The tables on the road were only there for the inauguration day, but bike lane is here to stay.
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Look at all the foot traffic for the shops. I have no idea why shops complain about this.
That bitch just walkin’ in the bike lane.
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I can understand.
We have some new dedicated cycle lanes in our city (I mean, they are a few years old now. But fairly unique in our country).
I feel bad for the cyclists. They have a dedicated path, which pedestrians are super ignorant of (they are better marked than this picture).
My parents think they are a menace when they visit, because they are unaware of them and get menaced by cyclists.
Except, that’s literally what roads are. They just grew up with roads and (even faster) cars.So, I am understanding of the transition.
And everyone needs to call everyone out over it. It will make everyone saferI got pretty heated after an event bicycling home. Pedestrians all ignorant walking on the bike lane. That was fine so long as they moved but someone yelled at me and I very angrily yelled back.
People criticize cyclists in the road, they’d criticize you riding on the sidewalk (rightly so), but when we have a dedicated bike lane they walk all over it and act like you’re the asshole.
Bet there’s some kind of psychological trick you can play on cyclists, distracting them with pictures of people walking in bicycle paths.
Everyone else in that scene could be raw-fucking mid-sized Gumby sex dolls and I’d still be like “Get out the damn bike lane!”
I think many cyclists refuse to acknowledge how much they carry over from car brains. Minor inconveniences should be common and expected. Some bikers react to someone jogging on a bike path as if their life were threatened. Save the anger for legitimately dangerous situations like sprinting into the lane without looking or excessive speed.
Or… just spitballing here, people could walk on the sidewalk. The one beside the bike lane. For walking.
Sure, inconvenience is a part of life, but common sense tells you not to shit in someone’s sink.
Sure, but if you choose to be reactionary rather than understanding you’ll often be in the wrong. My city has some new bike paths where it’s easy to accidentally wind up walking on the bike paths. We are still in a state where many conflicts are due to infrastructure. Are we trying to build better streets for everyone or are we just gonna shift from cars to cyclists owning the streets? When I bike my first thought after safety is being considerate and understanding, not demanding.
We are trying to build a better infrastructure, where pedestrians enjoy safe and pleasant walk, cyclist enjoy safe and pleasant ride, commuters do commute, etc. In order to achieve that, it’s important that the spaces are predictable. If you’re in a shared space, you expect a bicycle, if you’re in a pedestrian area you shouldn’t be on a lookout for fast things. Same goes the other way, if you’re on a bike in a shared space, you should expect pedestrians be everywhere and should always be on a lookout, but if you’re riding a designated bike road, you should be able to enjoy the ride, not crawling with pedestrian speed dodging around.
If this rule doesn’t work, the infrastructure doesn’t work. You can’t expect people using cycling infrastructure for commute if they can’t be sure infrastructure is usable, so they wouldn’t, so everyone is riding cars and we’re back to square one.Yes, my comment about a Gumby orgy was a serious, reactionary statement about people walking in bike lanes. And somehow an argument for giving cyclists priority on all streets when cars are no more. And a disregard for poor infrastructure.
People should walk where it’s safe to walk. Sometimes they don’t, which is less safe. There should be safe places for people to walk.
I’m still gonna yell at people who walk in the damn bike lane.
People should walk where it’s safe to walk.
Not everyone’s experience is the same. We live off a shared use paved trail that runs for 5.8 miles through our city. It’s part of the 600 mile U.S. Bicycle Route (USBR) 45/45A and it’s not safe to walk because of cyclists.
Cyclists regularly come from the rear at high speeds without announcing their presence. Often while people are walking their dogs on the part of the path that deviates through the park and along the river.
The world would be a nicer place if people showed a little more tolerance and patience toward each other.
Edit- list of fragile brigaders:
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Brother, you seem to be terminally online. Please go for one of those walks you are blathering on about.
If something I wrote is upsetting when taken out of context, you might want to put it back in. World might be a nicer place.
“There should be safe places for people to walk.”
The entire reason for doing things like this, is that everyone gets their own space for traveling. Cars have their space, bikes have their space and pedestrians have their space. In countries where this kind of city planning is a thing, people rely on their mode of transportation to get from a to b in time. If there’s some dick blocking the bicycle lane, then it is more than an inconvenience.
