One thing the article mentions but the headline misses is the need for more and better bike lanes all over the city. De Blasio hasn't been emphasizing this nearly as strongly as Bloomberg did. But the numbers show that replacing one lane of traffic with a protected bike lane can actually ease congestion and increase average car speeds and total throughput (Lafayette St. in Soho is apparently an excellent example of this.)
It's also worth noting that the counting is done only at the river crossings, one park, and one crosstown street in Midtown. A lot of bike trips within Manhattan are missed by the count, as are any trips taken within an outer borough. I don't know that that affects the growth rate numbers but it certainly underestimates the total percentage of trips in the city that are made via bicycle.
I'm a SF resident who was visiting NYC last week, and saw those protected bike lanes for the first time (I lived in NJ a decade ago). Frankly, drivers' attitudes towards bicyclists will be slow to change, and thus the only reasonable course forward seems to be this kind of infrastructure improvement.
As infrastructure improves, more people will consider bicycles as a reasonable transportation alternative, and hopefully increased numbers of cyclists may help driver attitudes change as well.
Agree 100% with that sentiment, but I think the problem is actually lower in the political food chain. The Department of Transportation is very pro-active about adding bike lanes (in contrast to previous generations at the DOT), but they are often blocked by old stodgy community boards in the city. The minority of people that own cars are heavily involved in that level of government, and bikers/pedestrians are not coming out and supporting bike lanes. If people focus on those meetings, the DOT will get more done.
Community Boards are still problematic in some areas, but not all. And as bike folks are realizing how important they are, they are joining boards and lobbying them:
http://www.transalt.org/calendar/6441
Recent bike projects have mostly been backlogs from the Bloomberg era— today, the DOT hasn't been particularly bold in proposing new protected bike lanes. The proposed Spring Street lane is pretty meager:
http://www.streetsblog.org/2015/04/07/let-down-by-bike-lane-...
I've made the switch 4 years ago and never looked back. I thought it'd be struggle to take the bike when (good) public transport is available (Berlin, Germany) but I've found that it doesn't require any willpower: I prefer the independence and that I get to see the city, and not just the subway walls.
Anything within a 10km radius is absolutely no problem. During the day I'm faster than a car, and at night it's just fun. Rain is a still problem, even though I noticed I don't actually mind getting wet that much. Once inside, you dry within half an hour.
How does your commute look like, if you don't mind asking?
I commute north-south, alongside S1 train. I noticed it recently got a lot harder though. It seems like there's construction work everywhere (even on the riverbanks and channels). I need to to add extra kilometres just to cut through Mitte.
Also my route is very "hilly", both ways (northern Mitte to Schöneberg). I guess going east-west may be a lot easier.
I have to agree though, cycling is usually faster than U-Bahns and buses. Trams are not even worth discussing. I still found S-Bahns to be the fastest.
I bike to work in New York, and I've biked around Berlin, and I would say New York still has a way to go before it catches up with Berlin.
The problem that New York faces is that it is embedded in USA society, so it has to face some issues that are not about bikes, but effect bikes. An example would be the reasons people use bike helmets. No one uses bike helmets in Berlin, because Berlin is safe for bicycles, and that is partly due to the respect that cars and trucks show to bikers. In the USA, car culture is stronger, and car drivers are much more aggressive. I've gotten into the equivalent of tug-of-war situations with taxis, trying to exercise my right to turn, when they want to turn in the opposite direction: the taxi drivers are willing to use the vast bulk of their car in a threatening manner. You never see that in Berlin. In New York City, one is justified wearing a helment, and one would be justified wearing elbow and knee pads (but I never had). It's an aggressive environment.
Also, in New York, the roads are often chaotic. In Berlin, I only saw chaos around construction sites, otherwise the roads were safe and orderly.
Also, I could rent a bicycle in Berlin, very cheaply, and then keep it for days. There is nothing exactly so convenient in New York.
All the same, I am pleased that the situation is getting better in New York.
