Fu*king Cyclists

Isn't it interesting that most people totally comfortable with parking in the bike lane wouldn't dream of doing it in the car lane? Drivers can't seem to make the leap to see bikes as traffic and a lot of road engineers seem to have the same problem, as reflected in our crappy bike infrastructure. Our Minneapolis friend would have nothing to do if he moved to the Netherlands, where it's physically impossible in most places for a driver to park in a bike lane. Having said that, his approach to the issue is counter-productive (unless he's making bank from his YT videos). He'd do better to put his energy into lobbying local transportation leaders for physically separated bike infrastructure.

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Originally Posted by muted reborn

Seems to me he's having a great time calling out the bullshit of shitty drivers and not at all miserable doing it.

Sure, he's a Grade AAA asshole, but after a few dozen videos he's kinda growing on me. The insanely horrible drum and bass music he blasts at all times is quite funny too.

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Originally Posted by muted reborn

He's not a drama queen, he's actively looking for fights. He is completely unreasonable and over the top, but in some cases he's doing the lords work. People parking in the bike lane is annoying.

A head injury isn't necessarily the reason - there is just people different than you and me out there, and there are billions of them.

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Hope he sees this!

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Originally Posted by Dantheman

Already happened once, doesn't seem to have affected his behavior one bit.

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True, I'm sure he enjoys the conflict. I mean, I'm a hypocrite, because his videos are amusing, so I'm feeding his views/viewership. I'm also a former bike (sometimes current) rager, but age has dialed that way back. Although just the other day, riding down a very twisty dirt road with wife/kid I almost got hit by a lunatic dickhead hunter coming up the road way too fast, wrong side of road, blind corner. I swerved off, yelled, to alarm family a corner back behind me. Wife had to get off her bike and alarm the guy. Kid was super spooked. I ran up the road as fast as I could, fully intending on murdering the guy thinking he was going to plow over my family. He drove off. His passenger looked spooked, sitting next to a dickhead lunatic at the wheel.

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Originally Posted by Trackhead

I'm also a former bike (sometimes current) rager, but age has dialed that way back.

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Yah, I'm older and wiser now and don't start beef with drivers. Not much chance of a positive outcome.

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Originally Posted by dan_pdx

Isn't it interesting that most people totally comfortable with parking in the bike lane wouldn't dream of doing it in the car lane? Drivers can't seem to make the leap to see bikes as traffic and a lot of road engineers seem to have the same problem, as reflected in our crappy bike infrastructure.

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Well, its pretty standard no matter where you are (road, river, trail, ski run) to pull off to the side to stop. Additionally, blocking a drive lane inconveniences exponentially more people, than blocking the bike lane does (at least here in murica).

And as someone involved in streetscape layouts and design, ill just tell you there are many factors at play preventing safe bike infrastructure from being widely constructed, and it is rarely the engineers fault haha. Youll want to mostly blame the planners.

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Originally Posted by dan_pdx

Isn't it interesting that most people totally comfortable with parking in the bike lane wouldn't dream of doing it in the car lane?

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Really? You've never lived in an eastern city. I mailed a very large package to my kid in Boston--a double boxed, extravagantly padded drop leaf pedestal table--and sent it to a Fedex near his condo for him to pick up. Then I street viewed the Fedex and to my horror there's no parking of any kind anywhere near the place, which I inform my kid about. "Don't worry, it's Boston"--meaning he'll just park in the middle of the traffic lane to pick it up. Detroit where I grew up was the same way. And in California it seems that construction vehicles get a pass on bike lanes, unofficially. If the didn't nothing would ever get built.

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Originally Posted by californiagrown

Well, its pretty standard no matter where you are (road, river, trail, ski run) to pull off to the side to stop. Additionally, blocking a drive lane inconveniences exponentially more people, than blocking the bike lane does (at least here in murica).

And as someone involved in streetscape layouts and design, ill just tell you there are many factors at play preventing safe bike infrastructure from being widely constructed, and it is rarely the engineers fault haha. Youll want to mostly blame the planners.

