This is big time for America. If our biggest city can’t show leadership on pedestrian and bicyclist safety, we can’t expect any other city to as well.
New York is really lagging behind where it should be. Despite being by far the biggest American city, it is overrun with cars. Protected bike lanes, street improvements to make crossing the street safer, and dedicated bus lanes will improve the city for all New Yorkers. If these changes take off in New York, they will trickle down to the rest of American cities.
New York is marveled at for being such a safe big city from the standpoint of crime, but when you factor in all of the carnage caused by cars, it’s a lot less safe than you might think.
Violent crime has been falling across the country, but pedestrian and bicyclist deaths have been surging. This is a sign of some very bad policy making. Walking should be one of the safest and healthiest things a person can do.
No. NYC isn't some reference point for what other cities should do. Making a city bike friendly is available to all cities, and has been for decades. There's no trickle down bike policy, as other cities in the US are already showing.
NYC is kind of a joke in urban planning circles, they have a lot of crazy ideas and have executed on approximately one of them in 20 years.
Many other cities are heads and shoulders ahead when it comes to rolling out proper separated bike lanes. Nobody is looking to NYC for leadership on anything in this field.
NYC faces problems at a scale that make it much more difficult to get done than in a lot of cities. It's not ridiculous to suggest they try, but it also doesn't naturally follow: NYC and Des Moines are not solving the same problem.
"It's not ridiculous to say the urbanest area should try to set an example for other urban areas" - yet, OP says if NYC can't set an example then we can't expect other cities to have good examples either. That's false. We can expect good examples everywhere no matter what NYC does.
How is it a special place to expect decent infrastructure, when NYC of all places has it for driving, walking and public transit?
The cumulative investment in each of those has gotta be 100x as much as for biking, and you're accusing bikes of getting special treatment?
For the cost of a mile of new subway, you could probably coat most of NYC's arterials with protected bike lanes across the whole damn city. Not that I'm opposed to subways, but bike infrastructure is extremely cost-effective, redirecting money away from it is ridiculous.
This is about transit safety. Cyclists are in a lot more danger than pedestrians, because unlike peds, they don't have special infrastructure set aside from them for the most part.
Why must we accomodate the needs of drivers? Why do they hold a special place? Can we instead invest in bike infrastructure?
So, here's my personal opinion. For the record, i live in a bike-friendly mid-sized central-european city, do own a car, walk a lot (if the bike is not an option) and use public transport - but whenever possible, i use my bike. For me it's the superior mode of transportation. It's the cheapest option after walking, healthy, fun, efficient and for 90% of my day-to-day transportation needs it's also the fastest option. The overhead of finding a parking spot (twice) is mostly nil and there are pretty much no bike traffic jams. I shop every day and carry the groceries in my backpack (upside: fresh produce every day, don't need as much storage space). Car usage is mostly limited to longer distances (i.e. visiting relatives) and transporting unwieldly stuff - i wouldn't even own one if i hadn't gotten this one for free. The same applies to pretty much all of my friends. If the infrastructure is there, they all prefer riding a bike.
That said, as a young adult (early twenties), my car was part of my male identity. All of my friends believed they were good drivers and could be promising race drivers if they wanted. That's all gone now; my car is not a status symbol anymore, but a utility. And i don't respect someone just because they drive a fast car, that usually just means they were willing to invest a bigger share of their income in that particular hobby. My previous car had 60hp and that was plenty enough for my needs. Cars never made me really happy; they meant long commutes, road rage due to other bad drivers and congestion and terrifyingly dangerous situations aplenty, even though i'm a careful driver.
So, back to the discussion. In my opinion, the biggest problems for cyclists are:
1. Infrastructure: It's not that we're unjustly taking away from the drivers to give to the cyclists - cyclists have been neglected for decades and what happens now is just that they get a little bit of what should have been theirs from the beginning. Cars take a bigger share than they deserve. There was a time where cars weren't welcome in the cities too, i took a huge marketing campaign and lobbyists to change that.
2. Infrastructure: bike lanes mostly suck, because they're crammed into existing spaces that were planned for cars and pedestrians; spaces where they just don't really fit. They're often too narrow, of disastrous quality (ever wonder why road bike cyclists without shock absorbers prefer the road even if there are bike lanes present? That's even legal around here!) and sometimes feature unnecessary stops that could have been avoided if the street had been planned with cyclists from the start.
3. Drivers: some drivers hate cyclists for no apparent reason. Luckily, this is not a huge problem here as almost everyone spends time on a bike, but the stories i have to read on reddit ... some cyclists are probably victims of carelessly attempted manslaughter (i.e. drivers throwing full cans at cyclists).
4. Storage: bike theft is a rampant problem almost anywhere (for several reasons, afaik there's no easy solution). You really shouldn't leave your bike outside overnight if it's worth anything (disregarding rust as this is a problem for cars too). But secure bike storage options are pretty rare if you don't happen to have the option of storing it in your flat.
You should try riding a bike. It's fun, it's healthy and you'll mature as automobile driver as you'll learn to get more perceptive. Don't get angry if you have to stay behind a cyclists for a couple of seconds until it's safe to overtake - you're actually losing only an neglectible amount of time. If you live in a city, try a bike commute; depending on the distance you might be faster than by car. In my case, due to traffic jams and searching for parking it'd probably have taken me three times as long to commute by car. My previous city has one of the best public transport systems in the world and still i was faster by bike).
And you should support biking, even if you drive a car: more people on bikes means less traffic, less congestion. Parking spots will probably be reduced, but there won't be as many car owners, so there's that - and you can easily fit 10 bikes on a single car parking spot. Less pollution, less noise, healthier people are probably reducing costs on public health care, but i don't know how true that'd be for the U.S. with a privatized system. Old people on e-bikes means fewer old people driving their cars at half the allowed speed.
That is a strange way to look at it. Question I am asking is not whether biking should be made safer instead I am asking why biking should be considered a form of transportation at all that needs to be funded by taxpayers? This is a serious question try to answer without getting emotional. Should we have another lane for skaters? How about hand walkers?
Cycling is the most energy efficient mode of transportation, ever. More than walking, more than skating, more than motorcycles, more than gliding birds, and yes, more than the subway.
That on top of its health benefits, relative safety to those hit by bikes, its traffic efficiency, parking space efficiency, benefit to retail...
You bring up taxpayers. It is far, far cheaper to subsidize a bike lane than a new subway tunnel. And the bike lane is open more hours of the year, with more entrances and exits, more interchanges to other lines, a shorter distance point-to-point, with drastically lower maintenance costs. Taxpayers should be rioting over the costs spent on trains and traffic relative to bikes.
Just about every cyclist means a car taken off the road. they take maybe about one-sixth the roadspace of a car and that's not factoring in the additional distance heavy and slow-breaking cars need between them to drive safely at speed. which means each extra cyclists reduces congestion which helps drivers especially in congested cities. so it stands to reason it's net-positive to have more cyclists relative to drivers. subways also become more useful when decently fast last-mile options are available. having bikes on pedestrian lanes is unsafe and unattractive and having them on driveways is also unsafe and unattractive, so both of these options lead to less cyclists, more cars and hence a terrible driving experience.
Yes, of course, NYC and Omaha need a different model when it comes to implementation.
What’s shared is the public/political will to challenge the status quo.
Pointing out the differences that you are isn’t terribly insightful. Anyone with solid algebra and geometry skills can see the variables involved and shape of the problem are different.
Chicago has been doing a pretty good job of building out bike lanes. But it needs to be taken further still, and more quickly.
However, the initiative needs a more robust implementation, with more consideration of driver behavior and parking needs. This is evident as many delivery trucks, Ubers etc. park in the lane (albeit, with emergency blinkers on, but it's a moot measure regardless) and push bicyclists into traffic. So while the bike lanes probably improve safety and reduce deaths overall, it can and does introduce a new, very real hazard: the necessity of bicyclists to suddenly merge into traffic. And this abuse is pretty rampant.
The hanging fruit is simply implementing stiffer penalities for such violations but this seems lacking. Coupling this with more temporary parking zones might be a solution. Then again, I'm not a civil engineer, just my observations and half-baked thoughts concerning the matter.
Protected bike lanes implies a curb between the road and the lane. While a delivery truck could jump the curb, technically, it "curbs" a lot of that behavior.
In Chicago it's largely been implemented by placing the bike lane in between on-street parking and the sidewalk, with soft posts and paint separating the parking lane from the bike lane.
I've watched people put an impressive amount of effort into delicately navigating between those posts so that they can parallel park their car next to the curb. i.e., in the bike lane.
Education probably doesn’t matter. Convenience will always trump education. What would work would be enforcement, if you’re fairly likely to get slammed with a $500 ticket for blocking the lane that will actually stop the behavior.
Driving in between two posts doesn’t seem that much effort to me (doesn’t seem harder than parallel parking for example). And I suspect many of them do understand what the flexposts are for, and just don’t care.
Drivers park in clearly signed bike lanes all the time, and when cyclists alert them to this fact they often respond with anger, not understanding or contrition. Common excuses are “I’ll just be a minute” or so on. It’s just part of how driving causes people to behave - I see the same thing with my apartment driveway which is regularly blocked by people parking illegally to go to the bank, rather than drive a few hundred feet and legally park in a garage.
Now, I’m sure there are some ignorant people out there, but the majority of people will just do what they can get away with regardless of what the law or the rule is. It’s like educating people to not text and drive. Just doesn’t work.
I don't know that driving brings out terribly different behavior on that front, it's more that cars are so big that they act as this inconvenience multiplier that allows one person to easily create a much bigger hassle or hazard for others than they could with their bare hands.
