Munich Planning Highway System For Cyclists 163
An anonymous reader writes: The German city of Munich has been looking for solutions to its traffic problem. Rush hour traffic is a parking lot, and public transit is near capacity. They think their best bet is to encourage (and enable) more people to hop on their bikes. Munich is now planning a Radschnellverbindungen — a highway system just for cyclists. Long bike routes will connect the city with universities, employment centers, and other cities. The paths themselves would be as free from disruption as possible — avoiding intersections and traffic lights are key to a swift commute. They'll doubtless take lessons from Copenhagen's bike skyway: "Cykelslangen (pronounced soo-cool-klag-en) adds just 721 feet of length to the city's 220 miles of bicycle paths, but it relieves congestion by taking riders over instead of through a waterfront shopping area."
I spent a few days biking around Munich in the 80s (Score:5, Insightful)
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Irony: Cyclists who ride down the middle of a road built for cars complaining about pedestrians walking down the middle of a path built for bikes.
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If there is no road sign that marks a road built especially for high speed motorized vehicles (like a freeway) then the road is built for general use, not just for cars.
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Have a look at http://www.roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/ [roadsweren...orcars.com] for a really good examination of the early history of roads and cars. Most of the car pioneers were al
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Built for cars, don't you mean built for people on foot and then horses and then tarmac for.... Bicycles:
Roads Were Not Built for Cars: How Cyclists Were the First to Push for Good Roads & Became the Pioneers of Motoring: Amazon.co.uk: Carlton Reid: 9781610916899: Books [amazon.co.uk]
So, enough of this built for cars crap already, roads are built for people, all people.
How about building subways? (Score:5, Interesting)
Munich is growing faster than any time in recent history. Yet, for the first time in 50 years, no subway is being built. Leaving aside the reasons for this (mainly the German obsession with public debt), this is simply wrong, the two parts don't fit. Bulding more subways would help traffic more than bike highways (as much as I like them) -- and it would do so even in bad weather.
What could be done? Well, one of the main problems is that the public transport infrastructure is organized in a way where basically every connection runs via the center. So even if your destination isn't on a straight line from where you're at towards the center, you will still have to go there, change trains and then move out on another radial line. Now, with the ever increasing numbers of passengers this leads to lots of congestion on the stations in the town center (anybody who has e.g. tried changing subway lines at Sendlinger Tor during the morning or evening rush hours can confirm this).
The logical conclusion is of course to build a loop subway. Reduce dependency on the center and increase priority. This should become a priority.
(It is perhaps noting that such a loop exists in the public transportation network, but it is a patchwork of tramways and busses. So the necessity was recognized already, only the implemented solution falls short.)
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Munich is growing faster than any time in recent history. Yet, for the first time in 50 years, no subway is being built. Leaving aside the reasons for this (mainly the German obsession with public debt), this is simply wrong, the two parts don't fit.
It is pretty dumb. Germany is full of brilliant engineers but they are terrible at economics. They need to divert export capacity towards viable domestic projects like this, rather than continuing to run huge trade surpluses that they then do nothing with (or worse: lend to people who are never going to pay them back). A small export tax to fund domestic infrastructure projects would be a logical step right now, and would help to protect the country from another global slowdown. Alas I imagine proposing suc
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Ha.
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It is also misleading. It may be true that there is nothing being build right now (which may need a source) however work on additions to the main sections of the S-Bahn network is planned to start this year
We'll see if that ever happens, recently the news haven't been too encouraging, but this line in particular is doing nothing to cure the fixation of the network on the center.
and extensions to the U-Bahn network are in planning.
That may need a source. There is one new station currently being planned (Martinsried), and that's it. Everything else is still very much pie in the sky status.
Further the tram network is also constantly extended.
True, and this comes at the expense of not extending the subway, as once the tramway is extended, it's hard to argue for a subway running in parallel see also my comments about
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Just let the cyclists have right of way like in Amsterdam.
You can walk on the bike path but they will shoulder check you off the path.
Your fault, your problem.
Source: walking around Amsterdam feelin' kinda groovy, only got hit twice.
Seriously reporters, just give up on foreign words (Score:3)
Actually from the OP and not just a stupid editor: "Cykelslangen (pronounced soo-cool-klag-en) " (fault of Wired.com)
Cykels Langen - there is precisely zero chance that's pronounced soo-cool-klag-en.
More likely, with a usually wierd euro-pronounciation of the "y" it's soocles-langen.
I'm American, and I'm honestly not sure why Americans are SO BAD at pronouncing foreign words. Do we just see an unfamiliar collection of letters and what, just give up?