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That's just what I'm saying though - if there was a jersey barrier at the right side of the car lane, they would keep going, but if there's a bike lane it's fine to park there because bike traffic isn't real traffic. No argument that in most of the US these days, there's a lot more traffic in the car lane than the bike lane, but with infrastructure like this, how are those attitudes ever going to change? Chicken/egg problem.

Re: engineers vs. planners, I admit to not knowing much about who does what, I'm more than happy to blame the planners and leave the engineers out of it :-)

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Originally Posted by old goat

Really? You've never lived in an eastern city. I mailed a very large package to my kid in Boston--a double boxed, extravagantly padded drop leaf pedestal table--and sent it to a Fedex near his condo for him to pick up. Then I street viewed the Fedex and to my horror there's no parking of any kind anywhere near the place, which I inform my kid about. "Don't worry, it's Boston"--meaning he'll just park in the middle of the traffic lane to pick it up. Detroit where I grew up was the same way. And in California it seems that construction vehicles get a pass on bike lanes, unofficially. If the didn't nothing would ever get built.

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Well, I almost hedged by saying "most people (who don't live in Manhattan)". I actually see parking in the car lane as an improvement over parking in the bike lane - no one's going to stay there longer than absolutely necessary. In Portland, the city charges contractors to shut down a bike lane (and maybe car lanes too?), which I think appropriately recognizes the value of keeping that infrastructure accessible.

A little drift here--what about pedestrians? Why, when I hit the walk button all the car lanes get to go before I do? Yeah, I know there are a lot more cars than pedestrians, but we're doing the lord's work so that should count for something.

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Originally Posted by old goat

A little drift here--what about pedestrians? Why, when I hit the walk button all the car lanes get to go before I do? Yeah, I know there are a lot more cars than pedestrians, but we're doing the lord's work so that should count for something.

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At least in Oregon, pedestrians have absolute right of way at striped crosswalks and unsignalized intersections, but you'd be risking your life if you tried to assert that right of way. But I agree with your underlying point that we make things too easy for drivers at the expense of the street life in American cities and more broadly, the climate. Um, that was your underlying point, right? You weren't just playing devil's advocate?

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Originally Posted by dan_pdx

At least in Oregon, pedestrians have absolute right of way at striped crosswalks and unsignalized intersections, but you'd be risking your life if you tried to assert that right of way. But I agree with your underlying point that we make things too easy for drivers at the expense of the street life in American cities and more broadly, the climate. Um, that was your underlying point, right? You weren't just playing devil's advocate?

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That was my point, yes. I do like the ones they have in SF and a few other places I've seen where the ped xing gives the walk signal for all directions at once while the traffic lights hold traffic from all directions, including red arrows for potential right turners. I think I recall seeing one intersection where you could cross diagonally if you wanted to.
Besides the press the button crosswalks at light-controlled intersections, we have press the button flashing lights for pedestrians at uncontrolled intersections. I wait for traffic to clear from both sides before I try to cross and then I press the button anyways, just for luck. It pisses me off when people stop for me when I haven't pressed the button, because trying to cross in front of them is a great way to get run down by someone coming the other way.

Speaking of east coast cities, my last trip to Boston I saw the drivers had taken over the bike lanes around Haymarket. Bike lanes literally took up the majority of a couple intersections and as is typical in Boston, the people were not having it and just treated them as another car lane.

Why? Because there wasn't a fucking bike to be seen anywhere and it is an exercise in futility. People need to realize that bikes are all fine and dandy in limited situations, and those limited situations are not the majority of the time, notably in the Northeast when the weather sucks for biking 200 days a year. You can come up with all the bullshit excuses you want about planners, or "it just needs to be engineered better" or whatever, but that is the real reason.

And here I thought everyone in MN was so nice!

https://youtu.be/MtWmG1PPKy8?si=gdPIl1SPzvqt_FAs

I'm shocked that the guy thought he was in the right. He cut into a line of cars waiting to go instead of getting in line behind the cars that were there before him.