For example, I have plenty of run-ins with stepping out of a storefront and nearly getting creamed by a cyclist who's zooming down the sidewalk at 10mph, too. And it's frequently the cyclist who yells at me for failing to anticipate them barreling down the sidewalk illegally.
Yeah, that’s fair. I think the other thing is with cars, parking is an issue in a way that it isn’t with a bike, so you end up having people park in the bike lane or on a sidewalk or in a driveway. If those spots aren’t available, they’d probably double park in the road too.
With a bike people wouldn’t just dump it on the sidewalk typically because they’d be worried about it being stolen (of course with the rentable scooters and dockless cycles, people do exactly that since they don’t have to worry about theft).
Based on what I've seen in Chicago, it seems that the missing element is informing the public of the relevant laws.
To my knowledge, the rules covering bicycles and pedestrians have never been on Illinois's written test, they aren't necessarily covered in driver's (or other) education, and, since most motorists (and also, I'm guessing, cyclists) come from more suburban environments where there just aren't as many bikes and pedestrians on the roads, people simply don't know how they're supposed to behave on the streets. Which is a recipe for unnecessary chaos.
Case in point: About ten years back, when she was visiting, I had to tell my mom not to drive in a bike lane. She was surprised to hear that it was a bike lane; she though it was just a weirdly small shared-use lane with slightly confusing paint marks.
And no, while I appreciate the good intentions of whoever it is at the DOT who thinks composes these things, cute rhyming phrases in glowing amber letters over the freeway aren't going to cut it.
If cars are driving in bike lanes then it's not very good bike infrastructure. The best bike & pedestrian infrastructure is isolated from auto infrastructure as much as possible. Drivers take up every possible piece of real estate available and steal space from adjoining infrastructure when they can get away with it.
The best possible bike infrastructure is also very expensive to construct, and can't be built overnight. Given many major US cities' budget problems, I think that making the perfect the enemy of the good is probably a great way to doom ourselves to the worst.
A lot of biking isn't for your commute but rather a quick way to run an errand 5 avenues over using Citibike -- it's a 6 min ride instead of a 20 min walk.
For that, super common to bike even in the winter. After all, you're already bundled up and will probably stay warmer just because you'll be outside for less time.
Lot of this. Most bikehsare rides in NYC are quick one-way jaunts like this.
Anecdotally, I know a lot of women who ride bikeshare bikes for the 5-6 blocks it takes them to get home from the subway in the early-sunset months as a safety precaution against sexual harassment.
I was impressed with traction on the Citibike-style bicycles here in Minneapolis the last time I tried one in the snow. The tires aren’t so huge that they always stay on top, but they get pretty decent traction.
It'd be more popular if it were safer/easier. Which is true pretty much everywhere. Some of the places where biking is the most common also have quite harsh winters (e.g. Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, etc.).
Not unlike New York City. But, how about Finland? They also ride bikes a lot more than most US cities, and Finland definitely has harsh winters.
Edit: As for summers, I've regularly biked in Texas throughout the summer over many years (I've lived without a car quite a bit in Austin). The peak of the day is rough, but the usual commuting hours aren't too bad. New York has nothing on Texas summers.
so i heard from friends, that the snow might actually a problem if you're outside a city; in some instances you'd be hard pressed to make it with a fat bike.
apart from that i guess you just have to ride carefully, but you the same applies to driving a car on icy roads.
It doesn't snow that often in NYC either. These past few winters it's only snowed a few times in any significant amount (i.e. actual accumulation on roadways; flurries or snow that doesn't stick doesn't count).
I live and work in lower Manhattan (about a 15 minute commute each way by bike) and I will ride a Citi bike to work unless there are multiple inches of snow on the ground
I bike to work year-round in NYC, and so do many other people. It doesn't actually snow that much, and when it does, it's generally cleared pretty quickly. One thing the city should do to be better on that front is buy some bike-lane-sized snow clearing machines; we currently only have truck-sized snow plows, so the streets are cleared better than the bike lanes.
The biggest problem I have with biking in the winter is when it gets brutally cold, which doesn't happen that often, hardly at all in the past few years. There was this one particularly horrible winter several years back when it was terribly cold for weeks on end, and that was rough.
May 2019's NYC Cycling in the City [0] provides some overview. About 12% of New Yorkers ride a bike several times per month (higher than I expected).
There are automated bike counters in certain places (e.g. bridge crossings), but I haven't been able to find the data for winter months. Citi bike data is probably a pretty good proxy, though. It's in the report I linked and in sibling from apaprocki
Depends whether you're looking at people using bikes for commuting, take out delivery, exercise, etc. Ostensibly 800,000 people are biking multiple times a month, but this can mean wildly different things. As a data point, the most popular bike path in the city (and country) has had 6,600 Strava users this year.
You can have a sense of it by checking with Google Maps street view on different places in Manhattan. It seems that there are way more cars and pedestrians than bike riders in most places.
This is not a good measurement, because one person on a bike takes up much less space than one person in a car. (Average car occupancy in the US is around 1.5.)
I don't bike for fear of ice patches unless weather has been above freezing for a few days straight. I bike maybe 10% of days in winter and 90% in summer(from UWS to Chelsea via Hudson river bike paths)
I commute on my bike in NYC daily and I am far more terrified of pedestrians and other cyclists than I am of cars. Cars for the most part pay attention and obey traffic rules. Cyclists less so and pedestrians ignore rules entirely and frequently aren't even aware of cyclists.
The difference is that almost getting killed by a car happens only a few times per month, but having pedestrians step into the bike lane right in front of you without looking happens multiple times per day.
I have not dug into the data, but for whatever it's worth, cyclists completely ignore the Red Bicycle lights here in midtown. These are red lights that are even shaped like a bicycle, and when pedestrians are crossing in the other direction the bikes keep going.
You do have to weigh the severity of death against the frequency of lesser injuries. Hippos are more likely to kill me than mice, but I'm much more worried about the mouse problem in my building than I am about hippos.
been a cyclist for a long time, know hundreds of cyclists, you are the first person I've heard say this. If you collide with a pedestrian or cyclist the likely result is an injury, with a car death becomes very likely. Statistics certainly back this up as the vast majority of cyclist deaths are due to vehicle collisons not bike-bike or bike-pedestrian collisions.
Are you literally "far more terrified" of pedestrians than cars, or are you looking for a way to appear clever and different than everyone?
I bike for about 60 minutes in Manhattan most days. I'd guess that I have to slam on my brakes or swerve away from a pedestrian maybe 2-3 times per day on average, usually because they stepped into the bike lane from the sidewalk while looking down at their phones. It's so common it barely registers. While I am very aware of cars, they rarely do anything surprising besides occasionally opening a door into my lane. I've certainly never seen a car go from a dead stop to suddenly darting into my lane against the light, the way pedestrians do. So while I acknowledge that I'm much more likely to be killed by a car, I spend a lot time avoiding pedestrians.
Your experience is entirely the opposite of mine. Cars are not only usually unaware of me (despite me being lit up like a Christmas tree day or night), even if they do see me they'll just cut me off or even run me off the road if I'm in their way (and in violation of local law).
Pedestrians pose no threat to me unless I'm breaking the law, i.e. bicycling on the sidewalk, running a red, running a stoplight, etc.
If you ride in the middle of the lane and follow the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles, then it becomes much easier to predict what other vehicles drivers will do (vehicle type doesn't matter).
But if you want to follow pedestrian rules at vehicle speeds, then it's not going to work so well.
I've had several minor scraps with other cyclists, and some close calls with pedestrians. The injuries involved were so minor it's not even worth cataloguing them.
Cyclists are routinely killed by motor vehicles in NYC. It's not even close which one you should be more afraid of. The scariest thing in the world if you're a cyclist is a big truck. They are statistically most likely to kill cyclists. People on foot don't even come close.
Almost all comments in the comments section here are anecdotal. People are singling out this one because it goes against what most other cyclists are saying.
I've never heard another cyclist express this sentiment. Most of us are scared of speeding cars grazing us or parked car doors suddenly opening up in front of us.
The number of pedestrian and cyclists deaths by themselves cannot be used to signal worsening public policy. We have to know how the total number of cyclists and pedestrians has changed over time as well. I suspect that there are more people using bicycles and/or walking now than ever, with bike sharing, scooters, better public transportation, etc.
not to go all "blame the victim" here, but one thing I noticed culturally in NYC is that traffic lights are a suggestion to pedestrians. If there isn't a car directly in front of them, they'll cross the street.
Compare to LA, where people tend to wait for the signal to cross pretty consistently. That said, LA still has horrible pedestrian death statistics so who knows how much that matters.
Well NYC is a city for pedestrians primarily, and for drivers only secondarily. Vastly more people walk through a midtown Manhattan intersection than drive. So yes -- unless a car is immediately coming, you and everyone else will cross the street regardless of the signal. Cars are the minority in what is primarily a pedestrian zone, numerically.
LA is generally the opposite -- it's a city for drivers, not for pedestrians. So the norms are different.
I commuted on foot in NYC for several years. The culture is generally for pedestrians to cross at intersections with no regard to the signal, but generally not to do so if it means oncoming traffic will have to brake.
Right turns at red lights are illegal in NYC, and most of the streets in the city are one-way, so for a pedestrian to cross the street against a signal with no oncoming traffic is reasonably safe.
If people don’t follow traffic signals it is the fault of the signals. That is, if everybody makes the same mistake, it is no individuals fault, but a fault in the system.
