[sustran] Re: Cycling in cities

[mobility]

I've been enjoying the back and forth regarding cycling in cities.  john kaehney of transportation alternatives and i have lunch most everyday, and ride our bikes most every day, and we argue about this stuff all the time.

Seems to me separate bike tracks make sense along limited access arterials, along rivers and canals, and railroad tracks, and in the medians of long wide arterials (like in Bogota) if you can make the intersections safe.  Those separate bike tracks along the highways in holland are really great, and make intercity touring possible, and even city to city commuting possible.

john doesnt think bike tracks in most of manhattan will make much difference, though agrees that the new West Side Bike lane along the hudson is great if it happens to go where you want to go, which is true for some people.

Other than this locatoin, there are almost no phsically separated bike facilities in New York city, and hard to see where they would work.  Its because on most of the key arterials in manhattan you've got very high volumes of taxis and small delivery trucks and buses and paratransit vehicles dropping off passengers, and intersections every 1/20 of a mile.  The sixth avenue bike lane is indicative of the problem.  Its just painted on the road, not physically separated.  They tried a physically sepazrated one in the past and it was a disaster, filled immediately with people loading and loading trucks, vendors, garbage, construction, etc.  Nobody used it.  Hard to see them working where you have trucks
loading and unloading across the bike lane, and taxis dropping passengers throwing their doors open across the bike lane, and you'd need to remove the parking from one side of the road (which would be okay).  Every day i ride it and every day I try to decide whether these painted lines make any difference.  My conclusion is that it does make a marginal improvement.  a. if there is gridlock you can still sometimes get through on the bike lane. b. it gives you a small moral advantage in ongoing conflicts with other vehicles, "hey, you m-----f-----, I'm in a bike lane!"  That's about it.  Its still very challenging riding for anyone but the battle hardened.

I'm just back from China.  Now everybody is talking about BRT and busways, thanks to our efforts and others.  So what do they plan?  Looks like they would love to put the busways in the old bike lanes, and then let the facility be shared bus and bike, or force the bikes onto the sidewalk or off the road all together.

Ironically, the situation with bus lanes in China is rather similar to the argument about bike lanes.  It turns out there is such high volumes of buses on Chinese arterials that giving them just a physiclaly separated lane actually restricts their movement.  Its a way of keeping the buses out of the way of the other traffic, and probably slows them down more than speeding them up.  They'll need two dedicated lanes in both directions, the boarding tubes and evertyhing, if this is going to work there.

Back in NYC, Mr. Penalosa suggested pedestrianizing Broadway and putting a bike lane down it.  John is dissmissive.  Will never happen politically.  pedestrian area on fulton st. is driving down rents, not helping them.  If Broadway was totally pedestrianized it would be a complete zoo, jammed with vendors, etc.  and cyclists would end up taking the major arterials where the traffic would move faster.  Maybe it could happen times square to 34th st.  maybe even to Union Squar4e, but wouldn't do anything for cyclists. Okay, maybe so, but it would still be nice if they pedestrianized Broadway, and maybe the timid cyclists would be more willing.   Political will?  well, Bloomberg is taking the subway,
talking about tolls on the east river bridges.  anything could happen.

bottom line is the answers are not simple, are fairly location specific, and we're not likely to get any quick victories in cities that dont have long arterials with wide medians that can be used for bike lanes.



Thomas Krag wrote:

> Dear Sustran-members,
>
> many very true and interesting points have already been raised in the discussion about cycling in cities. I would like to add two findings, both from the rich part of the world.
>
> One is that high rather than low temperatures seems to be a deterrent for cycling. Northern Europe has generally much more cyclists than Southern Europe. The city of Oulu in Finland is famous for having many cyclists also at wintertime where temperatures drop below -20 degree celcisus.
>
> Another is that the discussion about safety is often mixing perceptions and misunderstandings with facts. In Denmark, a small northern country in Europe, 15% of all trips are done by cycling, but many still perceive cycling as unsafe compared to driving.
>
> One fact is that per kilometre the risk of getting killed is about 5 times as high when riding a bicycle as when driving a car. Another approach is to look into whether those people, who ride bikes, actually face big risks. Epidemiological studies prove this not to be the case, the health benefits far outweigh the potential extra risks. Interestingly, calculations on the all-over risk of getting killed in transport per year shows that people in Denmark with access to cars to be exposed to bigger risks than those without a car. The reason is that the car is used also for long trips while public transport (which is much safer than cardriving) usually replaces cycling and walking for the long distances.
>
> Moreover, several studies shows that the risk of cycling in a given area decrease with incresing numbers of bicycle users. There are also a number of projects showing that it is possible to get an all-over increase in cycle use without an increase in accidents with cyclists.
>
> Unfortunately the study I made on the all-over safety for Danish road users at present is only available in Danish. Before I manage to provide a translation those familier with nordic languages can get a copy by e-mail on request.
>
> Best regards
>
> Thomas Krag
>
> --
>
> Thomas Krag
> Wilhelm Marstrands Gade 11
> 2100 København Ø
> tel +45 35 42 86 24, mobil +45 27 11 86 24
> tk at thomaskrag.com, www.thomaskrag.com