Fewer Americans bike to work despite new trails, lanes, bicycle share programs
usatoday.com
usatoday.com
I recently experienced cycling in Taipei. Traffic rules seem to be somewhat "loose" compared to the situation in European cities. Two lanes, but some space? Let's make a third lane. Red light? Better pay attention while running it.
But, and that's my main takeaway, people don't want to kill each other and keep calm in any situation.
Riding the bicycle doesn't feel like "one against them", it's more like "I'm in this chaos together with all the others".
[edit] I'm not advocating for less rules, but for a more harmonic attitude towards others in traffic.
If you take into consideration that Americans drive more per person than any other country, driving is much more dangerous in Taiwan. I'd imagine biking is also fairly dangerous.
My point is not that traffic rules should be loose -- it is that we're in traffic together and we should relax from time to time, watching out for others.
Taiwan's HDI is between Austria and Luxembourg.
Otherwise, it's just too dangerous from my perspective. Too many drivers do not pay attention.
A lot of times it is just easier to cross in the middle of a block because you have a much better buffer area where random cars can't pop out from. Obviously it depends on the particular road. If it is some 6 lane wide main thoroughfare, I'd probably opt for the cross walk.
Well that’s just bonkers.
Where I live when a pedestrian wants to cross the lights stop all cars for the duration.
Cars turning left on green (but no arrow) often won't notice crossing pedestrians they're supposed to yield to either. They may stop, but now they're blocking oncoming traffic (often hazardous), so they're likely to try and clear the intersection if they feel there's enough room. Of course, they're probably also blocking the visibility of the person tailgaiting them, who will also go through the intersection as a result, enough room or not.
All that turning traffic accounts for 3 of the directions you have to check with a valid walk signal (everything but orthogonal traffic coming from the opposite side of the road) - the 4th comes from people running the tail end of red lights, which happens pretty frequently too. Even ignoring illegally short yellow light timings, people will try to squeeze in. Vroom vroom.
Legal right on red is contributing to the behavior of the car driving east and turning south (who hasn't noticed they now have a green light), as well as the the car driving north and turning east (who's LOS is blocked by a truck, SUV, small van with tinted windows, etc. and is pushing that far up so they can see left enough to spot a gap which they can use to turn right on red)
Every red light in this situation has a get-out clause, and no green light can be trusted.
Note that cars must stop before turning right on a red, so it’s not a total free-for-all. The stopping forces them to yield to pedestrians most of the time.
It's not uncommon to have stop lines farther back from the crosswalks for middle lanes to help improve visibility for the right lane - but even the ones that aren't worn down are often ignored by inattentive drivers. You're supposed to fully stop before the crosswalk even when turning right, but many drivers turning right don't fully stop at all - and are at best planning to stop with the crosswalk blocked. You're not supposed to speed up when you see a yellow light. All these things are ticketable offenses, in theory.
Between lax enforcement, lax punishments, lax driver education, and driving while texting, sleepy, high, or just plain drunk... well, I usually don't encounter problems from all 4 directions when crossing a street, but 1 or 2 is pretty common. I feel decently safe crossing, but only because I keep my head on a paranoid swivel. Occasionally I have to kinda hang out in the middle of the crosswalk for a few seconds while I wait for some idiots who failed to yield, and I'll throw up my hands in pantomimed exasperation...
Some buttons trigger the “walk” sign but don’t actually change the traffic signals for cars.
Some buttons are placebo, perhaps with a secondary function of emitting a loud tone to let blind people know the walk signal has turned on.
Some buttons trigger the traffic lights to stop.
Some buttons turn the traffic light to a 4 way red light.
I have encountered all these types of buttons on the east coast of the US in various states.
We need to get rid of that rule now that the justification for it no longer exists.
What changed that I was unaware of? As far as I know, it still makes traffic flow much more efficient in most situations.
Also, at least where I live, the walk light wouldn't be on at the same time as someone turning right on red that would be going into my path.
What guarantees this exactly? I'm having a hard time seeing how this is possible.
Right turn on red was mostly implemented to avoid having cars idling waiting for a timer-only light to turn.
Between modern cars with fast engine stop/start and modern sensor technology which triggers lights when there is no opposing traffic, there are a lot of good reasons to remove that rule again.
I think on some intersections pressing the button will make this delay longer, but it's hard to tell from casual observation. Also, traffic light timings are set by the municipality, so it can vary by city and depending on the age of the intersection.