To give a more concrete example. Say a traffic light has a pedestrian light attached. It will only allow pedestrian crossings when it does not stop the flow of vehicular traffic (say every 3-5 min, and only for 20 seconds at a time). But it does so regardless of actual traffic (no cars are passing the intersection when many pedestrians arrive), you can’t really blame the pedestrians of ruling this system as stupid and opting not to follow it.
It has nothing to do with the signals and everything to do with the pedestrians. If you actually want people to respect the signals, place traffic police on every corner in Manhattan and issue jaywalking tickets to absolutely everyone, for months on end, and you'll see it. (You'll also see a backlash.)
No. I don't care if a security system is not highly efficient in letting everyone moving around. It's not the point anyway.
That's the kind of thinking that makes our roads so deadly. If a rule in particular seems really silly to you, file a complaint / suggest a change so that it takes more parameters into account but until it is changed, stick to it. Loose some seconds or even minutes, I don't really care. These security rules should be followed by everyone, and people with your line of thinking shouldn't be allowed to own a car.
My comment applies to cars too (if not mainly to cars). I'm not blaming pedestrians (I realize it wasn't obvious at all), I'm blaming all that ignore rules on the road and make these safety rules even less efficient because of the unpredictability. (edit: though of course cars & other vehicules make it far more dangerous)
I'm not a fan of cars already, but people driving cars while following safety rules only when it suits them is what make them a lot more deadly imo.
Crosswalks are the sign. Pedestrians have preference and almost all the world cars must stop when there is a pedestrian in a crosswalk. There are places where people doesn't even take the eyes from their phone while stepping in a crosswalk.
> you can’t really blame the pedestrians of ruling this system as stupid and opting not to follow it.
Sure I can, they have a shit culture with little regard for traffic signals. My city has the same problem. I'm the odd man out for waiting for a signal, and am mocked for it at times. Nothing wrong with the signals or timing as a pedestrian (as a cyclist that's another story), but people feel they are more important. That they're 15 - 90 seconds is worth more.
Similarly, had a man recklessly pass me in his vehicle while I was biking to work yesterday. He went fully into the oncoming well above the posted speed limit, and cut me off as I was turning from the forward-moving lane into the left-hand turning lane. All to get around me to a red light.
Some people feel their 15 seconds are more valuable than others safety. In the case of pedestrian jaywalking, that their safety isn't worth the inconvenience of using the nearest crosswalk.
Pedestrians aren't carrying a multi-tonne vehicle that can kill people. Traffic lights are for drivers, and it's drivers who should pay attention.
The first step to fixing traffic deaths is fixing the laws that make causing a traffic accident more affordable than paying attention on the road. Right now you can drive while using a cellphone and run over as many people as you want if your excuse is "they came out of nowhere".
The system works amazingly well. In a couple years of walking through midtown, I only saw one person get hit by a car and they walked out from behind a food truck into traffic, nowhere near a crosswalk. The car couldn't have done anything about it.
When I first moved there I was annoyed by everyone ignoring the signals. Then I came to appreciate it as an efficient way of getting around the city. Pedestrians (and bikes and cars) all used the signals as general guidelines, but would go when it was safe, because otherwise you're never going to get anywhere.
I'm not saying that everyone everywhere should ignore traffic signals, but it seems to work well in New York City.
This. NYers do not respect crosswalks, jaywalking or rules of the road. It is chaos. People walk wherever and drive wherever. It is chaos. I was shocked to see the contrast between NYC and Montreal in terms of respecting the rules of road
That's because the rules are unjust. The cars shouldn't be there, for the most part, and the ones that are there should be driving slowly and carefully and paying for the privilege of commandeering space.
Also many electric bike riders don't take the extra power into consideration when they speed down those bike lanes. I overheard a conversation at the office recently where the topic was the number of bike deaths this year (I work/live in Manhattan) and they did point out that many of those might actually be electric bike riders.
They're not. You can find the full details on each and every cyclist fatality in the city from news reports and such, and e-bikes are a small minority of deaths.
It's more complicated than that. Pedal-assist e-bikes are now legal, but throttle-control e-bikes still aren't (although in theory they're supposed to be legalized soon). The latter constitutes the vast majority of e-bikes on the streets here.
As an avid cyclist in NYC, this is a huge step forward into cyclist protection. I can't tell you how many times i've almost been hit, or doored, by a car. Sometimes, it's a lot safer to run a red light to get in front of a car versus waiting for the light to turn- but of course that's not legal.
Honestly, as huge and condensed NYC is, I am surprised this hasn't happened years ago. It's much, much more efficient to get from Point A to Point B on a bike vs taking the Subway, bus, or car. Would love to see something like the 14th street car ban to allow buses and cyclists only more widely adopted across the 5 boroughs.
As a pedestrian, I've often thought that. There are no cars coming (in the direction that has the right of way), but if I wait, the cars waiting to turn might not yield to me.
My threshold for cars entering my personal space is clearly different than drivers. I've had drivers accelerate toward me and pass me with 1-2' of space. Way too close.
My rule, as a driver is simple: never accelerate toward a pedestrian. That means I have to stay on the break until they are not in front of me.
The law, btw, says that you can't go into the crosswalk until the pedestrian is has made it onto the sidewalk. At least, in CA that is the law. I was warned once, by a LEO about this.
There seems to be something about being cocooned in a thousand or so kilos of steel and glass that causes people to forget that some of the things outside of your moving box aren't just obstacles to get around, they're actually sentient beings that deserve to be treated with courtesy and respect.
Cops all drive into the city from Long Island. They don't understand how New Yorkers actually live and get around; to them a bike lane is a curiosity for weirdos who like to get around on a child's vehicle.
Getting change in this regard will require either very serious change in how cops are regulated, or a change in cops' mindsets regarding cars and bikes. Not sure which I'd bet on happening first.
In the Netherlands the bike lanes are usually separated from the car lanes, so you'd have car lane - car parking - bike line - sidewalk. Much safer and also prevents people parking on the bike lane.
In Europe there are separate traffic lights for bicycles that turn green a few second earlier than the car traffic lights. This adds a lot of safety since the bikes have time to get past the first car in line. I think a lot of accidents where the car turns right and overlooks a bike in the blind spot can be prevented through this measure.
> I think a lot of accidents where the car turns right and overlooks a bike in the blind spot can be prevented through [the separate bike signal] measure.
This can also be prevented by not trying to pass right turning vehicles on the right and only pass them on their left.
Typically the car passes the bike which is riding to the right. Then the car turns right directly in front of the bike. Forgetting it was there, even though they just swerved around it.
That's because the driver believes the cyclist is going much slower than they actually are, but this can be mitigated by taking the lane when approaching an intersection such that the driver of the faster vehicle will make the turn from the same lane the cyclist is in.
But there's another scenario where a cyclist is passing traffic on the right and then gets right-hooked by a vehicle making a right turn.
So, you’re on your bike, in dense traffic. Even if all of them are already indicating direction, how do you know whether you’ll be next to a car wanting to turn right by the time you reach the junction? How do you even get from the right of a row of cars to the left of it in slow moving (⇒ short distances between cars) traffic? How do you get back to the right of the cars after making a turn?
> how do you know whether you’ll be next to a car wanting to turn right by the time you reach the junction?
Prior to the junction, you move into the center of the lane corresponding to your intended direction. If you plan to go straight, you get behind the vehicles that are going to make a right turn or go straight. Depending on how dense traffic is, you'll have to do this further in advance from the intersection. A lot of the time, you'll find that gaps are created in traffic by traffic lights. You can use one of those gaps to easily change lanes in advance for example.
The problem with the NACTO guidelines for this design is that cyclists are hidden by parked vehicles until shortly before the intersection, so, if a cyclist is approaching from behind the motorist, it's not possible for the motorist to see the cyclist before they start making their turn.
Even with the curb extension, according to their example and measuring the distances in the provided diagrams on pages 12 and 13, a motorist will only be able to see roughly 8 feet down the cycle lane. That won't work when the cyclist is traveling at about 16 feet per second. The typical reaction time for something not completely expected is at least 1 to 1.5 seconds. The document also makes the assumption that the cyclist will yield to the car in that case, but many of them assume they have the right of way and that the motorist will stop prior to a collision.
The other problem is that current US law and driver education states that drivers must make their turns as close to the edge of the road/curb as practicable and yield to pedestrians. They don't say anything about treating cyclists as pedestrians, and they do say that cyclists are considered vehicles and have all the rights and duties of vehicle operators (meaning they're expected to follow the rules of the road).
In contrast, Dutch law and driver education is complementary to the intersection design you reference. But you're not going to change the law and driver education/training overnight.
"Prior to the junction, you move into the center of the lane corresponding to your intended direction"
Aha! You assumed that there are multiple lanes. That wasn't explicit in "This can also be prevented by not trying to pass right turning vehicles on the right and only pass them on their left"
I read that as "ride in the same lane as the cars, but pass them on their left".
I still think that's way scarier than the Dutch approach where nobody needs eyes in their back to detect each other, just eyes that can look in front of you.
Having separate cycle lanes, as this will, also solves the "driver education states that drivers must make their turns as close to the edge of the road/curb as practicable" problem.
It won't solve the problem of "cyclist is traveling at about 16 feet per second", but those cyclists, IMO, are suicidal, if they do so in places where they can't know things will end up OK.
>> "Prior to the junction, you move into the center of the lane corresponding to your intended direction
> You assumed that there are multiple lanes.
