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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.
The deaths to pedestrians from cyclists seems like a bad statistic for either side to bring up, and a bad statistic in general.
I think the risk to pedestrians seems minimal and bikes should just fully share the sidewalk with pedestrians. Bikes hitting people is most likely to ruin both people's day, but cars hitting bikes is most likely to ruin someone's life.
Every cyclist I've ever suggested this to hates it, and I think it's just because they don't like going as slow as you sometimes need to go on a sidewalk to be safe. But it is often what they are asking drivers to do: go slowly for the cyclists safety on the road. Which is when it turns into a whole political question. No one likes going slower than they can, so who has to suffer the indignity drivers or cyclists?
The answer seems obvious in my head, but I know I identify with drivers more (despite riding a bike around the neighborhood pretty often)
I'm a moderate on this - I hop on the sidewalk plenty on big roads. Once you start doing this, however, you realize how bad they are. Even with how much slower you are on them, a cyclist is going to see far more of this infrastructure than an average pedestrian. They end at random places (right when lanes crunch!), foliage overhang is a serious problem, dirt and potholes push you to the edge of the curb and risk you being struck by cars anyway...
This is also assuming zero competition from pedestrians. Once there is some, it turns into a nightmare. They're unpredictable, have dogs with them, etc. I just think "the system" (whatever it is) has to have some sort of tangible benefits to counteract the myriad downsides of cycling: mechanical maintenance, capital expenditure, and enormous risk of theft. I have to have some speed advantage even if it's not the 4x one I'd get on a road.
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Sharing the sidewalk becomes absolutely worthless for cyclists at some fairly low pedestrian density easily exceeded in Manhattan.
Correct, because a big point of using a bike instead of walking is to go faster than walking.
I disagree with those cyclists too. But it's mostly not cyclists pushing for lower speed limits in Manhattan, it's pedestrian safety advocates. When cycling I'd rather mix it up with car traffic in Manhattan than pedestrian traffic; yes, it's nuts, but driving in Manhattan is nuts too, and walking there isn't exactly a calming experience. The basic problem is too many damned people in too little space. I recently spent some time in some European cities of far lower density (and size) and all modes of transportation (driving, cycling, walking, and public transit) were far better. I've spent time in dense European cities and that's not the case there.
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note that it requires wider sidewalks, and as soon as total cycling+pedestrian traffic is dense you are better of with dedicated footway and dedicated cycleway
You know, I consider myself a modest advocate in favor of better transit infrastructure, but the "induced demand! Just add another lane bro!" partisans irk me because there really are more (diffuse) benefits to more total miles traveled --- not necessarily commuting to suburbs directly, but mobility is generally good, and I'm not convinced the measures they suggest will actually improve things.
Sometimes it's been tempting to take the "just add a lane, bro" meme featuring an American freeway (often I10 in Houston) and re-render it showing an equally wide road with all these subdivided sections for things they would otherwise like:
"Just add another dedicated lane, bro. This time it'll make them take mass transit or bikes." Although I personally would like more people to do that.
Going from 0->1 lanes is a heck of a lot more impactful than going from 10->11 lanes.
Intercity rail isn't going to be on every street.
Ditto for light rail.
Sidewalks are for streets, not freeways.
In space-contrainses areas most people would absolutely sacrifice trees.
I get where you're coming from, more movement does have a benefit that's often ignored, but it's disingenuous to compare the request for a bike lane or a sidewalk to another freeway lane.
Yeah, it is a bit unfair of a comparison broadly. But sidewalks and bike lanes keep getting wider. Very old neighborhoods often have 24" sidewalks (if at all), while now they seem to be 36 or 48 inches. Bigger new roads (like your 11 lane freeway) have 6 or 8 foot sidewalks, getting closer to the width of a car lane.
I actually do like sidewalks, and I like the idea of bike lanes even if I'm unsatisfied with how they're engineered here these days: painted gutters, really? Unidirectional lanes across a road that doesn't have safe crossings? I think the ADA et al makes us avoid non-level pedestrian/bike crossings, so they just don't provide them on medium streets. Bidirectional lanes without safe crossings or ways to turn across? Do they ever sweep bike lanes?