On a related note--construction on a 2 lane road with a flagger. If I'm on a bike I go last, after the cars, when it's our turn to go, on the theory that I'll be the slowest and not wanting to hold up a long line. I've seen cyclists pedal by the whole line up to the head of the line and proceed to hold up everyone. Wrong IMO.

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Originally Posted by AdironRider

Speaking of east coast cities, my last trip to Boston I saw the drivers had taken over the bike lanes around Haymarket. Bike lanes literally took up the majority of a couple intersections and as is typical in Boston, the people were not having it and just treated them as another car lane.

Why? Because there wasn't a fucking bike to be seen anywhere and it is an exercise in futility. People need to realize that bikes are all fine and dandy in limited situations, and those limited situations are not the majority of the time, notably in the Northeast when the weather sucks for biking 200 days a year. You can come up with all the bullshit excuses you want about planners, or "it just needs to be engineered better" or whatever, but that is the real reason.

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I ride to work in Boston 3-4 days a week, typically year round unless its actively raining/snowing or below 20 degrees, but I know that's pretty rare and most people only bike commute during summer months when it's nice out. The majority of my ride is actually thru Cambridge and they have been building a lot of bike lanes over the past ~5 years; I think its generally accepted that Cambridge/Somverville are more bike friendly than downtown Boston.

I do agree there is minimal regard for typical bike lanes downtown, but it's always a fuck show and people double park in places where there's no bike lane anyways. The new(ish) Bike/Bus lanes are kind of a joke, they painted them all red and people drive in them like normal lanes regardless, but I will say the city/region is getting smart with a lot more fully divided lanes, and barricades/curbs, etc.

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Originally Posted by dan_pdx

we make things too easy for drivers at the expense of the street life in American cities and more broadly, the climate. Um, that was your underlying point, right? You weren't just playing devil's advocate?

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A large reason for subpar bike infrastructure is that the pedestrian experience is prioritized. There is only limited ROW width to work with, you cannot make vehicle traffic worse by reducing lanes or lane width, and so you are left with limited space to install pedestrian focused infrastructure or cyclist focused infrastructure. Most places will prioritize the pedestrian experience because foot traffic drives business to the shops, which drives tax dollars and votes. So to upgrade cyclist infrastructure in most places you would have to prioritize the needs of the smallest user at the expense of the majority users, and the moneymakers.

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Originally Posted by californiagrown

you cannot make vehicle traffic worse by reducing lanes or lane width

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City planners are reducing lanes and lane width throughout SLC for bike paths. I can think of 5 major projects that have done this in the last 2 years. A couple more are happening now. So you definitely can.

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Originally Posted by AdironRider

Why? Because there wasn't a fucking bike to be seen anywhere and it is an exercise in futility. People need to realize that bikes are all fine and dandy in limited situations, and those limited situations are not the majority of the time, notably in the Northeast when the weather sucks for biking 200 days a year. You can come up with all the bullshit excuses you want about planners, or "it just needs to be engineered better" or whatever, but that is the real reason.

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Boston doesn't have notably worse weather than Copenhagen -- about the same, in fact. But Copenhagen is building infrastructure like this and has cycling mode share of of 26-37% vs. Boston at 1-2%.

Goes without saying that when your road network is dangerous and unwelcoming for anyone not in a car that everyone wants to use a car. Even the Dutch were car-focused in the post-war era before making a conscious decision to prioritize cycling/cycling infrastructure. "There was a time, in the 1950s and 60s, when cyclists were under severe threat of being expelled from Dutch cities by the growing number of cars." Paris went through a similar change. Cars dominating urban centers isn't the only option.

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Originally Posted by old goat

I'm shocked that the guy thought he was in the right. He cut into a line of cars waiting to go instead of getting in line behind the cars that were there before him.

On a related note--construction on a 2 lane road with a flagger. If I'm on a bike I go last, after the cars, when it's our turn to go, on the theory that I'll be the slowest and not wanting to hold up a long line. I've seen cyclists pedal by the whole line up to the head of the line and proceed to hold up everyone. Wrong IMO.

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I usually don't watch his videos, but I watched part of this one. Dude needs to smoke some weed and chill TFO.