No, I didn't. If there's a single lane, then you ride in the center of it. If there are multiple lanes, then you use the leftmost lane for a left turn, the rightmost lane for a right turn, and the lane in the middle for going straight.
> I read that as "ride in the same lane as the cars, but pass them on their left".
By ride in the same lane, I mean in serial (one after the other), not parallel (two vehicles besides each other). So, if the car ahead of you is turning right, you would end up passing them on their left as they leave the lane to proceed onto the intersecting road. If the car is behind you, they would simply make the right turn behind you while you're traversing the junction. Under no circumstance would a car be parallel to you on your left and take a right turn while crossing your path straight through the junction.
> I still think that's way scarier than the Dutch approach where nobody needs eyes in their back to detect each other,
No one needs that. That's why vehicles are equipped with mirrors and why it's illegal to turn from a lane that's not the left or right most lane (other than dual turn lanes).
> Having separate cycle lanes, as this will, also solves the "driver education states that drivers must make their turns as close to the edge of the road/curb as practicable" problem.
Drivers already do that. Normally the right most lane is considered as far right as practicable for the purpose of making a right turn, but putting cycle lanes to the right of right turning traffic actually causes the turning conflict problem.
> It won't solve the problem of "cyclist is traveling at about 16 feet per second", but those cyclists, IMO, are suicidal,
16 feet per second is about 10 mph which is about 16 km/h. I don't think that's a suicidal speed and is actually relatively slow from a transportation point of view. My own bicycle commute is about 15 miles (24 km) long and I average about 11 mph (18 km/h). If I only rode at a speed less than 16 km/h, I would not be able to complete the commute in a reasonable period of time.
On the road itself, it's quite safe to traverse junctions at 25 mph (40 km/h).
"Prior to the junction, you move into the center of the lane corresponding to your intended direction"
Aha! You assumed that there are multiple lanes. That wasn't explicit in "This can also be prevented by not trying to pass right turning vehicles on the right and only pass them on their left"
I read that as "ride in the same lane as the cars, but pass them on their left".
I still think that's way scarier than the Dutch approach where nobody needs eyes in their back to detect each other, just eyes that can look in front of you.
Having separate cycle lanes, as this will, also solves the "driver education states that drivers must make their turns as close to the edge of the road/curb as practicable" problem.
> Prior to the junction, you move into the center of the lane corresponding to your intended direction.
Over here in the netherlands we're phasing these out, crossing traffic at a diagonal like that means that drivers will need to look almost 180 degrees behind them to spot you. It's a fine solution if there's only one lane of cars, but as soon as there's more than one lane merging movements just make it plain too dangerous.
I believe you misunderstood what I was trying to convey. What I was saying was that the cyclist should change lanes to the one corresponding to their desired direction of travel through the junction (like one would do when in a car or on a motorcycle).
> means that drivers will need to look almost 180 degrees behind them to spot you.
You're right, crossing isn't the right word here. The point largely stands though: merging into a lane of car traffic is dangerous as a cyclist.
> Why couldn't they use their mirrors?
They can, but don't. People look in their mirrors for cars, not for cyclists. This is the same problem as cars overtaking cyclists and then making a right turn as if the cyclist isn't there.
In general you want to separate traffic that goes as different speeds. There's no good reason to mix bicycle traffic into car traffic: there are alternative solutions that avoid doing so.
> merging into a lane of car traffic is dangerous as a cyclist.
Not really. You really only need to check your mirror, then look back and be certain drivers approaching from the rear see you and slow down. Only then should you change lanes.
> People look in their mirrors for cars, not for cyclists.
That would only apply if the cyclist was overtaking (which isn't a common situation). Besides, motorcyclists ride in traffic and Ste seen.
> In general you want to separate traffic that goes as different speeds.
Limited access highways/motorways accommodate traffic going at significantly different speeds. For example, on uphill grades, trucks can be going as slow as 60 km/h whole faster traffic is going 120 km/h. On the unlimited sections of the Autobahn, trucks are limited to 80 km/h and faster traffic may be going around 150 km/h.
Given those examples, there should be no issue with cyclists going 15 to 40 km/h among faster traffic going 30 to 80 km/h.
> There's no good reason to mix bicycle traffic into car traffic: there are alternative solutions that avoid doing so.
The only solution that would work is a completely separate path with infrequent intersections and little to no pedestrians.
Once there are frequent intersections, then there are conflicts unless separate traffic signals with exclusive phases are used (which leads to more delays and noncompliance).
Side paths van work at lower speeds (15 km/h or less), but those speeds won't work for the distances people need to travel unless they're willing to invest significantly more time in traveling compared to other modes of transportation other than walking.
For example, my bicycle commute in the afternoon involves riding from work to my childrens' school, picking them up, taking them to an after school program, and then riding back home. The total distance I have to cover is 15 miles. While moving, I average about 11 mph. My lowest speed up hills is about 5 mph. My top does downhill is about 27 mph. Almost all of my commute is on roads with traffic where I take the lane while riding.
If I rode at 16 km/h or less on this commute, them I would never be able to get the kids to their destination on time.
So, from a transportation point of view, using the roads where I can ride at higher speed safely is the best and safest option.
NYC has these as well. 8th Ave has a separate protected bike line for a large part of midtown down to the west village and the bike Lanes does have its own green light. I personally haven't seen it elsewhere but wouldn't be surprised if there were more
> I can't tell you how many times i've almost been hit, or doored, by a car.
Do you try to pass right turning vehicles on the right or left turning vehicles on the left? If you're at risk for getting doored, then you need to ride further away from parked vehicles (at least 6 feet away).
This doesn’t do anything when cars decide to park in your bike lane anyways, and your bike lane has maybe a foot clearance to traffic in the other side.
It’s also an interesting attitude, that cars are so much more important than bikes that it’s not car drivers who should check the road when opening their door, but bikers who should lose the 6 feet of street space near parked cars which is the only semi-safe place for bikes in New York
> This doesn’t do anything when cars decide to park in your bike lane anyways
When there's a stopped vehicle in the lane you're in, you can simply check for traffic in the next lane and switch lanes.
> your bike lane has maybe a foot clearance to traffic in the other side.
You're not restricted to the bike lane if there's an obstruction.
> that cars are so much more important than bikes that it’s not car drivers who should check the road when opening their door
No one is saying that they shouldn't check before opening their door, but I am saying that you can eliminate the risk of being doored if you ride far enough away from parked vehicles. It's far easier to take responsibility for your own safety than to rely on others to do it for you.
> but bikers who should lose the 6 feet of street space near parked cars which is the only semi-safe place for bikes in New York
Riding in the door zone is not safe, period. It's safer to just ride in the general purpose traffic lane far enough away from parked vehicles. There's a reason why drivers of motor vehicles don't typically drive in the door zone.
> When there's a stopped vehicle in the lane you're in, you can simply check for traffic in the next lane and switch lanes.
> You're not restricted to the bike lane if there's an obstruction.
These comments proves my whole second point. If a car were to just park in the car lane because it felt like it, there would be outrage, tickets, and the car would get towed immediately. Nobody would say "no big deal, just change lanes". But when a biker says "I don't like using the street because it's dangerous", it's just dismissed like this.
You also ignore that bikers DO just change lanes into the street, which can be quite dangerous somewhere like New York. I don't know if you've ever ridden a bike in New York, but drivers, especially taxis, are at best ignorant of you and often antagonistic. There's a reason bike lanes exist in the first place, and it's because the car lanes are dangerous.
> It's far easier to take responsibility for your own safety than to rely on others to do it for you
Imagine somebody saying this when a car driver complains about somebody else running a red light, or cutting them off in a lane - you would get laughed out of the room. But when drivers act dangerously towards a biker it's the biker who should be taking responsibility.
When bikers do all the terrible biker things like roll through stop signs, or "act like pedestrians", or roll to the front of the line, that IS taking our own safety into our hands by doing legally dubious things that make biking much safer, yet everybody hates that as well.
> There's a reason why drivers of motor vehicles don't typically drive in the door zone.
Have you ever been in New York? Plenty of car lanes themselves are near the door zone, not to mention bike lanes themselves ARE the door zone usually.
I don't mean to be aggressive, but the endless victim blaming towards bicyclists gets really tiresome. I really wish that people who just dismiss these complaints out of hand would bike to work in NYC for just a week.
You're arguing past the GP. They're saying "here's some practical tips, in the real world, at this point in space time, to stay safe while riding a bicycle". And you're talking about how that sucks, and it shouldn't have to be that way. Ok right, it shouldn't. But that's how it is. Do you want to ride a bicycle safely or not?
> If a car were to just park in the car lane because it felt like it, there would be outrage, tickets, and the car would get towed immediately.
And drivers of those cars would switch lanes to get around it in the interim. Cars can develop mechanical issues that prevent them from proceeding and if they driver can't get to the side of the road, then they remain in the general purpose traffic lane (which isn't for the exclusive use of cars).
> But when a biker says "I don't like using the street because it's dangerous", it's just dismissed like this.
What's dangerous about changing lanes after checking for traffic in the adjacent lane? People do this all the time while driving cars, trucks and motorcycles. Why would it be any different when on a bicycle?
> There's a reason bike lanes exist in the first place, and it's because the car lanes are dangerous.
According to NY state law, they exist so that cyclists do not interfere with traffic[1]. It's not for safety. It's just to keep cyclists out of the way.
> Imagine somebody saying this when a car driver complains about somebody else running a red light
When I drive a car or ride a bike, I check for approaching traffic when I enter an intersection. This is out of self-preservation. People are going to screw up (whether intentionally or not). But if you can avoid a collision regardless of what someone else did, then that's a far better alternative.