> No one uses bike helmets in Berlin, because Berlin is safe for bicycles
That's not why people don't wear helmets there, and that's not a reason to not wear one.
I would have been in a world of hurt if I didn't have a helmet on when I fell. No cars, people, or other moving object were anywhere near me. My tire hit a slippery patch as I was turning, and I went over sideways. I broke my shoulder and my hand, and my head hit the ground so hard that my glasses flattened out on the pavement. I considered myself lucky that I didn't have a head injury, aside from my bell being rung - hard.
Wear a helmet. They not only save you from dangerous environmental situations, but they save you from yourself.
There isn't much question that helmets reduce injury. The larger question of "should they be mandatory" is still open (with a strong lean towards "no.")
From the first article.
"Even most opponents of mandatory helmet laws advocate helmet use, but they say that the negative consequences of helmet laws outweigh the benefits."
From the third.
"If you consider the entire body of research rather than just one study, and look at both head and neck injuries, helmets only reduce the risk of injury by about 15% to 45% ."
Wearing a helmet would also improve the safety of people driving or walking around. But strangely we don't hear all the nagging lectures for people to wear a helmet when they are driving or walking to a corner store, whether or not it's on a quiet street in fine weather.
Negligible for walking. Its different to be hurtling along at 20mph on a contraption of pipes, gears and chains and hit a storm drain, launching headfirst into the back of a parked car, than to trip and skin your knee. One requires a helmet to survive.
And driving - there's airbags and the steel cage and belts and padding. Another storey altogether.
Walking is pretty dangerous: you could be walking and spontaneously stumble, or slip on wet leaves, and clip your temple on a fire hydrant. That's it for you! Walking is quite dangerous, and is in fact has the highest rate of injuries and fatalities per mile traveled. That's mostly because pedestrians get hit by cars, but that's surely an even better reason to get pedestrians to wear helmets. What if you get hit by a car while walking?
Yes, that seems odd. Maybe because of the speed difference - per-mile stats weight pedestrian trips more, because they take longer/are exposed to environmental hazards longer (e.g. getting hit by a car).
Not sure which statistics you refer to, but one explanation is simply that many pedestrian accidents (falls) are very old people. They fall, they break pelvis, they are immobilized, they die.
There's a lot of nagging about seat belt usage in cars. For just about as good reason as for wearing a helmet when biking. Even when driving to the corner store.
I had a similar experience. Slipped off my bike and broke an arm, leg, and various facial bones. My helmet was split in two and the ER doctor was quite blunt about the state I would have been in without a helmet. Wear a helmet.
I unfortunately had the counter experience. I was not wearing a helmet on my "short commute" and got hurt pretty bad. A good number of stitches, a permanent scar, but worse than that - concussions are not fun. I blacked out and woke up an hour or two after the accident inside a CAT scan machine at the hospital.
My wife found out about the accident when I called her and left an identical voicemail 3 times in a row not realizing I had just done it.
Wear a helmet. I used to sell them at a ski shop and wear them religiously on the ski slope, but didn't bother to put one on for the 2 minute bike ride from my dorm to class. Huge mistake.
Test that the helmet doesn't roll off when a 8.8 lb weight in a guided free fall from a distance of 2 feet strikes the helmet.
>> 1203.16 Dynamic strength of retention system test
Uses the same weight and guided free fall distance.
>> 1203.17 Impact attenuation test
>> (b)(3) A guided free fall of the helmet on a weighted headform from a minimum height of 6.56 ft onto a flat anvil and a guided free fall of the helmet on a weighted headform from a minumum height of 3.94 ft onto a hemispherical and curbstone anvils
Regarding the last test procedure, that would be like testing the helmet on an adult male of average height, where, while standing, suddenly suffered a stroke and fell over. It certainly wouldn't protect you in a crash at speed or with a motor vehicle.
If you want real head protection while riding a bicycle, then you need to wear a motorcycle helmet (preferably one that meets the Snell standard).
