The Economics of Bike Lanes

http://economicsintelligence.com/2011/03/11/the-economics-of-bike-lanes-%E2%80%93-how-can-john-cassidy-get-it-so-wrong/

by marbu • 15 years ago

171 193 15 years ago

rjprins• 15 years ago

This discussion about the value and use of bike lanes keeps amazing me. It seems many people hold a negative view without having good arguments, almost religiously.

Living in the Netherlands, the benefits of separate bike lanes (to point of a separate transit system) are so incredibly obvious. It's not some cultural particularity, it's because cycling has been made easy, nice (most of the time) and safe here. (see http://hembrow.blogspot.com/)

People who don't accept the rationality of the whole thing, probably have difficulty imagining a city with a cycling network. And when you show them the Dutch system, they have problems imagining the change it requires to get there. That is why Copenhaganize is a good campaign, because it shows the change is possible

Symmetry2• 15 years ago

I know that for a lot of people in the US, their experience with bike commuting involves being stuck behind a bicycle on a road that doesn't have bike lanes, causing a certain amount of free-floating antipathy towards bikers.

davidw2• 15 years ago

There's nothing that causes drivers to seethe with anger like losing whole seconds of their lives to happy people cruising along on bicycles.

dpark6• 15 years ago

And those annoyed drivers then complain about the creation of dedicated lanes that would get cyclists out of the flow of car traffic...

microtonal• 15 years ago

Indeed. The following video provides a nice overview of the history and the current state of biking infrastructure in The Netherlands:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn2s6ax_7TM

Also, besides infrastructure, making a city of country bike-friendly also requires changes in legislation. E.g. in The Netherlands a lot legislation has been introduced in the past to protect cyclists, making drivers of motorized vehicles more cautious.

The effect on society is profound. Most of my colleagues go to work by bike, public transit, or both. A bike is often many times more economic than a car, reduces oil-dependence, and wide use results in cleaner air.

felipemnoa• 15 years ago

And you forgot the benefits to your body.

joebadmo2• 15 years ago

I'm a daily bike commuter and I would love to see a Netherlands-like biking network in the US, but it's hard for me to imagine anywhere that's not as flat as most of the Netherlands. I could see it here in Portland or maybe Philly, but I don't think it would really increase the numbers of cyclists that much in, say, Seattle, where I used to live (and bike).

pessimizer• 15 years ago

Chicago is as flat as a board. Reclaimed swamp.

hyperbovine• 15 years ago

Those cities are the exception, not the rule. Just off the top of my head, Manhattan, Chicago, Denver, Miami, Boston, Dallas, LA, San Diego, Atlanta, D.C., Phoenix are all flat enough for a person in decent shape to get around by bike. I think the winter is a bigger issue than the terrain, but overall I think most Americans could be biking most of the time (given a lot of changes in infrastructure, policy and public health).

m0nty3• 15 years ago

> It seems many people hold a negative view without having good arguments, almost religiously.

I tried discussing the benefits of cycling with a friend. "Bikes actually use as much energy to produce as cars, since they're made of high-tech materials which use a lot of energy in manufacture."

"Whenever I'm stuck in traffic, it's usually down to a cyclist somewhere."

"Having several cars is very environmentally friendly, since you can select the one most suited to your requirements at the time."

And he gets very pissy if I mention I've just completed a 20 mile ride or whatever, seems to think I'm bragging (which I am, sometimes ;) and it makes him a bit insecure. So yes, emotion trumps reason for some people.

pjscott• 15 years ago

Those objections have one thing in common: they are all flimsy after-the-fact rationalizations constructed to protect an irrational conclusion that your friend has already decided to believe, i.e. that cars are better than bikes in every way, and to hell with bikes. They're not his real objection to bikes.

A good conversational tactic for that kind of situation is to try to get him to agree in advance to what evidence would sway him. If you prove to him that cars are less energy-intensive to produce than cars, or that having several cars is less environmentally friendly than having one decent all-purpose car, will he agree to accept that, and actually change his mind? The purpose of getting pre-commitment here is to avoid the inevitable back-pedaling (no pun intended) and shifting of the goal-posts that would otherwise happen once you rebut his claims.

law5• 15 years ago

I think by "free," Cassidy means "libre," in that adding bike lanes decreases the number of available parking spaces. If that's the case, Storbeck improperly challenged the basis of Cassidy's cost-benefit scrutiny. The value (intrinsic and extrinsic) of bike lanes isn't in question; rather, Storbeck seems to take exception to the fact that these bike lanes are being constructed and rarely used. On the other hand, for anyone who has driven in NYC, parking is always difficult, no matter where you are. Whenever I drive around, I just accept the fact that I will be paying $30 per hour for a garage.

Yes, switching over to bicycle transportation is an outstanding idea. However, the change has to be, in a manner of speaking, bootstrapped. There's absolutely no justification for an increase in bike lanes when they're currently underutilized, as Cassidy argues.

barrkel• 15 years ago

I don't much care for cycling; I did it for years when I was in school, had enough of it, now I prefer motorbikes. But it's a gross overstatement to say that there is no justification for an increase in bike lanes when they're currently being underutilized; you're completely ignoring network effects. If the cause of under-utilization is lack of cycle paths that cover enough of the journey (i.e. there would be too much navigation of hazardous traffic), it's self-evident that more cycle paths would be justified.

The question then becomes whether or not under-utilization is caused by lack of cycle route coverage. I think it's pretty reasonable to believe that many people used to car transport think cycling through the traffic to be dangerous, and would look more favourably on it if there were separated dedicated lanes.

(If parking is available for 30 USD, then it appears that parking is not actually difficult in NYC. It is expensive, not difficult.)

dpark6• 15 years ago

>(If parking is available for 30 USD, then it appears that parking is not actually difficult in NYC. It is expensive, not difficult.)

