Comment by seer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by seer | Hacker News Reader

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I think the problem is that in a lot of places in the west bicycles are forced to mix with motor vehicles, and away from pedestrians.

This always seemed like a weird trade off to me - “you are inconveniencing some pedestrians, so go in this other lane where you can die”

I grew up in Eastern Europe, where technically the laws are similar, but no policeman is going to stop you for riding on the sidewalk. So you naturally mix with pedestrians - that means you travel slower but a lot safer.

I remember going to Barcelona ~ 10 years ago and renting some bicycles to explore the city. I knew that this would be a different experience since the laws are different, but my partner at the time just didn’t care to follow local laws, so she just went on and started going on the sidewalks. The locals were _very_ strict in directing you off of them, no police got involved but I could see that happening if you tried to do that more.

Now I went there last year, and it was like the locals have “lost the war” on that - maybe because the city has built enough bike lanes that the few places where you _had_ to go on a sidewalk you weren’t that much of a nuisance or because the sidewalks themselves got bigger or something else, but the experience was a lot more pleasant than anywhere else I’ve cycled.

Bicycles should _not_ mix with cars in my opinion - let those travel at high speeds, just make mixing of pedestrians and bicycles regulated and safe and all would be well.

Mixing pedestrians with bikes runs into its own set of issues, at high enough density bikes simply can’t be ridden.

Really there’s no one solution that works at every scale. Bikes on sidewalks are also far less safe in deaths per mile than it seems.

I live in Thessaloniki, where you can get pretty lucky: The city is built along the coast, so there's a large boardwalk spanning the entire coast, it's pretty broad and has a nice bike lane. You can cycle from one side of the city to the other in 20 minutes or so, and the boardwalk is so broad that pedestrians tend to have enough space to stay out of the bike lane. It's an extremely pleasant way of transportation.

If you cycle anywhere other than the boardwalk, though, Greek drivers are going to kill you, but I've developed coping strategies (using side-streets).

> Really there’s no one solution that works at every scale

Get private cars out of cities. That works

Cities are more than just ultra dense urban cores and megacities. Cars work well for stand alone cities under ~500,000 people.

That said, America relies heavily on public transportation even in smaller communities we just call them school buses and ignore em. So cars aren’t the cheapest option even at these scales, but they can be quite convenient when there’s minimal traffic issues.

Bicycles and pedestrians should absolutely not be mixed! What needs to happen are dedicated bicycle lanes and reduced car traffic.

They can be mixed off traffic is rather low and the path is wide enough (basically plan for the encounter of a pram in one direction with a cyclist with trailer in the other direction). But that typically doesn't work for sidewalks in many cases because they're either too narrow or have too much foot or bike traffic.

E-bikes and cargo bikes are also a lot heavier than other bicycles and are getting more common. Due to higher mass and being powered they're quite a bit more dangerous to pedestrians.

This generally works were the traffic is low, in sub urbs and on specific paths(not sidewalks in metropolitan areas). combined pedestrian walk and bicycle paths are possible, in sub urbs and in more rural areas, though even there they should generally be split and only used for overtaking:

https://www.osteraker.se/images/18.5bb0400617c11d33b551007/1...

In bigger cities where the foot traffic is high, it's absolutely not possible, in my opinion.

I'm very much an "old school" commuter cyclist, I started way before this current movement towards vision zero and separated bike infrastructure, to provide context. Bicycling is my main transport and has been for 15 years now.

I practice "vehicular cycling" and love being in the road. I also choose routes where I can maintain at least 75% of the speed limit, so lots of 30mph roads.

It's definitely sketchier than the new style infrastructure that's popping up, but it's also way faster. I use a radar and mirror for safety and I keep the speed delta between traffic and myself at a minimum. Only serious injury I've had was getting creamed by an incoming drunk driver at speed.

Best world would be keeping pedestrians, cyclists, and cars all separated for maximum convenience. But failing that, I'd much rather be in a painted bike lane than on a sidewalk.

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