>Regarding the last test procedure, that would be like testing the helmet on an adult male of average height, where, while standing, suddenly suffered a stroke and fell over
With all due respect, do you ride a bike extensively? Because these exact sort of accidents happen all the time. I've fallen sideways from a stationary position several times over the last 5 years as an avid cyclist when I've had lapses in judgment or focus when declipping from my pedals.
Further, I was struck by a car from behind 2 years ago and lost consciousness, propelled forward several meters, broke several ribs, suffered large abrasions on my back. My helmet suffered dents and scratches, but my head and face were 100% fine. If not for the helmet, I would have 100% suffered from cuts and abrasions to my face (given that my back has permanent scars, this could have easily happened to my face), even without taking into consideration impact protection.
The fact that bicycle helmets don't protect you from every type of accident situation is a ridiculous reason to not wear one.
> With all due respect, do you ride a bike extensively?
In the last 10 years, I've ridden about 10,000 miles give or take.
> Because these exact sort of accidents happen all the time. I've fallen sideways from a stationary position several times over the last 5 years as an avid cyclist when I've had lapses in judgment or focus when declipping from my pedals.
I've never used pedal clips. I do ride in traffic, but I doubt I average more than 15 miles per hour.
> Further, I was struck by a car from behind 2 years ago and lost consciousness, propelled forward several meters, broke several ribs, suffered large abrasions on my back. My helmet suffered dents and scratches, but my head and face were 100% fine. If not for the helmet, I would have 100% suffered from cuts and abrasions to my face
That last sentence doesn't really make sense. Bicycle helmets do not cover one's face. Also, getting hit from behind by a vehicle is the least common type of crash from what I've read.
> The fact that bicycle helmets don't protect you from every type of accident situation is a ridiculous reason to not wear one.
If they were designed in a way that would protect me in most crashes, then I certainly would wear one while riding, but given the standard I referenced, I seriously doubt it.
If FMVSS 209 stated that seat belts in cars were only tested in frontal collisions at speeds of 20 mph or less, then I wouldn't bother wearing them because I know that they wouldn't protect me while I'm driving at highway speeds. Fortunately, that's not the case and I always wear my seat belt while riding in or driving a car.
In the end, the way one rides is far more effective in mitigating the risk of getting involved in a crash (like following the rules of the road, having appropriate equipment, etc.)
>That last sentence doesn't really make sense. Bicycle helmets do not cover one's face.
When you're propelled off your bike, some part of your head is likely to make contact with the ground (particularly if you're unconscious), along with your torso. The line formed by the outermost part of the helmet and whatever part of your torso that hits the ground is often outside of your face/head and thus helps avoid cuts/abrasions when grating against the ground.
I personally support others' right to not wear a helmet. In fact, I didn't wear one either when I lived and worked in Japan and bike commuted to the train station. I also believe the evidence and studies that show the relative ineffectiveness of current helmet designs. However, I also believe that the decision of others in wearing the helmets available for a marginal improvement in safety should be respected as well [1].
[1] The counterargument to this is if by not purchasing the current helmets and protesting for better designs, we can help spur companies to develop more robust products.
The fact is, wearing a helmet clearly reduces head injuries.
If you are conscious of all other aspects of security, protecting your most important and magical organ (the brain) should be sound advice.
In fact, I personally might accept an overall sightly increased injury risk for better head protection -- I can go without practicing this or that sport, but I really wouldn't wish to become unable to enjoy intellectual activities as much due to a brain injury.
I use all sorts of pedals, ranging from Look, Shimano SPD, plastic based straps and metal based straps to flats. In city traffic I'd probably stick to flats or straps. In suburbian commutes with less stop and go, I found SPDs to be a good compromise since they are pretty easy to get out of (my falls have been when I was using look pedals on a pretty stiff setting).