Completely agree re: flaggers and situations like filtering to the front at a red light (when sharing the lane, that is -- fine with a bike lane). It's pointless to force those drivers to pass you, and some of them may resent it and be moved to do something about it. Don't poke the bear.

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Originally Posted by californiagrown

A large reason for subpar bike infrastructure is that the pedestrian experience is prioritized. There is only limited ROW width to work with, you cannot make vehicle traffic worse by reducing lanes or lane width, and so you are left with limited space to install pedestrian focused infrastructure or cyclist focused infrastructure. Most places will prioritize the pedestrian experience because foot traffic drives business to the shops, which drives tax dollars and votes. So to upgrade cyclist infrastructure in most places you would have to prioritize the needs of the smallest user at the expense of the majority users, and the moneymakers.

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I would say "you cannot make vehicle traffic worse by reducing lanes or lane width" contains a whole bunch of assumptions that need to be examined. 1) of course you can, it just depends on your priorities 2) cars are like a gas that expand/contract to fill available space, no guarantee that traffic on a given road will be worse after lanes are removed / narrowed, 3) narrow lanes are actually great in urban areas because it's an effective way to get people to slow down, vs. 14-foot lanes and a posted 25 mph speed limit, which everyone will ignore.

Re: the spending argument, that comes up a lot, but it's actually not true:
People Walking And Cycling Spend More In London’s Shops Than Motorists
Cyclists and Pedestrians Can End Up Spending More Each Month Than Drivers

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Originally Posted by dan_pdx

I would say "you cannot make vehicle traffic worse by reducing lanes or lane width" contains a whole bunch of assumptions that need to be examined. 1) of course you can, it just depends on your priorities 2) cars are like a gas that expand/contract to fill available space, no guarantee that traffic on a given road will be worse after lanes are removed / narrowed, 3) narrow lanes are actually great in urban areas because it's an effective way to get people to slow down, vs. 14-foot lanes and a posted 25 mph speed limit, which everyone will ignore.

Re: the spending argument, that comes up a lot, but it's actually not true:
People Walking And Cycling Spend More In London’s Shops Than Motorists
Cyclists and Pedestrians Can End Up Spending More Each Month Than Drivers

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Actually yes, there is a guarantee that traffic will be worse if you do certain things like reduce lane widths, or remove lanes altogether. It will be worse for a while and it will typically force traffic to find other routes (usually lesser side streets which creates another problem). Most urban areas already have lane widths less than 12', and any less than 11' or so and you cannot get the design vehicle to properly make turns without going into oncoming lanes and/or running over curbs. i said pedestrians spend more than cyclists, not that drivers spend more than cyclists- which is why pedestrian facilities are prioritized.

IMO/IME, the problem is that americans are lazy fatties who rely on cars to get around and is part of our culture (possible, but hard to change), geographically we have further to go to get what we want which makes driving the best option, and our cars and trucks are fucking huge compared to europe making larger motor vehicle facilities neccessary.

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Originally Posted by The SnowShow

And here I thought everyone in MN was so nice!

https://youtu.be/MtWmG1PPKy8?si=gdPIl1SPzvqt_FAs

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OK, I'm now back to despising that bike guy. He's a dumb piece of shit.

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Originally Posted by californiagrown

Actually yes, there is a guarantee that traffic will be worse if you do certain things like reduce lane widths, or remove lanes altogether. It will be worse for a while and it will typically force traffic to find other routes (usually lesser side streets which creates another problem). Most urban areas already have lane widths less than 12', and any less than 11' or so and you cannot get the design vehicle to properly make turns without going into oncoming lanes and/or running over curbs. i said pedestrians spend more than cyclists, not that drivers spend more than cyclists- which is why pedestrian facilities are prioritized.

IMO/IME, the problem is that americans are lazy fatties who rely on cars to get around and is part of our culture (possible, but hard to change), geographically we have further to go to get what we want which makes driving the best option, and our cars and trucks are fucking huge compared to europe making larger motor vehicle facilities neccessary.

