Bike Bureau: Report Bike Lane Obstructions

Worked with Jonathan a long time back on a smartwatch project and he was developing Loud Bicycle as a side project at that point, happy to see that he's still working on bike safety.

For anyone in SF (since it looks like this doesn't report to SF 311 yet) there's a similar but more generalized app called Solve SF which aims to make submissions quick and simple. Snap a picture, auto-classify, submit with all forms filled out.

My favorite one is a "Share the Road" sign with a bike on it, intended to remind drivers of bikers' presence -- but placed in the middle of a bike lane. Palo Alto loves these for some reason

In Boston we have a 311 app and I've taken to reporting every single bike lane obstruction I can find when walking about. I don't bike myself anymore after an accident last year in a bike when I was hit by a taxi. Things are definitely trending in the wrong direction in Boston.

I know it’s not exactly a bike lane, but if I took a camera on just one trip down a San Francisco “slow street” I could probably report a dozen violations on any day.

> One report documents a problem; many reports can make the case for enforcement and safer, protected bike lanes.

I've previously asked my municipality for numbers on how many tickets they give for cars illegally parked in cycle lanes. It was something like ~6 a day in total. Between over a hundred city officers out and about to ticket stuff. Which is weird, because just on my bike commute home I see more cars in cycle lanes like that. There are multiple social media accounts dedicated to photograph cars in their local cycle lane. It's epidemic, and no one cares to fix it. And this is in a bike friendly city (Oslo).

love the facial anonymization feature: https://loudbicycle.com/bb/report/21y

i wonder who that is :)

Do the cities that accept the reports do anything with them?

Is something wrong with bike lane uprising? They've been doing this for years, very active where I am, well connected both with activists and local politicians.

https://www.bikelaneuprising.com

for nyc, there's https://apps.apple.com/us/app/reported-nyc-311-made-easy/id9... that makes submitting violations super easy. If the vehicle reported is a taxi/uber/lyft/rideshare vehicle registered with taxi and limo commission (TLC), the submission goes to TLC and drivers can be (and often are) assessed a fine after a hearing (which can be months/years in the making but they do happen eventually).

the bad ratings are from dark days when the app was unmaintained. there's a new team working on it and it's awesome now

I kind of like watching people try to poke government into action, but the end results are usually the same. The process of paying a large amount of taxes and then on top of that begging for them to enforce the actual laws and making tools they can use, etc. It would seem they really just don't want to enforce laws or aren't capable of doing so.

Ooh, this autosubmit is cool. Is it open-source for individuals to add more cities, or expose it as an API?

I have found that the vehicle that most often cuts off cyclists is the transit bus, pulling into a stop. This is not necessarily a bike lane, but sometimes actual designated bike lanes, too, pass in front of bus stops rather than correctly behind them.

I recognize some of the Cambridge and Boston streets, since I walk a few miles here daily. These bike lanes are politically-loaded, for various reasons (e.g., car drivers disliking bicyclists, brick & mortar businesses losing parking), but there's also 3 additional problems in the last couple years:

1. For over a year, the rate of bicyclists and motorized bikes/scooters I see running red lights has escalated to the point where it is highly unusual that I see one not run a red. Yesterday, for example, a bike, at speed, aimed through a crowded crosswalk, not missing pedestrians by much. Also yesterday, while I was crossing in crosswalk after waiting for light, one of those heavy motorized bikes with the huge fat tires larger than some motorcyles plowed through long after the red.

2. Some (not the majority, unlike running reds) bikes and motorized treating busy sidewalks as special highways, which they use at speed. You can see this, for example, on Mass. Ave., especially between Harvard and Porter, when they can't always run reds on the street. (Incidentally, having Blue Bike rental stations on the sidewalk might encourage this among the riders of those, by desensitizing and confusing about riding on sidewalk.) I used to walk miles of Mass. Ave. almost daily, but last summer it got to the point that it was normal on a walk to get blown past by at least one bike or motorized bike/scooter on the sidewalk that was going fast enough to cripple or kill me if it hit me.

3. Some of the various kinds of protected bike lanes make it harder for pedestrians to see car traffic, to cross in a crosswalk. (Combine this with the prevalence of parked large SUVs now, blocking the view of both pedestians and moving vehicles further.) A few times a day, I can't even cross the street without leading with my left hand out, because I can't see the traffic, and reckless people on vehicles, are normal now. One of these days, I'm going to either narrowly miss a crippling/lethal crash because of that hand, or injure my left hand/arm first, because too many people are reckless and we have worse visibility than we used to.

As a walker who isn't a huge fan of cars, in a city that earned the term "Massholes" for how they drive, I can tell you that, in the last two years, IME, the car drivers behave much better than the overwhelming majority of people on bikes and motorizes bikes/scooters. There's still some red-running by cars, but it's nowhere near the standard-operating-procedure recklessness of the people who now think they can use the bike lanes, streets, and sidewalks as their personal Autobahn, and that pedestrians can always be dodged safely.

Politically, when walkers in a Masshole city start side with cars, and walkers suddenly feel a lot less solidarity with their bicyclist cousins, then you should suspect there's a big new problem.