In the end you go with whatever you're comfortable with. There's really no objective better or worse, just tradeoffs that each of us make (safer but slower, etc)
(There's no compromising when it comes to front and rear lights though, imo)
Yes, the frustrating thing about the bike helmet debate is that it totally misrepresents the kind of safety gear that's important.
I never wear a helmet, but I ALWAYS have reflectors, front and rear lights, a hat to keep the sun out of my eyes, rear fenders, and mirrors to check for traffic behind me.
Visibility and awareness are infinitely more important than helmets.
"I've fallen sideways from a stationary position several times over the last 5 years as an avid cyclist when I've had lapses in judgment or focus when declipping from my pedals."
Maybe you should try being a lot more careful. I've been riding 10,000km per annum for a decade, two of those years in Mexico City with the worst traffic in the hemisphere. I routinely do 40km up and down rides in the mountains at high speeds and medium length rides in city traffic. I've had one crash and that happened on wet cobblestones with a new bike whose brakes I didn't know well; I endoed over the handlebars and scraped my hands up a little and then rode home 10 more km.
Thank you for assuming things that are, in this case, entirely untrue. Presumably you have seen an abundance of poor actors which has primed your perspective, but I would ask that you not be so quick to judge someone who you don't even know.
I have never raced in traffic and abhor reckless riding behavior, running redlights/stoplights, and the like. I only ride straps or flats in the city.
I use clip-ins in the hills and long straightaway rural routes with ample shoulder area (ex: Canada road by Crystal Springs).
You just keep going there. You've clearly demonstrated and confirmed that your cycle for sports in an environment that is aggressively pro-car and anti-bicycle.
I'm not assuming shit, you're telling me.
Apparently you're the one assuming that everyone riding a bicycle does it the way you do, and therefor should be wearing a helmet. We don't.
But according to you millions of us are "ridiculous" (your words) for not wearing one. Yeah, but I'm the one who's quick to judge. Sure.
You are being a bit aggressive. Did you realise? You make a reasonable point -- most people in some countries do not wear helmets; many more people cylce; rates of head injury are not significantly greater than places where helmets are worn and the exercise benefits to the rest of the population means that more lives are saved.
But your aggressive tone is earning you downvotes.
I ride mountain bikes and sometimes use knee and elbow pads. In a potentially life threatening crash they are not going to save your life. But in the normal day to day bumps and scrapes they turn an inconvenient injury in to a non-event. I wear helmets on the road because I don't want an otherwise avoidable injury to ruin my day and cause inconvenience. Helmets have few downsides, and might help in a crash.
I'm sure this epiphany now has you wear a helmet in your car, where risk of life-threatening head-trauma is significantly higher than when riding a bicycle?
Helmets are still the best way to reduce a lot of head injuries among motorists. Cars travel at a much higher speed than pedestrians/bicycles, so it takes a lot more to dampen the injuries, and auto-related head injuries are simply more common than bicycle-related ones.
It's absolutely as reasonable to exhort motorists and pedestrians to wear helmets as it is to exhort cyclists to do so.
I personally find it insulting to have the same mindless comment appear every time somebody mentions helmet. It is inevitably a story of n=1 how somebody believes his helmet did X, and usually completely and utterly misses the point of the parent comment.
Just to reiterate this: if you suggest a piece of styrofoam is a useful protection in a discussion where the overwhelming risk factor is being crashed into by a 4 ton metal hunk, you're trivializing the issue and distracting away from meaningful actions.
Yeah, that's exactly why I have a bit of a problem with such guidelines.
It protects people from the normal consequences of insulting outer people's intelligence. Sometimes it's useful to know when your behaviour pisses other people off.
Wearing a helmet when biking is like wearing a bullet proof vest when walking. It may be necessary in some environments, but it's those environments that are the problem.
If you don't know how to ride a bike (which includes how to fall), don't project it on other people.
Please stop spreading the fud about cycling itself being dangerous. It's no more dangerous than walking.