> When bikers do all the terrible biker things like roll through stop signs, or "act like pedestrians", or roll to the front of the line, that IS taking our own safety
No, that's for the cyclist's convenience. If everyone followed the same set of rules, then everyone's actions are predictable and there would be fewer conflicts and lower risk of collision. Imagine if drivers of motor vehicles started following the same strategy you mentioned. They can justify it by saying they needed to stay out of the way of the bus and they saved time as well.
> Plenty of car lanes themselves are near the door zone, not to mention bike lanes themselves ARE the door zone usually.
If other lanes are present, then drivers stay out of the door zone. That is always true when there is a door zone bike lane.
> I don't mean to be aggressive, but the endless victim blaming
Providing advice in order to prevent others from becoming victims is not victim blaming.
This is definitely not victim blaming. It is sound advice based on the usual flow of traffic and the uniform vehicle code.
Bike lanes of various types are experimental parallel transport systems dropped into an existing system with which most people have experience and education. The bizarre undertaking on the inside and right-hook problems at intersections are completely predictable.
A lane that instructs you to ride in the door zone should be ignored. It's safer to ride in the center of the general purpose lane that's far enough from parked vehicles to avoid the risk of getting doored. Your safety is far more important than someone else's convenience.
> The dangers came into focus this year after 25 cyclists were killed on city streets — the highest toll in two decades.
The "highest toll in two decades" gives some context, but I wish writers would share ratio metrics rather than absolute numbers in cases like this. I.e. the number of active cyclists on the road might be outpacing the deaths, but we don't know when you just say "25 cyclists were killed in 2019." Also, how does that stack up to the number of pedestrians killed accidentally, etc.
You're making an emotional argument while the parent comment wants to see actual data devoid of emotion. Emotion can be a great persuasive tactic to convince people there is a problem, but it doesn't do much to actually solve the problem.
Don’t be purposely dull. Yes the value of the issue depends on how dangerous bicycling is relative to other things. That’s no surprise. 1:100,000,000 != 1:100
A better pespective: people are people. They aren't drivers or bikers but just people. And the same person is a driver on one day and a biker on another.
Guess what, drivers are also notorious for not following traffic rules -- not using blinkers, not stopping fully at a stop sign, driving above speed limits, running a light after it's already turned red -- thereby endangering the lives of others.
It's not about whose fault things are -- it's just people being people. It's about designing a system and incentives that saves lives overall (driver's licenses, bike lanes, speed limits, ticketing, etc.).
> And the same person is a driver on one day and a biker on another.
Yes, but cyclists try to act like pedestrians and move at speeds typical of vehicles. Pedestrians typically move between 2 to 6 mph. Cyclists move between 10 to 30 mph.
While a motorist can see a pedestrian approaching a crosswalk and yield to them, it's much harder for them to see a cyclist in time to yield to them because of how much faster they move.
Also, if cyclists switch between pedestrian mode and vehicle mode constantly, it makes it much harder to predict what they will do for both motorists and pedestrians. When people can't predict what will happen, then a collision is much more likely.
It's not productive to lump every cyclist together, or every driver together. At the end of the day, people are people, and some people who happen to be cyclist are shitty, while others who happen to be drivers are assholes. But that doesn't mean ALL cyclists are assholes, or all drivers.
I never said that all cyclists, motorists, or pedestrians are "assholes". I just said that if a cyclist tries to act like a pedestrian at cyclist speed, then collisions (with pedestrians and/or motorists) are more likely.
You used if by the end of your comment, but it literally starts with "Yes, but cyclists try to act like pedestrians and move at speeds typical of vehicles."
I see this question come up all the time and the answer is that on average, fewer than one person per year dies due to a collision with a bicycle in NYC.
In fact 5 of the last 8 years had zero pedestrian deaths due to collisions with cyclists. [1]
Cyclists in NYC (and I imagine most cities) do not, and have never had, a history of "endangering the lives of others."
Not saying it's a high probability, especially as compared to motor vehicles, but to state the opposite -- cyclists don't have a history of endangering the lives of others -- is also false. They can and do kill pedestrians.
The person you are replying to didn't say it's impossible for a cyclist to kill a pedestrian, just that it doesn't happen very often. They cited a statistic, you found an anecdote to counter. The disconnect seems to be around the word history. You're taking it to mean "something that's ever occurred", where as the person above is taken it to mean "something that is a common occurrence".
Again, his exact statement was: "Cyclists in NYC (and I imagine most cities) do not, and have never had, a history of 'endangering the lives of others.'"
He's stating unequivocally that cyclists do not have -- and have never had -- a history of endangering the lives of others.
They kill people. I certainly call that endangering the lives of others.
They don't kill a lot of people. Neither do sharks -- in the US they only kill about 1 person a year. That doesn't mean sharks are not dangerous or don't have a history of endangering people.
If you or he want to make a statement about the low probability of such an event -- fine. Or compare cyclists to far more dangerous motor vehicles, also fine. But to say that cyclists don't and have never endangered pedestrians is not factually accurate.
"A history". As I said, you are interpreting that word differently than they are. I think it's valid to interpret "a history" to mean "something that happens with some amount of frequency". I also suppose it's valid to interpret "a history" as "something that's every happened".
At the end, you write "don't and have never never endangered", which is something only you are saying.
A history = means a history, not a low probability history, not a high probability history, just a history. You seem to be creating requirements for a "a history" to "needs to happen with a certain frequency." Even 1 time would be a history, altho cyclists kill more people than that.
It's not something "only I am saying." Cyclists have a history of endangering pedestrians...it's a low probability event but by any rational definition of "history" it's a track record aka history.
Not sure why people are so eager to defend cyclists they're willing to overlook the fact that they can and do endanger pedestrians and now -- in your case -- pretend they have no "history" of doing so because it's not happening often enough for your satisfaction.
And it looks like this parent comment was deleted and this thread is now detached -- I'm assuming the moderators also had a problem with that original statement.
I feel I can answer this anecdotally, as well as put it in some context.
As a pedestrian I have been struck by a delivery bike running a red light exactly twice. The more egregious incident: I assumed he was going to stop, he decided he was not going to stop. Frogger ensued. I was flattened. He also went down and yelled at me. We were both "fine" other than getting a little bit of NYC on us. I know a couple of people have died from these guys, but I don't think it is a significant number.
The real problem IS the cars generally, but the semi-regulated taxis specifically.
As a biker I have been struck by a car also, exactly twice. Both times by a non medallion wearing driver, both on my way from the bike rack on 53rd to port authority (~11 super short blocks), both I was inside the bike lane on 9th avenue. One on instance the driver blindly turned without a blinker from the not turn lane. I saw it happening, but citibikes aren't known for how reliable their brakes are, and we collided at a VERY low speed. I was able to hop off before I fell. The bigger issue on 9th avenue is the turn lanes that are IN the bike lane... The other time I was hit, I was side swiped as the driver decided to not look that I was in the lane. I had my umbrella in hand as I was being side swiped and was swinging it against his driver window. He then flipped me off and pull further into the lane. Knocking me into another biker and we both went down.
I know these are anecdotal, but the 11 blocks I would ride a citi bike could have killed me twice in 2 years. I have been almost killed 0 times by delivery bikes in NYC for the thousands of miles I walked. I will side with bikers over cars in NYC any day of the week.
> The more egregious incident: I assumed he was going to stop, he decided he was not going to stop.
People look at me crazy when I say I feel safer around scooters than bicycles and this is why. Cycling inertia makes you super-reluctant to slow down or stop. Whereas with scooters all you have to do is twist the throttle to speed back up.
I'll take 100 cyclists gliding through a red over a single motorist doing the same. While not literally impossible to kill someone else by using a bike wrong, it's orders of magnitude less likely than with a car.
You're being down-voted for the tone of your post I think. But I think it's an interesting point. If there is evidence that US bikers have a culture that does not following traffic laws that can and should seriously impact policy decisions. It's possible some of the great suggestions here that work well in other cities wouldn't work in the US for this or any dozen of other reasons.
Not saying that there for is such a culture, only that it is certainly a popular complaint, and if there is truth for it we should factor that into our decisions.
I'm only familiar with the US. If I had to speculate, it's probably better in countries with better bike infrastructure.
I know personally I only break traffic laws when I feel it's subjectively safer for me as a cyclist to do so. There is a legal push in some places for the [Idaho stop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop), which seeks to make this behavior legal in the name of safety.
Even when America traffic engineers mean well, they screw up bike infrastructure terribly. They get all the details wrong. Generally their designs are too complicated, too cheap, and rely on paint instead of common sense about how bikes actually work. However, good design is possible. There’s even a book that explains how to do it well, in case anyone actually cares:
One thing I like about the newer NYC bike lanes is they put them inside of parked cars. It means you’re generally protected from traffic by a row of parked cars. And there’s a large enough buffer that you don’t have to worry about getting hit by an open door.
According to https://nacto.org/publication/urban-bikeway-design-guide/don..., they claim that a driver making a right turn around a curb can react to a cyclist moving at 16 feet per second approaching from behind while only being able to see about 8.2 feet to their right. Half a second is well under the average reaction time for a driver who may not be aware that the bike lane is present on the other side of parked vehicles. For example: https://imgur.com/a/JcS4RK5
Some (but not nearly enough) intersections have split-phase rights, with a green bike light and a red vehicle turn arrow at the start of the light cycle, which then changes to a red bike light and green vehicle turn arrow towards the end of the light cycle.
