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posted by janrinok on Wednesday November 16 2016, @03:28AM   Printer-friendly
from the oi,-shift! dept.

It's barely been a week since New York started allowing people to go online and report vehicles blocking bike lanes, and the city has already logged more than 200 of these annoying and dangerous violations.

As predicted on CityLab, there now exists a map of illegal parking in bike lanes. Based on tips to New York's 311 app and website, the city-produced map shows alleged lane violations occurring mostly in Manhattan and Brooklyn with a decent smattering in Queens. Red dots indicate situations where the police "responded to the complaint and took action to fix the condition," according to NYC Open Data. Blue ones denote where police decided "action was not necessary," where the offending vehicle had skedaddled before cops arrived, and complaints with insufficient info from tipsters.

Drivers block bike lanes because city blocks do not have designated unloading zones.


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 16 2016, @04:36AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 16 2016, @04:36AM (#427365)

    My city is just rolling out this new traffic flow tactic. Instead of parallel parking against the curb, drivers park three feet away from the curb, providing an inside bike lane.

    As a non-bicyclist, at first I was annoyed at how much narrower the roads were, but I quickly realized that this solved a couple problems at once:

    - the row of parked cars now buffer the bicyclists as well as sidewalk pedestrians from the traffic

    - the traffic has to move more slowly and carefully since there's less room for error. No more people routinely driving 35-40 mph on these busy city streets.

    So, it's an elegant solution that doesn't cost much and doesn't require constant police presence or video surveillance. I like those types of solutions (speed bumps, or rather raised crosswalks and intersections, are another).

    A drawback would be that some streets aren't wide enough to support dedicate bike lanes in both directions.

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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 16 2016, @07:16AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 16 2016, @07:16AM (#427407)

    The primary drawback is bikers having to watch for idiot drivers who will now walk into the bike lane without looking. Bikers also need to be on the lookout for suddenly opening passenger doors. The best location for bike lanes is the far left lane (near the middle of the street). There you don't need to deal with random people nor with the random trash that tends to accumulate near curbs.

    I'm guessing your bike lanes are going to be difficult to use after a road is plowed.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by tonyPick on Wednesday November 16 2016, @07:16AM

    by tonyPick (1237) on Wednesday November 16 2016, @07:16AM (#427408) Homepage Journal

    drivers park three feet away from the curb, providing an inside bike lane.

    As a frequent commuter cyclist, you couldn't pay me to go in that zone: It's just too high a risk of getting doored from the passenger side.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dooring [wikipedia.org]
    http://www.geklaw.com/pi_bicycle_safetystory.html [geklaw.com]

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by tfried on Wednesday November 16 2016, @08:08AM

      by tfried (5534) on Wednesday November 16 2016, @08:08AM (#427420)

      It also discards another important benefit of having the bicycle lane next to the driving lane: Visibility. Parking cars block the line of sight (and of attention) between cyclists and drivers, which means, essentially, that cyclists will have to slow down to near pedestrian speed at every intersection, in order to be safe. Makes cycling really unattractive to anybody who actually wants to get somewhere.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 16 2016, @08:47AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 16 2016, @08:47AM (#427436)

        Putting the parking lane between the traffic and the bicycle lane is how it's done here in northern Europe, where we have a lot more bicycles, and it works fine. However, we also have a rule that you are not allowed to park close to an intersection (as far as I know, that rule is a lot older than bicycle paths).

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by tfried on Wednesday November 16 2016, @09:14AM

          by tfried (5534) on Wednesday November 16 2016, @09:14AM (#427441)

          We have the same rule, here, and I'd have to look it up, but it's only for some 5 to 10 meters/yards around an intersection. Not enough to be terribly helpful in this situation. Besides, you'll still have the problem of drivers coming from the crossing road (or even from a private drive way; in my experience, those can be really dangerous) pulling up all the way to the inner edge of the parking lane (where the road appears to be "start" and of course where visibility is best), thus blocking the bike lane.

          You know, my city really has a wild mix of all types of bike lane solutions. No bike lane at all, cyclists and pedestrians sharing strips of various widths, dedicated bike lanes of various sizes with parking lane in between cars and bikes, bike lanes in the middle of the road (between the traffic directions) and bike lanes right next to traffic. The latter is really the only one where I feel safe going across an intersection at a steady pace.

          Of course, I do suppose in a region with a lot of bicycles, car drivers will be more prepared to look out for cyclists, so that may alleviate some of the problems with "inner" lanes. Hen and egg, though.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 16 2016, @03:47PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 16 2016, @03:47PM (#427553)

        which means, essentially, that cyclists will have to slow down to near pedestrian speed at every intersection, in order to be safe. Makes cycling really unattractive to anybody who actually wants to get somewhere.

        Poor babies... How about the other 99% of the traffic on the road that has to "slow down" for the safety of the bicyclists? Bikers are too good to slow down for their own safety? There is a guy that bikes home every day up the busiest street (a six lane clusterfuck) in my town every day at 5:00. Apparently, red traffic lights don't apply to cyclists, because I see him regularly cross busy intersections against the light. There were a few times I thought he was going to die for his stupidity. The worst part is that the city build a bike path and fucking million dollar bike/pedestrian bridge just to get assholes like this guy off that road. And bicyclists wonder why car drivers hate to see them on the road.

        When I bike to work, I use side and back roads that are less busy. Sure, it takes me an extra half mile, but I'm not an inconsiderate asshole clogging up the busiest road in town at rush hour.

        • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday November 16 2016, @05:56PM

          by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Wednesday November 16 2016, @05:56PM (#427647)

          You misunderstand.

          To use segregated bike lanes (and side-roads) safely, you need to stop at every intersection to check for turning cars. If I travel on the main road with everybody else, most intersections are protected by stop signs.

          I generally only get off the road when I am too tired to maintain, say, 12km/h.

          Generally, if there is more than one lane, drivers are free to go around.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 16 2016, @07:40PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 16 2016, @07:40PM (#427716)

            You misunderstand.

            To use segregated bike lanes (and side-roads) safely, you need to stop at every intersection to check for turning cars. If I travel on the main road with everybody else, most intersections are protected by stop signs.

            This is a prime reason why there is such a chasm with motorists and bicyclists. Bicyclists do not see any inconveniences suffered by motorists as relevant or significant, yet their own inconveniences are exceptional.

    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 16 2016, @12:52PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday November 16 2016, @12:52PM (#427487) Journal

      No, they do what he's describing in Montreal. It works really well. You don't get doored because there is a buffer zone between the parked cars and the bike lane.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
  • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday November 16 2016, @05:45PM

    by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Wednesday November 16 2016, @05:45PM (#427640)

    How is the cyclist supposed to avoid the 'door zone" in that set-up?