A unified theory of New York biking
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Most bikers in New York have their fair share of road rage. Commuting by bicycle in Manhattan has many things to be said for it, but it’s certainly not relaxing. And bicyclists as a group have surprisingly little public support. The question is, why? And I think I’ve worked out something approaching the Unified Theory of New York Biking:
Cyclists get no respect as road users. Instead, tragically, they’re treated like pedestrians.
Basically, people in New York — and I absolutely include the bicyclists themselves here, who are actually the worst offenders — start with the long-established interplay between pedestrians and motorists, and then layer on bicyclists as though the bike was a cool toy given to a suburban 13-year-old kid, rather than an efficient way of using the city’s streets as a way of getting from A to B.
Let’s take all the different permutations in order. To begin with, there’s the old bike-free status quo, where the possible interactions are pedestrian-pedestrian, pedestrian-motorist, or motorist-motorist. It’s worth thinking about these a bit, because they’re deeply ingrained in us, and they’re responsible for shaping the way we see everything else.
The pedestrian-pedestrian encounter is both chaotic and benign, just so long as you don’t work in the middle of Times Square. (Ahem.) People move slowly enough that they have lots of time to maneuver around each other as necessary, and most of the time, with the help of a little eye contact, large numbers of people are extremely good at walking with and around and across each other.
The motorist-motorist encounter, by contrast, is very highly choreographed, with lights and lanes and speed limits and indicator lights and even a dedicated corps of traffic police to enforce the rules. The rules aim to minimize car crashes, and again, as a general rule, they do a pretty good job.
Finally there’s the pedestrian-motorist encounter, which is based largely on asymmetry: motorists have nothing to fear from pedestrians, but pedestrians have everything to fear when it comes to getting hit by a car. At the same time, their respective spaces (sidewalk, roadway) are very clearly delineated, largely to minimize any need for the two to interact at all. When they do interact, pedestrians take advantage of the rules of the road: a red light, for instance, means that the cars have to stop, so pedestrians can cross against them. Pedestrians trust the motorists to follow the rules, and most of the time that’s what happens.
There are rules governing pedestrian behavior too, but they’re broadly ignored. Because they’re slow and harmless, pedestrians feel as though they have few responsibilities to others. So they’ll jaywalk, or cross in the middle of the block, or wait for the light to change while standing a couple of yards into the street, because they can. At the margin, a few motorists will be inconvenienced, but they have all the advantages of being in a car, so pedestrians feel it’s a fair trade-off.
The trouble all starts when you drop bicyclists into the mix. At that point, a whole new set of combinations comes into play, and as a city we haven’t worked out how to make them work. In other cities, especially in places like Copenhagen or Utrecht, bicycles are ubiquitous and everybody knows how to behave on and around them. But we’re not there yet.
Bikes can and should behave much more like cars than pedestrians. They should ride on the road, not the sidewalk. They should stop at lights, and pedestrians should be able to trust them to do so. They should use lights at night. And — of course, duh — they should ride in the right direction on one-way streets. None of this is a question of being polite; it’s the law. But in stark contrast to motorists, nearly all of whom follow nearly all the rules, most cyclists seem to treat the rules of the road as strictly optional. They’re still in the human-powered mindset of pedestrians, who feel pretty much completely unconstrained by rules.
The result is decidedly suboptimal for all concerned, but mostly for the bicyclists themselves. New York needs to make a collective quantum leap, from treating bicyclists like pedestrians to treating bicyclists like motorists. And unless and until it does, bike relations will continue to be marked by hostility and mistrust.
Consider the bicyclist-bicyclist encounter, first. Most of the time, bicyclists get on just fine with each other: we’re all riding along the street in the same direction, and if you need to do it, overtaking is pretty easy. You look behind to check for cars, you might announce a polite “on your left”, and off you go.