That's the key takeaway. When property is at a premium, parking is also at a premium, by necessity. As someone who lives in a city, I like cheap parking as much as anybody else. But cheap parking is just city-subsidized parking.

mikeash3• 15 years ago

Parking is easy in NYC, from my limited experience, as long as you have a fat wallet. It's extremely difficult if you're trying to be cheap, but that's only to be expected.

dpark6• 15 years ago

>I think by "free," Cassidy means "libre," in that adding bike lanes decreases the number of available parking spaces.

Just FYI, I'm pretty sure that's not an appropriate use of "libre". "Libre" is more along the lines of "liberty" or "freedom", not "available" or "unused".

>There's absolutely no justification for an increase in bike lanes when they're currently underutilized, as Cassidy argues

This is incorrect. Aside from the network effect, the (under)utilization of an existing bike lane is not necessarily indicative of the expected usage pattern of a new bike lane. Imagine applying this argument to bus routes. Just because the 32 from Manhattan to the Bronx is underutilized, does that mean that a new route 44 from Manhattan to Long Island would also be underutilized? (Obviously my examples here are made up.)

law5• 15 years ago

I'm well aware of the technical distinction between "libre" and "available." I should have said that Cassidy's belief is more in line with "libre," rather than gratuitous. A viable argument could be made that decreasing parking spaces infringes on an individual's liberty by pushing them more into private parking. It's admittedly weak, but it's something to consider.

As for your support of the network effect, it's not the government's position, by executive decree, to encourage change. They are representatives of the people, and to that end should cater to the majority, with the judiciary acting in its role to protect the rights of the minority.

Considering your bus example, I admittedly have no understanding on how bus routes (or for that matter, bike routes) work. Certainly there's empirical research suggesting that the route would be used, but the trade off is that adding a new bus route does not result in taking away something else (aside from resources, but resource allocation is entirely different).

afterburner4• 15 years ago

Even if free means what you posit, it comes to the same: market pressures that make building parking garages so lucrative will provide the need if street parking is replaced by bike lanes. Also, reread the part about how creating a viable cycling path network, which is safe for the cyclist throughout, will attract many more cyclist to the road, as it has in other cities. The current number of cyclists in NYC is not nearly the potential number of cyclists if a good network of paths existed.

law5• 15 years ago

Sorry if you mistook my post for me taking a side. I wasn't. I was just pointing out a peculiarity I noticed in the article. I'm actually for increased bike routes, as that will decrease the number of people injured in bicycle v. motor vehicle collisions. This is my personal view, though.

However, there's a massive distinction that we have to realize: garages are privately-owned, whereas parking is municipally-regulated. The city is switching out public parking for public bicycle paths, and I don't necessarily know if this a net positive economically.

Tangurena• 15 years ago

Parking garages are not lucrative. The cost to build a parking garage runs $20k-30k per parking space. Building one underground adds an additional $10k/space. In contrast, a parking stall on a flat slab is going to run only a few hundred dollars (in Denver, the cost for thick slabs you can park semis on runs about $800/parking stall).

jbooth2• 15 years ago

Here's what I don't understand at all about Cassidy's argument.. is there a single free parking space in the city that's been displaced by a bike lane? Every bike lane I've seen and ridden on is right next to a bunch of parked cars.

Secondly, as far as increasing while they're currently under-utilized, I'd say that there's an argument for increasing to the point where there's a solid network over most of the city (which we're about at now). It's hard to say oh we don't need a bike lane on the UES because the west side lane isn't always full of bikers. Additionally, during rush hour those lanes certainly are utilized, I'm never the only one on a bike on a given block's length of bikelane during rush hour.

localtalent2• 15 years ago

It will be bootstrapped here - the bike-sharing program will be injecting 10,000 bikes into the system as of next spring/summer.

And I defy anyone to spend time on a major non-recreational cycling route (Sands Street, 8th Avenue, the Williamsburg Bridge, Prospect Park West) when the weather is pleasant and state that the infrastructure is underutilized. Were it the ghost town that Cassidy and Weinshall claim, the DOT would not be putting in pedestrian safeguards (bollards, the wall at the bottom of the Williamsburg Bridge).

This debate has raged for the better part of this year, and the notion of Prospect Park West residents sitting with golf clickers counting cyclists in the dead of winter and claiming the paths are underutilized is ridiculous.

Jun85• 15 years ago

I totally agree with the idea in the OP (not that we have much free parking left in Chicago). But I have to get something off my chest, although it's tangential to this post. (I know this will be sacrilege to the many HN bikers but here it goes):

First a disclaimer: I, at 40+, cannot ride a bike reliably (yeah, I know, it funny, there's a long backstory), in fact I learned how to ride about 10 years ago, not by applying a kid's natural understanding but (almost) from physical principles, e.g. conservation of angular momentum (which I recently read from physics exchange is not how bikes work). So my comments are an outsider's view to bikers.

I find the behavior of most bikers in traffic to be dangerous, obnoxious and rude. Bikers often say that they should be treated on par with cars (in matters of passing, etc.), but they themselves operate somewhere between vehicles and pedestrians, combining the worse characteristics of each. I have observed many bikers not to stop at stop signs or red lights, because, you know, they're for cars, jeopardizing pedestrians. A 90kg man on a bike moving fast is an object you don't want to run into when you're walking. In parks (e.g. Chicago's long lake shore), although they should share their lane with people strolling and child strollers, they go about at high speeds. Many bikers ignore signs where bikes are prohibited on sidewalks and ride them among people.

And the worst part is you can't say anything, because these guys are living a healthy lifestyle, right? They are saving gas, etc. Now, this, of course, is true, but doesn't give them precedence over all other lifeforms on sidewalks.