It used to be that bicyclists rightly felt they had to look out for themselves, because they were in constant danger from the "I'm a car guy" mayor town drivers, and a lot of people sympathized with bicyclists. Now it looks like bicyclists (and the motorized bikes/scooters who've joined them) are the arrogant/smug, get-yours danger to others.

I speculate the cause is the combination of all the new "bike lane" infrastructure, and all the new motorized regulation-subverting vehicles seeking to take advantage of that infrastructure, followed by traditional bicyclists taking their behavior cues from the prevailing "bike" behavior.

A wave of new students arrives in town over the next 2-3 weeks, many of them with bikes and motorized bike/scooters, and they'll immediately adopt and reinforce the apparent de facto rules for how to operate their vehicle on the streets and sidewalks.

BTW, this LoudBicycle.com "Bike Bureau" seems to be an SEO thing by the makers of a 125 dB horn for bicyclists. If someone uses that horn in the company's own "walking friendly" dense town of Boston, I hope no one without hearing protection is hit by the blast. https://thedailyautomotive.com/how-loud-is-a-car-horn/

Bicycle rights!

On the east walkway of Knight St. Bridge between Richmond, BC (Canada) and Vancouver, just on the last stage (from a north-bound point of view) before the turn-off to Marine Way, there is a permanent obstruction in the path: a concrete light pole smack in the middle of the path.

I got hurt there two weeks ago. I swerved right around the pole. Unfortunately, just after the pole there is bad drainage, with inches of accumulated dirt. Though it was a sunny August day, there was a thick mud puddle due to it having rained the previous day. I had not seen any patch of wetness anywhere all day; it all concentrated there. That in itself wouldn't have been a problem, had I gone straight through the mud. Unfortunately, maybe two meters after that point, some scavenging person left several garbage bags of junk (such as wire to be recycled). After swerving right around the pole, my attention was on the bags which I planned to avoid by swerving left again. My back tire skidded on the strip of mud and I fell over.

Though I had no scratches or bruises anywhere, something happened to my left knee. I don't remember having landed in any funny position, and there was none of the typical pain from after an impact. But I noticed a sharp pain in the knee after standing up and trying to get back on the bike. It became very painful and swollen the next day. I was not able to straighten the leg or completely fold the knee. It became impossible to crouch down. Putting a sock or shoe on the left foot became a challenge. Multiple places are sprained in that joint, it seems. I've had hip pain as well, as if shooting up the hamstring or IT band from that knee to the hip.

Two-and-a-half weeks later, it's showing only small signs of recovery and slightly improved mobility. I can fully straighten the leg and I've been able to bend the knee all thee way with my hand (no weight on it: that hurts like hell). Had an X-ray last week. I don't know the result; nothing might show. Dr's office called today for a follow-up appointment in two days.

The ironic thing is that I had crossed the entire bridge deck in a vehicle traffic lane, not on the bike/pedestrian walkway! I decided to get off the road and enter this last stage of the walkway, just before that pole, to avoid the traffic pile up on the off-ramp due to big trucks taking up most of the shoulder and whatnot.

Folks: is road rage on the increase where you are? Have you got in more disputes in traffic in the past 6 years?

I may be rude, mentally ill, and old, and this may account for why I'm increasingly involved in road rage, but it disturbs me.

It's bi-directional but seems unjust. I am angry at cyclists and scooters on the sidewalk: they are rude, they break the law, they speed and weave. They are dangerous. Motorists are angry at me: if I ride a scooter in traffic, they scream and spit on my face and berate me at stoplights. However, my riding is courteous, legal, and as safe as possible. So what gives?

I've got in two sidewalk-screaming matches just a few blocks from home. There was one dude on a full-fledged gasoline moped who was driving the wrong way on the sidewalk, and he was fully self-assured that he was legal. (Narrator's voice: he was not.)

Another dude I just shoulder-clipped because he was a kid with headphones clamped on and speeding and weaving. He came back and tried to get me to attack him. He shoved me and trashed all my belongings. If he'd had a gun he'd be brandishing it. I may get shot soon.

Yeah, you know, I'm tired of the sidewalk being a "special freeway" for everything but cars. There was a dude whose e-bike was cresting at 30mph, pacing our car the other day. These dudes think they can just ride on sidewalks with impunity. (And yes, they are practically all dudes, except for the particularly brazen ones who think it's fun to put their girlfriend on a scooter made for one, and endanger both of them at once.)

It's especially shameful because our city, a college town, has done everything possible to welcome bicycles and build out bike lanes, pathways, and promote walk/bike/bus transit, but people just want to abuse it.

Trying to be courteous and legal doesn't work either; I went to a meeting and the cop told me I need to stay on the sidewalk with e-Scooters. He's wrong, because the e-Scooter companies explicitly prohibit sidewalk riding. Therefore, I ride in the street: a bike lane if possible, but I will take a lane where necessary, even if motorists will spit in my face again and try to provoke a fight, although that tends to make me feel unsafe.

Motorists have licenses and insurance policies. Motorists protect these privileges as precious jewels because it means their livelihood and their precious American individualism. Cyclists and scooter riders don't seem to care about laws, or courtesy, and why should they?

I really wish this weren't the case, but I'm afraid that we're heading to a place where if we flood reports to officials, they'll just jump on calling bike lanes "DEI" and take them out.