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I am not Danish, but I visit often and I think it is pronounced "sooglslangeh".
Danish pronunciation is very soft on the consonants.
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My point was that it's a compound word, and that can help parse out saying foreign words sometimes.
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Slange is also a hose or tube, and "cykelslange" is the word for "innertube", so it's a pun as well.
I'm Norwegian, not Danish, but I'll take a stab at the pronunciation:
Cyglslangen (with cy as in cylinder, gl as in glue, and slang as in the word) shold be close enough.The g is softer though, and there's almost but not quite an e in the transition to the next letter.
The a sound in slang is different. The Danish 'a' is more like the 'a' as in Khan or aaahh.
cykelslangen (Score:2)
I just can't find any picture of the Cykelslangen with more than a few cyclist on it. For a route that relieves congestion in a busy area, you would expect it is full all the time, and that it looks busy on most pictures. But it doesn't. Strange.
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It's the typical situation. Like trains that carry only a few people, perpetually empty buses, etc. all the results of special interests convincing government officials to spend money of stuff that no one needs.
Austin, TX spent millions repainting the streets for bike lanes...to accommodate what turns out to be less than 100 regular users.
Are you sure Austin's bike lanes accomodate less than 100 regular users? This site [visio-tools.com] seems to suggest that just one bikeway (The Lance Armstrong Bikeway at Waller Creek (bet they regret that name now!), supports around 1000 riders/day.
They spent tens of millions on a "commuter train" that carries only a few hundred people a day. They TRIED to pass a bond for a BILLION dollars for nine miles of rail in the downtown area. Millions and millions spent on stuff nobody rides. They purchased these extra long buses for a million or so each and they are perpetually empty except for the various "fests" they have periodically. And the worst thing? None of these things go to the airport, which is pretty much the only economically defensible use.
That's the problem with building a transit system where previously there was none -- you have to go big if you want anyone to use it. Building a single train line will gain few riders because except for people that live and work along the line, people need to go more than one p
My experience (Score:5, Interesting)
I live in Denver, and just moved. My previous commute was about 3.9 miles via bicycle, with about 2.5 miles of it on bike lanes. My new commute is 4.5 miles, with about 3.5 miles of it on a dedicate recreational path (Denver's Cherry Creek Trail), and the other 1 mile almost all on bike lanes.
My new commute, while having a longer distance, takes me less time. In addition, it is a lot less stressful. The recreational path makes all the difference. It is limited access - there are ramps to the trail about every .2 miles - no motorized vehicles, and goes from my neighborhood (an urban residential-heavy area) to downtown.
I have commuted via bicycle in a wide variety of cities on the East Coast and can say that this new commute is about as ideal as it could be. I dread the days I have to drive into work. Even without traffic (which doubles the time needed), it takes me longer to drive.
A lot of US cities I have lived in see separated paths for recreational use only. They never seem to see that a trail going from residential areas to business areas can be a great encouragement for bicycle commuting.
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One surprisingly bike-friendly city is Phoenix, which offers several hundred miles of off-road bike paths. And there may be only one train line, but it does go to the airport.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Greek money (Score:1)
Guess we know where all of the Greek money went.
(pronounced soo-cool-klag-en) (Score:2)
sounds like a smart move (Score:2)
in Soviet Russia..... (Score:2)
"[...]Lots of research ties increased cycling rates to social, economic, environmental, and health benefits. “We need a new form of infrastructure,” Kastrop says. "
no source? and the "tie" could as well be the other way around: societies/communities wealthy enough to buy bikes but not cars have passed the hunger stage and are not getting fat yet, so they live longer: alternatively, this "green fixation" positively correlates with income, so rich communities, with higher education a
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I findi [sic] it slightly amusing and frightening that in a Democracy, the powers that be try to make you get out of your air-conditioned car, jump on a bike, and go your way to work.
Democracy isn't a system that enables absolute freedom. It's a system that allows one faction to impose their will on another faction. Taken to its extreme it becomes a tyranny of the masses.
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What you are missing is that many people would love to cycle but are put off buy the lack of cycling infrastructure or to put it another way cycling on roads with cars endangering your life constantly by not looking where they are going and passing too close is too stressful for a lot of people. But cycling without these stresses on decent cycling infrastructure is fun, keeps you fit and healthy, reduces stress, saves money and doesn't emit CO2 and a whole bunch of other pollutants.
Showering (Score:2)
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Why would the need to be licensed? It costs far more than it brings in benefits. Or is this a way to expand the government overreach?