But all of that falls apart with the introduction of the evil bike salmon, which have reached pandemic proportions in New York, even on insanely busy avenues. If you’re riding the wrong way down the street, that’s always going to be dangerous for any bicyclists coming towards you. Sometimes, it’s downright lethal. I bike up Sixth Avenue to work, which nominally has a bike lane running up its left-hand side, but like all bike lanes this one is often filled with large opaque trucks. So I need to look behind me, merge into traffic, and skirt around the truck. All of which is no big deal, just so long as I don’t run headlong into a suicidal bike salmon coming the other way, who of course I couldn’t see in advance because the truck was in the way.
Or any other corner works much the same way: a friend of mine got some pretty nasty injuries when he turned a corner on a bike only to see a bike salmon of the delivery-boy subspecies barreling towards him. He slammed on his brakes, went over the handlebars, and the bike salmon went merrily on his way.
What justifies bike salmoning? Nothing. But what explains it is that bicyclists are in the pedestrian mindset: rules don’t apply to them. Yes, having a one-way system means you’ll sometimes have to go a couple of blocks out of your way, but cars do that automatically, and most of the time they’re going slower than the bikes. And none of this, of course, explains those delivery guys, who only bike the wrong way down the street. That’s just perverse.
Recently I saw a mother in her late 20s, riding down Avenue A with her toddler in a bike seat on the back. The mother wasn’t wearing a helmet, but she was wearing iPod headphones. And she was salmoning, which actually takes some doing on a two-way street like Avenue A: she was riding north, but on the west, southbound, side of the road. And she did this for a few blocks.
Now think of the message that mother was sending to any cars travelling south on Avenue A. It’s unambiguous: “I act like a pedestrian, I follow no rules, I don’t care about you, and you just have to navigate around me.”
Every bike salmon constitutes an utterly gratuitous confrontation and escalation in the war between bicyclists and motorists. Whenever a motorist encounters a bicyclist riding towards them on the street, that only serves to confirm in their mind that bicyclists aren’t proper road users, aren’t worthy of their respect, and certainly can’t be trusted to play by the same rules that govern cars. Bicyclists are an obstacle, an inconvenience — something which really shouldn’t be on the road at all.
As a result, drivers don’t treat cyclists as legitimate users of the road, even when they’re going in the right direction. Instead, they treat us as they would treat pedestrians. I’ve had a taxi driver scream at me for biking the right way down the street, because there wasn’t enough room for him to overtake and he wanted to get to the red light at the end of the block a few seconds faster. Once we were both stopped at the red light, he explained in a very forthright New York manner that he had every right to drive as fast as he wanted on the roads, and I had no right to be on the road at all.
I had much the same experience today — this is the one which prompted this entire blog entry. I was riding down 43rd Street to Reuters on the right-hand side of the street, passing cars waiting for the light to change at Broadway. Suddenly, a man threw open the rear door of one of those cars, right in my path; I slammed on the brakes and came to a halt, thankfully unharmed, just as he was getting out of his car. He didn’t apologize, so I smiled — I’ve learned that any sign of anger is counterproductive in these situations — and said that it’s always a good idea to look first, before opening a car door into the street.
His response was both nonsensical and illuminating: he informed me in a very haughty manner that I shouldn’t have been biking on the street in the first place. Confused, I looked around: did he mean that there was a bike lane I should have been using instead? No, there wasn’t. So I asked him what he meant, and he ignored me, rushing into 1500 Broadway.
What I think he meant, if he could articulate it — which clearly he couldn’t — was that bicyclists aren’t legitimate road users, and we shouldn’t be getting in the way of cars, or, for that matter, in the way of people exiting cars. No one worries about dooring pedestrians: for one thing, pedestrians don’t have the requisite velocity, and for another thing they’re not meant to be in the road in the first place. And bicyclists, in this guy’s mind, belong in the same category as pedestrians, not the same category as cars. (If there were enough room on the right for a car to pass by, you can be sure he’d look first before opening that door.)