This. Biking is a form of commute, not a hobby. Every obstruction means you waste your speed and energy into your break pads and you have to physically push to get the speed back up.
I’m not sure if you ever used a bike lane, or watch the countless videos of people riding on them, but it’s very VERY rare to have unobstructed bike lanes. So… sure, one grandma who isn’t paying attention, who cares, ok a truck that has to do deliveries and forcing you to go on the car lane, not going to kill you… then again, and again, and 2 cars parked there, another delivery… usually before you finish your trip you even wonder if there was a bike lane in the first place.
And each and every one of these obstructions forces you to waste energy into your breaks and you physically have to push to get the speed back up.
If you’d have to pedal cars, people would also drive very differently.
Great point. I mostly focused on the power that cars give to people, revving the engine isn’t a random gesture, it’s a show of power when most people usually have… pen, papers, keyboards… few have power tools but even then, it’s not very powerful. A car or a truck though that’s typically what the average human can exert the most raw power. Nothing psychological or economical. It’s not like having a fancy house that cost a lot of money or showing of, no it’s being in control of a powerful machine. I do assume it is rewiring the brain of drivers… but now that you mention it, it is also coupled with effortlessness. It’s not like being strong when you go to the gym, here it’s entirely decoupled from your strength. This must rewire drivers even more than I initially imagined. Thanks for the hindsight!
Totally on your side with your arguments, just wanted to add what annoys me most with these obstacles on bike lanes.
The real bike lane was the detours we made along the way.
Non shared bike paths are set up for everyone’s safety. People who ignore that don’t just put themselves in an unsafe situation, they do it to everyone else.
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Being against people walking on the highway has nothing to do with “car brain”
It’s common sense
When I’m riding a bike fast and someone’s in the path, I have to brake, and then get back up to speed after them. In a car that’s just pressing a pedal, but on a bike it takes work. It makes me sweat and huff. Making me sweat and huff is mean.
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My hard line opinion is that roads are dead spaces. There is no opportunity for anything to grow or flourish; this includes things like community. More roads = more dead space.
If you want to activate a space, i.e. bring community back, reduce road space. And, of course, with reduced road space you need to counter balance with better infrastructure for other modes of transport to get people moving to and from.
Basic town planning! Looking at you… Local council…
Don’t look up parking lot rules in america, dead space like it’s going out of style just so crowds can shop on black Friday and Christmas.
Ohoho… I have seen those rules and having visited both California and Texas last year, I can safely say that I don’t want any of that where I live. California was marginally better than Texas though but not by much.
It was insane to me that it was a 3hr public bus ride to NASA, and that included a 20 minute walk from where the bus drops you off.
…And those Stepford Wives-like suburban hellscapes with nothing but roads and freeways for miles.
Madness.
Madness? THIS IS AMERICA! ~Don’t catch you slippin’ now~
The curb in the middle is totally unfriendly to disabled people.
It looks like there is a cut over built into the curb that you can see in the picture right above the head of the person in the blue shirt
The after picture looks so much more welcoming, clean, and active. Like the place is suddenly more alive.
It just looks sweaty and smelly to me. Why all the tarmac when it’s been explicitly and expensively rebuilt for a new purpose?
Because it’s probably still a road (even its road markings are new), and they just closed that section for some pedestrian event.
Leave it like this (well replace the asphalt for nice tiles) and you’ll actually get more people to come by and stay for a coffee, use the stores, etc…
They probably still need a serviceable road for deliveries. Probably no alley. Trucks can be heavy as for efficiency they load them up. Can’t use tile roads, they don’t hold up over time.
It depends on the type of tiles you use. Paris has a lot of tiled roads in pedestrian centric areas, they’ve been there for decades and are not more damaged than asphalt. They’re changed every 15 years or so, from my experience living with a neigbborhood like this nearby.
Every 15 years is terrible for road length, you’re kinda proving my point. Costly replacement too. It just doesn’t work for any type of road that needs to carry loads.
Or any place with extreme weather, or a lot of rain, or etc.
Tiles aren’t for heavy traffic.
Sure, but that doesn’t make them not viable for pedestrian centric areas. The point isn’t durability or low cost, it’s enjoying a city center.
