
Rethinking Streets for Bikes - dsego
http://rethinkingstreets.com/
======
crote
I quickly read through this. Context: I'm Dutch and live in Utrecht, The
Netherlands.

This booklet has one massive flaw: it is constructed using American best-
practices. At best, a couple of examples could be considered almost
acceptable. Most of them were woefully inadequate and consist of little more
than a blob of quickly-fading green paint in ill-considered positions. Worst
of all, several examples are clearly flawed, and to me seem even more
dangerous than not having any infrastructure at all.

If the goal is to show to unimaginative people that it is indeed physically
possible to create something resembling bike infrastructure, then it will do
fine. But if you're trying to actually create a good, safe, well-used cycling
network, then this is not the way to do it.

If you want good examples, go visit something like
[https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/](https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/) .
This booklet almost reads as if it was written by someone who has only heard
about cycling infrastructure, but never actually lived in a city which has it.
The intention is there, but there's an even longer way to go.

Some trivial stuff to change:

\- Add green dye to the asphalt instead of adding a layer of green paint. This
means that it will not fade. \- Color the whole cycle path, not just a few
small parts of it. You're trying to create a continuous network, remember? \-
Don't use a zebra-crossing style striping at crossings. A continuous green bar
would be way easier to see and interpret as something to stop for. \- Don't
create turn boxes. They are always in dangerous positions and there are better
alternatives.

But most important of all: don't just add cycle paths to your main car roads.
You wouldn't add a sidewalk and crosswalk to an interstate, would you? Create
the main cycle routes on secondary streets, and make them unattractive for
cars.

~~~
syndacks
I recently visited Amsterdam and was blown away by the cycling infrastructure
there (I live in NYC and cycle daily).

I realized, though, that unlike many American cities, Amsterdam came of age
way before the automobile. The US has a fetish with cars.

Therefore, it's impossible to compare the two countries' cycling
infrastructures. The link you shared is so far beyond anything we have in the
US; you can't simply say "this is how it should be done".

Instead, we have to start somewhere small and make incremental changes until a
tipping point ocurrs. Add more bike lanes, introduce bike share programs, etc.
Since I've lived in NYC the amount of cyclists has increased steadily. I'm
hopeful this trend will occur as programs like OP are continually introduced.

Overall I agree with you, I just think the historical contexts are
fundamentally different. American cities will approach Amsterdam...in a few
hundred years :)

~~~
welder
> I realized, though, that unlike many American cities, Amsterdam came of age
> way before the automobile. The US has a fetish with cars.

No, Amsterdam also loved cars. It was activism that turned it into a bicycle
heaven.

[https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam-
bic...](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam-bicycle-
capital-world-transport-cycling-kindermoord)

~~~
icebraining
See also
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY6PQAI4TZE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY6PQAI4TZE),
about the Amsterdam neighbourhood De Pijp fight for a play street without cars
in 1972.

~~~
Udik
Thank you for this link. I moved to Amsterdam less than three years ago, and
the difference between what is shown in the video and how the whole city is
now is just unbelievable. It's a testament and a lesson on how it's possible
to really vastly transform things for better, with time and will.

Hemonystraat, one of the streets cited in the video, now:

[https://www.google.it/maps/@52.3567496,4.9026422,3a,58.5y,13...](https://www.google.it/maps/@52.3567496,4.9026422,3a,58.5y,137.85h,87.62t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1ses9alBsdaQ6J6U_BonNvHQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

------
cletus
So when I last visited Perth, I bought a bicycle and rode around a lot. Google
Maps was helpful here in showing where the bike paths are. While other people
might feel fine riding in traffic I never have and probably never will.
Honestly I just don't trust drivers, particularly in this era of smartphones.

Anyway, there are vast differences in what people view as a bike path. Take
Reid Highway as an example [1]. Those strips on either side of the road are
the bike path. This is a highway with a speed limit of 90kph (~55mph), which
probably means people are really going 120kph on what is essentially the hard
shoulder.

There's no way in hell I'd ride on that. Personally I considered something
like this stretch of Morley Drive [2] to be a good standard of biking
infrastructure, for several reasons:

1\. Wide bike path separated from the road

2\. The road has a wide median strip. I can't tell you how much this helps in
crossing busy roads.

3\. The bike path isn't right up against the walls of residential properties.
This can be a real nightmare for visibility of cars pulling out.

4\. Bike paths shouldn't be clogged with pedestrian traffic either as in if
it's a busy pedestrian area, have a separate pedestrian path.

