The tables on the road were only there for the inauguration day, but bike lane is here to stay.
Lady in pink would be killed if she came to Amsterdam
I damn nearly got murdered by an angry speeding cyclist in Paris, near a canal. I crossed the lane without realizing, not being used to their presence. Bike lanes are simply nonexistent where I live, and I was only staying in Paris for a couple weeks. The dude got super mad at me, like super super mad. To this day I still fantasize about throwing him and his fucking bike in the canal. I really should have done it… why do I have to second-guess everything
Learn how to cry on command. That would probably have taken the wind out of his sails. I’m not a car freak. If I could get by in my suburban hell without one I would. That being said, if cars have to be aware of cyclists then cyclists need to be aware of pedestrians.
Yea, exactly my point. I’m not denying that I should have been aware of the presence of the bike lane but it falls on the guy on a vehicle to be acutely aware of his surroundings and wary of potential collisions. I say this as a driver and a bicycler
So if a pedestrian walked onto the road without looking or anything, you’d say the driver is at fault?
A cycle lane is to a bike as a road is to a car. A pedestrian is allowed to cross it after looking and checking that no vehicle is coming, and the pedestrian has to give right of way.
Cars have to be aware of cyclists when cyclists are driving on the road, since both have equal rights to be there. Same as a car has to be aware of another car or a cyclists of another cyclist. Both are allowed to use the road, so both need to be aware of each other.
If a car driver is expected to be aware of pedestrians, then a cyclist is to be expected to be aware of pedestrians. You can’t have it both ways. A cyclist can easily cause serious injury to a pedestrian.
Is a pedestrian expected to be aware of car drivers on the side walk?
Is a car driver expected to be aware of pedestrians on the highway?
Yes, and also yes. personal responsibility for your own safety doesn’t magically disappear because of paint on the ground.
Responsibility for the machine you’re operating that can harm others doesn’t magically disappear when it weighs less.
To be honest, it’s a wrong argument anyways. The cyclist was aware of the pedestrian on the bike lane and he stopped in time. So the whole argument doesn’t matter.
The actual point is whether the pedestrian was in the right to wander onto the bike lane, completely oblivious to his surroundings.
I was being inconsiderate and dangerous in traffic, and it’s the other guy’s fault
No no I was on foot
You’re still part of traffic when you’re on foot. And yes, it was 100% your fault and the cyclist was right to be pissed.
Was it a cycle path or a foot path?
If it was a cycle path, then you are allowed to cross it on foot, but you aren’t allowed to walk on it.
If you blindly wandered onto a road and a driver got angry because he almost hit you because of that, would you also believe you had the right to throw his car off a bridge?
Neither (or both?), it was an overcrowded walkable canal bank in the height of summer with faint paint marks to delimit the path of the bike “lane”. I was in the wrong in any case, what I’m complaining about is the dude’s reaction. My point is you have to be able to share the space and safely navigate what is inevitably going to be a crowded area at that time of year, especially when riding a bicycle which can be dangerous in its own right.
So it was a bike lane that you were on. Being to dumb to understand what a bike lane is and that a bike lane is for, you know, bikes is not an excuse.
You complain about that dude’s reaction but wanted to commit theft/vandalism and think you are justified in that?
You are the idiot who actively made riding a bike dangerous in that situation and still believe you are justified?
Let me guess, you are American?
I like everything except the road-style bidirectional bike lane. They should split the directions of the bike lane. Head on collisions are very bad. Splitting the lanes makes those essentially impossible. It also makes it much easier for pedestrians to cross since they only need to deal with one direction of traffic at a time.
Just put that plant boulevard between the directions of the bike lane and create pedestrian islands to stand on.
That bitch just walkin’ in the bike lane.
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.
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.
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.
I don’t see the immigrants in the second picture
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 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?
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.
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!