How do we make cities more cyclist-friendly?

Question

Every day, I nearly get killed by careless and sometimes very reckless drivers. Winnipeg is not cyclist friendly. Drivers yell "get off the road!" and try to run you off. What have people done in your city to make it safer?

Answer 1

!. The "I didn't see the bicycle" defense must be made "null and void". My city did this with new laws, and the Auto x Bicycle accidents dropped drasticly.

2. Bike lanes on roadways that are wide enough. My city has done this. Most are the paved shoulder of the road. Pass laws allowing the ticketing of cars going into or using the bike lanes. Insist the police enforce the laws.

3. My State recently passed a law forbidding cars to pass a bicyclist within 5 ft. Passing within the 3-5 ft is a Misdemeanor and 3ft or less is a felony. This got the attention of drivers and now pass with a wide path. The law also makes verbal abuse of bicyclist illegal.

We were lucky that one of our State Legislators was on a group bike ride where this stuff occured. Many cars passed within 1-2 ft and verbally harassed and made death threats to the cyclists.

I am sorry that you will, probably, not have it that easy. I would start with my city counsilman and the Mayors office for laws specific to your city. If that fails, then embarrass them in the media. Start a blog for safe bicycling in Winnipeg and use this to embarrass the city officials. Like everyone, embarrassment usually spurs City officials into action.

Answer 2

Start by making people friendly and considerate.

Even when cities put in bike lanes cyclists are not accommodated by drivers. I have lived in Tuscon very cyclist friendly. And I have lived in Houston, where bike lanes or no bike lanes cyclists are often in harms way.

Lets be honest here. There are inconsiderate people on both sides of the issue. There are cyclist who do things that are unsafe and drivers that do things that are unsafe.

Cities are lived in by people with different perspectives on where priorities should be.

The perspective on a city from one user to the next is quite radically different. The man who makes his living as street vendor sees a much different city than the lady working on the 12th floor of a 15 story high rise building. The man who drives 40 minutes to get into the city sees and uses the city much differently than the lady who is able to take two buses and is home in half an hour.

We need to design cities based upon the way people will use them. There can be areas, based upon use, that are safer for cyclist. In many large cities, it is not a good idea to expect all roads to be friendly and safe for cyclist.

You would not want your residential streets designed by the guy who wants to accommodate eighteen wheelers.

Answer 3

Redmond, WA (AKA Microsoft's home) has actual bicycle lanes for bicyclists to use and has had it's own annual Derby Days which is when bicycle races are held on the streets (which are closed off for that of course). It's known as "The bicycle capital of the Northwest" and has also been awarded the "Bicycle Friendly Community" award a couple years or so ago by the League of American Bicyclists. The award has only been given to a dozen or so cities throughout the US.

The major things that attribute to it being bicycle friendly, I think, is the abundance of trails, bicycle lanes everywhere, and even more so, they make it safe by educating bicyclists and drivers to equally respect each other and share the streets. Redmond is also known to enforce the laws they have that protect bicyclists.

I will, however, state that there are bicyclists who just weave in and out of traffic, choosing when they want to go by pedestrian rules or vehicle rules and neither taking into consideration that they are either A) holding up/severly slowing down traffic by being on the street when they could be in the bicycle lane/sidewalk or B) dangerously whizzing by pedestrians. But I think the readily available resources and education the city provides are the most encouragement they give to bicyclists.

Here's a map of the bike routes in the city: http://www.redmond.gov/cityservices/citymaps.asp

Answer 4

I designed or had a hand in helping to design off-road bikeways in NYC. This is the best way to go. It takes money, which can be had through the Federal Tea-21 program. A city puts up half the funding and then the Federal Government puts up the other half. The idea is to utilize the money for modes of transportation other than for automobile, like bicycles. Alas, no system is perfect. Even in NYC, the borough-wide system consists of on-road and off-road paths. The bottom line is that where going in the right direction, now cities have to take the next step and figure out how to carve out more space and make roads more cyclist friendly. Maybe an elevated bikeyway in the middle of the road?

Answer 5

I live near Phoenix AZ. I don't know that the local governments here have done anything to make it safer for cyclist, though they have installed some bike trails. Of course if you want to visit a bike trail, you must load up your bicycle and drive twenty to forty minutes to get to one.

The problem with Phoenix and the whole county where it resides is a heavy population throughout the area but it is spread out over hundred of square miles. Everyone drives a car. Most folks here commute about 45 minutes to over an hour. At the same time we have over a million cars on the highway there are hundreds of bicyclists demanding the same rights of way. The combination is deadly and unfortunately, as everyone knows, the bicycle rider always looses.