Next time you don your cool biker's outfit and feeling totally Armstrong, please try to remember us, lowly people trying to share the sidewalks and streets with you.

bkor6• 15 years ago

All those things would happen way less if there were dedicated bike lanes. And you should speak up when someone on a bike is creating a dangerous situation. I don't get why you would not.

hack_edu2• 15 years ago

... all these things would happen way less if there were dedicated bike lanes that were strictly enforced as DEDICATED bike lanes. Next time you're on a busy street with bike lanes, pay attention to the number of double-parked delivery trucks and other stationary non-bike business. These make the road more dangerous and slower (an important factor in route choice) than a non-bike lane street.

mseebach• 15 years ago

In theory, yes. If you want to see adults behave like they're immortal, spend an hour in Copenhagen bicycle rush hour. Copenhagen bicyclists are actively taught that they are superior to any other mode of transport, and it shows.

And yes, I have cycled in Copenhagen for years and not at all innocent in this matter.

scott_s2• 15 years ago

Speak up in what way? Flag them down and scold them on the street? That's not a wise thing to do.

khill• 15 years ago

Bike lanes only work if they are physically separate from the road. Otherwise, they are covered with debris swept off the main road surface, populated by double-parked delivery trucks and cars,or a random hazard of opening car doors and cyclists who are too stupid to obey the rules of the road (e.g., riding the wrong direction).

mchanson• 15 years ago

In Cambridge, MA the police have been enforcing traffic laws with bikers. Dunno what effect it has had, but enforcement, IMHO, as a place in getting bikers to obey the traffic laws.

Drivers, on the whole, behave pretty badly too. As a driver, biker, and pedestrian in the Boston area I don't think I would say any of those groups act better than others.

Would love separated bike lanes. Biking in the city is very satisfying, but also nerve racking for me.

mrgoldenbrown2• 15 years ago

I live and bike in Cambridge. We have separated bike lanes in some places, but pedestrians generally don't respect them in my experience. I used to think pedestrians that walked in designated bike lanes just didn't know it was a bike lane. But the lane on Vassar Street has a bike icon every 30 ft or so and is a different color than the rest of the sidewalk. Yet pedestrians still seem to prefer it to "their" sidewalk just to the left or right. Same thing on the Southwest Corridor, which has designated bike and pedestrian lanes, which are not respected ignored by pedestrians at all when I've been on them. If they are going to ticket cyclists, it seems only fair to start ticketing pedestrians walking in the bike lane too.

screwt• 15 years ago

  I don't think I would say any of those groups act better than others.

As a driver, cyclist & pedestrian in London I second this. Some cyclists are dangerous jerks. Some car drivers are dangerous jerks. Some pedestrians have their heads in their phones and cause a danger to everyone. Rather than ranting about it, I'd prefer each user group to just be more aware of the others & take a bit of care.

That and make all London taxi drivers cycle everywhere for a month to see how they like it ;-)

hugh33• 15 years ago

I once got a ticket ($140ish) for cruising through a stop sign on a bike. Ever since then, I come to an obnoxious tire-skidding halt at every stop sign before starting up again (and take the opportunity to swear at those who don't obey the rules).

The trouble is that I'm currently in America, where traffic planners have apparently decided that every goddamn intersection should have a four-way stop sign. This, to me, makes no sense -- put in roundabouts, or a Give Way sign going two out of four ways, to make traffic flow efficient. But anyway, it makes cycling anywhere a huge pain.

joebadmo2• 15 years ago

It's complicated, though. I think there's probably at least a bit of selection bias at work. There are plenty of cyclists who take traffic laws as seriously as drivers. But you're not going to notice them as much. And, here, in Portland, it's easy because most (not all) drivers are used to having cyclists in traffic with them and understand how to behave.

I used to live in Seattle, though, which had a lot fewer cyclists, and drivers in general were not used to watching out for bikes, or understanding cyclists' behavior in traffic. So, there, I had a completely different mindset. I saw motor traffic and traffic laws, including lights, stop signs, etc. as obstacles through which to navigate. I had to always be vigilant about where cars were, where they were going, etc. I always had to take care to see if there was cross-traffic (including pedestrian) coming at intersections or not. I didn't really consider myself part of traffic so much, because most drivers didn't.*

To be fair, part of it was that the elevation changes in Seattle are so drastic that keeping momentum through intersections was a lot more important. And it's true that this is the attitude that many cyclists have: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71JZgBLKMTs

* The somewhat paradoxical part about this is that I've actually had more traffic 'incidents' with cars here in Portland. This is because the abundant bike lanes and friendly drivers don't require my full vigilance all the time. Which is obviously not true, but it feels that way. I let my guard down in a way that I shouldn't, and obviously couldn't in Seattle, but it's easy to get lazy here.

tingletech• 15 years ago

What I hate is that here in Oakland even the private security from the community benefit districts and the police sometimes ride their bikes on the sidewalks. I've even had the security people get mad and me for not getting out of their way. I have to pay a fee on my property taxes for this "security" and they give me a hard time about walking on my own street.

mrgoldenbrown2• 15 years ago

Nearly all of what you say is true. However, you neglect to mention that it all applies to pedestrians as well, and drivers of course have their own version of each.

I have observed (and swerved to avoid) many pedestrians who don't use crosswalks, ignore crossing signals (it is not OK to start walking when the "don't walk" is flashing") , and walk right in front of bicycles in a bike lane with a green light, all because, you know, rules don't apply to pedestrians. A 90kg man crossing the street is not something you want to run into when you're cycling. Cyclists don't "win" that collision in the same way a car wins a collision with either. Many pedestrians happily clog lanes that are clearly designated for cycling only, despite a clearly marked pedestrian lane being 3 feet to the left or right. (Vassar street in cambridge, MA is my favorite example of this.)