Personally I just like to find long residential streets with minimal busy road
crossings. You can fly down those things and don't have to second guess what
cars are doing most of the time.

As for America in particular, I've said it once and I'll say it again the most
anti-cyclist (and anti-pedestrian) rule is the ability to turn right at a red
light and it's almost universal in the country. Even in places where it's
technically illegal (eg the five boroughs of NYC) you have people who either
don't know or don't care (eg once I told some driver fairly calmly after they
did it and stopped at the traffic 50 feet down the road that it was illegal in
NYC they told me to go F myself).

[1] [https://goo.gl/maps/MfLB58HyZHJ2](https://goo.gl/maps/MfLB58HyZHJ2)

[2] [https://goo.gl/maps/wAnsF4HUqPA2](https://goo.gl/maps/wAnsF4HUqPA2)

------
ilaksh
Designing to accommodate bikes is the right direction but I wonder if a city
could be designed to have a actual physical separation between large vehicles
and small ones. Just because of the physics people on bikes are likely to be
injured or killed by much larger cars in the event of a collision.

~~~
twblalock
The places where people ride bikes en masse, like Amsterdam, have physical
separation. Very few people want to have cars whizzing by a few feet from
their elbows. If you want people to seriously consider cycling as anything
other than a hobby you need physical separation of bicycles from cars.

Unfortunately cycling advocacy organizations in the United States tend to be
opposed to physical separation.

~~~
ams6110
Why is that? I've seen that: dedicated, separated bike paths are unused, and
cyclists continue to ride in the street with the cars.

~~~
brippalcharrid
Cycle lanes tend to be designed for speeds below that which a cyclist of even
average ability is capable (otherwise, they would tend to more closely
resemble roads).

Sheltered from motorised traffic, they cater to a wider age, experience and
ability range, and the fact that they are typically narrower than roads
exacerbates problems that arise from mixed-ability/experience users sharing
same facility.

Features of cycle lanes[1] tend to put cyclists in closer proximity to
pedestrians than they would be on a road, and this creates a lack of physical
and psychological separation that further reduces practical speed (and
utility). They also create new challenges such as situations[2] requiring a
cyclist to observe a 270°-arc on the approach to a junction. In the last
example, it doesn't matter if I have right of way, and it doesn't matter if
I'm wearing a helmet; all it takes is a motorist not to be paying attention or
to misjudge my speed and I could be the victim of a fatal accident, and that's
not a risk that I'm willing to take.

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/CkAxcE5.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/CkAxcE5.jpg) [2]
[https://i.imgur.com/0q9PadV.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/0q9PadV.jpg)

~~~
ndnxhs
Those multi use paths in my city are almost all full of people on their
phones. You basically have to go at walking pace.

~~~
crote
Or yell loudly at them. If the bike paths are obvious, people will quickly get
used to them, especially if they themselves also bike on them regularly.

But multi-use paths where pedestrians mix with cyclists should be avoided at
all costs.

------
choeger
Is anyone catching the irony that building cities for bikes is pretty much
like building cities for cars, just in a somewhat smaller scale? You need fast
lanes, parking lots, bad weather handling, crossings, cross roads, etc.

Will we in 20 years have even denser cities and then try to ban the bikes?

How about fighting the trend to ever denser cities? Allow for three or four
story buildings and leave it at that. Demand lots of space between buildings.
Build intelligent subways. And plant some effing trees now and then.

~~~
crote
What is ironic about it? There are already pedestrian-only zones in many
cities, aren't there?

Ironically, the aim should be towards the opposite you're suggesting. By
increasing the density and removing space between buildings, you are creating
a city where it is more viable to use bikes or walking as your main mode of
transportation. Subways are useless if your final destination isn't easily
walkable from your stop. Your goal shouldn't be to create a city for cars,
your goal should be to create a city where it is easy to get somewhere.

I do mostly agree with the three or four story height, though. This is the
proper height to use for most suburb-style developments, higher is only really
needed in the CBD.

------
mises
I appreciate a lot of the ideas of accommodating bikes, and think it's a
laudable goal. But it's not practical everywhere.

As an example, I have lived in Houston in the past for some time. It is huge -
I commuted roughly 20 miles each way. That's not "bikeable". And not everyone
goes to the same place. Some work downtown, but not nearly as many as you'd
think. The energy corridor is in an entirely separate area. Many people work
in the Woodlands. Some people have jobs out in Katy. Some work in the
industrial areas or near the ship channel.

And don't even get me started on the heat. Nobody wants to bike when it's 95
degrees out, even if you can shower once you reach your destination.

