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Bicycle Infrastructure Tour of Davis, CA
Today I went up to Davis, CA
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/aug/03/davis-california-the-american-city-which-fell-in-love-with-the-bicycle for a tour of their bicycle infrastructure with a city bicycle traffic engineer from Davis, as well as my own city’s traffic engineer. We did about a ten mile ride exploring the various bicycle connections in the city. UC Davis is actually not in the City of Davis and there is not a big tax base in the city so money is tight. Still they’ve done an amazing job of expanding the bicycle infrastructure. But their PCI (Pavement Condition Index) is rather poor and the bicycle infrastructure pavement is also often poor. It is not a place for small-wheeled bicycles like Bromptons. There is a three way conflict among different groups when it comes to bicycle infrastructure. The experienced cyclists/vehicular cyclists don’t like the type of infrastructure that the less experienced cyclists and parents of children want installed. Protected bike lanes, where there are crossings of perpendicular roads are especially contentious, and the vehicular cyclists are annoyed because the designs often result in slowing them down. Some residents oppose bicycle infrastructure because it often makes driving places less convenient and slower. I see similar conflicts in my city. When we propose new infrastructure that will benefit less experienced cyclists, the experienced cyclists, and some residents, insist that the infrastructure is not needed because cycling on the existing streets has not been an issue. But the reality is that cycling numbers are being depressed because without the new infrastructure many people won’t bicycle, they drive, especially driving their kids to school rather than letting them bicycle to school. However there is no way to prove the level of increase that adding infrastructure will bring, it’s “build it and hope that they eventually come.” In Davis there is one particularly big conflict with motorists. As I-80 traffic has increased, Waze has directed motorists onto city streets to bypass choke points. This happened just about the time a major bicycle infrastructure was completed that narrowed a street from two vehicle lanes in each direction to one vehicle lane in each direction https://cal.streetsblog.org/2019/08/02/in-davis-a-new-bikeped-safety-project-is-blamed-for-heavy-traffic/. While the root cause of the congestion is the congested traffic on I-80, some residents don’t want to understand this. They also don’t understand that if the two vehicle lanes are put back that Waze will direct even more vehicles onto that road. Waze is an equalizer when it comes to traffic. If a road becomes uncongested then Waze directs more traffic onto that road until that road, and the road that the traffic came from, are about equally congested. We have a similar issue with Waze in my city. Traffic is directed off of I-280 to surface streets which makes it to dangerous to cross these roads, especially for children and the elderly. We are looking at a pedestrian/bicycle bridge over one busy, fast road but a few residents oppose it, convinced that it will result in criminals having easier access to their neighborhood. Explaining that it’s far more likely that anyone wanting to rob them will arrive in a car, not on foot or on a bicycle across a bicycle bridge, is difficult. Traffic calming often infuriates motorists. The problem of motorists creating a right turn lane that uses the shoulder is solved with islands or bollards, which protect cyclists but further congests traffic, especially right turn traffic. Motorists making high speed turns across bike lanes, both protected and unprotected can be solved, but motorists are upset at having to slow down to make a sharp right turn. So the City of Davis ended up re-doing an intersection to remove traffic calming at the insistence of some residents in a high-cost neighborhood. In one place that they eliminated a self-created vehicle right turn lane that was endangering cyclists by installing an island. But they had to leave a narrow gap between the island and the curb for drainage. Some cyclists thought that this gap was a right turn lane for cyclists, because it really is wide enough for a skilled cyclist to navigate, but it was not a right turn lane. Bicycle advocates got the City Council to pass a law that requires specific new striping to benefit cyclists whenever a road is re-striped https://www.bikedavis.us/news/2018/06/18. This sounds wonderful, but unfortunately, to comply with those requirements can be enormously expensive requiring major changes to the roadway and lane widths. The result is that many roads are not being re-striped at all and the striping is fading away, often to dangerous levels. Davis has a bike share program “Jump” which is very popular but oddly it has only electric bicycles, and the City is flat. Cyclists in Davis stop at stop signs and use hand signals. DRL use is widespread. There were even several bicycles with hub dynamos. We often see posts in this newsgroup attacking some piece of bicycle infrastructure, or showing a picture of some piece of infrastructure that seems counter-intuitive, but the reality is that traffic engineers are trying to balance competing interests from vehicular cycling advocates, cyclists that will only ride if there is infrastructure that makes them feel “comfortable,” and motorists that are furious about anything delaying them an extra few seconds. |
#2
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Bicycle Infrastructure Tour of Davis, CA
On Thursday, 7 November 2019 21:13:41 UTC-5, sms wrote:
Today I went up to Davis, CA https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/aug/03/davis-california-the-american-city-which-fell-in-love-with-the-bicycle for a tour of their bicycle infrastructure with a city bicycle traffic engineer from Davis, as well as my own city’s traffic engineer. We did about a ten mile ride exploring the various bicycle connections in the city. UC Davis is actually not in the City of Davis and there is not a big tax base in the city so money is tight. Still they’ve done an amazing job of expanding the bicycle infrastructure. But their PCI (Pavement Condition Index) is rather poor and the bicycle infrastructure pavement is also often poor. It is not a place for small-wheeled bicycles like Bromptons. There is a three way conflict among different groups when it comes to bicycle infrastructure. The experienced cyclists/vehicular cyclists don’t like the type of infrastructure that the less experienced cyclists and parents of children want installed. Protected bike lanes, where there are crossings of perpendicular roads are especially contentious, and the vehicular cyclists are annoyed because the designs often result in slowing them down. Some residents oppose bicycle infrastructure because it often makes driving places less convenient and slower. I see similar conflicts in my city. When we propose new infrastructure that will benefit less experienced cyclists, the experienced cyclists, and some residents, insist that the infrastructure is not needed because cycling on the existing streets has not been an issue. But the reality is that cycling numbers are being depressed because without the new infrastructure many people won’t bicycle, they drive, especially driving their kids to school rather than letting them bicycle to school. However there is no way to prove the level of increase that adding infrastructure will bring, it’s “build it and hope that they eventually come.” In Davis there is one particularly big conflict with motorists. As I-80 traffic has increased, Waze has directed motorists onto city streets to bypass choke points. This happened just about the time a major bicycle infrastructure was completed that narrowed a street from two vehicle lanes in each direction to one vehicle lane in each direction https://cal.streetsblog.org/2019/08/02/in-davis-a-new-bikeped-safety-project-is-blamed-for-heavy-traffic/. While the root cause of the congestion is the congested traffic on I-80, some residents don’t want to understand this. They also don’t understand that if the two vehicle lanes are put back that Waze will direct even more vehicles onto that road. Waze is an equalizer when it comes to traffic. If a road becomes uncongested then Waze directs more traffic onto that road until that road, and the road that the traffic came from, are about equally congested. We have a similar issue with Waze in my city. Traffic is directed off of I-280 to surface streets which makes it to dangerous to cross these roads, especially for children and the elderly. We are looking at a pedestrian/bicycle bridge over one busy, fast road but a few residents oppose it, convinced that it will result in criminals having easier access to their neighborhood. Explaining that it’s far more likely that anyone wanting to rob them will arrive in a car, not on foot or on a bicycle across a bicycle bridge, is difficult. Traffic calming often infuriates motorists. The problem of motorists creating a right turn lane that uses the shoulder is solved with islands or bollards, which protect cyclists but further congests traffic, especially right turn traffic. Motorists making high speed turns across bike lanes, both protected and unprotected can be solved, but motorists are upset at having to slow down to make a sharp right turn. So the City of Davis ended up re-doing an intersection to remove traffic calming at the insistence of some residents in a high-cost neighborhood. In one place that they eliminated a self-created vehicle right turn lane that was endangering cyclists by installing an island. But they had to leave a narrow gap between the island and the curb for drainage. Some cyclists thought that this gap was a right turn lane for cyclists, because it really is wide enough for a skilled cyclist to navigate, but it was not a right turn lane. Bicycle advocates got the City Council to pass a law that requires specific new striping to benefit cyclists whenever a road is re-striped https://www.bikedavis.us/news/2018/06/18. This sounds wonderful, but unfortunately, to comply with those requirements can be enormously expensive requiring major changes to the roadway and lane widths. The result is that many roads are not being re-striped at all and the striping is fading away, often to dangerous levels. Davis has a bike share program “Jump” which is very popular but oddly it has only electric bicycles, and the City is flat. Cyclists in Davis stop at stop signs and use hand signals. DRL use is widespread. There were even several bicycles with hub dynamos. We often see posts in this newsgroup attacking some piece of bicycle infrastructure, or showing a picture of some piece of infrastructure that seems counter-intuitive, but the reality is that traffic engineers are trying to balance competing interests from vehicular cycling advocates, cyclists that will only ride if there is infrastructure that makes them feel “comfortable,” and motorists that are furious about anything delaying them an extra few seconds. Build it and hope they will come is right. Many imes the infrastructure is built and they don't come. Segregated/protected bike lanes are dangerous simply because of all those intersections including driveways and entrances to parking lots. Drivers don't expect bicyclists to be riding fast past them and bicyclists don't expect vehicles to be in them. Those do a great job of setting up a bicycle/vehicle conflict. That's not to mention the conflicts that are present when the segregated/protected bike lane crosses a road or ends. Now you have inexperienced with traffic bicyclists being dumped into traffic. When the lane ends do those bicyclists become pedestrians and walk their bikes the rest of the way to their destination? Cheers |