That's such a load of crap. See my other comment below, the reason why I had that accident was my bike wheel had a mechanical failure. I was on a bike lane in the middle of a college campus 500 yards from the nearest car. It was a peaceful afternoon with no one around. The environment didn't mean anything at all.
If your sneaker fails, you don't get thrown 20 feet onto concrete.
Which would mean you were racing, not just cycling. And on a bike line "in the middle of a college campus" no less.
So basically you were just being irresponsible, not just for yourself but also towards others. Oh, of course, there was "no one around", which makes it alright.
WOW. Talk about a lot of assumptions. Actually the bike was a piece of crap hand me down that I got for free. I don't race, and I was probably going about the same speed you would if you were running. It was a nice Friday afternoon and I had just finished up my last class of the day. I was relaxed and in no hurry, enjoying the ride home.
I hopped down a short bump, maybe 2" where the pavement turned into cobblestone. I don't remember what happened, but based on the blood stain that was baked into the concrete a few days later, I ended up about 20 feet away. I know I went over the handle bars. I imagine you get one or two bike lengths in the air, and then when I hit the ground I skidded a bunch.
Anyway, compared to the way most people bike it was a slow speed crash. The X factor was the mechanical failure so it was so surprising I didn't have any time to expect it. Arguably the key contributing factor was riding an old shitty bike.
So you probably should aim your ire at poor people biking instead of the US. It has nothing to do with the US or how I was riding my bike, just with the fact that I didn't have enough money for a nice one at the time. But by all means, ignore the relatively uncontroversial point that wearing a helmet is a good idea and continue blaming the victim.
Going like 30 km/h on a clear bike path is not "racing". It's just normal traffic, gonig from place A to B. Still, a helmet can help this casual cyclist.
My experience is from a bike path, no one in sight. A ball bounces onto the the path from a bush. That would have been the time to hit brakes immediately, but I just didn't think right. Next comes the 4-year-old kid who runs from behind a bush. Now I hit the brakes, go over the bar, head first.
No damage to the head, despite a bump. Broke a radix bone, though. I definitely recommend using a helmet, however casually you ride.
> Going like 30 km/h on a clear bike path is not "racing".
I rest my case.
In the Netherlands there is some discussion to implement a 25 km/h speed limit on cycling paths because of douchebags with electric bikes going 30 km/h and up causing accidents.
Apparently we have different values of "normal". Which would be fine if it wasn't for one side keeping up this narrative of "cycling is dangerous and you should always wear a helmet" when millions are perfectly fine without by cycling in a way that is no more dangerous than walking.
You have probably misunderstood something, because regular electric bikes stop helping your speed at 25 km/h. If the engine works at a higher speed, it's a light moped, which is a motor vehicle, and needs a driver's license. (I think this is the case in the Netherlands same as where I live).
There is nothing extreme about doing 30 km/h on a free bike path. Fatal accidents may however happen at lower speeds, or even when completely stationary, and a bike helmet reduces the risk by a wide margin - even if the risk is not that huge to begin with.
Around here, about 80 % of cases where helmet helps are incidents not involving a motor vehicle. I.e. bicyclist collides with another cyclist, a pedestrian, or a stationary object (Earth counts as stationary object here).
Using helmet would be very wise also in Berlin (and many do use it, if you look around).
I've also lived in both New York and Berlin. I completely agree that the US has a more powerful "car culture," but the cities are very different -- New York is incredibly dense while Berlin is pretty spread out. Wikipedia says New York has 10,756 people per km2 while Berlin has 4,000 [0]. They face different issues in developing transit infrastructure.
In most other countries, driving is not a right, it's a privilege, and your dad doesn't qualify as a driving instructor. Everyone learns the same rules of the road, whereas in the U.S. it's totally haphazard.
When I visited Copenhagen, cars, bicycles, pedestrians seemed significantly more on the same page than in any U.S. city (NYC and Denver are examples I have direct experience with). While serious altercations are rare, most people still don't understand that bikes are considered vehicles with the same operator rights and responsibilities as with cars.