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All reasonable points. But if both pedestrians and cyclists spend more than drivers, doesn't it make sense to allocate more roadway to cyclists? If shopkeepers want a street full of people window shopping, seems they're more likely to get it with two slow lanes of traffic, a cycleway, and generous sidewalks than with generous sidewalks and four lanes of traffic. From what I hear though, most retail owners (at least in Portland) don't agree with that, which I don't really understand. It seems obvious to me that roads like Powell Blvd. in Portland are totally uninviting to shoppers. You might drive there to shop in a specific store, but you're not going to go browse next door.

The culture thing is probably the biggest obstacle. It's really hard for people to imagine any other lifestyle than the car-dependent one we've wedged ourselves into, even though it's sub-optimal in many ways. Sadly, inertia is strong and the gas/driving lobby has a lot more resources to sway opinion than the bike/walk lobby, so I don't expect things in the US to change meaningfully in my lifetime. Just can't keep myself from pissing in the wind every once in awhile.

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Goes without saying that when your road network is dangerous and unwelcoming for anyone not in a car that everyone wants to use a car. Even the Dutch were car-focused in the post-war era before making a conscious decision to prioritize cycling/cycling infrastructure. "There was a time, in the 1950s and 60s, when cyclists were under severe threat of being expelled from Dutch cities by the growing number of cars." Paris went through a similar change. Cars dominating urban centers isn't the only option.

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Can't emphasis this enough. We put 5' un-buffered bike lanes on 4 lane 35-45 MPH signed urban arterials. It's so dumb. Only a few people are going to use those facilities.

People in cars are surrounded by a metal cage that allows them to engage in all sorts of behavior they would not do on a bike, and bicyclists rightly do not use bike infrastructure that doesn't buffer them appropriately from vehicles.

Build dedicated, protected bike infrastructure or force vehicles to slow way down and not be the priority and surprise, you get bike AND pedestrian traffic.

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Originally Posted by dan_pdx

All reasonable points. But if both pedestrians and cyclists spend more than drivers, doesn't it make sense to allocate more roadway to cyclists? If shopkeepers want a street full of people window shopping, seems they're more likely to get it with two slow lanes of traffic, a cycleway, and generous sidewalks than with generous sidewalks and four lanes of traffic. .

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I thought biz owners usually argue that they want parking on street in front for customers, instead of bike lanes.

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Originally Posted by muted reborn

I thought biz owners usually argue that they want parking on street in front for customers, instead of bike lanes.

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dont get me started on Woonerfs.

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Originally Posted by californiagrown

dont get me started on Woonerfs.

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Now I want to ask you all about woonerfs. Don't they work as intended?

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Originally Posted by Boosh

I ride to work in Boston 3-4 days a week, typically year round unless its actively raining/snowing or below 20 degrees, but I know that's pretty rare and most people only bike commute during summer months when it's nice out. The majority of my ride is actually thru Cambridge and they have been building a lot of bike lanes over the past ~5 years; I think its generally accepted that Cambridge/Somverville are more bike friendly than downtown Boston.

I do agree there is minimal regard for typical bike lanes downtown, but it's always a fuck show and people double park in places where there's no bike lane anyways. The new(ish) Bike/Bus lanes are kind of a joke, they painted them all red and people drive in them like normal lanes regardless, but I will say the city/region is getting smart with a lot more fully divided lanes, and barricades/curbs, etc.

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I grew up near Harvard Sq and every time I go home I laugh at the clusterfuck that was designed and built on Brattle St leaving the Sq…basically the stretch starting at Brattle Sq heading west. What used to be two lanes of one way traffic and two lanes of parking is now a two way bike lane next to the sidewalk, one lane of parking, one lane of traffic and then another lane of parking. The parking meters for the parking are across the bike lane at the sidewalk, so you have the potential for people to crash into bikers flying by both directions while they cross between parked cars to pay the meter. Also, when a car is waiting for another car to pull out of a space, all the traffic backs up for blocks waiting because now there is no second lane to use. It’s fucking hilarious. Horns blaring, people yelling…all waiting for one car to get out of the space then the other to parallel park.

Now I’m not saying it’s bad for bikers at all, but it’s pissed off everyone I know who still lives there.