And they’re not replaced because they’re broken, they’re replaced because they turn ugly.
Shops can use a rug, there’s lot more efficient, durable and less costly options that provide the same or better.
They break, and they’re ugly from wear. They’re worn because they’re not the right material for the use case. And no one wants to cart a hand dolly on broken tile. You’re really doing a fantastic job giving more reasons why tile shouldn’t be used when heavy loads are anticipated……
And yet the trend in cities like Paris is to move to these type of roads instead of asphalt… You should call them, tell them they’re wasting their money
Timed deliveries.
Yes they do it at night, but they still need some road that can handle the load. Tile just doesn’t hold up.
The black road isn’t tiled?
That is clearly asphalt
The user I responded to suggested to replace it with tile, I was providing a few reasons why it couldn’t be.
Okay, a few things to unpack here.
Yeah, you need service roads. In the Netherlands they have the city center streets completely blocked off from traffic, only bicycles and pedestrians are allowed.
Once a day, usually 7-9 am, a hydrolic pole will lower at the entrances, allowing small supply trucks in to supply the stores. These trucks will have two hours to get their business done and leave. If the poles go up before they’re out, no worries, they can be lowered on demand for special circumstances or will just auto lower from the inside, not the outside.
Also only small delivery trucks are allowed. I’m in Vancouver and I’m amazed how they sometimes use trailer trucks in the fucking city center. What is wrong with you? You don’t need enormous trucks, literally.
In the Netherlands, all centers gave tile roads and it isn’t a problem because we use smaller trucks there.
The result is predictable. The city centers are amazing, everyone loves them, and ita always crowded like hell because these are human spaces, not car spaces
Car spaces are awful, dangerous and nobody wants to be there. Make human spaces!
But small businesses will suffer if people have nowhere to park 😡
Tap for spoiler
/s
Lady in pink would be killed if she came to Amsterdam
Voilà la vie vrai
I can’t honestly believe that some people would rather have the hellscape in the top photo, rather than the paradise in the lower one.
Communities, and society as a whole, need more of the “after”, please!
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In defense of business owners, when their customers are trained from birth to drive everywhere, their customers expect parking. When there is no parking, they lose business
Every major US city receives immense backlash from local businesses when roads/parking are unavailable due to added bike lanes, traffic calming projects that reduce parking, or much-needed major construction projects such as water main or sewer work. This is happening right now in downtown Burlington, VT, for example
https://m.sevendaysvt.com/news/main-street-construction-is-hurting-burlington-businesses-43270506
There’s no easy answer in most cases
I’m unable to open the link due to being blocked, but do they have the data to prove sales went down?
Every study I’ve seen shows shops always sell more when they have more foot traffic from pedestrianization and protected bike lanes. Businesses tend to complain initially, but when the cash starts flowing in, they never want it removed afterwards
They’re typically small businesses, what reason do they have to lie about business being down?
I’m sure they have the data, and I’m sure if a local government or journalist wanted to, they could look at tax records to see revenue impact
I don’t think anyone would argue that such enhancements are a bad thing in the long run if 1) If the enhancements ultimately bring in more shoppers/customers, 2) there is still parking available in the area, and 3) the businesses can survive 6-12 months of reduced revenues
My response was really directed at comments implying that the businesses are essentially whining. There’s a very real impact during construction, and certain businesses could be hurt by reduced parking, particularly in the states where the car is king
Lie? Nah, they’re just ignorant. They don’t check the numbers.
The linked article talks about business owners that are complaining about reduced sales while construction is going on… It’s not even a completed project that they are complaining about.
There can be other forms of parking, but on-street parking on a street like that is by far the worst type.
In my city’s downtown area, we have four lanes going one way, with parking taking up two.
We also have a few unused, large parking buildings and many empty parking lots within walking distance of every shop, restaurant, and service building.
As it stands today, my downtown is hostile to pedestrians, cyclists, and the disabled. Businesses would thrive if the area was designed for people.
Constriction hurts businesses, for sure. Road maintenance tends to be a huge reason for that, and frequent road maintenance is needed when areas only supports cars.
Yes, idiot business owners.
Why do they believe they are in competition with people? As if having more people in front of their shop (vs. parked cars) is somehow bad?
What they should be worried about is online businesses stealing their market share.