I bet you'd be fucking pissed if taxes went up to cover it, right?
Oh, and they pay (twice) for the roads anyway. 80% of cyclists have cars which are road taxed (but don't use when cycling), PLUS local roads are paid out of local taxes.
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Now there will be no excuse not to require cyclists to get a license, registration, and payment of that registration yearly to pay for the roads they want. As a highly-taxed driver (gas and registration), I'm getting rather tired of cyclists requesting more and more road upgrades despite them not paying even a small share of the costs for those upgrades.
Obviously bicycles do far less damage to the roads, and the requirements are much lower. So we can forgo trying to replace the gas taxes, and just stick to registration costs.
Oh, you don't like that? Quit being a leech, TYVM.
Interesting points. I'd say allow electric bikes as well (within reasonable specs).
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Re:Sounds great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Now there will be no excuse not to require cyclists to get a license, registration, and payment of that registration yearly to pay for the roads they want. As a highly-taxed driver (gas and registration), I'm getting rather tired of cyclists requesting more and more road upgrades despite them not paying even a small share of the costs for those upgrades.
Obviously bicycles do far less damage to the roads, and the requirements are much lower. So we can forgo trying to replace the gas taxes, and just stick to registration costs.
Oh, you don't like that? Quit being a leech, TYVM.
As a highly taxed driver, you should be happy at anything that means fewer cyclists on "your" roads (even though much of the road costs are paid out of general taxes), and to have more people switch to cycling, which means fewer cars on the road.
Since road wear scales with the 3rd or 4th power of axle weight, a 200 lb cyclist should pay about 1000'th of the road taxes as a driver with a 2000 lb car (or 1/5360'th as much as a 3500 pound car). So if you pay $1000/year in taxes for your 3500 lb Honda Accord, the cyclist would pay about 20 cents.
Give me your address and I'll pay you the 20 cents directly since no government could collect a 20 cent fee without losing money.
Re:Sounds great! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the same reason we don't require registration for people to walk on sidewalks
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Since road wear scales with the 3rd or 4th power of axle weight, a 200 lb cyclist should pay about 1000'th of the road taxes as a driver with a 2000 lb car (or 1/5360'th as much as a 3500 pound car). So if you pay $1000/year in taxes for your 3500 lb Honda Accord, the cyclist would pay about 20 cents.
There are other costs to building and maintaining a road besides simple road wear. The biggest cost of a road is usually the land acquisition in order to build one. A bike lane takes up far more than 1/5360th of the land that a car lane uses. Probably closer to 1/3rd.
And there are other causes of road wear than the weight of vehicles traveling on it, such as water damage from rain puddles, freeze/thaw cycle, etc
Re:Sounds great! (Score:5, Interesting)
Since road wear scales with the 3rd or 4th power of axle weight, a 200 lb cyclist should pay about 1000'th of the road taxes as a driver with a 2000 lb car (or 1/5360'th as much as a 3500 pound car). So if you pay $1000/year in taxes for your 3500 lb Honda Accord, the cyclist would pay about 20 cents.
There are other costs to building and maintaining a road besides simple road wear. The biggest cost of a road is usually the land acquisition in order to build one. A bike lane takes up far more than 1/5360th of the land that a car lane uses. Probably closer to 1/3rd.
And there are other causes of road wear than the weight of vehicles traveling on it, such as water damage from rain puddles, freeze/thaw cycle, etc
You forgot to factor in the road shoulders and parking strips that are a part of most roads -- in many cases a bike lane takes 0% of the space a car needs to drive on the roadway. But since drivers rarely pay the acquisition costs of roads (especially roads that were in existence before cars came along), it seems a little unfair to suddenly charge cyclists for roads that were originally easily shared between bikes and horses.
And there are other causes of road wear than the weight of vehicles traveling on it, such as water damage from rain puddles, freeze/thaw cycle, etc
One of the dedicated bike paths I ride to work has been in existence for nearly 30 years without repaving or major maintenance (only tar sealing cracks). The busy road in front of my house has been resurfaced 2 times in the past 15 years and it's still pothole strewn, the city tries to fix them as they occur, but their 5 year plan includes grinding off the top surface and repaving. A cycling path is much cheaper to build, not only is it a lot narrower than even a single lane road, it typically uses only a few inches of fill under the surface compared to a road that requires 12 - 16" of subsurface prep and drainage before paving.
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Actually...