Next time you get upset about rouge bikers, remember to look around for rouge pedestrians too. I know I have to, because they sure as heck aren't looking where they're going...

afterburner4• 15 years ago

Exactly, a thousand times this. We don't go around wishing there were no sidewalks just because pedestrians jaywalk, do we?

When I see a cyclist run a stop sign in front of me (and I always watch for this to happen), I think to myself: "if that was a pedestrian, they wouldn't have even had to stop at all, and would have taken a lot longer to cross leaving me waiting longer... so why be annoyed?"

But perhaps I can say this more easily because I both drive and cycle in a busy downtown area.

God forbid any of these picky, sensitive, rage-filled drivers drive in a country where not even cars follow simple rules like "staying in the lane"...

ww52012• 15 years ago

Does two wrongs make a right? Does pedestrian not using crosswalks give license for a biker to blow pass a red light?

equalarrow• 15 years ago

I have not had a car for over 20 years. I've ridden my bike forever - to/from school since I was in grade school. Currently I live in San Francisco which has, some could say, an aggressive bike culture. Sometimes, I am one of those guys and I used to ride in the monthly Critical Mass rides.

The fact of the matter is that we live in a pro-car country. California in general is a very pro-car state. The drive in diner was invented in CA. In L.A. your car is your second home and this is true in most of CA, imo.

That said, I prefer a dense city because I am not a car person. I grew up in southern CA and you were, literally, a loser if you didn't have a car. In high school, that was me - no car, just a 10 speed. I consider living in dense cities in the U.S. (did live in NYC for a few years) because I prefer the benefits of non-car transportation.

Back in SF there is the local bike coalition that is lobbying city to build more bike lanes and that imo is really good. I've been riding in this city for a long time and the new bike lanes popping up all over are definitely nice. I see guys in suits and girls in dresses riding in to work all the time; it can be done!

But SF is also compact and hilly. We cyclists compete with cars all the time for space. I am not much of a red light or stop sign runner, but the thing people in cars don't quite grep is that momentum requires energy (or gravity). In a car, it's a tiny fraction of what it is on a bike. So, if no one is around (you can approach an intersection slowed down) you can cruise through with a 99% chance that you will be ok. Lots of people do this all the time.

However, there are plenty that disregard this (people that even blow past me when I'm stopped at an intersection). But, these are people of a similar mindset (I think) of those that speed up to go around me on a small street when I legally have to right to ride where I am and at the speed I do. I can't tell you how many times I've been cut off or 'wronged' by drivers. Far more times than I have gone through a stop sign.

The other thing drivers don't understand is sense of space. They are in a protected steel cage and are 'controlling' thousands of pounds of weight at high speeds. Me, 200 lbs of flesh, rubber, and steel tubes. There are some drivers that I feel are fine and nice people - they let you go first, they smile, they don't race around you just so they can make it to that stop sign a few seconds earlier. But more than not, people in cars - from my experience - just don't give a shit. You're in they're way, wtf, I don't have to deal with this, fuck off - you're not a valuable being.

Same thing goes as a pedestrian, which is my second mode of transportation. I love to walk. When I lived in NYC, I walked that city all the time. I will always walk. And in NYC, the cars are aggressive there, but there are also so many people that there's a different feel to the whole 'critical mass' of peds at a red light with cars coming. Anyone who's lived there knows what I'm talking about.

In SF, it's a different story. We have not yet reached that tipping point in terms of pedestrian density. So when you walk across a cross walk, with the right of way, it's not uncommon to have a car zoom by you before you get out of the middle of the street. Which in my mind, is total bullshit.

Ultimately, I don't feel bad for the cars at all nor do I share their plight. My gf drives a short distance to work (she's pregnant) and when I have to use her car to drop or pick her up, I know what it's like to be on the other side and I make sure I always yield to bikes and peds. I think I'm in a small minority.

Running reds and stop signs by bikes is not the smartest thing to do. But I don't think I'll ever side with car culture here in the U.S. There are just way too many negatives from it now and most people just don't care about you. One thing I'm absolutely waiting for is cars that navigate themselves. When they arrive, then I think I'll support cars again. Until then, I'm 100% on the side of bikes and peds.

sliverstorm4• 15 years ago

The bias in both these comments is so thick I could cut it with a knife. One can barely ride a bicycle; one wishes he didn't own a car.

lazerwalker2• 15 years ago

I think you're mistaken in dividing it up into a cars vs. bikes/pedestrians binary.

There are motorists who act completely inappropriately towards bikers, and there are bikers who act in a manner that is equally unbefitting. Both are a big problem, and the one doesn't justify the other.

Personally, as a non-car-owning biker, it really upsets me when I see fellow cyclists acting like dicks. It makes it that much harder for us to be taken seriously.

ww52012• 15 years ago

If you want car drivers to respect bikers, stop running red lights and stop signs. Since you want to be reckless and ignore safety rules, others would have less regard for your safety. The conserving momentum is just a BS excuse; stopping is for safety overall for everyone involved, not just you. A car can also run through stop sign to conserve momentum and save on gas but for overall safety sake it stops.

marquis2• 15 years ago

Your arguments make sense in an environment where cycling isn't deeply inherent in a culture. I've cycled across NYC, Chicago and LA, and also Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and London, Paris and Barcelona.

Amsterdam and Copenhagen are amazing: as a cyclist you feel completely respected and the sheer numbers of you give a sense of legitimacy. Your own traffic lights and true cycle lanes lead to really safe transport, and you feel like a separate part of the system: not a car or a pedestrian. As such, you feel like you give the proper attention to car and pedestrian traffic and will stick to the proper safe rules.