This is a huge problem in Austin. There are certain protected bike lanes that I won't use because drivers have no visibility and won't yield to cyclists anywhere near as often as they should even when the visibility is good.
My own bike commute where I pick up the kids from school and drop them off at after school activities involves about 15 miles of riding. I average about 11 mph while moving and it takes me about 1 hour and 30 minutes (including the time it takes me to pick them up, load them in the trailer, unload them and drop them off. My lowest speed up hills is around 5 mph and my top speed is around 27 mph when going downhill.
If I were to only go 12 mph or less, then my average speed would be significantly lower and I would not be able to complete this commute in a reasonable period of time, nor would I be able to get my kids to their after school programs on time.
Infrastructure like what the Dutch have is not suitable or safe for the speeds I ride, but taking the lane on the actual road works out just fine.
The "horrifying" crash mentioned in the article is indeed horrifying. I bike a lot in NYC (consistently for 10+ years now) and I think I am pretty cautious and defensive. But there's absolutely nothing the guy could have done in the video.
I linked it below because its a good reminder that your fate is never 100% in your hands.
As a pedestrian in SF, I'm _always_ keeping my eyes peeled for bullshit like this, esp. when I'm standing on the corner like that other fella was (he could easily have been taken out instead). It just takes one idiot to ruin your day / life. I usually try to keep at least one somewhat substantial object (post / utility box) between me and the road.. but otherwise I'm keeping an eye out for an errant turn or red-light runner in case I need to book it.
Another thing I'd like to see are narrower roads along with wider sidewalks.. hopefully that would somewhat help deter speeding like in the above video.
I purposely avoid intersections on big streets and go round about. That’s the one thing in your hands. The intersections of big roads are always very dangerous.
> To gain Mr. de Blasio’s support, Mr. Johnson’s office agreed to push back the start date for the first streets plan, from this month to December 2021, around the time the next mayor takes office. Until then, the city will keep its current commitment to build 30 miles of protected bike lanes each year.
Yup. de Blasio clearly doesn't care about this because he's not even doing it during his term. And it could all easily be canceled and not ever happen depending on who the next mayor ends up being (I'm pulling for Corey Johnson personally).
This news isn't nearly as good as it appears at first blush; de Blasio is completely abdicating his duty.
I'm amazed at some of the places where there are no bike lanes. For example, on 7th avenue between 34th and 30th--going past MSG/Penn Station, the bike lanes simply disappear. It's a five lane road and one of the most heavily trafficked in the city. There's lanes North and South but not on the throughway. Who's idea was that?
Instead of putting rinky-dink unprotected lanes on all these minor roads, they should lay out fewer, uninterrupted, protected through-ways that travel the length of the city. There's a few that run up and downtown but hardly any that run east-west.
It's insane that a large part of our public infrastructure is reserved for free private car storage. It's important that these lanes are protected because without barriers the bike lanes would become obstructed by parked cars.
The biggest offenders are actually cops and delivery vehicles, both of which are legally allowed to park wherever they want (the latter due to contracts with the city).
I've been thinking about starting a cyclist-oriented "neighborhood watch" type organization because the police don't do much anything about violence against cyclists, much less more "minor" issues like parking in the bike lane. At the very least volunteers could document things like this properly.
Here are some examples of what I'd like to see a neighborhood watch organization do:
Proper investigations of crashes, near crashes, and violence against cyclists. The police generally don't care.
Keeping statistics. Those Twitter accounts are okay, but in my experience the police will often say things like "we had no reported incidents there" when I know that some were reported. I think having an independent database would be valuable.
Tracking down repeat offenders and giving them a talking to, and/or hosting an online wall-of-shame.
Helping cyclists handle bureaucracy, which seems to be designed to discourage people in my experience.
I have the uneasy feeling that police will never look into cyclist accidents very seriously. Way too many cyclists disobeying the rules, weaving through traffic, wandering from sidewalks to street and back again, ignoring signals, and on and on.
Sure I bet we all obey the rules. But there's that overwhelming mass of cyclists that don't, it will be hard to interest police in trying to separate the incidents.
I've looked at the statistics and cyclists don't break the law significantly more than drivers do. Drivers break different laws that are socially acceptable to break, like speeding.
But even the most pessimistic estimate of the probability of cyclists running reds linked to above (79%) isn't that much worse than drivers speeding. And in my experience, it's actually quite rare for a cyclist to blow through a red light without checking for oncoming traffic. Typically when a cyclist runs a red light, it's safe. (Not that you should do it.) I think speeding is much worse from a safety perspective.
That's perhaps the least dangerous of the bicycle maneuvers. Its the dashing from lane to lane, from street to sidewalk and back, into and out of blind spots unexpectedly that makes bicycles a hazard to themselves.
My main issue recently has been with delivery trucks. They're bigger (thus block the bike lane completely), and they tend to be in the bike lane for a much longer period of time than FHVs/taxis.
I've started blocking delivery truck drivers back. I'll stand directly in front of their passenger side door to block them from returning to their vehicle (not touching their vehicle). Some drivers seem really irritated to have to walk into the road, which just shows that they know their parking is dangerous to cyclists. The goal is to add time to their delivery, as I think they only park in the bike lane to save time. I think if enough cyclists did this then delivery truck drivers might start to avoid the bike lanes.
They're not actually "protected" in the sense of what protected means in the traffic engineering profession. Protected is supposed to be used for things like traffic signal phases (like a green arrow indicating a protected left turn phase). Ironically, when one of those "protected" bike lanes crosses an intersection, there often isn't a protected intersection phase for the cyclist via a traffic signal.
I think the issue is that sometimes the lanes are wide enough for cars to drive down them, and so unless you out in some targeted barriers with too little spacing between for cars to fit, some drivers will absolutely go down them, and cops generally don't care overmuch.
Former road cyclist chiming in. I've been a regular bicycle commuter for over 10 years. Earlier this year I was hit by a motorist who demonstrated extreme lack of judgement when passing me earlier this year, leading to some injuries that will probably mostly heal in another year or so. I seriously dodged a bullet and recognize how lucky I've been doing what I was doing.
In short, my platform now is that meatbag-controlled multi-ton steel boxes hurling along at up to 60mph and meatbags sitting on top of some tubes stuck together don't belong on the same infrastructure. It will never work.
I am categorically opposed to bike lanes delimited only by some paint on the ground. If it is physically possible for a motor vehicle to occupy a space designated for a bicycle, it isn't safe. It won't work. The marginal increase in bicyclist safety isn't nearly enough. Any lobbying to try to build that type of bicycle infrastructure out is a distraction from what actually needs to be lobbied for. By consenting to bike lanes, the government has an "out." They can say that they are "doing something" for bicyclists, so it's a fair deal, and their job is done.
In reality, it isn't anywhere close to fair, and the job isn't anywhere close to done.
Until bicycle tracks completely separated from vehicular traffic are ubiquitous across all major metropolitan areas of the United States, the country won't be able to begin to claw its way out of its self-inflicted transportation apocalypse. Anybody who attempts to commute by car during rush hour in a major United States metropolitan area knows what I'm talking about. Millions are wasting away years of human life and productivity stuck in their cars in stop-and-go traffic every single day.
There needs to be a will to spend billions, not millions, on infrastructure only for pedestrians and bicyclists. Something on the scale of the the Federal Aid Highway Acts of 1921 and 1956 needs to happen today, in 2019.
Congress needs to authorize federal funds to create something on the magnitude of 50,000 miles of paved separate cycle/pedestrian tracks. There needs to be a National Urban Mobility Trust Fund with a $100 billion infusion, for starters. I for one will demand nothing less, and I won't ever stop demanding it.
We need to stop messing around with these in-the-trenches, one-city-council-at-a-time battles that bicyclist clubs are trying to fight to eek out their pathetic and ineffective lines of paint on the road.
Is there any sound comparison of protected bike lanes vs., for instance, 30kp/h zones with mixed bike/car traffic and sensible spacing? When cycling I find the cramped and the fast streets the most dangerous. And the pedestrians that cross into bikelanes. And slippery surfaces.
So from my very private pov (I go around 25 to 30kph) there are much cheaper methods that I would want to give a try firat.
Mixing zones I'm sure are fine in some areas, but a lot of potential cyclists (like the very old and very young) are going to be intimidated by being with cars, period. Unless you heavily road diet the place with speed humps and other traffic calming measures, to the point where it's super obnoxious to drive in, at which point what is the point of still having cars there?
The Netherlands is probably Example #1, and IIRC they commonly have mixing zones for streets right in the city center that are rather pedestrianized, outside of that you'll mostly see separates bike lanes/paths.
Right. Low speed limits themselves are insufficient. You need to design or modify the road such that it actually feels like you have to go that slowly.
In my experience, cars actually go pretty slow in NY (Manhattan at least), even when there’s not a lot of traffic. I’m usually able to easily keep up with traffic on my bike.
This is definitely not true on the multi-lane avenues. You're thinking of the single-lane streets.
One good solution for the avenues would be to time their rolling green waves for an average of 15 mph. They just recently started doing this in Brooklyn on a particularly dangerous road.
So you're referring to a few particular avenues in one neighborhood during rush hour.
I'm just pointing out that that's hardly indicative of the overall speed of traffic across Manhattan at all times. Vehicles go fast on the avenues when they can, definitely faster than you would want to try to keep up with on a bike.
I find that HGVs and busses are the main danger, they have huge blind spots right where cyclists are. Traffic in cities usually isn't fast enough for a big speed differential.
Something along the lines of "if it ain't broke don't fix it"
While this logic isn't best when applied to safety, that is unfortunately the way many people and companies look at safety and sometimes it takes a tragedy to get improvements.