Here in Portland a lot of roads downtown lost square footage [pdx.edu] thanks to wide swaths of green-painted areas which are bike-only, forcing cars to concentrate themselves into fewer lanes, wearing those portions of the road out faster, etc.
Also, in many locales, bicycles do require a license [bikeslc.com] anyway (mostly to assist in recovering stolen ones). Wouldn't take much to slap a tax on those bad boys, and without much overhead beyond what's already in place.
Re:Sounds great! (Score:4)
Actually...
Here in Portland a lot of roads downtown lost square footage [pdx.edu] thanks to wide swaths of green-painted areas which are bike-only, forcing cars to concentrate themselves into fewer lanes, wearing those portions of the road out faster, etc.
Sounds like all the more reason to get more of those wear-inducing cars off the roads and replace them with cyclists. The other side effect of narrowing roads is that it increases safety for everyone (cars, cyclists and pedestrians) since drivers naturally go slower on narrow roads. Make a city street as wide and straight as a freeway and drivers will drive as if it's a freeway.
Also, in many locales, bicycles do require a license [bikeslc.com] anyway (mostly to assist in recovering stolen ones). Wouldn't take much to slap a tax on those bad boys, and without much overhead beyond what's already in place.
I'm fine with a bike tax that goes to dedicated cycling infrastructure, but don't tax a cyclist to pay for shared roads that they are already paying through their general taxes. My locality passed a general bond measure to pay for road repairs, so I'm paying for roads through my property taxes whether I drive or not.
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In the United States any road with a route number (and many are but do not have signs - states try to push the costs to the towns over time) is either a federal or state road and, as such, is not paid for out of the general fund but is paid for by taxes on gasoline and on-road diesel. The answer is not more bikes. The answer is fewer stupid people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
From 2008 to 2010, Congress authorized the transfer of $35 billion from the General Fund of the U.S. Treasury to keep the trust fund solvent.[7]
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected in January 2012 that the fund's Highway Account will become insolvent during 2013, and the Mass Transit Account insolvent in 2014. CBO said that although vehicles will travel more miles in the future (therefore consuming more taxable fuel), rising fuel efficiency standards and congressional refusal to increase the fuel tax or tie it to the rate of inflation means that the fund receives less money. CBO's insolvency projection assumed that Congress will not increase transportation spending beyond inflation-adjusted 2012 levels.[7]
The Highway Trust Fund will run out of money in late July or early August 2015 as of late June 2015 without an increase in gas taxes.[8] The gas tax has not been raised for such a long time, an increase is dubious.
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That would be an anomoly where they were providing "shovel ready jobs" to improve the economy. Did you forget that? Anyhow, I should have mentioned that anyhow - a lot of the money comes back in the form of federal tax dollars from the general fund though that is usually used for inter-state roads. You can tell those roads by the sign, they are black and white inside of a seal type of display (for lack of a better word). State roads are, most generally, paid for with gas taxes. Toll roads are *supposed* to be paid for exclusively with taxes in most states though some will have started with a trust and will pay out of that and the toll money.
Is this an anomaly too:
About 70 percent of the construction and maintenance costs of Interstate Highways in the United States have been paid through user fees, primarily the fuel taxes collected by the federal, state, and local governments.
The rest of the costs of these highways are borne by general fund receipts, bond issues, designated property taxes, and other taxes. The federal contribution comes overwhelmingly from motor vehicle and fuel taxes (93.5 percent in 2007), and it makes up about 60 percent of the contributions by the states. However, any local government contributions are overwhelmingly from sources besides user fees
And this:
http://taxfoundation.org/artic... [taxfoundation.org]
Nationwide in 2011, highway user fees and user taxes made up just 50.4 percent of state and local expenses on roads. State and local governments spent $153.0 billion on highway, road, and street expenses but raised only $77.1 billion in user fees and user taxes ($12.7 billion in tolls and user fees, $41.2 billion in fuel taxes, and $23.2 billion in vehicle license taxes).[3] The rest was funded by $30 billion in general state and local revenues and $46 billion in federal aid (approximately $28 billion derived from the federal gasoline tax and $18 billion from general federal revenues or deficit financed).
And the local roads, where cyclists are more likely to be sharing roads with cars tend to be the same roads that are largely funded through local tax revenue -- so as a cyclist I'm paying for the roads through my property and other local taxes, while the driver coming in from another county wants me off "his" road, even though he contributes very little to the costs of the road.
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this guy's got an answer for everything. and it's always more bikes.
Not just bikes, but also better transit, and better planning that doesn't encourage sprawling suburbs that require huge highways to handle the huge numbers of mostly single passenger cars driving to population centers.