Now the US cities? You feel like you are part of a dangerous new thing, the cars are out to get you and pedestrians don't even consider you might be there either. Pedestrians walk on the cycle lanes (because there are so few of them I guess it's not part of city consciousness) and yes, it is easy to have the feeling like you've got a certain right to run lights and weave through a couple of lanes (because more often than not there are potholes next to the curb).

My hope is that US cities just barrel forward with making more cycle lanes. The safer you make it for cyclists the less risks they have to take, and the more cycle traffic there are the more awareness in general, making it even safer.

I'd say London, Paris and Barcelona are somewhere in between, I mention them as examples of cities moving towards greater cycle density which I've seen transform over the last 10 years with my own eyes, for the better.

tomkarlo3• 15 years ago

It's important to note that both cycling and walking aren't "inherent" to cities or cultures. It's great to have a biking culture but it's also been repeatedly demonstrated that if you make it harder to drive (by reducing parking, using traffic calming, or using congestion charges) and easier to ride or walk (via bike lanes, mass transit, etc.), the population shifts its behavior over time, benefitting everyone.

I point this out only because saying it's cultural leads some folks to believe that if their city isn't currently bike/pedestrian friendly, it never will be. Too many cities in the US are simply heavily biased in their current setup towards cars yet everyone wonders why there's a traffic jam at rush hour.

Goronmon• 15 years ago

This sums up my own experience with cyclists. I've decided that they just don't belong on the roads. It's worse for everyone involved.

I have no problems with cyclists getting their own bike lanes, but until they do, I just wish they would stay off the roads entirely. I hate dealing with them both as a driver and a pedestrian.

fennecfoxen• 15 years ago

As a cyclist and a driver, I agree that there are far too many jerks who think it's fine to run red lights if it saves them a little pedaling...

but the ones that really get me are people in dark clothing after dark with no lights or helmet pedaling up the sidewalk on the left side of the street behind a row of parked cars and out across an intersection at 15mph... who, when faced with a near-accident, rant about how they had the "right of way".

Even if you're right, the right of way doesn't matter when you're dead, buddy.

msellout3• 15 years ago

Conversely, I've decided that automobile drivers just don't belong on the roads. It truly is worse for everyone involved--health of the driver, safety of everyone around them, health of the community, etc. The economic growth issues are also murky.

mturmon2• 15 years ago

It turns out, lots of people have this very same "little thing" to get off their chest. Every discussion of urban cycling goes off on this particular tangent. It's tiresome.

If you talk to people who cycle in cities, you'll find a lot of anger and rage at drivers also. These people may be eccentric, but their opinion seems based on facts as well. So consider the other side.

As a further catalyst, I challenge you, as a driver, to start looking at other drivers (including perhaps yourself) and noting the violations, especially speed limit violations.

For instance, it's a fact that on my way up to work, every driver (including me) is breaking the speed limit (65 in a 60). Almost without exception, every day. On a street near where I live, it's very common to see people driving 40 in a 35 (not including me).

Where's the outrage at these drivers?

Jun85• 15 years ago

Note that my comment was not for drivers vs. bikers but rather bikers vs. pedestrians.

randallsquared2• 15 years ago

Where's the outrage at these drivers?

Is there a contingent of bikers somewhere angry at drivers doing 65 in a 60? If not, what does it have to do with anything? The violations that people get upset about are those that actively endanger or inconvenience them or people like them.

defen• 15 years ago

My perspective - I live in San Francisco and have neither a car nor a bike, so I don't think I'm biased.

I think part of the problem is that most urban pedestrians have fully internalized the threat model of bad drivers. Look both ways before crossing the street, don't assume that the driver sees you, cars are generally found on the roads, etc. On the other hand, we haven't fully internalized the threat model of bad bikers. Sometimes they're on the sidewalk, sometimes they're blowing through stop signs alongside a stopped car (so the average pedestrian thinks it's safe because the only thing that could hit him is stopped at the intersection). So bad bikers are more noticeable (to me at least) because I've never had a close call with a bad driver while walking. But both the biker things I described were near-collisions that have happened to me.

kgermino4• 15 years ago

Where do you live that people go 65 in a 60?

Where I'm from (Chicago/ Milwaukee) you're lucky if traffic's only going 70 in a 50/55.

jrockway10• 15 years ago

I've noticed that cars run as many stop signs as cyclists. The rule is come to a complete stop and yield to your left. Cars treat the rule as "sort of lower your speed and yield to people that haven't stopped quite as much".

This is chaos. The cyclists are just doing what the other vehicles do.

(Also, you can't be surprised that there are cyclists on the Lakefront Trail. If they ride on the streets, their average speed goes down to approximately walking speed because the traffic lights are timed for people going 35, not 20. If I ride a Roosevelt / Damen / Fullerton / Wells loop, it takes well over an hour and a half and is about 12 miles. If I ride from the museum campus up to the end of the Lakefront Trail and back, that's 20 miles and only takes an hour. If you want to be safe as a pedestrian, either ban cyclists completely or ask for them to widen the trail. "Slower traffic keep right" largely works, it's just that the trail is very narrow in a few key places.

My solution is to avoid the trail if it's a day where people are going to be having picnics in the middle of the road, which is basically only warm weekend days after noon. Any other time, nobody uses the trail and it's perfectly safe for cyclists to ride fast on.)

graywh• 15 years ago

In the US and Canada, you generally yield to the driver on your right.

quinedstatement• 15 years ago

I always tell people: if you knew you wouldn't get a ticket in a car for running a red light safely, you would do it. As soon as the police start ticketing for running red lights and stop signs on a bike, I'll stop.

