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Comment by Patrick_Devine | Hacker News Reader

I live in a neighborhood in Palo Alto that doesn't have sidewalks, and people here walk (and bike) all the time. The reason why it works is because many of the streets are extremely narrow, and we've worked fairly hard at making certain they aren't striped down the center. For whatever reason this seems to get motorists to drive more slowly and makes it safer for everyone.

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>> For whatever reason this seems to get motorists to drive more slowly and makes it safer for everyone.

That's actually a known phenomenon. When drivers experience unusual situations (like roads without stripes down the middle), they're forced to pay much more attention to the actual act of driving.

For more, see here: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/02/to-make-ro...

But then, if you want to make use of these unusual situations to make people drive more slowly, and build more of them, then they come not unusual situations, and everyone gets used to them and drives normally.

Where I live (Finland), we have plenty of separate bike/pedestrian paths, so biking is overall nice, but not like Copenhagen which is a) completely flat and b) in a milder climate.

In Amsterdam, bikes and cars are separated from each other wherever possible. That way, bikes can ride as recklessly as they like without endangering cars.

Bikes and pedestrians are harder to separate. Pedestrians can go everywhere, and especially tourists have a tendency to not watch out when they're crossing a bike path, or even stay on the bike path for no good reason.

The worst place is behind Central Station, where a heavy flow of pedestrians from the ferries and the station has to cross a continuous flow of bikes on the bike path, while bikes from the ferries try to merge into the already chaotic traffic. We really need a bridge or tunnel to keep bikes and pedestrians separate there.

But then you'll need a separate path for everyone on roller skates.

Skating isn't a big form of transport here. Most skaters are recreational and stick to the parks. Though I did encounter a (remarkably fast!) skater in bike traffic recently, and people always give them a bit more space. (Actually it was a mixed bike/pedestrian path still in a park, but bikes try to dominate it and use it as their main thoroughfare.) Bikers would probably get annoyed if skaters try to claim their extra wide space in the most crowded bike traffic, though.

Bicyclists in Palo Alto kill pedestrians. http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2015/04/22/pedestrian-str...

Coconuts in Colombia kill pedestrians: http://archive.mid-day.com/news/2010/aug/280810-falling-coco...

Trucks in Palo Alto kill pedestrians http://sfbay.ca/2015/04/19/bcn57palo-alto-pedestrian-dies-in...

Drivers in Palo Alto kill pedestrians http://abc7news.com/news/driver-arrested-on-suspicion-of-fat...

Pedestrians in Palo Alto kill pedestrians http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2015/09/23/man-stabbed-ou...

Pedestrians in New York kill Trucks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

You mean a single bicyclist in Palo Alto killed a single pedestrian, who was crossing without a crosswalk on a blind curve.

I can't find aggregate statistics for Palo Alto, but here's the 2012/2013 statistics for the New York Burroughs.

Cyclists killed 1 pedestrian (in 2013) and injured 560 pedestrians for a mortality rate of .1%.

Drivers killed 326 pedestrians and injured 24411, a mortality rate of 1.3%.

Clearly bikers are killing pedestrians and are very dangerous.

See page 2 for source:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2013-bicycle-crash...

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2012-bicycle-crash...

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