The most dangerous intersections I find are on the multi-lane suburban arterial roads. Pedestrians are less common (than in neighborhoods or downtown) so drivers generally aren't watching for them as much. You really have to be careful with cars turning right on a red - even if there's a walk signal - because they're looking to their left for traffic to see if it's clear for them to go, and not for people coming the right about to walk in front of them.
But why on earth would you turn the tragic light green while the walk signal is still on? Why not one at a time?
I’ve seen the type of light you describe (all pedestrians walk in all directions at once while all cars have a red) in the US but they’re exceedingly rare. In cities there’s always pedestrians and cars waiting in every direction so it would be too slow to be practical.
People don't always press the buttons, and not all intersections even have buttons. Even with a button press, there's no way to tell the difference between a jogger and a group of elderly people using walkers, so you have to assume the longest possible delay.
That said, there is a thing called a pedestrian scramble intersection [1] with a part of the cycle where all the traffic lights go red and all the walk signals turn on, allowing pedestrians to cross even diagonally. This is relatively rare, only being used at some of the busiest pedestrian intersections in some cities.
Plus a traffic light's sensors wouldn't even moving around in the environment, so it's got to be that much easier. And they can be positioned all over an area, on both sides of obstacles. And they can be higher up for a better view.
The downside is that every intersection is different and drawing conclusions from all that information will be harder. And the stakes are higher with a system that directs everybody else.
Honestly I think stop lights aren't a big danger for pedestrians. Crossing at intersections with stop signs is far, far worse -- drivers have to pay attention to multiple directions of traffic as well as pedestrians.
At the company I'm working at there is some programs where you can buy a bicycle and the company pays you some percentage of the price back [1]
Given that cyclist commuters only only account for 0.3% of the population already, the large swings become a little less statistically significant.
I don’t find it hard to believe that cyclist commuting decreased by a few percent overall, but it is hard to believe that cycling decreased in Oakland by 25% while increasing in Philadelphia by 20% in one year.
Was there also some other action where mostly ugly fat people drive around naked - the purpose of which now escapes me.
Also in America you can often see fat bicyclists in tights, to reduce wind resistance I presume?
In Amsterdam, the bikers are more sensible. They wear street clothes, and ride heavy bikes suitable for street clothes and casual use. In Seattle, it has to be a $$$$ racing bike and one has to wear a tour de france spandex outfit. It's the law.
I had the good fortune to essentially never get in a car in Seattle — I always took the subway, or the trolley, or walked. Granted I only ever spent a lot of time at Amazon and the Hutch, most everywhere beyond walking distance of south lake union or the subway is a blank spot on the map to me. But it seemed like a pretty casual place to bike commute.
I rode to work most every day when I lived in SF, and in DC, and for a while in LA. Perversely, it was always safest where the traffic was worst (gridlocked) as drivers couldn’t get going fast enough to severely injure me then. Northern Virginia by contrast was terrifying — soccer moms barreling around at 70mph in SUVs while on cell phones. I think it’s a cultural issue — that wouldn’t fly in the Netherlands.
I rode my ancient 10-speed I'd had since a teen, and wore street clothes.
It was before the silly bike madness rolled over the city. I first noticed it when I invited my gf out for a ride, and she had to go buy a special bike outfit first.
Every ride you remove from a car is a good thing. If people are riding half the year that's better than driving the full year.
I've biked to work for years, always just wore bike knickers and a tshirt. Bike jacket for the rain.
It's as I said. Yes, I'll pass someone once in a while on a bike in Seattle in street clothes, maybe one in twenty. The rest are in logo spandex. The ratio is reversed in Amsterdam.
Nobody wears a helmet in Amsterdam, either. Yes, I know you do :-) Make that one in a hundred. They're riding a sturdy bike often with a basket in front for the groceries. I've never seen a basket on a Seattle bike. After all, you never see a basket on the TdF.
In Amsterdam, and in all of Holland, riding a bike is simply the first mode of transportation we think of. Wanna go to the supermarket? We just go outside and grab our bikes and we're off, no second thoughts about it. This is exactly like how Americans would just grab their keys and get in their car, no second thoughts about it.
I'm guessing the reason you only see people in road bikes and spandex in the US are 1) confirmation bias because you just don't notice the people who ride the city share bikes or the you dismiss people entirely for being hipsters riding fixies and so on, and 2) because riding a bike isn't a mode of transportation in the US.
#2 is the big thing though. Most Americans I have ever met think that bicycles are primarily for exercising or for leisure, but few will say it's a mode of transportation. In Holland bicycling is the primary mode of transportation.