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Bicycle Infrastructure Tour of Davis, CA
On 11/7/2019 9:46 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Thursday, 7 November 2019 21:13:41 UTC-5, sms wrote: We often see posts in this newsgroup attacking some piece of bicycle infrastructure, or showing a picture of some piece of infrastructure that seems counter-intuitive, but the reality is that traffic engineers are trying to balance competing interests from vehicular cycling advocates, cyclists that will only ride if there is infrastructure that makes them feel “comfortable,” and motorists that are furious about anything delaying them an extra few seconds. Traffic engineers are also faced with dictates from politicians, who are swayed by lobbying from "badvocates" under the influence of propaganda. The current push for "protected bike lanes" is an excellent example. Social Justice Warrior bicyclists now demand these - especially bi-directional ones - as the default road design. But science https://www.iihs.org/topics/bibliography/ref/2193 and experience http://www.copenhagenize.com/2014/06...cle-track.html shows them to be dangerous. But they're trendy, dude! We gotta have them! Build it and hope they will come is right. Many times the infrastructure is built and they don't come. I regularly visit a little town with miles of bike lanes. IIRC, this year's count is three. That is, three cyclists using those lanes since January 1. Segregated/protected bike lanes are dangerous simply because of all those intersections including driveways and entrances to parking lots. Drivers don't expect bicyclists to be riding fast past them and bicyclists don't expect vehicles to be in them. Those do a great job of setting up a bicycle/vehicle conflict. Exactly. See https://www.chicagotribune.com/busin...5ge-story.html -- - Frank Krygowski |
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Bicycle Infrastructure Tour of Davis, CA
On Fri, 8 Nov 2019 14:36:42 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote: On 11/7/2019 9:46 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote: On Thursday, 7 November 2019 21:13:41 UTC-5, sms wrote: We often see posts in this newsgroup attacking some piece of bicycle infrastructure, or showing a picture of some piece of infrastructure that seems counter-intuitive, but the reality is that traffic engineers are trying to balance competing interests from vehicular cycling advocates, cyclists that will only ride if there is infrastructure that makes them feel comfortable, and motorists that are furious about anything delaying them an extra few seconds. Traffic engineers are also faced with dictates from politicians, who are swayed by lobbying from "badvocates" under the influence of propaganda. The current push for "protected bike lanes" is an excellent example. Social Justice Warrior bicyclists now demand these - especially bi-directional ones - as the default road design. But science https://www.iihs.org/topics/bibliography/ref/2193 and experience http://www.copenhagenize.com/2014/06...cle-track.html shows them to be dangerous. But they're trendy, dude! We gotta have them! Build it and hope they will come is right. Many times the infrastructure is built and they don't come. I regularly visit a little town with miles of bike lanes. IIRC, this year's count is three. That is, three cyclists using those lanes since January 1. Segregated/protected bike lanes are dangerous simply because of all those intersections including driveways and entrances to parking lots. Drivers don't expect bicyclists to be riding fast past them and bicyclists don't expect vehicles to be in them. Those do a great job of setting up a bicycle/vehicle conflict. Exactly. See https://www.chicagotribune.com/busin...5ge-story.html It is called "democracy" Frank. You know the majority (or the loudest mouths) get to have their own way. -- cheers, John B. |
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Bicycle Infrastructure Tour of Davis, CA
On 11/8/2019 3:33 PM, John B. wrote:
snip It is called "democracy" Frank. You know the majority (or the loudest mouths) get to have their own way. In Davis it's the "vehicular cyclists" and the motorists that are the ones that "have to get their own way." The attitude of "we were here long before all these new cyclists so we have to get what we want" echos the attitude of Mike Vandeman demanding that hikers and equestrians should have access to trails, but mountain bikers shouldn't, because hikers and equestrians were there first (despite the fact that horses cause far more trail damage than mountain bikes). The reality is that if the goal of a city is to increase the number of residents that commute by bicycle then the only way to do this is to put in more bicycle infrastructure. It's that way in the Netherlands and it's that way everywhere else as well. Nothing else works. Period. In Davis the bicycle mode share is over 20%. In San Francisco it's 3% and that's considered high! In San Jose it's 1% despite the fact that San Jose is flat. Mountain View, which is doing well with more bicycle infrastructure is at 6%. The main MUPs in Mountain View go very close to some of the largest employers including Google, Microsoft, Symantec, and Samsung. When you get more cyclists out there it becomes safer as motorists get more used to cyclists. Trying to increase safety by demanding that cyclists wear helmets is not the right approach. |
