I have a pretty strong anti-cycling stance, because I watched my New York neighborhood that was a pedestrian paradise significantly degraded by bike lanes. The balance of walking, subways, busses, taxis and delivery trucks had worked pretty well. Bicyclists introduced the concept of failing to yield, then acting indignant and entitled.
> I have a pretty strong anti-cycling stance, because I watched my New York neighborhood that was a pedestrian paradise significantly degraded by bike lanes.
A car driver, a cyclist and a pedestrian walk into a café and order ten cream cakes. When the waitress places them on their table the car driver grabs nine of them and scoffs them in his face, then he leans over to the pedestrian and whispers: “don’t let the cyclist take your one”.
The problem here is not the cyclist -- though that's for sure a dick move -- but the lack of proper space for cyclists to exist. There'll be seventy-two lanes for cars, and maybe one cycle lane which'll end up occupied by parked cars anyways.
e: Actually, not going to get into it but c'mon - cars kill pedestrians in a way that bikes rarely do and removing the cars from your NY neighborhood would have an obviously better impact on pedestrians compared to the bikes.
As a New Yorker, with cars on the road I have a reasonable expectation of where they might be coming from or what direction they're headed (ie, they're following traffic laws). With bikes, they can (and do!) come from any direction, on the sidewalk, riding the wrong way on the road, wrong way in the bike lanes, etc. These bikes could be considered as motorcycles (ebike designation is a legal one), they often go 20mph or faster by delivery drivers with little consideration of pedestrian safety, and you really don't know where or how you might encounter one so your head needs to be on swivel as pedestrian in NYC.
That said, I'm still pro-bike and acknowledge that cars are much more dangerous for pedestrians, just I'd like to see the delivery bike / ebike problems fixed.
I think with e-bikes we've entered a new equilibrium that will take some time to shake out. It used to be that the fastest bikers on the road were usually the most experienced, this is no longer the case and as a street biker I have noticed it causing more danger.
Where I live e-bikes haven't caught up yet. I need to be mindful of that people get scared of me biking fast close to them on the sidewalk, even though I'm experienced and know that there's no danger. A bike without motors is enough steerable that it doesn't pose any real danger for anyone imho.
Cyclists in NYC are positive menace. They don’t need to be but they choose go the wrong way down one way streets, routinely ignore all traffic signals, ride on busy sidewalks and eschew bike lanes to weave in and out of heavy traffic. Well under 50% wear helmets.
As a pedestrian in NYC I feel far more endangered by bikes than I do by automobiles. There is room for cyclists, but there has got to be some compliance with rules.
This is the exact opposite of what the article is saying. When somebody is deciding whether to walk or drive to their destination, they don't pull up a scientific journal and consult the latest studies, they think about whether it feels safe and dignified. If you ignore the perceived threat of cyclists whizzing every which way while ignoring all traffic laws, you'll find fewer people choosing to walk and have no idea why.
That isn't why it's a bad idea at all; people don't walk and instead drive because walking "feels" unsafe. Legislate changes to make walking "feel" safer and people will walk instead of drive, and then will be safer because the changes will be things like separated walkways from cars, more guarded pedestrian crossings, road design which slows traffic, and more people walking will mean fewer cars on the road.
But bikers are not a large reason people aren't pedestrians.
I agree that a certain level of abstraction 'feel' is important, but we shouldn't legislate by 'feel' about how people 'feel' about bikes, that is one level of 'feel' too many.
> But bikers are not a large reason people aren't pedestrians.
They are a significant piece of the reason in NYC, although car-centric road design is a larger piece.
You and several other commenters continue to ignore people pointing out seriously problems that are localized in NYC by quoting stats that are for the entire country.
And that risk is mitigated by traffic rules, separation of pedestrian v. vehicular traffic, etc. That goes out the window when you have a category of vehicles that routinely ignores those mitigations.
I don’t see too many cars mounting sidewalks as I do bikes and scooters do (daily occurrence, not to mention 220+ pound guys who ride around on cheap underpowered scooters in the street), but yeah anecdotal data.
Helmets don’t help - cycle helmet is rated to save you from a fall or from hitting a tree. It’s basically useless when hitting a vehicle, and that’s 95% of cyclist deaths. You’d have to wear a full motorcycle helmet.
> weave in and out of heavy traffic
I’ve seen that too. But I’ve never seen it happen in an area with segregated cycle way.
1) I certainly don’t want to die. I also simply don’t want to get hit.
2) Bicycle/pedestrian are under reported.
3) I am specifically referring to my experience in Manhattan. In large portions of Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx I think my attitude would be different.
(Also thanks for the link - poking around the DOT site they have some great information. Surprised to see how many pedestrian fatalities involved alcohol — on the part of the pedestrian!)
One is not a consequence of the other. However, the first is an observation in support of the idea that in general many cyclists eschew rules including those that exist for their own safety.
I don’t think helmets make you any safer on a bike. At least now to a relevant degree.
I remember reading that it actively makes you less safe because people wearing a helmet trust it to protect them, when in reality, basically any collision with a car will crush them.
> basically any collision with a car will crush the
Orrery, bicycle helmet only protects you from hitting the ground /a tree at normal cycling speeds. It does not help you if you hit a car at speed.