You see that mindset all the time, with cars — especially when it comes to blinking. They’ll indicate for the benefit of other cars, but never for the benefit of bicyclists: if you’re switching into a new car lane, then you’ll blink, but if you’re going to turn across a bike lane, you won’t. All too often, they’ll commandeer bike lanes for themselves, turning them into de facto left-turn lanes. If it’s on the road, it’s for cars. And, of course, if they’re not using the bike lane to drive in, they’re using it to park in.
And while cars are reasonably polite, even in Manhattan, when it comes to cutting off other cars, they seem to have many fewer compunctions when it comes to bicyclists: they’re perfectly happy to zoom past me and then pull over to the curb right in front of me, forcing me to brake hard and try to maneuver around them. After all, they can do that with pedestrians, and no one minds.
Pedestrians can also navigate obstacles in the street, like those big metal plates or nasty potholes, a lot more easily than bicyclists can. We like very much to travel in a straight line when possible. But you should never assume, if you’re zooming along in a car, that the bicyclist you’re overtaking is going to remain in a perfectly straight line and that you can therefore overtake with only a few inches to spare. Any number of things can cause us to swerve unexpectedly — but drivers, at least in New York, often don’t remember that, or think that way.
If relations between motorists and bicyclists are bad, though, they’re nothing when it comes to relations between bicyclists and pedestrians. That relationship is positively poisonous, precisely because both sides are thinking of bikers as being more like pedestrians than like cars.
Why do bicyclists ride on the sidewalk? Because they think they’re pedestrians. And in doing so they infuriate the real pedestrians, who deserve the sidewalk to themselves. And while the majority of bicyclists don’t ride on the sidewalk, most of them do happily sit right in the middle of the pedestrian crosswalk. There’s no culture in New York of bicyclists giving way to pedestrians, and of stopping behind the crosswalk where they’re meant to stop. Instead, when they want to cross the street they do exactly what they do when they’re walking, and go as far as they possibly can without being run over by traffic. In doing so, they can get in the way of dozens of people just trying to walk across the street — and indeed even get directly in the way of fellow bicyclists coming up a bike lane towards them. Bicyclists always seem to forget how long their bikes are: they block off a lot of space, if you’re trying to cross past them.
Armed with their pedestrian mindset, bicyclists are convinced that they can cut easily through people crossing the street, just as they could if they were walking. They’re wrong, of course, but there’s no culture of giving way to pedestrians, because they feel even more defenseless than the pedestrians when it comes to the rough streets of New York City. And potential victims find it very hard to stop and think of themselves as being too aggressive.
Meanwhile, the obliviousness on the other side is utterly exasperating for any cyclist. I was riding down 44th Street recently and saw a guy wanting to cross the street mid-block. He looked at me, we made eye contact — and then he stepped out, right into my path! The point is, he was looking for cars, not for bikes. He saw me, but he didn’t think of me as a vehicle he shouldn’t step in front of; instead, he thought of me as a pedestrian who could get past him no problem.
While pedestrians are worried about cars running them over, and tend not to step out in front of them, they have no such compunctions when it comes to bikes, or bike lanes. Bike over the Manhattan bridge at any time, day or night, and you’ll find pedestrians walking happily on the north side, which is for bikes only, rather than on the much nicer pedestrian-only south side. I like to think that they simply have no idea of how much trouble they cause cyclists: the idea that they do know, and choose to walk in the bike lane regardless, is just too demoralizing to contemplate.
And the situation in some bike lanes — especially the one running down Broadway north and south of Times Square — is much, much worse, to the point at which the bike lane is actually unusable by bicycles. It’s painted green, and it’s set off from the street by a pedestrian zone, which means there’s no car danger at all, and which also means that pedestrians feel free to wander across it at will. And they never look first to see if a bike is coming. The bike lane essentially becomes an extension of the pedestrian zone, and the bikes are forced to use the road, defeating the whole point of building a bike lane in the first place.