And what better way to offer something more than what online businesses do then by making your brick and mortar shop friendly to people!
Paradise is a stretch. Paradise to a non-cyclist like me would be a robust tram system with cheap monthly pass. This looks nicer I agree, but if you’re not a cyclist you’re still driving.
Paradise to a non-cyclist like me would be a robust tram system with cheap monthly pass. This looks nicer I agree, but if you’re not a cyclist you’re still driving.
Ironically, there’s a subway directly under where this photo is taken, so robust public transportation can still move people to these destinations. No need to drive to these shops now, since you can get there without needing a car.
Before this transformation, there was barely a sidewalk, and almost no people enjoying this public space.
Here’s another angle of that street, so you get a better idea:
Two things strike me the most.
The first is that in the “before”, there’s just all wasted space and no people.
Now you now see elderly and children enjoying that space, people talking, people sitting down to eat or rest. You don’t have to be a cyclist to appreciate that this is what streets should look like.
The added context of the underground subway system definitely helps. In pure terms of use of space i definitely agree that we allocate way too much space to cars and car infrastructure. It’d be nice to see these ideas implemented as a broad ideology. Where i live we are moving further and further away from public transportation infrastructure.
It’d be nice to see these ideas implemented as a broad ideology.
Attend every public consultation that your municipality makes available when it comes to new projects and development. It often only takes a few people to make or break certain plans (good or bad ones).
Where i live we are moving further and further away from public transportation infrastructure.
North America? Some cities seem to be moving forward (i.e. San Francisco), while others are going way backward (i.e. Toronto).
In Montreal, Quebec, they are making huge progress in the same way that France has. De-growing certain roads, and giving them back to the communities. It’s incredible to see!
Hopefully, as some cities adopt more people-centric design, it catches on. And it has to, because cities that keep pushing car dependency will bankrupt themselves.
Moving from a car to a bike is a choice, though. Become a cyclist :)
This is beautiful
I thought you were replying to the comment on top
Lol before: civilized. Afte: just brainrotten. Pedestrians in street, Bike lane und sidewalk.
Found the pickup truck driver. How’s your gas mileage lol?
I’m sorry to disappoint you, I’m just a cyclist.
Then why are you complaining about bike lanes???
I think they were complaining about pedestrians on the bike lane
Exactly. Before they walk civilized on the sidewalk… Afterwards like brainrotten.
That’s just people not used to dedicated cycle paths.
You would likely have as many issues of a pedestrian trying to cross a road and not seeing a cyclist, as you would travelling on a dedicated cycle path with an ignorant pedestrian.It just needs everyone calling out people on cycle paths. They likely aren’t even aware they are on it.
But that’s a lot to read into a single picture. Maybe they have checked both ways, and know nobody is coming (like they would with cars on a road)
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The 2 people further down don’t look like they are crossing!Before: able to recognize sidewalk and use it After: cheap excuses… not used to bike lanes so from blocking… fully blocking the reduced road… Sidewalk is not used. Sry they are absolutely antisocial in the picture. As a cyclist I would definitely not slow down.
But I understand your hypocritical double standards… Me me me me me…
Lol But the mods also seem to be anti-bike and anti-everything-but-pedestrians.
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I’m really not a fan of these “Bike lane and pavement are not the same hight and the kerb is a wedge so can’t see it very well”. We have them at se places where I live (and sometimes pavement and bikelane are the same height to make it even more confusing) and I’ve seen multiple cyclists (and pedestrians) having accidents because they did not realize there was a difference in height.
Get off the bike path grandma
In my experience cycling in London, it wouldn’t be a bike lane without some doofus walking on it 😅
Oakland, California is redoing all the downtown roads. Going from four lanes to two lanes with physically separated bike lanes and tiny gardens. I welcome it.
All is bit of a stretch. Oakland’s budget is in rough shape right now. They’re doing a few roads here and there, and they usually start with some low cost experimentation in areas with plastic cones and paint to test first.
I both live and work in downtown Oakland. They appear to be working toward all downtown roads from my perspective. Two of the four sides of the building that I live in have been redone and they’re doing sections of the street that I walk to work and others that I see when I’m out and about. Traffic is gnarly by the lake where they’ve closed lanes.