Many of the proposed solutions are centered around cities like New York: small
metropolitan areas to which everyone commutes with at least reasonable weather
and with reasonable distances. It's also very difficult to design good public
transportation for such a city as I described, especially since many of the
places I listed are technically different cities.

With that said, I would be interested in hearing ideas for how to solve a
problem like this. I and friends of mine have debated how to solve such an
issue before, and come away without an answer. If someone has an idea, let me
know.

~~~
crote
You're completely right, most cities just aren't built for cycling.

The solution is probably zoning. First, create smaller zones, resulting in
more diversity. Second, allow some light commercial use inside residential
areas. Ideally, stores like small supermarkets should always be within a
20-minute walking distance inside towns or cities. Third, create denser plots:
discourage single-story buildings, leave less space empty on the plots, and
create narrower roads.

The problem is the conversion, but it's doable over a longer period of time.
If the proper laws are in place, this is probably doable over a year or 50-75.

~~~
ListeningPie
Shortening the distances is not enough to solve the heat problem, when being
outside 5 minutes with moderate motion resulting in needing a shower.

~~~
mises
Exactly. Many people don't realize that Houston is not just hot but humid. How
much water would all those extra changes of clothes use? All those extra
showers?

------
porlune
Interesting, and a bit cyclical - roads were originally "smoothed" in the 19th
century because of lobbying from cyclist organizations.

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-
blog/2011/aug/1...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-
blog/2011/aug/15/cyclists-paved-way-for-roads)

Note: the obvious pun wasn't intentional, but I'm leaving it in because it's a
pun.

------
jdavis703
This might sound pedanatic but I hate when transportation choices are framed
as for cars or for bikes. Transportation is for people. Talking about and
designing our street infrastructure as if it’s designed for machines like cars
and bikes leads us to designing systems that aren’t very friendly to humans
(one needs to look no further than the ever increasing incidents of deaths for
people walking or riding a bike).

~~~
cletus
I'm not sure what the point of your comment is to be honest. Transportation
choices are made between different modes of transportation all the time.
There's no universally good option.

Take NYC where light changes happen about every 45 seconds. This is necessary
for pedestrians to be able to get anywhere and because the blocks are fairly
narrow (in the north-south direction) in Manhattan.

I've visited the Bay Area many times and it's a nightmare as a pedestrian. You
need to cross, say, Castro and El Camino Real and you might be waiting 3+
minutes for the light change to cross those 6 lanes of traffic (and you
probably have to be on your guard for inattentive drivers turning right at red
lights even when you have right-of-way.

I used to walk back to Mountain View from the Google campus along Shoreline in
the afternoons. That's where the on ramp is onto 101 South and it uses a
light-less system (I don't believe it's a full clover leaf?). Crossing that on
ramp to continue down Shoreline was essentially an exercise in waiting for
some driver to take pity on you to let you cross.

Clearly a choice has been made in favour of cars.

Urban planners also go out of their way to restrict traffic to 20mph in
pedestrian-heavy areas by narrowing lanes and decreasing distances between
lights because there's a huge increase in injuries and death to pedestrians by
going 30mph.

So a choice is made in favour of pedestrians here.

~~~
jdavis703
Examples of bad design thinking from the report:

* Decorative bike racks that make securing a bike more difficult.

* An expectation that people will feel comfortable riding feet away from vehicles traveling 35-40 MPH

* Shrugging off increased injuries on one redesigned street.

------
sunstone
One of the issues here is that it's very likely that e-bikes will start to
dominate regular bikes in near future. Because of their fast acceleration they
may well be more suited to the roads that cars currently dominate than to the
typical "bike lane" environment. Certainly the difference between an e-bike
and a regular bike is much bigger than would be expected at first glance.

Last year the Dutch bought more e-bikes than 'normal' bikes. And in terms of
the euro total amount it was even much more. [1]

[1][https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/01/bike-
country-n...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/01/bike-
country-n0-1-dutch-electric-record-numbers-e-bikes-netherlands)

~~~
crote
The difference isn't that big in The Netherlands. Legally, e-bikes are limited
to 15mph, and the electric motor can only provide assistance. Faster pedelecs
are classified as mopeds and are mostly not allowed on bike paths for obvious
safety reasons.