One part is particularly bad: bikes are meant to be able to get down Broadway between 35th St and 33rd St, even though cars can’t. But no one seems to have told the pedestrians, who happily plonk chairs down in the middle of the narrow bike path between 34th and 33rd. It’s by far the shortest way for me to get home from work, but I always go well out of my way to take 9th Avenue instead: navigating the pedestrians on Broadway is just too hard.
Again, the problem here is mindset. The pedestrians are in a pedestrian mindset, where they can wander happily wherever they like, especially when there aren’t any cars to worry about. It simply never occurs to them that they might be getting in the way of bicyclists — even when they’re standing right in the middle of a bike lane. If cars use bike lanes as left-turn lanes, pedestrians use them as staging areas, places to stand while they’re waiting for the light to change.
Pedestrians intuitively understand that bike lanes are relatively safe from cars, and therefore feel safe stepping out into them without looking first. And that can be extremely dangerous, both for themselves and for cyclists: a friend of mine died after a pedestrian stepped out in front of him when he was riding his bike.
Bicyclists aren’t like pedestrians: we’re much faster, we can’t stop quickly, we can’t navigate as adroitly, and it takes a lot of effort to slow down and speed up again, compared to the effort expended in just moving at a constant velocity. We’re a danger to pedestrians, but they’re a danger to us, too. And cars, of course, are a danger to both of us.
As New York becomes an increasingly bike-friendly city, it’s going to have to how learn to deal with these new encounters: bike-bike, bike-car, bike-ped. Other cities have managed it; we can too. But for the time being, bicyclists are being thought of in the “pedestrian” bucket. And that’s causing a great deal of harm.
Update: Some great comments below. One thing is worth clarifying: I’m certainly not saying that bikes should behave exactly like cars, which would include not overtaking cars in their own lane. In fact, under New York State law it’s illegal for bikes to behave exactly like cars: if you’re on a road without a bike lane, you have to stay to the right of the road and let cars overtake you if possible. Overtaking within a single lane of traffic isn’t just sensible, it’s the law!
Also, Caleb Crain found some pertinent statistics in Jeff Mapes’s book Pedaling Revolution:
According to Mapes, a 1996 study by the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center found that “as many as a third of all bike accidents involved simply riding against the flow of traffic,” and a 2003–2004 Orlando, Florida, study found that “nearly two-thirds [of bike accidents] involved riding on the sidewalk or another unsafe choice by the cyclist.”
Update 2: After an interesting back-and-forth with Ledbury22 in the comments, he introduced himself to me as we were standing in line at the hardware store this afternoon. His problem is with “lane splitting”: when bikes create their own mini-lane between cars and the sidewalk. It’s built into New York law, which requires that bikes create just such a mini-lane on the right-hand side of the road even when there aren’t any slow or stationary cars, so that faster cars can create their own, much bigger, mini-lane, and overtake them. And it turns out that Ledbury dislikes this not from the perspective of a car driver, as I had assumed, but rather that of a pedestrian.
The problem, as it turns out, is a common one: pedestrian wants to cross a street where cars aren’t moving: they’re waiting at a light, or stuck in a jam. So walks out into the road in the middle of the block, without looking, and gets whacked by a bicyclist. Pedestrian’s fault, clearly — but when you’ve just been hit by a bicycle, you’re liable to start blaming bicycles for increasing the danger quotient on the roads even when you are the person at fault.
There’s really only one answer for this: pedestrians need to get used to the idea of looking for bikes just as they look for cars. This is one are where improved bicyclist behavior can’t help. Even increased bike lanes wouldn’t help much, since in my experience the kind of pedestrians who step out into the road without looking are even more likely to step out into a bike lane without looking.
Update 3: Bike Snob responds! And I agree with everything he says. His conclusion:
Salmon makes many excellent points, but I was dismayed to see he fell into the same trap (or, in his case, net) as most other people who try to address this issue, which is to suppose that drivers and cyclists and pedestrians are somehow “different,” or that their nature is somehow determined by their vehicle. Excluding for the moment the fact that many people are pedestrians and cyclists and drivers at various points in the day, a considerate person is a considerate person and an idiot is an idiot, and both will behave as such regardless of how they are propelling themselves at any given moment.