I ride in Philadelphia and I try to be somewhat considerate to drivers. I slow down for every stoplight and stop sign, but if nobody's coming, I'm going to go through it, because I'm not going to get in trouble.

bzbarsky• 15 years ago

The cases when the light is red and I, as a driver, can guarantee that I can run it _safely_ are very rare.

They are even rarer as a cyclist (takes me longer to clear the intersection).

The number of times that I have seen cyclists run red light safely (both for themselves and others in that intersection at the time) is precisely zero.

I've seen several hundred instances of cyclists running through intersections at this point.

The only good thing here from my point of view is that once I got out of big cities both cars and cyclists got a heck of a lot more courteous and law-abiding, so the number of people I have to deal with who're just completely ignoring the rules of the road, blocking intersections, etc is much lower. Good incentive to not live in a city again...

pyre10• 15 years ago

  > And the worst part is you can't say anything, because these
  > guys are living a healthy lifestyle, right?

The issue is one of stereotypes.

A lot of people have very visceral reactions to cyclists:

  I saw some guy on a bike doing something dangerous, therefore
  all bikes must be banned and/or all/most cyclists are evil demons.

On the other hand, I could show you numerous examples of people behaving badly in cars. Car collisions with pedestrians are more deadly than bicycle-pedestrian collisions. Should I move that we ban all cars? Or maybe we should just get rid of all roads, because if people are going to drive cars and be dangerous, we shouldn't have the government subsidizing them?

You argument in general, seems to be about cycle-pedestrian collisions/dangers. If we get rid of bicycle lanes, then we are either advocating that all cyclists use the sidewalk or the street. In this case, you'll either end up with either more pedestrians being hit by cyclists or more cyclists hit by cars. In either case, as the number of cyclists increases, this doesn't scale.

jrockway10• 15 years ago

I think Forrester has some stats that show riding in a bike lane is more dangerous than sharing the road with traffic. But one could argue that bike lanes attract cyclists who haven't learned or thought about safe cycling, whereas the unmarked street scares that demographic away.

The problem city planners are having is that they want to be "bike friendly" in every way except educating road users. Some stripes on the road don't make cycling safe. Cyclists that think carefully and act predictably do, and no stripe on the road is ever going to do that.

We need drivers education classes that cover driving from the perspective of a cyclist. This will ensure that when drivers want to ride their bike, they do it safely, and it will ensure that drivers know to share the road with bicycles. (I would take it a step further and require licensing for bicycle-only drivers, but that is too unpopular to ever happen.)

rbranson3• 15 years ago

One thing you miss here is the asymmetry of risk. Cyclists are at highest level of risk while on the road. They're moving at enough speed to cause serious injury to themselves, but they're still usually about half the speed of cars. Modern automobiles have excellent safety characteristics and pedestrians have more of an ability to take evasive action.

A mistake on a bike is going to almost always be a life-or-death situation as just falling onto the road puts them at extremely high risk for injury. The cost of errors made by car drivers has a huge impact on the morbidity of cyclists, while the opposite doesn't hold true. Even if cyclists were an order of magnitude more dangerous than car drivers, their poor decisions would have negligible impact on car drivers.

esrauch4• 15 years ago

Even if we completely accept what you are saying, I think there are a couple reasons why that doesn't change anything.

We don't allow people to risk their own lives. We force people by law to wear motorcycle helmets and seatbelts (ignoring a very few number of states). That doesn't at all improve the chances for other people to survive. You aren't considering the fact that a bicyclist causes injuries to people who aren't them. There are plenty of scenarios for this, cars swerving into incoming traffic, into a utility pole into pedestrians to avoid a cyclist. Way more people die from swerving to avoid animals than from hitting animals; even hitting a deer isn't likely to kill you in a modern automobile, but swerving into a tree to avoid one will.

alxp• 15 years ago

> pedestrians have more of an ability to take evasive action

Except when they don't, due to mobility problems or having pets with them or other reasons. Expecting anyone to jump out of your way when you come barreling down the sidewalk is going to hurt someone.

Lagged2Death• 15 years ago

I find the behavior of most bikers in traffic to be dangerous, obnoxious and rude.

Yes. Bikers have this in common with the drivers of trucks, buses, cars, SUVs, joggers, pedestrians, etc. They all break any rules that make their lives harder if they believe they're likely to get away with said breaking. All of them, all the time.

They're all just people, and they're all really the same.

stouset8• 15 years ago

No, no, no. You don't understand. _I'm_ different. _I'm_ not part of the problem. Everyone else is, you see.

pkulak• 15 years ago

Some cyclists ride like idiots and some drivers drive like assholes when it comes to bikes. However, if you ride a bike, you'll be impacted by an asshole driver probably a couple times on your way to your destination, and then a couple more times on your way back. Talk to a driver about idiot cyclists and they'll give you a story from 6 months ago. It's not a fair fight, and not just because of the weight difference.

Misha_B• 15 years ago

Nice blog post (though more transit-vs-bikes oriented)discussing this here :

http://www.humantransit.org/2011/10/lamentation-bicycles-vs-...

Arguments don't differ very much from what follows your comment...

afterburner4• 15 years ago

In Cassidy's article, he refers to cars as "four-wheel friends." Perhaps he isn't considering this very rationally at all; I don't think I've heard that kind of touchy-feely attachment to their vehicle of choice from even the most hippie-ish pro-cycling movements.

Not a strong argument against Cassidy's article, I admit (he's a journalist, his writing style needs to be engaging), but hilarious anyways.

hugh33• 15 years ago

I don't think I've heard that kind of touchy-feely attachment to their vehicle of choice from even the most hippie-ish pro-cycling movements

Sure, that's because a bike doesn't promote emotional attachment, unlike a car. A cyclist enjoys biking, but he generally doesn't attribute that enjoyment to his bike -- he would just as happily swap for another, just as I'd throw out my old running shoes and buy a new pair.

