Comment by genericone | Hacker News Reader

Comment by genericone | Hacker News Reader

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I think this is an intermediate step for bicycle advocacy:

Step 1. Convince people that bicycle transportation infrastructure is sub-standard in all parts of America and is the underlying cause for accidents.

When cyclists ( total weight < 200 lbs, slow acceleration, fast deceleration) and motorists ( total weight > 2000 lbs, fast acceleration, slow deceleration ) are expected to use the same roadways and are expected to follow the same traffic laws, there will be problems for everyone.

Step 2. Introduce "reasonable" legislation to improve safety for cyclists. "Reasonable" legislation encroaches on motorist's existing feelings of entitlement on the road.

Step 3. Begin discussions on how to compromise:

a. Ban all bikes from everything except mixed used paths - No

b. Revert the "reasonable" legislation, implying cyclist safety is not a concern - No

c. Introduce more bicycle lanes - Maybe

d. Physically separate the bicycle-paths and motorways - Difficult, but not impossible: http://denmark.dk/en/green-living/bicycle-culture/cycle-supe...

e. Introduce a bicycle tax, so motorists can't lord around the idea cyclists are freeloading roads - Maybe

We're at step 3 now, what real solutions are there?

> e. Introduce a bicycle tax, so motorists can't lord around the idea cyclists are freeloading roads - Maybe

This seems like a particularly bad idea, especially given how low taxes are on gas in the US. In some states it's even subsidized.

In general most countries (US included) are giving large tax breaks to hybrids and electric cars, so I think we should be going in the opposite direction: no sale tax on bikes, free tubes, lights and high visibility vests to commuters. I think some cities in Europe are already giving away commuter kits.

If car drivers understood how little they are paying into the maintenance of roads especially with respect to how much more damage a car does to the Macadam compared to a bike, I don't think they'd keep seeing the cyclists as freeloaders.

I don't believe it's government sponsored, but the East Bay Bicycle Coalition gives you a light for participating in their free bicycle safety trainings.

3c wouldn't help, since bike lanes do not keep bikes three feet away from cars.

3d seems prohibitively expensive for most places in the US.

3e wouldn't really help anything unless the tax was ridiculously high and could pay for separate bike paths. Given how few people actually commute by bike in most places, this would make a bicycle about as expensive as a Benz, so this doesn't seem very reasonable to me and I'm sure it wouldn't make me happy at all if I rode a bike.

3a and 3b seem like the most practical solutions, honestly. Not because cyclist safety is not a concern, but because we do not have good options available to protect it. They don't make cyclists happy, but I mean, tax laws don't make me happy. If it's unreasonably expensive to give someone special accommodations, sometimes you just can't even if you'd like to.

You might be surprised.

The cost of a bike lane averages $130,000 per mile.

The cost of an urban road averages $4,000,000 per mile, per lane.

Not to mention better bike infrastructure reduces car traffic: more bikes means fewer cars, the bike infrastructure is not simply additive.

Plus secondary economic benefits: civil density, reduced parking costs, reduced healthcare costs, reduced environmental costs, reduced oil & gas imports, ...

Did you know a parked car takes up 10 times as much space as a parked bicycle?

Did you know there are approximately 10 parking spaces per car in America?

Take away the driving subsidies and everyone would be riding bikes demanding better infrastructure.

> Not to mention better bike infrastructure reduces car traffic: more bikes means fewer cars

I don't think this follows. I don't know anyone who says "Bicycling everywhere is attractive to me and totally fits in with my lifestyle, but there just aren't any bike lanes." I'm sure such people exist, but I don't believe there are a lot of them. For most people, it seems like the problem is that bicycles are just too slow to get where they want to go in the time they want to take to get there. This is largely a result of community planning, not bike infrastructure. Do you have data to the contrary?

> The cost of a bike lane averages $130,000 per mile.

> The cost of an urban road averages $4,000,000 per mile, per lane.

But we aren't just talking about bike lanes, which are insufficient to guarantee that cars never get within three feet of a bike — we're talking about whole separate bike roads separate from the main road. Additionally, urban roads benefit so many more people in most places in the US that they're a bargain even at 30 times the price. I strongly suspect that less than 3% of commuters at any given time are riding bikes.

In Chicago over the past 5 or 10 years it has been the case.

The number of cyclists was 2.6 times higher in 2012 than 2000. [1]

The program, whose efforts are guided by the Bike 2015 Plan, approved in June 2006, has created over 100 miles (160 km) of new bike lanes, installed 10,000 bicycle racks, and installed 165 miles (266 km) of signed bike routes in 2006. [2].

[1] http://www.bikewalklincolnpark.com/2014/05/walking-and-bikin... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_in_Chicago

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