Hardly a week goes by, biking in Denver, without a car honking for no reason other than to say "get out of my way" and anytime I have a conversation with the driver they assert with absolute confidence bikes should be on sidewalks, that it's illegal for bikes to be in the street. Ignorance of the law is much more common in the U.S. So that's a huge barrier to "catching up" with any European city.
> Also, in New York, the roads are often chaotic. In Berlin, I only saw chaos around construction sites, otherwise the roads were safe and orderly.
One only needs to bike a couple minutes in New York to start encountering hazards, even in lanes specifically designated for bike use. I ride in NYC daily and usually encounter at least one of the following in bike lanes on every other block: car or delivery truck double-parked, construction, police activity, someone walking or running in bike lane, car doors opening. There's often no other option for some of these things (I particularly empathize with delivery drivers), but it all creates a very hazardous atmosphere, especially for those not accustomed to riding in the city.
You have to ride with awareness of the hazards I used to regularly ride in central London 15 years ago.
1 Ride assertively not aggressively
2 Don't ride in the gutter
3 Most IMPORTANT don't undertake slow or stopped traffic - that's what causes most fatal accidents (90% in london)
> No one uses bike helmets in Berlin, because Berlin is safe for bicycles, and that is partly due to the respect that cars and trucks show to bikers.
Bicycle helmets are not even rated for traffic accidents. It says so in their accompanying literature! They are for falls.
A couple of years ago, I went into a skid while making a turn on wet pavement and fell. I developed a huge black bruise on my right hip, and for the next six months had a pain in the right side of my rib cage. It was quite a fall. Now here is the thing: the back of head also hit the pavement quite hard, but I was wearing a helmet, so my head was okay.
There is no way I could have prevented my head from coming down. It happened so fast, that there was no time for "oh shit, I'm falling and I don't have a helmet, so I have to adjust my falling style to protect my head."
(Yes, I replaced the helmet. Not only are you supposed to after impact, but the date on it was March 1995.)
You may be able to get away without a helmet in a "safe" town, if you only ride in good weather, in broad daylight, on flat roads, go slowly, and avoid all obstacles, so that the chances of falling are vanishingly small.
Of course, that covers a huge percentage of bicycle usage. I wear no helmet when commuting, but I'll wear a helmet in unusual conditions. Most cycling is done in fine weather in ordinary situations.
If you want bikes to be a serious thing for commutes, you need to be able to ride in all weathers that you have in your locality. Otherwise you're just taking the nice days for fun, but you still make it necessary to reserve the capacity for seats in public transit, or capacity for autos on road, on the days that are not nice.
Helmets are not just for "unusual" conditions. Wear helmet all the time when you ride, make a habit of it, and you'll not need to even think about it. Just like the seat belt in a car.
You're right, but that has more to do with the cyclist being a fair weather cyclist, than being in Berlin. If you're a serious all-weather, all-season cyclist, you wear a helmet. In Berlin, too.
I wouldn't say 12-15€/day is a cheap rental. And these are the prices you find everywhere.
A lot of tourists are buying their bikes on flea markets instead and just leave them unlocked on the street before leaving. The bikes are probably then "recycled".
I work in Brooklyn, in a building that houses Etsy, Amplify Education (my company), Tough Mudder (until recently), and others.
In the annual bike commuting challenge put on by Transportation Alternatives, our building is overflowing with bikes -- all of those companies achieved double-digit participation rates. Granted, these are tech and lifestyle companies that draw a young and idealistic workforce, but it's pretty cool to see.
WRT Brooklyn, I noticed that in the summer the area around 7th ave / Flatbush often has all its rather numerous bike parking spots overfilled. Not a frequent view in other places yet. (And I hope it will not be, because they'll just build more bike parking spots.)