Cars, however, promote more emotional bonding. I think because the car moves under its own power it feels more like it's alive. I press the accelerator, the car does what I tell it, and we form a bond just as a rider forms a bond with his horse. On a pushbike you're always keenly aware that it's you who is doing all the work, and the bike is just a tool.

jbl• 15 years ago

Bicycles can promote emotional attachment. I take pride in my bicycles. There are personalizations that I've made that make my bikes unique in my eyes. One of my bikes would be difficult to replace if it were totalled. I know many other cyclists (athletes and otherwise) who are attached to their bikes.

Likewise, I know many people who could care less what kind of car they drive so long as it is clean and runs well.

Some people care about what they use, some people don't.

potatolicious2• 15 years ago

Methinks you need to meet more cyclists.

My brother is a (very) avid cyclist - he even names all of his bikes. Hell, he builds them from scratch, hand-picking components, and is meticulous about keeping all of them in tip-top condition constantly.

I don't think one can claim he isn't "attached" to his bike - and I've met his cyclist friends who are similarly reverent about their vehicles of choice. Their attachment to their bikes is about equal to what I see from avid drivers and their meticulously maintained cars.

gerggerg• 15 years ago

Great article. To add: It also doesn't help that many of NYC's bike lanes are less safe than just riding in the middle of the road.

The streets of Manhattan are a dangerous jungle for bikers. Cabs hit and run on a daily basis. Some of the bike lanes are in between parked cars and the car lanes making the risk even higher. Car doors, pedestrians running out, cars hugging the edge to make a turn, cars double parked. It's a far cry from a dedicated lane.

Personal experience time: When I first started riding in NYC it was a cautious, rule following experience. Then after a while you see how little respect you get and how much you genuinely have to look out for you're own life and you stop caring. You perceive every passing car as a potential death/bodily injury threat and pave your own way.

localtalent2• 15 years ago

This is not the place for anecdotal arguments, they aren't productive. Anyone can cite stories of bad behavior on all sides: sidewalk cycling, oblivious jaywalking, and aggressive driving. It's what every cycling article on Gothamist, Streetsblog, and the NY Post stirs up, and I could write out the comments myself and be pretty close to accurate. Nobody wins, and everyone leaves feeling angry - not useful.

The article here is refuting a heavily biased New Yorker piece article by specifically refuting assertions based on fallacious assumptions.

We are where we are - everyone is behaving badly, and all sides are so deeply entrenched in their beliefs the arguments just cause people to dig in further and the ad homs and strawmen appear. HN is better than this.

The situation obviously can't continue, but it's time for a rational discussion of what's most effective, in terms of cost, and transportation efficiency, and safety for the largest number of people.

I'm prepared to have this discussion, and while I'll admit bias in a certain direction on this issue I'm open-minded enough to hear all sides. I'd like others to do the same, and we can all get onto having a fruitful and interesting discussion around solutions.

Some suggestions for potential discussion topics:

- Education/awareness

- Infrastructure costs and benefits (street parking, bike lanes, bus lanes, raised crosswalks, etc)

- Discussion of network effects

- Legislation to punish offenders (relative to cost/potential danger of the offense?)

- Maximum efficiency of moving the largest number of people (measure in average trip time)

- Externalities (pollution, business impact, etc)

- Psychology + behavior understanding and modification

eru• 15 years ago

> - Externalities (pollution, business impact, etc)

There are quite a lot of externalities in the quality of living. Compare living in the bike-friendly Netherlands to car-friendly US cities. I know where I'd rather hang out.

mrampton2• 15 years ago

It's all too common (and easy) to lump cyclists into one group -- generally (in terms of policy and public opinion) in a way that encourages dislike. Cyclists are like any other subset of the population and it's unfair to any group to judge them based on the actions of others. That being that, I don't pretend that there aren't cyclists out there who misbehave -- I'm personally very aware of it because they're often the cause of me being treated badly by cars/drivers. As a cyclist, the most effective way I've found to combat this is to be courteous where it matters most -- generally by waving/nodding when you are given the go ahead to cross an intersection by a driver who has the right-away (or more generally, shown any courtesy on the road).

Now, that doesn't mean I go out of my way to exude a staid nature on the bike; I'm generally riding as fast as I care to or want to -- but the thing about being on a bike is that speed is (generally) physically governed -- I cannot ride any faster than my body allows. And in most pedestrian settings (i.e. without the presence of significant downhill stretches) this will be between 15 and 30mph (Individual TTs in the TDF will maybe see an avg speed of 30-33mph -- wattage and speed way out of the reach for anyone but the strongest riders on the most advanced machines).

I bring this up to make a point, a dangerous cyclist (i.e. the dudes you see running lights and being jerks with disregard to everyone else) is dangerous but only marginally as compared to a dangerous driver. And this is of course due to the fact that cyclists are limited to pedestrian speeds (30mph going all) and constitute a small fraction of the mass of a car (200lbs:3000lbs+). But they are dangerous (especially to pedestrians -- one reason they should never be riding on sidewalks) nonetheless and I'd love for everyone to show a little more common courtesy.

