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.
A study in my hometown found that shopkeepers are mostly concerned about their own commute, not decrease of patrons.
That’s interesting.
If I was a shopkeeper I would care more about my profits more than if I can park near my shop.
But I guess deliveries would also be more difficult… still I would care more about foot traffic.
I appreciate the info.
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Hell, with a bike path in front of me, I’d bike myself to work. Why bother with a car if I have the infra right on my doorsteps
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.
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?
I mean, honest mistake on your part, but still your mistake. Dude shouldn’t have raged at you for an honest mistake, but you should rage at them even less, as they didn’t even do anything wrong (except raging).
You’d be a somewhat justified if it happened in a pedestrian only zone or sidewalk, as it frequently does in my city but you were the one in the wrong area.
If the cyclist is anything like me, he was super mad because he almost killed the other guy.
I was being inconsiderate and dangerous in traffic, and it’s the other guy’s fault
No no I was on foot
That literally doesn’t change what he said.
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?
If you walk onto a freeway, on foot, you are being reckless. It’s the same for bike lanes. Look where you walk.
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.
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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!
Complete idiot local business owners keep trying to remove the bike lanes in San Diego because “their customers need to parallel park there”. Up to and including a fucking bike repair shop. Even when people have this better way right in front of them they reject it
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!
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
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.
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.
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.
Moving from a car to a bike is a choice, though. Become a cyclist :)
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.
But small businesses will suffer if people have nowhere to park 😡
Tap for spoiler
/s
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.
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.
That bitch just walkin’ in the bike lane.
Those guys on the fuckin’ road.
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.
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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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.
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.I get your point. People walking in bike lanes are annoying but they’re honestly the least of my problems while cycling in the city. And 90% of the time the crappy infrastructure is at fault. I’ve unintentionally walked in bike lanes before as well. It happens, people can be inattentive and make mistakes - I’d much rather have them make mistakes as pedestrians than as drivers.
Get out of the road greg
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.
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.
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.
Being against people walking on the highway has nothing to do with “car brain”
It’s common sense
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
It’s beautiful 🥹
I know, Smart Fix updated their sign!
We do a pedestrian mall in our downtown district from June to September. I absolutely love it and it has been a huge driver of local business. I would love to see some of our streets become pedestrian only but that would also mean my town acknowledging that pedestrians deserve a path at all in the winter.
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.
Voilà la vie vrai
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.
This is beautiful
I thought you were replying to the comment on top
I don’t see the immigrants in the second picture
