Perhaps getting a larger coalition of users on board is exactly what we need to expand bike infrastructure. The scarcity of bike lanes is wholly artificial and easily fixed by transitioning more automobile infrastructure.
cars get too much of our shared space. we should consider repurposing most city streets, such as: one lane (each way) for cars, 1 lane for buses, and 1 protected lane for bikes. most lanes are about 10 feet wide, so we can take a foot away from the car lane and give it to the bus lane to promote traffic calming, while the protected (with curb or bollard) bike lane can be split in two to provide a passing lane.
I routinely drove about 27-30km/h without assist and was already getting worried about breaking speed and people entering the bike lane. Going so much faster would be terrifying to me
but that's also why we need double-wide lanes, so that faster micro-vehicles have space too. city streets should support a full gradient of travel speeds/vehicles, from walking to car, the normalization of which should reduce the incidence of people blindly entering bike lanes (just as we don't have people jumping in front of cars all the time).
At that speed, why not just use the road instead of the narrow bike lanes/paths?
VAT 1234 [1] only applies when going less than the normal speed of traffic, which isn't the case on an e-bike.
> people will be absolutely furious at you for doing it.
People do a lot of things that make other people furious. Riding on the road isnt anything special
> Also drivers rear-ending you.
It's far less likely than getting hit by a turning vehicle because the cyclist was in the motorist's blind spot.
How will intersections be managed for each lane? Will we have an exclusive traffic light signal phase for each lane? I imagine that would significantly reduce throughput.
The more steps there are, the more likely one will make a mistake and fail to yield because they failed to account for one of the steps necessary to successfully make a turn.
The traditional system where a right turning vehicle moves as far right as practical in advance of making a right turn reduces the number of step necessary to complete the turn. That is, they only need to account for yielding to pedestrians instead of 3 streams of traffic (bus, then cyclist, then pedestrian).
That's why I asked about having separate traffic light phases for each lane. That would ensure that only a single lane is allowed to enter the intersection and complete their turn without having to yield to any other traffic stream. But, doing that would reduce instersection throughput by a significant amount.
cars create some of the highest congestion/vehicle, as they demand more street area/time per person than other forms of transportation. so by displacing cars, viable mixed-mode transportation reduces congestion extralinearly, which in turn mitigates the extra right-turn burden for cars despite needing to navigate a more diverse traffic stream.
>> The more steps there are, the more likely one will make a mistake and fail to yield because they failed to account for one of the steps necessary to successfully make a turn.
> that's actually a traffic calming technique, to make car drivers more attentive and more purposeful/communicative, rather than driving on (human or machine) auto-pilot all the time. more obvious collision dangers make car drivers more mindful
I don't really know if this assumption holds. Collisions are more common complex intersections versus simple ones. For example, one is more likely to get into a collision when making a left turn from a side road because they have to check for pedestrians approaching from the left, pedestrians approaching from the right traffic approaching from the left, traffic approaching from the right, and possibly traffic entering the roadway directly across from them.
If you contrast that with a roundabout, when entering, one has to check for pedestrians approaching from the left, pedestrians approaching from the right, and traffic approaching from the left. Because there are fewer things to check for, the chance of getting into a collision is reduced.
The other part of it is when exiting the intersection. After one has started turning, one needs to check for any pedestrians who may be crossing before completing their turn, so that's another step that the left turning driver has to account for. With a roundabout, that check is postponed and actually can be thought of as a separate check once they get to the exit of the roundabout (checking for pedestrians). You could get a similar spacing between checks if, instead of making a left turn, make a right turn and then a u-turn.
In the case of the right turn crossing muliple lanes of traffic, the driver not only has to check for more things, but they don't have the time spacing to re-orient themselves to get ready for the next check. That increases the probability that the driver may fail to check before proceeding.
Wouldn't it just be easier to just have all vehicle types share the same infrastructure (roads)? They're already built out and can be used by any wheeled vehicle by following the rules of the road.
Roads are designed to be used by any type of vehicle, not just automobiles.
- High speed, high momentum vehicles are a larger danger to low speed, low momentum vehicles than they are to other high speed vehicles.
- Infrastructure that can be used by high speed vehicles must be designed for high speed vehicles, and that design often conflicts with design decisions that make a piece of infrastructure more useful to low speed vehicles. For instance, roundabouts can alleviate high speed vehicle traffic but pose issues for low speed vehicles.
- Humans aren't rational - segregated infrastructure is much more appealing to users of the low speed vehicles, even if we were to somehow mitigate the risks of desegregated infrastructure.
The danger is only relevant if a collision occurs. Motorcyclists also use the roads and they're signicantly lighter than the average passenger vehicle. The average passenger vehicle is signficantly less massive compared to a bus, dump truck, or tractor-trailer.
The key to avoiding collisions is to follow the rules of the road in terms of right-of-way rules, signaling in advance one's intention to change course, and positioning when preparing to make a turn at an intersection.
> Infrastructure that can be used by high speed vehicles must be designed for high speed vehicles
Except that typical surface streets are not designed for high speeds. There are numerous intersections, vehicles waiting to turn, traffic control devices that require one to slow or stop before proceeding, etc. The only infrastructure that meets the criterion you mention are limited access highways where exit and entry are via interchanges as opposed to at grade intersections.
> Humans aren't rational - segregated infrastructure is much more appealing to users of the low speed vehicles
While it is, it also encourages unsafe behaviors at intersections. Pedestrian rules of movement rely on the assumption that a pedestrian moving at 2 to 4 mph will be close enough to an intersection such that the driver of a vehicle has time to see them and yield to them. Someone on a bicycle moves much faster than a pedestrian. Even casual cyclists go between 6 to 12 mph which is at least twice to four times as fast as a typical walking pedestrian. This means they can be twice to four times as far from an intersection and out of the area a driver of a vehicle normally scans before exiting an intersection when turning. This increases the risk of a collision.