IIRC (I don't have my books in front of me): The federal ADA requires new sidewalks to be 4 feet wide, with 5-foot-wide passing areas every few hundred feet. In areas where the sidewalk goes right up to the curb, the designer normally will make it 6 feet wide (including the 9-inch curb), to prevent trucks' side mirrors from clipping pedestrians.
AASHTO has issued different, wider guidelines for bike lanes, as well as for "shared-use paths" occupied by both pedestrians and bicyclists, but I don't recall the specifics.
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I think this is a terrible idea. On roads, we have traffic rules which enable everyone to go at reasonable speed while still maintaining safety. On sidewalks, pedestrians are not required to follow any traffic rules. This means that a safe-ish speed to pass a pedestrian will always be quite low.
I agree that bike-pedestrian collisions are unlikely to kill anyone directly, but that does not mean that they are not bad. For an elderly, a broken bone requiring hospitalization can easily mean the beginning of the end, costing them multiple QALYs.
Then there are unintentional consequences. If you force bikes to the sidewalk, effectively halving the speed of responsible bikers, that will cause more people to drive cars instead. As someone who occasionally drove a car in a medium-sized European city, I don't particularly like having bikes ahead of me, they generally are slower than cars and their vulnerability means that I have to take more care for overtaking them than I would for another car. But most of the time I lost in traffic was actually lost to traffic jams which were caused by cars.
Driving cars is fairly regulated, while riding bikes is not. This means that there are a lot of reckless bikers out there. Ignoring traffic rules around cars is limited by a process called natural selection -- if you keep running red lights without checking the traffic, that is a problem which will solve itself. On the sidewalk, the cost of reckless biking would primarily fall on others.
If we had a way to consistently enforce a sidewalk speed limit, I would support giving bikers the option to use the sidewalk at speeds up to 10km/h. There are certainly times when I would gladly have made use of that option.
If I were dictator I would make a law that bikes can go anywhere, but never have right of way. If a cyclist is in an accident it will always be their fault- hit an old lady and go to jail, get hit by a car and die.
Why?
To put the onus on bicyclists, obviously.
I saw you already replied to someone else's obvious objection, but are you trying to discourage bicycling? Would leaving the laws the same, but having the DOT create "Travel (Method) Advisories" for each mode of travel be an acceptable alternative?
(I hate anti-car bulverism as much as I hate bad traffic engineering, but there's non-zero overlap between the recommendations for precautions to take, if you insist on ignoring recommendations against traveling to Somalia, and possible recommendations for cyclists, motorcyclists, and pedestrians.)
I don’t care whether adult cyclists are encouraged in their hobby or lined up and shot for partaking in it. I have strong sympathy for young teens, but those mostly know that ludacris’s traffic mix is aimed at them- I make you move, bitch, get out the way. Likewise I sympathize with the poor who can’t afford cars, but, again, they understand their station in life.
I care about the sidewalks being usable for pedestrians and the road being usable for cars. Hippies should get a haircut and fitness fanatics should avail themselves of exercise bikes and the like if either of them are going to cause problems for the priority groups.
Tbh this is just as bad a take imo as the fanatics wanting to get rid of cars in the countryside said bc they "just need better public infrastructure". Yes, cars are superior for rural regions and public infrastucture is just not feasible there, but for well-designed suburbia and especially for smaller cities, bikes are also just better in many circumstances. It has nothing to with hobbies, hippies or fitness fanatics (though regular exercise is one of the benefits of bikes!). They need so much less space, they're cheaper, more flexible, less dangerous for pedestrians, etc.
Reducing cars in the suburbs to pedestrian speed and giving them the blame for any accident is great, it means even smaller kids can run, play, and bike through the suburbs without me needing to worry much, It means I can walk and bike there without having to be attentive all the time, and as long as it is properly designed even if I need to drive through it's just a minute or so of slow driving.