Here is what we can do in Phoenix to make cycling work:
Register bikes just like cars and charge a road user fee (maybe $30 to 60 per year). You grumble but hear me out. There are at least a thousand cars to each bike. They pay road tax, cyclist don't. The roads are being designed for the paying customer. If cyclists are paying also, governments have no choice but make a bicycle lane, build cyclist bridges over interstate highways, make roads cyclist friendly, etc.

Employers, schools, and governments should provide incentives for people to ride their bicycles over using their cars. The government is already doing that by providing a conflict in the Middle East to drive up the cost of gasoline; however, it seems that very few people have gone to peddle power.

It would help a bunch if individual people started thinking in a socialistic kind of way when it comes to dealing with other people (I hear a chorus of political voices and their objections rising in the background). Instead of trying to one up others in one's circles by having a nicer house across town and a bigger SUV than his or her neighbor, folks should live close to their work, school and shopping. Then even if they don't always use the bicycle to go, at least they will be on the road less, reducing the amount of traffic, and therefore reducing the amount of time others are on the road and again and again.

We should study the peoples of Europe and Asia to see how they do it. There is heavy population and yet many get around on a bicycle just fine.

I miss riding my bicycle and I'm afraid I will be dead before the roads are cyclist friendly again. I hope you get to see that day while you can still ride.

Yours
Jon

Answer 6

Here are a few things for the drivers to do and a few things for the cyclists to do so no one feels like their side is making all the concessions for the benefit of the other:

Have cyclists register so drivers don't feel like they pay all the taxes etc. then have to share the road with cyclists for free.

Get rid of cell phones while driving so drivers can pay attention to cyclists on the road.

Include cyclist safety in driver's education testing.

Require cyclists who want to ride in traffic or on arteries to pass a test like you would for a car. Some of the rude behavior I've seen from vehicles is when a cyclist has disobeyed traffic laws and scared the driver. Nothing is more destructive to your cause than drivers having negative experiences with cyclists on the road.

I hope this helps!

Answer 7

So far as business districts go, there's not much you can do. The streets are already packed with cars, and the constant and unpredictable flow of drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists will lead to confrontations. If you were in a car, the other driver would simply shout obscenities from within his/her car. Because you're in a smaller vehicle, the driver feels s/he has the privilege to shout at you and treat you like you don't belong. I like the idea of eliminating the "I didn't see the bike" defense, because it would either force the driver to look or to pay for smashing somebody's bicycle.

As for suburbs and residential areas, I've noticed that newer neighborhoods around here are being built without sidewalks. Presumably, this is so that residents can have marginally more lawn (which isn't even theirs; around here, it's still municipal property). Taking away sidewalks subtly discourages walking, bicycling, and playing outdoors, which can't be a good thing for the American waistline.

For now, the best I can tell you is to stay off to the side, or on the sidewalks, as much as you can. Be visible, ride defensively, and trust no one.

Answer 8

I know in some cities they reward cyclists for riding by giving you free bus rides if you're on a bike. Our city just put the bike racks on the front of the busses recently. I think the more cyclists there are, the more friendly people will be. Once they realize cycling whether for sport or to help the environment (& save gas!) is the way to go, they will change. Maybe go to the city and ask for bike lanes?

Answer 9

I think the lanes on the streets in most cities was a big help but I think if they dont have those they need to let cyclist ride on the sidewalks to prevent injuries while riding on the street. I also think they should enforce some saftey eqipment bu maybe do it by age. Bikes riding on bust streets where busses stop and cars are in and out is dangerous. They need to come up with some new safety laws.

Answer 10

In some outlined cities across the country they have tried making them cyclist friendly but the fact is theire are more tax payers driving cars than ther are cyclist... We had a good start with more mass transit but the gas crunch has put a crunch on bus systems..As if they already weren't slow enough...!! What to do is
put the country back on track our economic system is breaking down...cyclist are the furthest thought from most Americans minds!!

Answer 11

we need to tell people and make them aware of the things happening around the world in the field of pollution and the more they ride in their cars the more they the pollution they create. So to stop this pollution and make the environment better and cleaner, they all Need to ride by cycles. And we should they Head of the cities to a new way which is to schools that if they riding by cycles to school they will get extra credit.and it would only be allowed for people who live very close to the school and the people coming from us and car will also get credit if they are "Know and are aware about the pollution in the city?"
Probably that is the only way we could stop the pollution and make a whole into a Cyclist -friendly city