Comment by dajohnson89 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dajohnson89 | Hacker News Reader

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just walked across 14th today for lunch, it was beautiful. the only traffic is buses, and maybe the odd truck. there are cops posted -- because the street is so empty, it's tempting to jaywalk without looking for an oncoming bus.

as another commenter said, the drivers brought this onto themselves. i think the impact of uber driving around waiting for a ride, + booked ubers double parked waiting for the charge to arrive, adds significantly to congestion. without getting into the uber/taxi debate, you could just see (and hear the honking) how difficult it was for the buses to get through even during normal traffic.

another quiet change that happened nearby, is the closure of union square w between 14th & 17th. theres an extremely high amount of pedestrian traffic, and near the edges of the square there's intersections that would get pretty dicey. now it's much, much better. to be fair, ny drivers are decent, but there's just too much volume (and pedestrians looking down at their smartphones). i'm sure people got hit on an almost daily basis. ironically, i'm more afraid of bicyclists hitting me than cars. they simply do whatever they want.

but still, i firmly believe these changes are a huge positive overall.

> ironically, i'm more afraid of bicyclists hitting me than cars. they simply do whatever they want.

I’m in Seattle, not NYC, but this is an almost daily nuisance for me, both as a driver and as a pedestrian. Cyclists in general seem to have an attitude like rules and laws don’t apply to them. I see them blowing red lights, disobeying all-way stops, and nearly running over people all the time.

I think this is the case because in the US only extreme cyclists dare use the road at all. When cycling becomes sufficiently safe that normal people do it, the median cyclist becomes much friendlier to other people on the road.

I think that's just wishful thinking. I'm from Melbourne where cycling is pretty common (although not as hectic as in Holland). The cyclists here are still pretty rude.

There's a difference between rude and illegal. I think the original commenter was speaking more about illegal behavior leading to accidents.

In my experience in cities where cycling is built into the architecture of the city, most do tend to follow the road rules. However, a pedestrian might still find it rude if a cyclist were to pass close enough to brush shoulders, or a driver might find it rude for a cyclist to lane split.

From my perspective that kind of "rudeness" is just part city life, though, it's not really something exclusive to cyclists.

Yeah, I was referring to outright illegal behavior. I really dislike the "rules don't apply to me" attitude - seems so entitled.

On the rudeness aspect though, I do find cyclists in general pretty rude. I've even seen cyclists that seem to outright seek confrontation by putting themselves in situations that are unfavorable to them. For example, the other day I observed a challenging traffic situation and a driver had to stop mid turn at a corner. A cyclist was coming and saw the whole thing happen, but they still positioned themselves such that a "hook" accident could occur once things started moving again. As soon as the car started moving to complete their turn, the cyclist also moved forward and started arguing with the driver. It looked pretty clearly premeditated.

No, where bicycles are common I feel the same thing. It not an "extremist" issue.

Bicyclist has their kid mindset of rules not applying to them, I believe. Also they go closer to pedastrians than they would with a car.

It maybe just that bicycles are not that good in dense cities. In my small home town there was enough space for both bicycles and pedestrians.

Whereas cars blow red lights, disobey stops signs, and kill people all the time.

The difference is that cyclists don't kill people, and actually get hurt when they do stupid stuff like this. Cars often just drive off.

I wish we had stats on it though. Just my anecdotal observations, but I see tons and tons of cars on the road every day, and maybe a couple of them do those things. Whenever I spot cyclists though, I can pretty much count on them doing something that's against traffic rules.

> there are cops posted -- because the street is so empty, it's tempting to jaywalk without looking for an oncoming bus.

That's not why the article said they are there - they're there to turn cars away. Surely they won't care about people crossing a more-or-less empty street?

maybe they're mainly to deter vehicles.

but precisely because it's almost empty, it's very easy to jaywalk and not think about the bus coming down the street at 25 mph.

Where I live we have some squares in town that are pedestrian only except for buses. Buses move through at speeds below 10 km/h. I can't recall there has been an accident there.

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