In cities car culture is also awful, the smell got better but everything is just so clogged and noisy. Worse, the danger means that even if you want to bike, it makes you choose the car bc a single idiot can cost your life. When I was living in London, almost everyone biked for a while, and those who stopped always had an incident with a crazy car driver. I myself also had several such situations. The counter here is usually crazy cyclist, but crazy cyclists are merely annoying, even a collision will usually not even seriously hurt you (though I get very pissed when small kids are involved, but even there I can literally just jump in front & stop the bike if needed); Crazy drivers can kill you with frightening ease, and there is absolutely nothing you can do. There's a lot to dislike in the EU, but well-targeted car bans are great.
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Then why the complication of policing cyclists' deaths by negligent/reckless and/or malicious driving, as per your reply to the other commenter?
Have you seen examples of "complete streets," designed to better enable mixed-modal transportation?
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sounds tempting but it would cause problems with at least drivers deliberately causing accidents to murder cyclists (currently rare but would become more common if it would be legal)
Most people are selfish and somewhat amoral, but few people are psychos. Reckless driving/vehicular homicide would remain illegal, too, so the worst offenders would still be arrested.
At the end of the day cyclists simply need to learn to deal with the fact that they’re too slow for roads and too fast for sidewalks, and adjust accordingly.
OK, then it is not as simple as
well, the problem is that just few can cause unacceptable damage (though such rule would effectively outlaw bicycle use anyway) and enough psychos have cyclist obsession for it to happen on day one
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This is my preferred solution, as well.
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Original article was proposing enforcement of rules against bikers. I do know that cities often have cops on bicycles.
Maximum speed and some enforced guidelines on sidewalks sounds great. Where places are less dense enforcement would be hard but also less necessary as there would be fewer pedestrians.
Roadways for motorized vehicles, sidewalks for human powered things.
Have you seen a sidewalk?
This is such a bad idea. Sidewalks are full of stuff like signs, trees, children, dogs, people moving in any direction at any time because inertia isn't a thing when you're walking.
The only sidewalks it's possible to bike on functionally would be completely empty ones near strip malls or residential neighborhoods in suburbia, at which point, sure, bikes can go crazy on those. But the second there's more than a handful of people per block this gets incredibly stupid.
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Both bike lanes and sidewalks independently have the problem that their users have a wide range of speeds --- try running on a crowded sidewalk, even before they have sharp sudden turns. Bike lanes try to fit roadies wanting to go 20+ mph, kids and grandmas going near walking pace, and e-bikes that have been poorly regulated and go car speeds.
Roads have slow-moving vehicles, but there are special rules for the (often requiring specific placards, lights, and sometimes escorts).
I guess I could point to the analogue of data infrastructure: in the past we had separate phone and cable TV infrastructure and a variety of broadcast radio and TV, but that has been moving slowly towards common switched packet infrastructure where everything is passed through a single, big data pipe. I guess the question I have is if there is a way to develop roads like switched packet networks. Something like autonomous vehicles that consistently yield to pedestrians and cyclists on the same roads. There are (potentially) enough efficiency gains from replacing safety margins for humans in the loop with intra-vehicle communication (ignoring the security and safety issues for this thought experiment) to allow efficient dynamic allocation of the space. It works today on sparsely used suburban roads: without sidewalks or bike lanes, a few local human-driven cars at local speeds can share the space with pedestrians and cyclists.
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I see where you're coming from but what you're effectively asking for is the adoption of the Third World's model for traffic, where everything flows chaotically and you're just supposed to improvise your movements without a clear structure for who can circulate where. Unsurprisingly, every single country with this kind of laissez-faire traffic mentality has horrendously high accident rates.