I am a big motorsports fan, and in 1994, two drivers were killed in one weekend of Formula 1, including world champion Aryton Senna.
Lots of effort went into making the sport safer after these accidents and it would be another 20 years before the next death
They don't. If I make a change that prevents a death you will never know about it. If I make that change in response to a death you will hear about it, thus biasing you into thinking I don't care until there are no deaths. In reality though sometimes you need an actual situation to happen before you can imagine that failure most. Trying to guess how your widget could kill something before their are any deaths is hard. (in some cases you can look at existing widgets, but there is always something new)
Quite right. Also, trying to prevent harm through prediction is vastly more expensive than trying a product out in the market, and gets more expensive the more harm you try to prevent. It also causes product development paralysis, as deeper predictive scenario analysis results in longer design times and design lock-down ahead of product release, reducing agility.
While we might want all products and designs to be safe, in reality, we can only economically do so much before the cost of predictably assuring safety becomes exponential. See NASA.
The deaths are the very evidence that the system is unsafe and needs fixing. Until people die, a safe system and an unsafe system look very similar to all but the most trained eyes.
That is a market issue. The industry, public, and media do not believe the warnings unless there is a body count. By then it is becomes really hard to fix.
Deaths are a huge political liability even if they weren't a financial one, and would still effect change. I'm part of Transportation Alternatives, who has been advocating/lobbying/protesting very effectively for increased safety infrastructure in the wake of all these cyclist deaths. No financial liabilities involved.
They don't. Safety is often prioritized without deaths. Safety is sometimes prioritized even without any real danger (like with the so-typical "think of the children" argument).
Because you don't win points for prevention of hypothetical harm. See: vaccine "debate". Pro-vaccine policies saved millions of people who are alive right now, but you can't run on a pro-vaccine platform until people start dying again.
You can run a pro-vax platform - if the populace is not too dumb and uneducated. Anyone with a slice of a brain understands that anti-vaxx is a deadly game.
The problem is that (not only in the US!) education funding has gone way downhill and the "free speech!!!" absolutist crowd does not realize that truly free speech depends on an audience intelligent enough to separate facts from quackery (such as homeopathy, antivaxx and bleach enemas) or fascism - in a totally free-speech society with a dumb populace the profiteers will exploit whatever they can.
And yes, I am of the opinion that antivaxxers and other quackers should be jailed, for they are a danger to public health.
I don't disagree with everything you said, but suggesting people should be jailed for misunderstanding scientific facts is a pretty obviously disastrous position to take.
Who is the arbiter of the truth? What about people who are sincerely misinformed and well-intentioned?
Free speech laws in the US seem to strike a good balance: if you're selling a product under false pretenses, you can be sued. If you're just publishing content, you can't be sued.
Sorry, but antivaxxers, homeopaths and quackers telling drinking bleach drives out intestinal worms don't "misunderstand science". They spread, knowingly, lies.
> Who is the arbiter of the truth?
Why does a fact need an arbiter in the first place? It is general scientific consensus that vaccines do not cause autism, that homeopathy is placebo at best, and that the "worms" that people excrete after drinking bleach is their intestinal lining. And for heaven's sake the earth is a globe, not a flat pizza. Everyone has a right to be an absolute moron, but it should not be allowed to knowingly spread dangerous lies. Democratic discourse requires facts as foundation, not lies.
> What about people who are sincerely misinformed and well-intentioned?
Reeducation camps? I don't care about people too dumb to accept science. Sarcasm aside, I do not see a realistic way on how to re-integrate people brainwashed by conspiracy crap over years back into democratic discourse that does not at the same time build a system that can easily be abused by fascists. And this is a problem.
> if you're selling a product under false pretenses, you can be sued. If you're just publishing content, you can't be sued.
The people selling bleach cannot be prosecuted. They sell bleach, a perfectly legal product. The people who say that bleach kills autism cannot be prosecuted either, because "free speech". Meanwhile, parents are pumping their children full with bleach because they are afraid of "autism". I would prefer a system where no child has to suffer bleach enemas because their dumb-as-rocks-parents fell victim to quackers - I would prefer a system where these quackers are locked up before their speech leads to direct quantifiable suffering.
The problem with this argument is the assumption that “smart people” with whom you agree will be the ones policing speech. This is rarely the case.
This is also why fascists themselves are the ones who tend to embrace violence and censorship; fascism isn’t typically capable of surviving in an otherwise free and peaceful society.
I moved from NYC to Amsterdam a bit more than a month ago because getting around in NYC is too unpleasant and dangerous. Have been hit on my bike thrice in 5 yrs. Have been run down by psycho drivers. Have been doored.
In the last month in Amsterdam I’ve had more pleasant interactions on the streets than in my entire time in nyc. It’s pure magic what cities are like when they embrace the fact that they are a city.
NYC just sucks, man. Left overseas after five years myself, and I sometimes watch ActionKid's NYC walking videos on youtube and cannot believe I used to live there.
I don't have any numbers, but my impression is that it's mostly turns, although there's also a big problem with people getting "doored" (which would easily be solved by putting bike lanes between parking lanes and sidewalks, instead of between parking lanes and automobile lanes).
I signal turns with my arm when biking, especially left turns. Otherwise I would be slowing and moving unpredictably, which doesn't seem safe. Unfortunately this isn't common behavior in NYC - even cars often fail to signal their turns, let alone cyclists.
I'm not sure what the distribution is, but definitely both. I've been hit in an intersection, funny enough, by a police officer, who just turned right, crossing into the bike lane, t-boning me. A few months ago, I saw a truck completely just run over a bicyclist, killing her on 6th ave, and not even stop [1].
Often times, protected bike lanes are still very unsafe. 6th and 1st Avenues are a prime example, where trucks park to the right of the bike lane, and unload in the bike lane, forcing cyclists to suddenly merge into aggressive traffic.
It doesn't say it directly, but it appears that heavy vehicles turning (right) at an intersection are a relatively common setup for fatalities. Unfortunately separate bike lanes don't help there.
I read the article you cite and the section in question is 4.5 blocks long. And the project included drainage, street lights on the far side away from the bike lane, paving the whole road, sidewalks, etc.
The Seattle city-wide average was $2mm/mile.
Very informative article, and it is completely different from what I thought I'd read based on your summary.
This [1] is a good overview of the general costs and trade-offs of various kinds of bike lanes in the US. Some benchmarks to get a feel for ballpark numbers [2] for US cities to start an analysis in your area. Basically in built-up areas in the US, options are pretty limited without overwhelming public demand for ejecting car drivers from an area in favor of pedestrian and cycling traffic.
I'm still looking for what it looks like when a city design favors pedestrian, cycling, e-assisted human-powered/assisted mechanisms (e-bikes, scooters, Segways, skateboards, skates, etc.) traffic, then on-call PRT-to-GRT-scale people/cargo/freight movers within neighborhood-scale distances in dense (40-50,000 people per sq km) developments, subways for inter-neighborhood connections, and vehicles are restricted to the city borders (kind of like restricting specific traffic at the network border) for large-scale commercial cargo and passenger transport.
I'd like to see a breakdown of where the capex and opex expenses come from for elevated and subterranean bike lanes. Building up and down seems currently a significant cost barrier.
Seems like they redid the whole street, sidewalks, street lamps, etc for those $12 million, and bike lane was just an excuse to do all that work. But yes, everything here is much more expensive than it should be. The "city overhead" itself was just above $1M.
As the articles goes on to point out, only that single section in the entire project will be that expensive, and that includes a lot of city upgrades that were otherwise needed and rolled into this (like new lighting, adding additional drainage, upgraded sidewalks, and new crosswalks).
To be honest the project sounds fantastic and I hope they keep at it. If they're able to roll in other upgrades at the same time, so much the better. The 12m figure is borderline clickbait (even if it is technically true).
With more bikes because of bike lanes, I hope the city will begin enforcing bike infractions more seriously. So many people on bikes are going way too fast in the bike lanes (and pedestrian pathways) and do not stop at red lights, etc. I was happy to see a person get stopped and ticketed for riding down a walkway to a bike path when there was a sign explicitly stating that riding on the path was not allowed.
I've seen so many pedestrians hit by people on bikes, in bike lanes that did not stop at red while someone was crossing the walk. It's invariably a Lance Armstrong type or a tourist on a City Bike with no idea what they are doing.
With the loss of revenue from parking tickets it will have to be made up somewhere and people on bikes should be the targets for fines. There should also be stricter requirements on registering bikes for a fee to be used in the city with unlicensed bikes being fined.
What is too fast? Why shouldn't bikes be able to go fast in bike lanes?
> With the loss of revenue from parking tickets it will have to be made up somewhere
How much can be made up from fewer vehicles causing less damage to roads decreasing the maintenance budget? (A study found road damage proportional to the 4th power of weight https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AASHO_Road_Test)
> So many people on bikes are going way too fast in the bike lanes (and pedestrian pathways)
This goes to show that bike infrastructure isn't practical for transportation. If you can't really use that infrastructure at speeds much faster than a pedestrian (3 to 6 mph), then it will take too long to get anywhere other than for the shortest trips. On the other hand, it's quite easy to safely go 10 to 30 mph on the actual road itself while taking the lane.
Lost revenue from parking tickets. The city is in a very precarious situation right now with debt of 81k per resident and high tax paying citizens leaving the city faster than they are being replaced. Pension obligations are exploding and since 1% of the population funds 50% of the tax revenue, we can’t afford to lose anymore.