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The other side effect of narrowing roads is that it increases safety for everyone (cars, cyclists and pedestrians) since drivers naturally go slower on narrow roads
If slowing traffic is the only way in which narrowing roads increases safety, then I propose that we take it to the limit get rid of them entirely. Once traffic is not moving at all, no one will ever be injured again!
Do you always take everything to the most extreme, absurd conclusion? If someone recommends reducing calorie intake to lose weight, do you advocate eliminating calorie intake completely, which will result in death and even greater weight loss through decomposition of the body?
In any case, slowing traffic is just one way that narrowed lanes increase safety. Another is in reducing road crossing times by pedestrians, which reduces their exposure to cars. Another is in making drivers "feel" less comfortable and
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Re:Sounds great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Should they also pay for
1. Increased air pollution due to causing cars to driver slower and waste gas while some gay boy in colorful pants ride 20 mph below the speed limit?
With few exceptions, driving slower saves gas, so that gay boy should get a credit for gas saved.
2. Loss of productivity due to delaying drivers?
Again, with few exceptions, cyclists cause less traffic on the roads, speeding up the commute -- my commute is faster by bike than by car because I'm not stuck in traffic behind all of the other cars while cyclists zip by in the bike lane. If you find that there are so many cyclists on your commute that they are slowing you down, then you shoulid be advocating for bike lanes to reduce the cyclists on the road.
3. Extra paint and labor setting up the bike lanes for "special" people?
Given that road taxes (at least in the USA) only cover a fraction of road costs, cyclists are already paying. Most cyclists are also car owners, when I bike to work, my car sits at home, unused, and while that reduces my fuel taxes, I don't get a refund on the expensive VLF that I paid that purportedly goes to road costs.
4. Finally, pay for emotional damage caused by seeing people in spandex who should never ever be in spandex?
Your mental issues are your responsibility, but it's lycra, not spandex, and few commute cyclists around here wear specialty cyclist clothes unless they have a long bike commute.
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One of the exceptions is low speeds, i.e. ones similar to a typical urban hiptard cyclist.
The 55 mph speed limit on US interstates was introduced during an oil shortage. It's not a coincidence.
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Well, from my personal experience (and I rarely get home without meeting at least a couple of bicycles) nope, it's quite an environmental hit, actually for two reasons:
1) I have to break and accelerate, which is apparent waste of resources (let alone my time)
Well, you may have to brake (if you car break's, that's another problem), but if there's a bike in front of you, you don't *have* to accelerate and pass. Every time you brake, you're dumping away energy that you'll never recover (unless you're in a hybrid), so minimize the braking and accelerating.
2) My car (heh, old VW Golf) consumes about 6.5l per 100km on average, when I'm trailing bikes it's about 10l.
Most of the time I am not alone, it quickly grows to about 5-10 cars trying to outmaneuver the bike rider.
Anecdotal evidence aside, your statement about "driving slower is more effective" is plain wrong. Most motors have a sweet spot which normally is at 2000 rpm.
Since you're such an eco-focused driver, worried about wasting resources and you often find yourself behind bikes, perhaps you should be driving a car that's efficient at those speeds.
http://home.hiwaay.net/~bzwil [hiwaay.net]
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His car is bought, paid for, and mined. There is no way a new car's efficiency - no matter how good - can recoup the ecological costs of mining new material.
I'm not suggesting that he scrap his car or drive it off a cliff - he can sell it to someone that doesn't drive on roads with so many cyclists in the middle of the lane that it has a significant effect on his gas mileage.
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No but you were suggesting he change his car when, really, keeping his car (meaning a new one needn't be manufactured) would potentially be better for the environment, their income, and overall more efficient as a new car needn't be manufactured.
I am a huge fan of keeping cars, safely, on the road for as long as possible.
If his car is safe and serviceable, selling it doesn't mean taking it off the road - it will be sold on the used market, likely enabling some other driver with an even older car to upgrade to something more modern (and more fuel efficient and cleaner).
And note that I only suggested that because he expressed concern that cyclists were making him slow down and waste precious resources - so rather than force the cyclists to buy a car (and use even more of the precious resources he's worried about), he could pu
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This 20 cents will go far to pay the several million dollars the road system is projected to cost as per the article you didn't read.
The same could be said of the billions of dollars of road improvements that aren't paid out of fuel taxes. My city recently passed a $300M general obligation bond that will go largely toward road repairs and maintenance.