Here in Vienna, our main shopping street was transformed into a pedestrian zone about a decade ago - initially, the plan was for large swaths of the street to have a hybrid system where both bikers and pedestrians could share the street without any dividing markers. This had to be amended very shortly after its inauguration because it made the street experience too hectic and demanding for everyone involved, especially on a shopping street where people want to leisurely stroll and window-shop, not constantly be on the lookout for bikers trying to swerve around them. For the bikers themselves, the system sucked too, since they couldnt just bike down the street in a straight line, but had to constantly change their direction to avoid pedestrians standing in their way. It was a lose-lose situation for everyone involved and the quick addition of bike lane markers on the ground largely erased the problem overnight.
I'd be fine with bikes lanes on side walks. Usually bike lanes are added to roads, if sidewalks were just enlarged and the bike lanes were added to them that would seem better to me.
what is the difference between a bike lane on a road and a bike lane on a sidewalk that was expanded onto the road?
I think you prefer the sidewalk bike lane as there is grade separation. It's possible to make nicely separated bike lanes in roads too. Not all bike lanes are painted lines, American cities just don't build nice ones.
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Lots of people die from falling and hitting their heads on the ground.
Deaths from Fall-Related Traumatic Brain Injury—United States, 2008–2017
Fatal Head Injuries in Ground-Level Falls
Head and Neck Injury Patterns in Fatal Falls: Epidemiologic and Biomechanical Considerations
Sorry slight exaggeration. I can imagine people dying from a simple fall, it just seems less likely than when they get hit by a car.
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Are you proposing that drivers should be required to check sidewalks for cyclists and yield when turning left or going through an all-way stop? If not you are proposing a soft ban on cycling, in that cyclists are required to yield to everyone everywhere. If you are proposing that motorists should yield to cyclists in sidewalks when they would yield to cyclists in the road then you are proposing something that non-criminal motorists would find even more annoying than the status quo.
Fundamentally, primary safety (i.e. avoiding crashes altogether, rather than making them less lethal) requires cyclists to either be in fully segregated infrastructure (either grade separated at junctions as in Milton Keynes in the UK, or having their own phase at traffic lights as in Dutch cities) or to be in the road where drivers will see them.
In addition, a bike (ridden at speed by a competent adult cyclist) is more like a car than a pedestrian in that it can't stop safely if someone crosses its path without looking. The place where you are required to be paying sufficient attention to not cross other road users' paths without looking is the road, not the sidewalk.
If you want to ban bicycles (except as children's toys) in your community, that is a perfectly plausible tradeoff to make after considering the relative importance your community places on the health and fitness of the population, teenagers' ability to be independent, green goals etc. against a marginal speed improvement for drivers. But if there are bicycles in environments where the speed of car traffic is 30mph or less, they belong in the street. Society worked this one out while Henry Ford was still alive and nothing that matters has changed since then.
Bikes yield to everyone on nature paths and it has not effectively banned them at all. Instead such paths are filled with bikers.
I'd be fine with bikes only on streets in areas of less than 30mph speeds. As soon as it hits 35 though they are asking cars to generally slow down to accommodate them. At 45mph I think they are a danger to themselves and all other drivers.
I'm fine with effectively banning what I'd consider "racing cycling" this ain't the tour de France. Just like highways aren't NASCAR or formula 1. All people in shared commute spaces have to sacrifice the top speed of their vehicle for the safety of themselves and others.
As a cyclist, I avoid 40mph roads whenever I can. Unfortunately, sometimes they're the only roads going where I want to go.
Indeed, once you're outside an urban grid, there's often only one road (or two, where one is a limited-access highway) which goes where you want to go without going WAY out of your way. If you want to go from e.g. Urbana, MD to Hyattstown, MD (both suburbs of Washington DC) on a bicycle, MD 355 is it. Mostly two lines, mostly narrow/nonexistent shoulders, speed limit varies from 40 to 50 but mostly 50mph.
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Nature paths don't have store entrances all along them for people to veer into or randomly pop out of.
Also frequently they are much wider than sidewalks.
They also don't have anywhere near the clutter (sandwich boards, planter boxes, utility poles) that sidewalks do. They also don't have as much pedestrian density (usually) as sidewalks.
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