I commute using New York's bike share program Citi Bike. It's about a 20 minute ride each way. I can't over-state how much access to a bike share and a (relatively) safe bike path has improved my every day life. It's faster than most modes of transportation (including even cabs), allows for exercise and most importantly, is actually pretty fun and engaging.
I'm glad that more people are picking up the habit, but I do know that as more people start biking regularly for the first time, there will be a period in which those new riders aren't acclimated to the proper etiquette and law. As a result, I have noticed more and more police at stops pulling over bikers that run red lights. I'm afraid good-will from non-cyclists is declining due to overly aggressive or careless bikers. Hopefully as responsible cyclists, we can help set a positive example and help those new to the road ride responsibly.
This is happening all over the nation. Here in small Durham, NC, we've seen biking more than double over the last 6 years. Most of the increase is young creative workers who've come for Durham's growing tech and advertising scene. It's also causing some growing pains -- we had three cyclists killed last year by cars.
I passed a car v. cyclist crash this morning on way to work. Cyclist had evidently been riding in the pedistrian crosswalk, against the flow of traffic. Couldn't tell if he had hit a car turning across the walkway, or the car had hit him. Looked like no injuries, though the bicycle was pretty mangled.
That's something that annoys me about bikes in the US vs. Europe: People in Europe are generally taught to obey the same laws as everybody else, whereas US bicyclists, in NYC in particular, just completely wing it. When I first moved here I didn't understand why everybody hated on bicyclists; now, after nearly being hit by a bicycle slamming through a crowded crosswalk at least 10 times, I do.
When I bought my first "nice" bike a few years ago, the guy wheeled it out to me and said, "This is a vehicle, so ride it like a vehicle. Yes, even at stop signs." Then he warned me about Escalades.
In Denver, cars running red lights is a big problem, I see it multiple times per day, and it's terrible. Since becoming a bicyclist, I've completely reversed my position on photo red light (tickets). I still don't approve of photo radar, it's mainly a way for cities to make money. But running red lights needs to be stopped, no pun intended.
>> I live in Minneapolis and this flaggergasted me.
Minneapolis has always ranked as one of the top bike friendly cities in the country. The ironic part is most lists also include Madison, WI and Chicago IL, both midwestern cities who have year round commuters.
But I agree, I have no idea why so many southern states have so many anti-biking cities.
I suspect that bike-friendliness correlates with transit-friendliness. Most cyclists are proponents of transit diversity and multi-modal transport.
And conservative states are more hostile to funding transit because it requires government subsidies (vs. "investment" in parking and roads). There are plenty of small- to medium- conservative cities that don't even have any kind of bus service.
Madison has many bike lanes that are separated from other vehicle traffic. That helps biker confidence by quite a bit. Of course, there are a also a lot of bike/bus only lanes, and the buses tend to be just as aggressive to bikers as other drivers are (and as buses are to other drivers).
I feel like this is happening in Toronto too. At least south of Bloor where most of my friends live. Once I read the study that cyclists actually live longer (even without a helmet) on average than motorists due to better heart function I was convinced to just make the switch. It actually gets you around faster too since you can go between the stopped cars at lights, although the street car tracks really suck.
I like your comment and I'm keenly interested in seeing a picture of your camera setup (what do the driver's see). Please post it somewhere.
However, keep in mind that you don't have enough data from a practice you just put into effect yesterday. This is probably confirmation bias kicking in.
I've found commuting along the Danforth corridor to be surprisingly orderly in the evening.
Coming off the bloor/danforth bridge at about 5:15, clusters of cyclists often take over one of the two east bound lanes, and it makes for a wonderful ride. I wish there were some way to synchronize my ride west in the morning with the critical number of cyclists to achieve the same result.
I drive along the same route some days, and these clusters don't appear to have any negative impact on car flow. Stopped cars ignoring the no stopping signs on the other hand cause a great deal of congestion.