More than that, however, I wish (more) drivers were aware of how threatening they are in their vehicles (sometimes weapons). Never am I more aware of how fragile the balance of life is as when I'm on my bike with an angry driver alongside me verbally berating me. And this is because riding the bike is not as easy as driving a car in the best of times (neither of which is especially difficult) -- but in the worst of times it's much harder. And your being alongside me with your window down is about as bad as they come. Not only do I have to continue navigating the road I now also have to consider you and your intentions. You might just be someone who wants to get something off their chest and be on the their way (still far better to do it when neither of us are moving). Or you might be one of the others who will only find solace once you've swerved at the me or run me off the road (yes, I have been maliciously run off the road; no, it's not so uncommon). So my senses flare and my defensive instincts kick in any time a car rolls up with something to say because the moment you do you change from being a driver of a car to a potentially dangerous and unpredictable stranger with a weapon. I doubt I'm far from the the only one to feel this way based on how inflammatory these situations routinely become. It doesn't help that the law will generally take the side of the driver or find themselves impuissant due to the fact that cars can and do flee the scene with none the wiser (ever try to get a license plate number down from a fleeing vehicle -- they don't need much distance on you to make it hopeless)

Now that being that, I understand how easy it is to lump individuals in as belonging to "that group". Despite the number of mean spirited drivers I've encountered, they stand out only because we tend to overlook all the others who are good spirited (and thus never give you cause to notice or appreciate them -- in fact i've only been caught off guard with a car rolling up with a pleasantry/compliment two times). I personally suspect that the malicious drivers themselves are repeat offenders and are responsible for the vast majority of encounters (i.e. if there are 10,000 drivers in an area, and 100 events occur it implies 1% of drivers were involved; what's more likely is that a repeat offending driver causes multiple events over a certain route or a time period which means only a fraction of 1% of the drivers are involved).

Which means I should respect you as long as you don't threaten me, and you should respect me provided the same. But let me tell you, it takes just about all my willpower to not rip your head off when you confront me in your car while I'm already giving it my best to be courteous and safe; I do give it my best, though.

m0nty3• 15 years ago

Thoughtful response :) Clearly, you're in the US? Because in GB, the situation doesn't even resemble what you describe. I've had near-misses with cars, but none of them deliberate, just careless, thoughtless, occasionally utterly incompetent. No verbal abuse, although on two occasions (for reasons still a mystery to me) motorists sounded their horns and made obscene gestures. I'm guessing they found me irresistibly sexy or something, and just had to let me know... Nobody has drawn up alongside me to tell me what they think of me or my bike-riding, and I strongly suspect I'd give them a smack in the mouth if they did.

Overall, most motorists I've encountered are happy to share the road, appreciate that I'm sticking to the rules and carry lights, etc, and there's no problem. While parts of the US are making immense progress with promoting cycling, it seems there are still places where there's a lot more to do. Still, whenever I do get any hassle from motorists, I just remind myself that fuel prices are rocketing and in a few years, they'll be cycling too.

mrampton2• 15 years ago

Yah, the (unintentional) near misses with cars don't get my blood boiling anywhere near the intentional ones -- though they can easily be just as frightening.

I'm in SF and you actually see very striking changes in behavior and attitude by both cyclists and drivers depending on your route/location. In SF itself, I find drivers to be pretty considerate with most of the hazards caused by drivers who aren't paying attention. But 10 miles in either direction will get you out and away from the city and bring you to more remote locations (i.e. winding mountain roads, or coastal highways, etc). I encounter far more aggression as soon as there aren't other cars around -- perhaps they're smart enough to minimize the risk to themselves (little as it is) by ensuring there aren't other drivers around to witness it.

Glad to hear it's not like this everywhere, though. And I suspect things will continue to improve here.

protomyth5• 15 years ago

On the economic side, are bikes registered and bike owners paying for tabs each year likes cars in NYC? It would seem that would go a long way towards paying for new bike lanes over parking.

adrianN• 15 years ago

Bikes damage the road orders of magnitude less than cars. Without having run the numbers, I'd wager that the city could actually save some money in the long run if more bike lanes would decrease car traffic.

protomyth5• 15 years ago

It still costs money to put in the lanes. They may last longer, but there is a startup cost. I doubt there is a study that shows more bike lanes would decrease the actual amount of traffic to make a material difference in road maintenance costs.

jarek4• 15 years ago

There exist a couple of studies that show the costs of administration of a bicycle registration program is more than the revenue collected when you make the registration cost reasonable. (Sorry, haven't got links right now.) That's before you get into defining exactly which bicycles have to be registered, and figuring out how to enforce it.

protomyth5• 15 years ago

If we are going to put in more bicycle lanes with the bike owners having ownership and not just taking space from the already taxed car drivers, money needs to be collected. The US needs to start actually paying for things. Roads for vehicles (trucks) are at least used for delivery of everyone's goods, bike lanes and trails don't have that secondary use. Car parking removed for bike lanes can be a profit center.

I don't understand the "which" part. Wouldn't it be all bikes that are legal on the bike paths? That's how motorcycles work for roads.

jrockway10• 15 years ago

So, I'm going to make one general comment that is sort of a reply to everything. We have to stop making bike policies based on the actions of uneducated cyclists and drivers. Nobody will learn anything without being taught. There are a lot of comments that say, "cyclists make driving dangerous". This is probably true; there are a lot of cyclists that can't bike safely on the road. The solution is not to punish those that can safely share the road; the solution is to teach people how to safely ride their bike in traffic. Then they won't be annoying, they'll be fellow safe road users.

Similarly, we need to educate drivers in treating cyclists respectfully. Don't tolerate running stop signs; that's illegal. But you must tolerate cyclists that are taking the entire right lane because they think they need it for their safety. Look behind you, change to the left lane, and overtake on the left. Don't be annoyed, because this is how roads work. There is going to be traffic and some of it is going to be slower than you. That's why there are multiple lanes. Relax, drive intelligently, and you won't even notice the cyclists because they won't seem any different from any other traffic.

protomyth5• 15 years ago

Since the story went dead - you folks in SF might want to read this link http://sf.streetsblog.org/2011/10/25/sfmta-allows-taxis-to-b...

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3156628

The Economics of Bike Lanes

Related Stories