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Bicycle Infrastructure Tour of Davis, CA
On Fri, 8 Nov 2019 16:27:22 -0800, sms
wrote: On 11/8/2019 3:33 PM, John B. wrote: snip It is called "democracy" Frank. You know the majority (or the loudest mouths) get to have their own way. In Davis it's the "vehicular cyclists" and the motorists that are the ones that "have to get their own way." The attitude of "we were here long before all these new cyclists so we have to get what we want" echos the attitude of Mike Vandeman demanding that hikers and equestrians should have access to trails, but mountain bikers shouldn't, because hikers and equestrians were there first (despite the fact that horses cause far more trail damage than mountain bikes). The reality is that if the goal of a city is to increase the number of residents that commute by bicycle then the only way to do this is to put in more bicycle infrastructure. It's that way in the Netherlands and it's that way everywhere else as well. Nothing else works. Period. But that isn't what happened in the Netherlands. Initially there were far more bicycles than automobiles. Prior to WW II the majority of trips were made by bicycle. Even today there are more bicycles than residents and in The Hague something like 60% of trips are by bicycle. So in discussing Holland you are talking about a country where until very recently bicycles were the most common means of transportation and building bicycle facilities is not a matter of modifying auto paths for a relatively small number of bicycles it building facilities for perhaps a majority of the transportation vehicles. In the U.S. you are talking about the opposite. In Davis the bicycle mode share is over 20%. In San Francisco it's 3% and that's considered high! In San Jose it's 1% despite the fact that San Jose is flat. Mountain View, which is doing well with more bicycle infrastructure is at 6%. The main MUPs in Mountain View go very close to some of the largest employers including Google, Microsoft, Symantec, and Samsung. When you get more cyclists out there it becomes safer as motorists get more used to cyclists. Trying to increase safety by demanding that cyclists wear helmets is not the right approach. -- cheers, John B. |
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Bicycle Infrastructure Tour of Davis, CA
On 11/8/2019 7:27 PM, sms wrote:
In Davis it's the "vehicular cyclists" and the motorists that are the ones that "have to get their own way." Oh, please. A "vehicular cyclist" is really just a cyclist who rides according to the rules of the road that apply to all vehicles. It's what we all should do when we're not on kiddie paths or trapped in cattle chutes. If you don't do that, you're either a timid gutter bunny or a "salmon" rider. You shouldn't brag about that. The reality is that if the goal of a city is to increase the number of residents that commute by bicycle then the only way to do this is to put in more bicycle infrastructure. It's that way in the Netherlands and it's that way everywhere else as well. Nothing else works. Period. In Davis the bicycle mode share is over 20%. In San Francisco it's 3% and that's considered high! In San Jose it's 1% despite the fact that San Jose is flat. Mountain View, which is doing well with more bicycle infrastructure is at 6%. The main MUPs in Mountain View go very close to some of the largest employers including Google, Microsoft, Symantec, and Samsung. First, bike mode share in Davis has been on a downward trend for a long time. Even Streetsblog has noted this: "Even Davis, California, one of the country’s longtime leaders in bicycle mode share, saw its third straight year of falling estimates in the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. The university town estimated 17 percent of trips by bike, down from 25 percent in 2013." It's glory days were way back in the 1960s, when bike mode share was above 30% - but probably because the campus was newly expanded, the town was much smaller and the campus greatly restricted car use. And despite the hype, bike mode share in the U.S. has lately been on a downward trend. From the useless LAB, at https://bikeleague.org/content/new-data-bike-commuting "The Census Bureau has released the 2017 1-year estimates for how people are commuting to work based on the American Community Survey. "The 2017 1-year data shows that overall, commuters are choosing to use a bicycle as their primary mode of transportation to work slightly less than in recent years. Year-over-year, the rate of people biking to work has decreased 4.7%. Among the 70 largest cities (as of 2009 when the League began tracking), a slight majority (37) cities had a year-over-year decrease in bike mode share." One reason given for the decrease in bicycling is the lower cost of gasoline. I recently paid more for gas than I have in a long time, at a remote rural gas pump, $2.55 per gallon. That's about 0.60 Euros per liter, or maybe half what Europeans are paying. If and when gas prices rise to over $4 per gallon, U.S. bike mode share might surge back to its high of ... what? 0.6% or so? Keep in mind, this is a country where cities brag about bike mode share of 2%. When you get more cyclists out there it becomes safer as motorists get more used to cyclists. Yes, I believe that's true. But if the cyclists are all corralled in separate chutes, they are subject to hazards where the chutes intersect MV paths. Which is not to mention the other problems in the chutes: wrong way riders, debris, bad pavement, collision hazards, various delays, etc. And they're often subject to harassment for daring to leave the chutes. Trying to increase safety by demanding that cyclists wear helmets is not the right approach. I agree. -- - Frank Krygowski |
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