

With Free Bikes, Challenging Car Culture on Campus - robg
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/20/education/20bikes.html?pagewanted=all

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vlad
The nice thing about cars is that drivers of automobiles don't usually drive
on the sidewalk at speeds up to 25mph in crowded areas while talking on the
cellphone at the same time. Or if they did, they would at least get fined.

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silentbicycle
Yeah, some people on bikes are incredibly inconsiderate, but the _bike_ isn't
the problem. If more people rode bikes, the social norms about where to ride /
not to ride would be better understood, and the social pressures would be
clearer. This sort of thing also happened when cars where new, though then
people actually _got killed_ instead of just annoyed. See Clay McShane's _Down
the Asphalt Path_ ([http://books.google.com/books?id=hoFKI-
yodUQC&pg=RA1-PA1...](http://books.google.com/books?id=hoFKI-
yodUQC&pg=RA1-PA176&dq=cars+hitting+pedestrians+%22new+york%22+italian++neighborhoods&ei=cez9SNqgMIHwMpSh2cML))

Similarly, people who don't know about how to ride bikes safely are far more
likely to ride against traffic, weaving in and out of parking lanes and
sidewalks, etc. Most people in the US have had no education about how to ride
a bike in traffic safely, because riding bikes as transportation has never
really been a mainstream thing. (Even two or three one-hour classes and
showing people how to fix a flat tire would go a long way, I think.)

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vlad
I agree with you! And I've seen less of the behavior I've mentioned; I'm just
wondering if it's because bikers are starting to get ticketed, or if bikers
have been in near-accidents and have become more careful. Colleges and large
companies should definitely hold sessions on safety.

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silentbicycle
It's probably both happening in tandem -- it seems to be a gradual social
change, in part due to rising gas prices. A noticeable percentage of college
students have biked around for years, but it seems to have increased
significantly over the last few years, and I see significantly more people
biking around downtown Grand Rapids, MI in general.

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anamax
Bikes are over-rated as campus transport.

A large fraction, perhaps even most, trips are in the company of someone else.
Often said someone does not have a bike. As a result, the combination is the
slowest of both worlds - the bike has to be unlocked and locked at the ends of
the trip and the distance is travelled at walking speed.

Note that the unlock/lock time exceeds the time saving from extra speed on
short trips.

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dzorz
I need max. 15 seconds to unlock the bike and start riding it. You say you
can't be 30s faster on a bike than someone travelling at walking speed, even
for short distances? I guess you can't only if it is 30s walking distance.

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anamax
> You say you can't be 30s faster on a bike than someone travelling at walking
> speed, even for short distances?

If you're more than 2-3x faster than pedestrians, you're a danger unless
you're separated from them, and bicyclists are rarely separated enough on a
college campus.

1mph is 264ft/minute. Reasonable walking speed is about 3mph, or over
750ft/minute. A safe bicyclist will cover that distance in about 20 sec,
saving at most 10 sec.

Meanwhile, the walkers had a conversation.

And, since students have 10 minutes between classes, the time saving of faster
transport doesn't buy them anything even if they're going 1,500ft..

That's why students who own bikes don't use them all that much. They're only
useful to/from campus and for long-hauls.

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silentbicycle
Agreed, though the to/from campus trips are worth keeping in mind.

Also, bikes need more maneuvering space than pedestrians. Not as much as
rollerbladers, though. (Don't get me started...)

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silentbicycle
There's a major incentive for the university that the article completely
misses -- parking (spaces, security for lots, dealing with on-campus traffic
jams, etc.) for the entire student body can be surprisingly expensive. I
wonder how that compares _over four years_ to the cost of one $480 bike. Also,
if they're buying a bike for every student, they're probably paying quite a
bit less than retail.

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biohacker42
It gets damn cold in Maine in winter.

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silentbicycle
So wear a coat (and a scarf and gloves). If you're on a bike, your blood is
pumping, and you're probably generating far more heat than the people sitting
in cars waiting for the windshield to defrost.

I've biked through four or five Michigan winters so far. It's really not a big
deal if you dress sensibly.