I'm not too surprised by this since car ownership is quite expensive over the life of the car. Combine that with the rapidly increasing costs of living, high rents, stagnate wages, etc and things start to give. Not to mention the overwhelming feelings of depression, rage and frustration that comes with sitting in traffic congestion common to East Coast cities for hours on end everyday. I just wish a good, reliable rail network between cities also existed in the US.
In NYC, bike ridership is probably increasing at the expense of subway and bus ridership rather than car commutes (which almost nobody who lives within biking distance of their job does around here unless their job requires an automobile).
While it's great to see NYC bike ridership up to 21K per weekday, and touted as growing "faster than other modes of transportation", it's misleading when you compare that the MTA has a ridership of 8.6 million daily. Currently that Bike Ridership number is a paltry 0.2% of the overall ridership.
So, kudos - and I hope they improve it dramatically, but it has a long way to go, and I'm skeptical of de Blasio's goal of getting it up to 6% in the near future.
I don't see how NYC gets to 1% let alone 6% without pulling out car lanes and converting them into two lane bike lanes which are immutable: no parking, no blocking. Now, they get blocked the instant someone opens a car door or double parks. With higher biking density comes different speed cycling so single lane biking doesn't scale.
Denver has this crazy idea also that catering to bikes is easy and cheap, the mentality is that it's mainly just a matter of paint and "share the road" signage. Meanwhile there's no driver or cyclist education program on exactly how to share the road, so it's still adversarial "hey asshole YOU aren't sharing the road!"
I live in DC and just moved into the city about a year and a half ago, changing my 60 min+ car commute to a 20-30 minute bike commute. It is absolutely the best decision I've ever made in my life.
This is great news! I was one of the people who painted the first bike lane down 5th Avenue back in the late 1970's. I see that Transportation Alternatives is still alive and well.
I'd love to ride my bike to work but don't really have a place to put it during they day; ideally, the building would have a large, relatively secure space with bike racks in the basement or something (which it doesn't; nor do most buildings, as far as I can tell). I doubt my bike would make it more than a couple of weeks with seat and wheels intact if I locked it on the street.
Folders are great. I started commuting with a full-size Dahon that I put under the seat, but now I think it's better to have a small folder and a fixed full-size bike rather than making a trade-off.
This is one of the things that makes a city bike-friendly, making it easy to start riding.
San Francisco: My company has a bike parking room on our floor, and some train stations have five-cent-an-hour bike lockers. (All stations have bike racks, but that's gambling with your bike.)
You can buy locking skewers and other "locking" bike hardware that will prevent people from stealing parts. Combined with a high end U lock and a cable through the wheels it's unlikely anyone would steal it during the day in a populated area.
Bike infrastructure is being built. Bike ridership is up, all great news.
However, there remains a fundamental problem. As packed in as NYC is, it is still a huge city designed for automobiles. Many people lives 10, 20 miles away from their jobs.
It is obvious from the picture in the article that many cyclists gear themselves up for a long arduous ride. Unless one is into biking or exercise most people is just not up to that kind of ride. I do not think a 20 mile ride is what the average cyclist in Amesterdam or Berlin imagine their commute to be.
>a huge city designed for automobiles. Many people live 10, 20 miles away from their jobs
I think a majority of workers in New York commute using public transit. It might be a minority of people living 10 or 20 miles out, but if so, it's still pretty close.
Seattle's a beautiful place to bike but we still have a long way to go. We need to cut fatalities and accidents among bike commuters and get more bike lanes in.
Luckily there are major bike paths connecting parts of the city but these themselves are too disconnected (e.g. in Bellevue). The safe route from Seattle into Redmond (and Microsoft) is 29 miles north along the lake; fortuitously, the new bridge across Lake Washington will include a bike lane and cut this in half.
It's also worth noting that the counting is done only at the river crossings, one park, and one crosstown street in Midtown. A lot of bike trips within Manhattan are missed by the count, as are any trips taken within an outer borough. I don't know that that affects the growth rate numbers but it certainly underestimates the total percentage of trips in the city that are made via bicycle.