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Comment by dominotw | Hacker News Reader

I personally know 3 ppl that died in chicago. Two of them were my coworkers, died in the same year. :/

Sorry but if you have kids and family you are fucking stupid to ride bikes on the street in chicago. White bikes on sidewalks are not street art. Go to lakeshore path/606 if you are dying to ride bikes.

I got doored 2 yrs ago escaped only with broken wrist.

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Then I assume you would support a similar law in Chicago as Cambridge passed?

Yes but aren't you back on the street with no protection where there are no bike lanes( most of chicago)?

I don't know Chicago, but I do know what's happened in San Francisco over the last 20 years. It's taken a long time, but the city is finally starting to take protected bike lanes seriously, sadly much of that is in response to lives lost.

When I first got here, it was just a fight for standard bike lanes. For either to happen, more people need to get on their bikes and ride. Contributing to your local bike coalition is also great way to help push these issues forward.

If everyone follows your advice and chooses to not ride because of the danger, then nothing will change, and the lives lost to poor road infrastructure and poor driver education will have been for nothing.

> If everyone follows your advice and chooses to not ride because of the danger, then nothing will change

Are you seriously suggesting some ppl risk their lives for 'change'? Sorry I really don't want to trade my life for bike lanes, there are ppl counting on me to stay alive.

No, I don't want people to risk their lives for anything. I want things to change. 40,000 people die a year in the US while driving or riding in cars, following your logic, that is also extremely risky, and so we shouldn't do it.

I am not sure thats a correct analogy. Driving a car to work is not an optional activity for most ppl. Ppl riding their bikes in the city are doing it for fun/thrill/whatever, its an optional activity for 90% of the ppl doing it.

I have a theory that most of these ppl would stop doing it once the thrill/'cool factor' goes away with protected bike lanes.

That's an interesting theory. I think I've seen some studies that show the opposite:

85% increase in cycling with better infrastructure: https://www.cyclinguk.org/blog/tomguha/85-increase-cycling-a...

This shows a direct correlation between lower risk and increased cycling: https://nacto.org/2016/07/20/high-quality-bike-facilities-in...

I especially like this quote: "A virtuous cycle is clear: With more infrastructure come more riders. Perhaps counterintuitively, with more infrastructure and more riders, safety improves. And the more bicycles there are traversing a city, the more it reaps numerous returns on investment, including the health benefits of cleaner air and greater physical activity." from https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/buildings-and-cities/bike...

I don't think most people who are biking while commuting are doing it purely for the thrill, but that is a plus, no doubt.

It depends on the city, but I see plenty of people biking in Cambridge who, based on apparent age and time-of-day, are almost certainly commuting to or from work. Also a few on kick scooters (not as good for longer trips, but easier to bring on public transit or a sidewalk if necessary). Going to work is not optional for most people, but (depending on where you live and where you work) there can be a variety of choices for how you get there.

Biking (or scooter-ing) is faster than walking, gets you some exercise, is much cheaper than owning and fuelling a car, can be faster than a car in particularly bad rush-hour traffic if bike lanes exist... there's plenty of reasons beyond being a daredevil, if the relevant addresses line up for it.

Riding a bus to work is not an optional activity. People driving their cars in the city are doing it for fun/thrill/whatever.

Please don't make things up. It's detracts from the conversation.

> Ppl riding their bikes in the city are doing it for fun/thrill/whatever, its an optional activity for 90% of the ppl doing it.

Riding a bike for your transportation is exactly as optional as driving is. Most cities have multiple choices for transportation.

> I got doored 2 yrs ago escaped only with broken wrist.

The best way to avoid getting doored is to not ride so close to parked cars. You should maintain a distance of at least 6 feet from parked cars while riding.

This is often impossible when bike lanes are adjacent to parked cars.

Yes, you are stupid and should become part of the problem. Be part of the industry of drivers, that are responsible for 40,000 deaths every year in the US.

Replace Chicago with nearly every city.

It’s a death wish.

Have you been to cities in Netherlands or Danmark?

They were meaning US cities, we can certainly be very US centric in our thinking.

And to keep on that theme let me talk about my city.

If you don't actually need to get anywhere and want to ride for leisure Denver has some nice built up trails that sort of meander through neighborhoods that are completely separated from roads. Very safe and usually very pretty to ride on.

Downtown looks pretty dangerous though.

> They were meaning US cities

Even just considering US cities, that statement is not true. Some cities are very dangerous for bikes, but many are not.

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