Building bike lanes is very kumbaya but these types of things are not sustainable as-is. Someone has to pay for it, why not the ones that use it? Make it great to attract more bikers and raise more money.
Or maybe just raise taxes on the place with the highest tax burden in the country? Will only chase out the small group of people that actually pay the bills even more.
I suppose we could also setup red light cameras for bikes but this would require registrations and license plates. The alternative is to tax bike sales.
Cyclists already pay for their infrastructure and then some. Why do you want them to subsidize drivers more than they already do? Why do you want to incentivize a form of transportation that's more polluting and dangerous and expensive for everyone involved?
You're not going to make significant revenue off of bikes, and in any case switching trips to bikes saves cities money. If more money is needed for infrastructure in general, that's what property and sales and income taxes are for.
If you don't live in NYC you should know that a lot of bicycles in NYC are delivery guys riding electrified bicycles that go up to 20MpH. Many of them don't wear helmets and ride dangerously. I don't have anything to back this tip but the raise of deaths can be linked to raise of electric bicycles
It's more they they habitually run red lights and go the wrong way. It's very easy to not see them coming from a direction that a car can't come from when they're obscured by parked vehicles.
My reading of NYC data links motor vehicles to deaths and injuries: From mid 2012 to mid 2019, there were 940 reports of a crash with a bike as the primary vehicle and 1+ pedestrians injured. In the same time period, there were 69776 reports of a crash without bicycle as primary vehicle injuring 1+ pedestrians.
I'll second this. Many of them are fine but there are a lot of jack @$$3s out there on ebikes not considering they now have a motor powering their bikes.
This will get more people on bicycles, which will almost certainly make the problem worse, unfortunately. No amount of lane protection prevents collisions in intersections, which is where nearly all the deaths happen. The problem isn't the amount of protected lanes; it's the rampant amount of comically unqualified drivers. The two tearjerkers from the article are typical: an 18 year old blowing a red light and someone driving without a license.
That just means they add bicycle setbacks in an attempt to scare drivers. It doesn't solve the problem when people are routinely allowed to drive without demonstrating an understanding of how a traffic light is supposed to be interpreted.
It does partially solve the problem. Protected intersections make lanes of walking and biking much more obvious to drivers, and the curbs are such that drivers slow down more and have better visibility.
Except for the fact that the bike lane is hidden by parked cars until shortly before getting to the intersection. What do you see in this image: https://imgur.com/a/JcS4RK5
The other thing is that if you go by the figures and text in https://nacto.org/publication/urban-bikeway-design-guide/don... on pages 12 and 13, you'll find that a right turning driver can only see about 8.2 feet to their right when making a turn. That's the only opportunity they have to see an approaching cyclist who comes from behind them moving at 16 feet per second.
A half second to react to a cyclist appearing in the driver's field of view (as shown as the picture on page 13) is not enough time for a driver to yield.
Not all protected bike lanes are parking protected. Don't think this is common in the Netherlands. Parking protected is better than having bikes on the other side of parked cars, but yes visibility is less than ideal.
Anyway, you're ignoring the other two things I pointed out about protected intersections. It makes the bike lane itself more obvious, and the curb design forces drivers to slow down more.
> Parking protected is better than having bikes on the other side of parked cars, but yes visibility is less than ideal.
Without visibility, the motorist and cyclist could be on a collision course and not even know it until it's too late.
On the other hand, if the cyclist is on the road in the middle of the general purpose traffic lane, the motorist will see them in advance and either change lanes to pass or slow down and wait until it's safe to do so. At intersections there won't be any turning conflicts because the turning motorist is either directly in front or directly behind the cyclist (meaning the motorist won't cross the path of the cyclist when making their turn).
The fact is that the vast majority of motorist/cyclist collisions occur at intersections, so it makes more sense to cycle in a way such that you're visible to other drivers between intersections and follow the vehicle traffic rules when proceeding through one.
> Without visibility, the motorist and cyclist could be on a collision course and not even know it until it's too late.
No. You don't seem to understand how protected intersections work. The design of the intersection itself forces cars to slow down quite a lot to make the turn. You can see this here: https://images.app.goo.gl/XnppCCtEhs8vdgd39
Plus, generally you make the parking lane end a bit before the actual intersection, precisely to improve visibility.
Anyway, as I said, parking protected is not the ideal situation anyway. It's a compromise with municipalities that aren't ready to give up more street parking in the interest of safety.
What you're describing is vehicular cycling, which has been a complete failure. There are zero countries that use it with high rates of safe biking, whereas there are a bunch of countries that use protected lanes and intersections with success that directly correlates with how much they're used, with the Netherlands being the foremost example.
> No. You don't seem to understand how protected intersections work.
I'm well aware of how NACTO[1] claims they work.
> The design of the intersection itself forces cars to slow down quite a lot to make the turn.
According to NACTO, they make drivers slow down to about 10 mph to make a right turn (see page 11, paragraph 2, sentence 1).
> Plus, generally you make the parking lane end a bit before the actual intersection, precisely to improve visibility.
This doesn't address the case where a cyclist approaches the motorist from behind from the motorist's point of view. In other words, the only time the motorist will have a chance to see the cyclist is when they're in the process of making a right turn. We can't assume that the cyclist will yield to a motorist or even be paying attention to the adjacent roadway (think of an 8 year old cyclist who doesn't have the concept of how intersections work).
The document makes the assumption that a cyclist will traverse 50 feet in 3 seconds (about 16.67 feet per second which is about 11.4 mph). On page 13, they have a figure depicting the motorist's field of view as they make their way around a protected at a speed of around 10 mph.
If you measure the bikeway setback line shown on page 12 and compare it with the horizontal measurement from the drivers field of view cone (from the origin to the left most extent), you'll find that the driver can only see about 8.2 feet down the bikeway.
Remember that both the cyclist and the car are traveling at a speed of around 15 feet per second. Also, the average reaction time of someone who's not expecting an event is around 1 to 1.5 seconds. This means that the motorist will not have enough time to see the cyclist in order to yield to them. The picture right below it showing the cyclist entering the intersection makes that evident.
> What you're describing is vehicular cycling, which has been a complete failure.
Vehicular cycling is the safest way to cycle in the current environment and addresses the problems of intersection conflicts by positioning the cyclist right in front of the motorist who will have no trouble seeing them well in advance of catching up to them.
The sidepath type intersection actually increases conflicts due to lack of visibility as I described above.
I dont really want to hurt people’s feelings but why do we care about this topic so much? I am kind of confused about why people are so passionate about bike lanes. Isn't it better if we focus on improving the subway and the bus lines before anything?
I would like to see an open minded discussion about the pros and cons of this.
Bikes are good/useful in a number of ways. They're a form of individual transport, like walking or driving, with the advantages that that has over public transport -- namely, less waiting, point to point, not beholden to a schedule that might not match your schedule -- and they slot in nicely between walking and driving as a compromise between the strengths and weaknesses of both. Much faster and longer range than walking, more cargo capacity, but still much cheaper than driving, and without most of the issues cars have with things like generating noise, pollution, and danger.
Bikes are also healthy for people, and they're certainly more space-efficient than cars. Oh, and they're vastly less expensive for the city as well; building subways is enormously capital intensive, and buses have high ongoing operating expenses. Good quality bike infrastructure isn't exactly cheap...except that compared to high quality car or transit infrastructure, yeah it is relatively cheap.
So, altogether, replacing car space with bike space makes a ton of sense, especially for a city as dense as NYC. Sure, bus and subways improvements should happen too, but there's so much car space that's wasteful, and bike stuff is so cheap, that it's really low hanging fruit. No good reason not to develop it.
It's easier to get around on bikes than walking. The easier "not using a car in an urban area" is, the better.
Building bike lanes can also be used for scooters and other kinds of non-auto transport.
Finally, mass transit is an order of magnitude more difficult to plan and implement, as effective MT needs to not only coexist with vehicles, but pre-empt them at intersections. Otherwise, they're slow and no one uses them.
Most cities in the US will never have a subway, so the only option is light-rail or protected bus lanes.
I am reminded of this comic, where bike and transit advocates fighting each other for scraps of money and attention as much as physical space: https://i.redd.it/4nf27uf5dri11.jpg
I do think there is overlap in bike lane interest and public transit. TransAlt's mission, for example, "is to reclaim New York City's streets from the automobile and advocate for better bicycling, walking, and public transit for all New Yorkers." I'm pretty sure they were helpers on the 14th St bus way pilot.
The US is in a fortunate position with regards to public transportation. It doesn't need to invent anything new at all to dramatically improve its position: copy the things in Europe and places like Japan that work. It makes it all the more annoying that we're lagging so hard on the copying when it's so obvious.
Didn't read because of the paywall, but I question if these changes will go far because of the long winters, and where the bike lanes will be. Again, I didn't read the article, but if the 250 miles are in areas that are not in a congested area of the city they will do no good (a bike lane from Austin to Dallas is 250 miles, but would be used infrequently).
New York is really lagging behind where it should be. Despite being by far the biggest American city, it is overrun with cars. Protected bike lanes, street improvements to make crossing the street safer, and dedicated bus lanes will improve the city for all New Yorkers. If these changes take off in New York, they will trickle down to the rest of American cities.
New York is marveled at for being such a safe big city from the standpoint of crime, but when you factor in all of the carnage caused by cars, it’s a lot less safe than you might think.
Violent crime has been falling across the country, but pedestrian and bicyclist deaths have been surging. This is a sign of some very bad policy making. Walking should be one of the safest and healthiest things a person can do.