Re:Sounds great! (Score:5, Insightful)
But hang on, how many cyclists out there, who are of age to drive, don't also own a car? Outside of dense inner-metro areas (NYC, London), virtually everyone owns a car.
The administrative costs of imposing and collecting bike registration (not to mention the relative difficulty of policing it, given that plenty of people own bikes but only ride on trails and other things that aren't city streets) would seem to outweigh the extra revenue it would bring in. Not to mention that you generally want to encourage bike riding as much as possible, for public health reasons, and the extra cost and inconvenience of having to register would probably drive away a lot of casual cyclists.
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But hang on, how many cyclists out there, who are of age to drive, don't also own a car?
Quite a few.
Every regular cyclist I know here in Perth doesn't have a car, in fact the only regular cyclist I know who does have a Class C drivers license makes it a point not to ride on roads as much as possible. I imagine it's worse in somewhere like London where you can live quite well without a car.
Do you have evidence that the majority of cyclists have licenses. If not your anecdotal evidence is only as good as my anecdotal evidence.
Now the only reason I want cyclists to be registered is so th
Re:Sounds great! (Score:5, Informative)
I know! And what about all those leeching pedestrians? Sidewalks don't just appear! Plus pedestrians slow me down when I'm in a hurry! We should require registration to walk in the city! :-)
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I know! And what about all those leeching pedestrians? Sidewalks don't just appear! Plus pedestrians slow me down when I'm in a hurry! We should require registration to walk in the city! :-)
So basically you hate pedestrians doing to you just what you do to motorists.
Re:Sounds great! (Score:5, Interesting)
Screw that. When are those lazy anarchist pedestrians going to start paying sidewalk and crosswalk tax? And when are they going to have registration plates so we can report jaywalkers? I'm getting rather tired of people thinking they're just free to move about anyway they want to. Don't even get me started on adults offering piggy-back rides. Clearly unsafe. Also, peds should have to wear belts and helmets and hi-viz.
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Sidewalks on a street benefit the property owners, so a property tax proportional to street frontage would be an equitable and practical way to pay for sidewalks. In fact, for the same reason it also ought to pay for the property owner's half of the street.
Of course, this assumes a distinction is made between streets, which are low-speed roads at destinations; and non-street roads, which are meant to move traffic eff
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As a cyclist, I am okay with that. But then the drivers ought to pay for their actual road and environment damage and for their parking as well. Would make driving completely prohibitive, though.
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Idiot.
All taxes pay for roads - cyclists pay for the roads.
Most cyclists own cars.
It's pointless for a cyclist to have a license, it's been tried and scrapped as a complete waste of time and money.
Cars get roads, why should cyclists have a cycling infrastructure.
You are damaging the environment 50x what a cyclist is.
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Pfft! We get that in Portland now...
A huge percentage are frickin' snowflakes demand to be given the same rights and berth as automobiles, then blatantly violate every traffic rule there is. Worst part is when they blow off such things as, oh I dunno, signaling, then get mad when you have to slam on the brakes to avoid turning them into road pizza - then they look at you like *you* did something wrong. Then there's the complete disregard for traffic lights (oh, the light's red? Well I'm a pedestrian now, so
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The ones in Montreal are even worse for tempting one into turning them into road pizza (or street poutine if you rather).
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They have traffic laws in Montreal? I thought they were more like suggestions...
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They're not even suggestions. They're rules to be broken so you can feel like a good radical.
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OOOOooo I wish I had mod points for you...
I live in the SF bay area and rabid retards on bikes are prevalent. They ride on the sidewalk, the bike lanes, any car lane in any direction at their "own" discretion, obeying or ignoring whichever set of laws applies to them at the moment, and somehow the car following strict road rules is always at fault according to the bike riding douchebags...
Re:It's coming. Watch for it.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you imagine someone demanding the same rights as an automobile?
Everyone knows automobiles were endowed by the Creator with inalienable rights to have everyone get out of the fucking way.
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Everyone knows automobiles were endowed by the Creator with inalienable rights to have everyone get out of the fucking way.
The creator also endowed automobiles with headlights, seatbelts, turn signals, stoplights, and on the seventh day, traffic laws.
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Everyone knows automobiles were endowed by the Creator with inalienable rights to have everyone get out of the fucking way.
Well, technically that's true. The "rights" of mass and momentum endowed by the Creator are absolutely inalienable (inviolable by man) as far as we know.
Legally, bicyclists come out a bit ahead of automobiles and a bit behind those of pedestrians when it comes to "rights". In some places, all bets are off...
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The "rights" of mass and momentum endowed by the Creator are absolutely inalienable (inviolable by man) as far as we know.
