obvious and correct one. Instead, it’s to hop on Reddit to “map police hotspots” or refuse to stop as a way to LARP civil disobedience.
Disclaimer: I don't hate cyclists and have not had many negative experiences with cyclists while driving.
I always find it difficult to find sympaths for cyclists in America. My thinking goes like this.
tl;dr I need to get to work on time or pick up food for dinner, I'm not interested in being delayed or inconvenienced to accommodate some bum or some stranger's vanity hobby.
An argument I'm somewhat sympathetic to is that if we don't accommodate cyclists, we'll be stuck in our current automobile-centric hellscape forever. That is probably true. However, my preferences go like this:
In the U.S., number 3 seems by far the most common, and it sucks for everyone. The car/bike war is one of those problems that IMO can only really be solved by a strong executive power not beholden NIMBYs and lobbyists. Until one materializes, I'm supporting option 2 all the way.
American cities are also much warmer than most of Europe. I think there might be a mismatch there, because the Sunbelt is too hot much of the year for cycling to be enjoyable. It's much easier to dress for cold than for Phoenix summers.
Are there any tropical or subtropical cities with respected bike infrastructure? Maybe Shanghai back when China was bike-dominant?
I worked in Shanghai for a few months. Their scooter infrastructure is amazing. A wide lane for scooters separated from the car lanes by a concrete barrier. It goes: sidewalk, scooter lane, concrete barrier, car lanes, concrete barrier, scooter lane, sidewalk.
This would be perfect biking infrastructure, but they seem to be all in on small electric scooters rather than bikes.
Well yes, everyone who has the option of motorizing seems to pick that option except for a minority of hobbyists.
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I can count on one hand the number of minutes per month I'm delayed by a cyclist. On the other hand, every time the Penguins or Pirates play a weekday home game I'm treated to at least ten minutes of extra sitting in traffic so a bunch of suburbanites can treat themselves to a night of overpriced disappointment. And I'm just trying to get home or the grocery store; I'm sure there are other people out there who have jobs at the hospital to get to, or something even more important than my convenience. So if people's recreation getting in the way of convenience is the standard to set, then cyclists on public roads should be way down at the bottom of the list of things we need to get rid of.
You need to figure out the amount of delay per cyclist and per driver, not the total amount of delay. The total amount is skewed by the much larger number of cars.
I would bet that if all those people went to the ball game on bicycles, your delays would not get any shorter.
I guarantee you they would disappear entirely if that were the case, since cyclists don't ride on the freeway.
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I am more than in favor of banning pro sports as well
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In the context of NYC though, these points are largely invalid. It's dense, walkable, transitable, employers don't expect cars, grocery stores are close enough to walk to, let alone bike. If you must drive (which is entirely reasonable for some use cases) it's a pain because of the traffic (as it's so dense even a small portion of drivers cause congestion). Less than half of NYC even owns a car, something like ~20% in Manhattan.
For a significant number of trips, cycling can not just be an alternative quirky choice (like rollerblading), but the ideal mode - direct to your destination, cheap, faster than transit or a car (due to bypassing transfers or traffic), no need to find parking, and with some cargo or kid capacity if you have the right bike.
Safety is one of the big blockers though, which is why cycling advocates want more infrastructure.
And yes, this does trade off against drivability, but NYC is definitely not Pareto optimal in this regard - there's room to improve design for cyclists without significantly showing down drivers.
I agree 3 sucks, but it doesn't have to be as awkward as your making it out to be. Filling in the gaps doesn't make it impossible for cars to function.
I will concede that very dense places are different.
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