In practice, I've not yet noticed this domination. Getting passed by an e-bike
does happen, but it's not very common.

~~~
sunstone
It may seem contrary to common sense but e-bikes primarily replace a car,
rather than a regular bike, for running chores within the range of about
10-15km. It's the range, and lack effort (sweat) that is compelling rather
than its speed.

------
csmeder
Here is a moon shot idea for US cities, by 2050:

1\. All car streets need to be under ground in tunnels

2\. All vehicles must be 100% electric

3\. Over ground traffic is limited to: walking, wheel chairs, bikes, scooters
and wide load special permit vehicles.

Forget Trump’s plan for going to the moon another time, can we do this
instead?

~~~
Misdicorl
The waste and cost of putting even a small percentage of road miles
underground is truly astounding. This isn't comparable to going to the moon.
It's comparable to turning every single family home into a thirty story
skyscraper.

------
ListeningPie
Why do journalists continue to compare American cities to Copenhagen or
Amsterdam when it comes to bicycle infrastructure and safety? I argue it is
primarily the climate followed by size.

In Denmark the climate is mild, with few hot summer days and even fewer snow
days that would make bicycling impossible. Comparing Boston average
temperatures to Copenhagen, Jan-Feb on average are 4 degrees C lower and July-
Aug are 7 degrees C hotter [1][2] in Boston. Then there are lists of America's
worst bicycling cities ranking Dallas, TX at the top, where average July-Aug
highs are 15 degrees higher than in Copenhagen [3]. Climate wise the cities
are very different.

If you can't bike to work everyday because of the weather then infrastructure
of bikes cannot replace car infrastructure. In Denmark bicycle infrastructure
can replace car infrastructure because the climate makes it possible to bike
work every month of the year. In even mild climate cities like Boston it
becomes much harder to be dependent on bicycles with hotter summers and colder
winters.

That's looking at the climate. Next, the Boston Urban area is 4.600 sq km with
4 million people, whereas Copenhagen is only 606 sq km with 1.6 million people
[Wikipedia]. Some back of the napkin calculations would make average travel
distances 3 times greater in Boston.

Because of the differences in climate, size and population between Copenhagen
and Boston, I do not consider bicycles a viable solution for Boston's
transport challenges and I extend this line of thinking to most American
Metropolitan centers.

[1]
[https://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php3?s=90527&cit...](https://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php3?s=90527&cityname=Boston-
Massachusetts-United-States-of-America)

[2]
[https://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php3?s=8160&city...](https://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php3?s=8160&cityname=Copenhagen
--United-States-of-America)

[3]
[https://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php3?s=95227&cit...](https://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php3?s=95227&cityname=Dallas-
Texas-United-States-of-America)

~~~
desas
> Why do journalists continue to compare American cities to Copenhagen or
> Amsterdam when it comes to bicycle infrastructure and safety? I argue it is
> primarily the climate followed by size.

Because they're the world leaders and something to aspire too

------
maddyboo
Dave Amos, one of the authors of this publication, has a YouTube channel
called City Beautiful [1] in which he covers issues around urban planning. It
is absolutely worth a watch.

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGc8ZVCsrR3dAuhvUbkbToQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGc8ZVCsrR3dAuhvUbkbToQ)

------
newshorts
I drove to the office 5 days last year. My bicycle is my primary form of
transportation and I have to say, it’s a wonderful way to live.

I doubt the US or local states/cities will properly implement bicycle
infrastructure anytime soon. Imaginative or not there’s just too much money to
be made by having everyone purchase cars.

------
provolone
Bike lanes in the US have always been in the areas where it is more dangerous
to ride. The mere presence of a bike lane instead of an undecorated shoulder
seems to confuse many as to what is possible or acceptable.

Riding and moving at speed with traffic will always be safer than getting
boxed in.

Bike only trails are typically filled with weaving inline-skaters, people
walking four abreast, and other hazards. Again, you're safer and faster when
you stick to the roads.

This typifies the attitude of "there aught to be a law" held by individuals
(usually those who have no intention of cycling seriously) waiting for the
state to take action and spend money to solve a non-problem.

The self-starter's solution is to take action and build up your cycling
skills.

------
provolone
How safe does 80mph freeway traffic feel for novice drivers?

Cycling is incredibly dangerous according to many here, but is it more
dangerous than heart disease?

------
jonnycomputer
so annoying that i have to register to download the pdf. ugh.

------
inamberclad
Looks like the full text is behind a paywall

~~~
crote
For "Rethinking streets with bikes":

Fill in any values on the form, they are for tracking purposes only. No mail
confirmation or payment required.

For "Rethinking streets":

The download link sends you to a registration form, but you can fill in any
random email address - no confirmation is sent and it directs you to the
download page at
[http://www.rethinkingstreets.com/download.html](http://www.rethinkingstreets.com/download.html)
.