So when I get in my 18-wheeler and plow through your car, it's cool. I have more mass and momentum, right?
Or are you gonna suddenly get whiny about how I should be more careful?
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So when I get in my 18-wheeler and plow through your car, it's cool.
Well, using a truck to occupy the same space at the same time as the car is highly discouraged in civil society, but natural law is in your favor.
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Everyone knows automobiles were endowed by the Creator with inalienable rights to have everyone get out of the fucking way.
Yeah right on bro! If god wanted bicycles he'd have passed road laws that said cyclist have the same rights on the road as cars, and cars have to give way to any one crossing the road (even if they're doing so illegally). Bigger cars are the answer.
You know the liberals used to make us drive behind dickheads with flags... till we run them down. No holding back progress.
Re:It's coming. Watch for it.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny thing is, motorists do the exact same things as cyclists. Yet, when a motorist does it, it is a bad driver. When a cyclist does it, it is a generalization that applies to all cyclists. (I will thank you for moderating your views to a massive percentage of cyclists. Yet your moderation is highly unusual.)
As for cyclist lane usage behavior, I'm not sure what the circumstances are in your city. In mine, the cyclist is to stay as far right as it is safe to be. This means that a cyclist has the right to take the lane for reasons of safety. If you're making a left turn, it is far safer to take the left turning lane to prevent cars from passing you while making the turn. If you're stopped at an intersection, it is far safer to take the right lane to prevent cars from making a right turn across your path. There are all sorts of rules of thumb like that which make life safer for cyclists and have very little impact upon motorists. (Seriously, we are talking about a 5 second delay in most of those cases.)
I have noticed motorists get impatient when I take the lane, presumably because they don't understand why. But if you think about it from the perspective of two motorists, it should make sense. For example, would you want a car passing your car from the left to make a right turn? I'm guessing the answer is no.
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I have noticed motorists get impatient when I take the lane
Your'e not the only one. Just last week, in a hilly neighborhood, I was on a descent and exceeding the posted speed limit while doing it.. and someone in a car went out of their way to pass me regardless. They had to have been going at least 50mph to do it, too. Nonsensical.
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This is because a very, very small percentage of motorists regularly run red lights. Cyclists do it all the time.
Most motorists at least try to fit into traffic, all cyclists demand that traffic changes to accommodate them.
Even worse, when a purpose built cycle path or cycle lane is made to accommodate the specia
Stuck signal sets (Score:3)
Then there's the complete disregard for traffic lights (oh, the light's red? Well I'm a pedestrian now, so screw you and give way as I suddenly pull out of my lane and ride across the crosswalk without warning!)
If a signal has remained red for five minutes despite my bike's front and rear wheels being directly over the crack in the street that indicates an induction loop sensor, what else am I supposed to do?
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Go over and hit the "walk" button. It can't hurt anything and the switch may even be hooked up!
If you were to dismount, you suddenly become a pedestrian walking a bike. Pedestrians have different rules for negotiating intersections.
Use your common sense and you'll usually be fin
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Your CroMo frame held away from the sensor by 700c aluminum wheels can probably trigger it, but not from any distance.
At one problematic intersection, laying the bicycle down on the ground did not trigger it, and I had to readjust the handlebar mirror afterward. Nor could a bicycle and a motorcycle put together trigger it, despite there being a total of four wheels over the loop.
Go over and hit the "walk" button.
This intersection has no walk button. There are plenty of working pelican crossings in Fort Wayne, Indiana, but this isn't one of them. It lacks even the usual zebra stripes.
If you were to dismount, you suddenly become a pedestrian walking a bike.
True, but I was responding to Penguinisto's sarcastic criticism of the str
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Meant no disrespect, was simply trying to provide helpful suggestions from my personal experience. Note that laying the bike down towards the sensor only works if your bike is ferrous, not aluminum or carbon fiber. That being said, there's no fixing a sensor that just doesn't work well. You might want to keep an ear out for an Indiana law [autoblog.com] like the one where I live, letting scooters / cycles cross against the red legally.
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Thanks for clarifying. It's just that I've heard a lot of the suggestions, tried them, and found them not to work.
Indiana passed such a law about a year ago [news-sentinel.com], as have several other U.S. states [pineight.com]. Mostly I'm asking on behalf of residents of those jurisdictions that have not. Or do all of them penalize cities for allowing a stuck signal set to happen?
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Then there's the complete disregard for traffic lights (oh, the light's red? Well I'm a pedestrian now, so screw you and give way as I suddenly pull out of my lane and ride across the crosswalk without warning!)