NYC bike messengers. And rollerbladers. Not sure how it is now, but in the late 90's they were exactly as the other poster described. Fail to yield, swerving in front of buses and flipping off the drivers if they honked. Utter contempt for everyone else. I was in far more danger of getting injured by them than any vehicle, and this was Manhattan traffic.
Plenty of stories of grandmas getting knocked down by rollers and bikers in Central Park back then too.
Honking within urban areas is forbidden unless used to prevent immediate danger (well, in France anyway).
Honking for "educational purpose", ie to yell at someone, is a major nuisance. Every honk annoys dozens of people around the driver, wakes up babies and so on.
> The woman at the center of that case, Helen D. Immelt, had been raising chickens in Snohomish County, Wash., apparently in violation of her local homeowners association covenants. A neighbor complained, and Ms. Immelt, according to court documents, drove over at 6 a.m. and applied some free-speech payback.
The Pacific Northwest has always had a libertarian streak, I doubt this would be ruled permissible in other states.
It's cultural. In India and other places in Asia, honking is just to say "hey, I'm here, did you see me?" and prevent an accident, but it happens so frequently that sitting in traffic is a cacaphony of honking at all times. In (my part of) the US, honking is to express displeasure at whatever it is the other driver did, and is infrequent. In other places, they might as well not install a horn, because it never gets used.
It's used much the same in NYC and some other than areas. A quick tap to say "hey I'm here and I'm doing something" like changing lanes or pulling out of traffic
Aside: I really wish cars had two different horns. A nice little boop horn, to say "hey I'm here" or "lights green buddy" and then the big honking thing that says "you nearly hit me by rolling through that stop sign, pay better attention"
If you want to expand your mind, travel to south east Asia or India for a bit and see a different way of how billions of people live and drive every day.
I've done it. I've got a little loud speaker that plays a soft awooga sound when I press a button, but it would be nice to have a factory option, or even a standard
Statistics are not a good indicator either because most events never get recorded. Nobody keeps statistics on how often cyclists whiz within inches of pedestrians on the sidewalk, scrape by people, or knock people over but they get right back up again with a few bruises. It doesn't get recorded unless the police get involved or somebody goes to the hospital, both of which are pretty rare. Believing you understand what's going on just by looking at statistics is terribly naive.
The stats dont record whose at fault in NYC, nor do they record when car drivers and pedestrians have to avoid dangerous situations caused by bikers and people on scooters.
I don't think you've been to NYC in the last 5 years or so if you think that bikers aren't routinely failing to yield to pedestrians. The worst and most dangerous culprits are the people whizzing around on e-bikes with a complete disregard for pedestrian safety or traffic laws.
The drivers in NYC are comparatively safe. They drive relatively slowly (compared to other parts of the country), pay attention to pedestrians, and obey traffic lights and signs.
Even per capita of bike riding vs. car riding, the deaths from drivers are disproportionate.
> bikers aren't routinely failing to yield to pedestrians
I didn't say that, I think it is true. That said, I also think pedestrians sometimes have an expectation that a biker would yield in a place where they wouldn't even try with a car (ie. crossing the road between two vehicles into the bike lane).
This is what you said, and what I am responding to.
Also, I would suggest that deaths from drivers are probably only higher because the probability of a collision being fatal is a lot higher when one party in the collision is 2 tons, and that the fatality rate is not a good proxy for the rate of total accidents (even the rate of total accidents where someone ends up in a hospital). I have not seen a credible measurement for that, but I would expect from what I have seen in my 6 years living in Manhattan that the accident rate with bikes is a lot higher than it is with cars, and that so is the rate of injuries. As a pedestrian, my chance of getting killed in a traffic accident are so astronomically low that I actually care a lot more about my probability of being injured than my probability of being killed.
Did you read the comment you replied to? I will say it again: there were 300 pedestrian injuries caused by bikes and 10,000 caused by cars in NYC in 2017. Click on the link.
I did read it. To spell it out for you: Looking at the official records (which the NYT did - I did read the thing you cited) will severely underreport bike-pedestrian collisions and the resulting injuries because almost all of them are not handled through official accident reporting channels, so they don't get counted.
Like I said again, I have yet to see a credible study counting non-fatal injuries from bikes in the city. Someone could do this, for example, by randomly sampling ER patients to see how many were involved in bicycle-pedestrian crashes, but nobody has.
Also, that NYT article is almost a pro-bike op-ed in its tone, and I would suggest finding sources that at least sound a little more neutral on your issues of choice.
I will tell you who is entitled, driver of a 20 ton construction truck that drove over pedestrian area, where children play, to beat traffic. This was on pavement, few meters from the front door of my house.
It's amazing how you post this and a bunch of cyclists come out, elbowing each other aside to be the first to act out their most obnoxious stereotypes. "Yeah, we bomb down the sidewalks at 30 and categorically refuse to yield to pedestrians while shouting 'Share the road!' at anyone using an engine, and you should be grateful we didn't get in an SUV and plow through a daycare center!"
Meanwhile hundreds of people per year are being killed by NYC's toxic car culture. It would be interesting to see a per-mile comparison, but ebikes are looking a helluva lot safer by comparison.