Comment by abalone | Hacker News Reader

Comment by abalone | Hacker News Reader

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I live on the wiggle. The problem in most cases is not the interaction with cars. It's the interaction with pedestrians.

When bikes approach intersections at speed, it's pretty easy to spot the vehicles at or approaching it. They have bulk and presence. But to clear pedestrians you've also got to check 3 or 4 corners. Sometimes those corners are even occluded by parked cars as you approach.

So what happens time and time again is bikes don't notice pedestrians entering the crosswalk until it's too late to stop at the speed they're going. So they end up veering around the often very surprised people who did not expect a bike to blow right past them from out of nowhere. This is a rather disconcerting experience, and it leads to a HUGE number of complaints.

Note, I am a big supporter of proper bike infrastructure, think it's worth removing parking spots for it, think it's worth installing traffic lights for bikes, separated elevated bike lines, and all that.

But I'll say this: San Francisco is not Idaho. We have so much more density. The busiest bike/pedestrian intersection in Idaho can't hold a candle to the wiggle. Rolling through stop signs at even moderate speeds is not super compatible with heavy pedestrian traffic.

Bike density is way higher in Amsterdam, yet it works well. Then again, in Amsterdam all bikes have brakes and people go at a slower speed.

That is because Amsterdam has vastly better bike infrastructure.

"Cyclists rule in Amsterdam and great pains have been taken to accommodate them: the city is equipped with an elaborate network of cycle-paths and lanes, so safe and comfortable that even toddlers and elderly people use bikes as the easiest mode of transport."

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam-bicy...

In this context, that statement is wrong. Cycle paths mostly keep cyclists safe from cars. They don't do much for pedestrians.

Worse, it seems that in recently years the city of Amsterdam is set on creating cycle paths in just about all streets but can't be bothered to engineer them properly. So the whole thing becomes a bigger and bigger mess.

How do you mean? I've been pretty satisfied with the cycle lanes. The fact the construction closes key roads for long periods of times is frustrating, are you referring to that?

(Taking terminology from opentreetmap), a cycle lane is part of the main road separated from it using paint, a cycle path is separated physically using a curb, parked cars, etc.

I have no problem with cycle lanes, I do have problems with cycle paths. To give a few examples:

Many zebra crossing have traffic lights that only apply to cars. Big mess.

Many cycle paths now have traffic lights placed such that cyclists waiting for a red light block cross traffic (bikes and pedestrians)

On many intersections, taking a left turn with a bike now takes waiting for the traffic light twice.

There are now many cycle paths with bikes on the wrong side of the road. Certainly on roundabouts that's an accident waiting to happen.

In many cases pedestrians overflow from side walks into the cycle path. It used to be that there was nice layer of parked cars preventing that.

Cars taking a right turn are a bigger risk.

A good thing is that parked cars taking off don't hit bikes. But that seems to be it.

Can you provide any actual examples of streets where the paths/lanes have been recently created or updated where its worse than before in the way of any of the examples you provided? Obviously there are issues, but I'm not familiar with the situation actually worsening anywhere, and some of the problems you mentioned are tradeoffs that mitigate other problems. (for example, yes sometimes pedestrians flow onto the bicycle lane, but I'd rather see risk between cyclists and pedestrians than cyclists and cars, parking separated cycling does create one issue but mitigates a bigger one).

On the whole it feels it's very sensibly done and some issues you mentioned I'm not familiar with at all (like crossings having only lights that apply to cars, unless they're super short crossings in relatively quiet streets where lights make no sense. Cyclists blocking traffic is something that happens less and less, too, little islands have been created for the front row, lines for the back row. On the contrary the new designs have improved this point over the past. Of course it's not perfect but specifically I'm not sure what proposals you have that'd be better).

Anyway specific streets/corners as examples would be helpful!

Take Raadhuisstraat, etc. from the palace to Mercatorplein and back and you should pass just about all misfeatures except for the roundabout.

Another nice example of poor design is the intersection Aletta Jacobslaan / Johan Huizinglaan

I don't follow, Raadhuisstraat is known for having no parking separated cycle paths/lanes, which you seem to view as the source of various problem like pedestrians overflowing on the cycle lane (as I understand it). For me the Raadhuisstraat is an example of poor cycling infrastructure because nothing is being done and mix cyclists with motorised vehicles, rather than the badly engineered new lanes that mix cyclists with pedestrians that you talked about. I don't know the rest from memory but I'll try to cycle it sometime soon, I've got a buddy who lives near Mercator.

I agree the corner on Aletta and Johan could be better but it's not terrible if you ask me. For Dutch standards you don't get much bigger intersections and it's relatively well done. I guess a roundabout might be better (like Vlaardingenlaan / Overschiestraat, statistics show they do really well. I'm curious what you suggest to do to improve it?

You mean suicide brakes? count me out!

No. Only racing bikes have those, occasionally. In Amsterdam 99% of people ride a normal bike, not a racing bike. This is the essential difference between the bike cultures. Car drivers in the netherlands also do not like like bike racers, but only a small fraction of cyclists are racers.

I though a lot of dutch bikes had the pedal backwards to Brake?

It's common, and I like them a lot.

Not when you are used to proper brakes it doesn't as you unconsciously move the peddles to the best position to start peddling after coasting.

They are in all aspects proper brakes, in practice better in many ways than rim brakes.

They do take some getting used to, but then so does everything else about bicycling.

"Coaster brake" is probably the more common term for this setup. It makes for a more complicated rear hub, but works better than calipers in rain and snow and gunk.

They're highly reliable and rarely wear out - no cables, no pads, and as you mentioned, no issues with water/mud which is a real concern in the NL.

The only thing you're sacrificing is stopping power - but it fits the riding style over there perfectly. Its flat, and nobody is in that big of a hurry.

No you just buy a bike with proper V brakes and alloy wheels - will stop you dead in a torrential downpour our just go for disk brakes if your doing off road.

They do (but this is different from a suicide break). I'd say most people use the pedal for breaking, the exception are mostly people who are a bit older and benefit a lot from gears, and somewhat wealthier people (as the pedal break bikes are usually a bit cheaper and often second hand), but even then I'd say I still see most people wearing suits who cycle, cycle on pedal break bikes.

Its even worse in London where cyclists undertake stopped traffic at speed - and never stop to think that pedestrains might be crossing.

And thats not counting the fixed wheel bikers who jump traffic lights putting them selves out of sync with the traffic light patterns and on a collision course for pedestrians.

And thats not counting the fixie riders that ride at 20mph plus though pedestrians at peak rush hour.

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