If a signal has remained red for five minutes despite my bike's front and rear wheels being directly over the crack in the street that indicates an induction loop sensor, what else am I supposed to do?
First of all, we dont believe that you actually stopped at a red light.
Secondly, do what motorcyclists do and hit the pedestrian cross button. I dont ride a motorcycle either, that's just common knowledge.
Also, you're attempt to make up esoteric scenarios to justify running red lights in peak hour traffic is terribly transparent.
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First of all, we dont believe that you actually stopped at a red light.
What would be the best way to prove that I do stop?
Secondly, do what motorcyclists do and hit the pedestrian cross button.
Please see my reply to zugmeister [slashdot.org]. Do I need to paste a Google Maps URL showing the problem?
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All routes that cross a particular road have the same problem with bicycle detection.
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You may want to read up on safety recommendations by e.g. the cops. In some situations it is recommended to take the lane to keep cars from squeezing past you.
#NotAllCops know what they're talking about (Score:2)
And sometimes you get law enforcement officers who appear to have forgotten the rules of the road. Today I was in the right half of the through lane of a city street without a bike lane, with a right-turn-only lane (we drive on the right in the United States) to my right. A cop in a cop car pulled up beside me at a red light and told me I shouldn't be on the road because I'm blocking traffic. When I asked for clarification, he told me I ought to be farther to the right or on the sidewalk, and then he drove
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Actually, I don't think it'll be as common as automobile road rage. The reason is that exercise is an excellent stress control mechanism. You just tend to take things in stride more readily when you're biking than when you're driving -- at least in my experience.
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Generally, I agree with you. But the bike pathletes can be as rude and obnoxious as any overly aggressive rider.
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The motorist in the video committed a crime -- several actually. But the cyclist committed an indiscretion by chasing down the motorist to give him a piece of his mind. That's not illegal, it's just a very bad idea.
Many years ago I heard an interviewer ask the great race driver Jackie Stewart what it takes to be a great driver. He said that a driver ought to be emotionless. I think this is very true for any kind of driving -- or cycling. Never prolong your reaction to anything that anyone does on the ro
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or you could just be patient and wait until there's enough room to pass safely. There is no requirement for the cyclist to pull over.
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It's not particularly easy to judge the distances in the video due to the wide angle lens (most helmet cams use wide angles), but the UK Highway Code specifies "give motorcyclists, cyclists and horse riders at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car" (h [www.gov.uk]
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Refuses to yield?
Are you blind - there is one lane how the hell do you yield when there is only safe room for one vehicle.
You clearly don't know what a safe passing distance is. Drivers like you give motorists a bad name!
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The overriding principle in any encounter between vehicles should be safety; after that efficiency. A cyclist should make way for a motorist to pass , but *only when doing so poses no hazard*. The biggest hazard presented by operation of any kind of vehicle is unpredictability. For a bike this is swerving in and out of a lane a car presents the greatest danger to himself and others on the road.
The correct, safe, and courteous thing to do is look for the earliest opportunity where it is safe to make enou
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With guns?
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Maybe if they DID do it with guns, there'd be LESS "Road Rage" people.
There'd be FEWER road rage people. *badum-tish*
As long as you're the first victim it sounds like a good idea.
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Dumbass, you bicycle when temps are over 100
when temps are over 100
In Munich?
Also, e-bikes decrease your workload.
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It gets more hippies and cyclist off our streets. And good ridden!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRxAZLV6vgU
Can't tell if that was a pun, a typo, or a misspelling.
Cykelslangen (pronounced soo-cool-klag-en) (Score:4, Informative)
No it's not. Try it on Google Translate https://translate.google.co/ [google.co] by selecting Danish and clicking on the speaker symbol. Danish pronunciation is sometimes a bit odd but not as crazy as your example.
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So it's in Copenhagen but the name is not Danish? Even though it translates to "bike hose" in Danish? So what language is it?
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Everybody knows it's pronounced "kameloså"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-mOy8VUEBk
As a Dane I just have to say:
It's 'CEEY - KILL - SCHLAAN - UHN'>/b>
And the literal translation is more along the lines of 'The Bicycle Snake', if you were English it'd probably be called 'The Serpent Way' or something of that ilk.
Now get off my bike-path^H^H Lawn!. Damn drunk pedestrians..
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Something tells me that even if there were snow removal on the bikeways, they're going to be deserted in the winter. And when it rains. Not exactly my idea of a commuter traffic reliever.
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