Also we don’t have helmuts because we’ve grown up in a society where people don’t get angry at you for riding your bike. Where people don’t run you off the road for laughs. Where people won’t speed off and disappear if they crash into you. Where people have been trained to pay attention to bicyclists from the moment they can walk outdoors.
A friend recently came to visit me here in Holland. She’s German, so you might assume that she’s used to bicyclists because she’s European or whatever. That assumption would be wrong because I had to grab her by her arms so many times to get her to stop walking because she just was not raised in a culture where you pay attention to bicyclists. Had I not grabbed her arms to stop her all those times she would have stepped out onto a bicycle path and gotten run over. This is the difference between bicycling in Holland and the world, and it makes no sense to compare Seattle and Amsterdam like you are.
Yes, I wear a helmet, I have WAY too much invested in this noggin to not wear one. Also I played football for 9 years, so I'm used to wearing helmets.
No basket but I can get a week of groceries into my full size chrome backpack. I can't couldn't really have a heavy steel bike with a basket, my commute has too much vertical. Old was 6.5 miles, 500ft climb (kirkland to bellevue). New one is 12 miles, 1100ft climb (renton highlands to seattle).
$5k bike for me, I'm big so I retrofitted a craigslist cyclocross aluminum bike for $400 with discs.
1. Lack of showers in basically everywhere I’ve worked. I don’t mind making a 10+ mile trip each way twice a day, but not if it means I get to sit there at work smelly and gross the entire day.
2. The ingrained sense of “fuck bikers” that most people feel in the US. I mean, go on any public forum and ask people what they think of bicyclists riding their bikes on the road, where we are legally allowed to do. You will be met with so much vitriol. People will literally tell you they hope you get ran over and die because you deserve it.
To be fair, there just is no good way to share a 40mph thoroughfare between bikers and cars. Most of the Northern European countries get away with sharing by having MUCH slower roads.
Bikers need their own dedicated lanes that don't interact with automobile traffic.
It's generally illegal to bike on the sidewalk, and less safe.
A family member got a fairly serious concussion being hit by a cyclist on a sidewalk.
It has some safety issues, but the legality is a mixed bag; here's a summary for just the East Bay (of the SF Bay Area).
Now tell that to random people and they will get angry and upset and wish you harm.
It seems like the problem isn’t the lack of bicycle infrastructure, it’s the ingrained culture.
I lived for a while in one of the most bike-friendly cities and have several occasions burned into my memory where I very nearly killed a cyclist not using courtesy, common sense, or most often following the law. A few examples: riding on the sidewalk crossing the street at high speed having not stopped at all, riding the wrong way down a one way street at night with no lights, passing me on the right when I'm stopped in a right turn lane with my signal on, and many many occasions of running red lights trusting cars with right of way will slow down enough to leave room.
There are lots of bikers who have much to say about traffic laws, but only the ones that empower them while breaking every law that might require more energy or delay. It is frustrating when traffic laws go largely unenforced (and very gratifying when they do).
While it was never a daily-commute I rather liked biking around the city myself, and I get that it's frustrating for both cars and bikes themselves to share the road. But with many on bikes with the attitude of "fuck you I have the legal right to be here AND the rules don't apply to me" acted out, the response isn't really all that unfair (and crazies taking it too far isn't unexpected).
It's hard to find anyone in a public forum focusing on the best way to share the road where sharing doesn't selfishly mean "you sharing with me".
*note: it wasn't at all because they were following the rules of the road.
As a child, I would regularly take 10-20 mile bike rides for fun. That continued up until I went off to college.
When I started driving a car, bikers didn't bother me, because we lived out in the countryside and they're easy to drive by, and even in nearby larger cities bikers were pretty rare, and sensible.
Then I moved to a large metro city. I'm tempted to say that's where my disdain of bikers began, but that's not right. It's not disdain at all, it's fear.
Compared to the car drivers around me, bikers are wildly unpredictable. Car drivers aren't totally predictable, that's how bad bikers are around here.
Riding through red lights "because it's too much work" to stop and start up again. Switching between riding on sidewalks and roads with no warning. Cutting across lanes and oncoming traffic with little to no warning. Swinging in and out of bike lanes with no warning. Riding between lanes of cars waiting at a traffic light.
Rules of the road exist for a reason, and bikers who stick to them are fine by me. I definitely don't believe anyone deserves to get hit, but it's hard to have the same amount of empathy for a group that collectively flouts the very things that are meant to keep them from getting hit.
I'm reminded of that scene from the IT Crowd where the boss, in bike shorts, is yelling at a room full of people in suits about stress. The ability to bike to work is often a distinction, something to be waved over those in you organization who dare not wear spandex in an office environment.