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A couple of points:
* I feel obliged to spread this bit of information to everyone, as it’s somewhat counter-intuitive and surprised me when I first found out: it’s actually safer, on a per-crossing basis, to jaywalk in the US than to cross at a pedestrian crossing. Pedestrian crossings kill proportionally more people by lulling them into a false sense of security than are killed when they take responsibility for their actions into their own hands.
* Second: when I bike on the pavement, it’s not because I think I’m a pedestrian. It’s usually because I need to avoid a massive intersection on a dual-carriage highway, one road (of the two) of which is actually illegal to have unpowered vehicles on; or it’s because I need to trigger the pedestrian crossing sign to make the lights change, because the lights are using induction coils below the road surface, and aren’t triggered by the low conductive mass of a bicycle.
I just moved from New York to Berlin, where they certainly treat their bikes like vehicles, and the pedestrians are careful not to walk in the bike lanes.
The salmons should be ticketed. But how about bikers running red lights when no cars are around? Or bikes making right turns on red?
One reason these kind of changes will take time is that a lot of bikers are probably a bit ambivalent – while it’s very nice to ride in a safe environment with motoroists who are expecting bikes, it’s also kind of fun to feel like a rebel and fly thorugh red lights. When everyone rides a bike, bikers will lose their outlaw status and become commuters. It’s for the best of course, but I’ll miss some of the excitement of nyc riding
Fantastic article Felix.
In London, people complain lots about cyclists riding the wrong way up a one-way street but I only encounter it VERY rarely. I think the huge width of NYC roads encourage salmon since they are under the impression that there is plenty of room for everyone.
There was a push to allow it in London on certain roads where the practice was prevalent and indeed some roads have a formal contra-flow cycle lane.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/a rticle-23490149-cycling-up-a-one-way-str eet-will-soon-be-legal-in-chelsea.do
In NYC I imagine that wouldn’t solve any problems at all other than potential cyclist-cyclist head-on interactions since everyone ignores the cycle lanes in the first place.
The best advice I have read on cycling safely, which entirely echoes your cycle=car theory, is to cycle almost as if you ARE a car.
So when keeping up with the traffic or close enough – be RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LANE.
The advantages:
Squeezing past someone in a cycle lane is easy – directly running them down much harder.
In the middle you will encounter very few salmon since that position would be highly suicidal, even for them.
People don’t open doors in the middle of a regular lane (just cycle lanes).
Excellent buffer zone between you and the morons on the sidewalk.
Sure, a few car drivers might honk at you but at least they are treating you like a car!
Only give up the position when you need to filter, but then expect every car driver/passenger to ignore you as usual.
One level of ignorance that is even worse in London is the incorrectly named “Road Tax” that we have.
(In reality it is Vehicle Excise Duty and has nothing to do with paying for upkeep on the roads.)
This allows every yahoo in a car to think they LITERALLY OWN THE ROAD. Anyone who doesn’t pay “road tax” simply shouldn’t be on the road and it is a road tax payers right/duty to run those miscreants down.
I am seriously considering buying one of these:
http://www.foska.com/road-jerseys/mens/i payroadtax-road-jersey-mens.html
Tim (20 mile per day London cycle-commuter)
You’re thinking way too much. I mean sure, you’re probably right. But it’s not so complicated. To get past both peds and more easygoing motorists, you need a bell and you need to use it a lot. To deal with motorists who would rather pretend you not exist, you need a D-lock, preferably in a pocket that’s quick at hand. I have never felt so safe as a cyclist in a major city as I do here in Caracas, where the profusion of heavily armed motorcyclists have given the motorists a mortal fear of everything on two wheels.
Sorry, I felt safer in Copenhagen. Which is the greatest counter-example to this idea of vehicular cycling. But let’s not get into that very tired debate…. Point is that in American cities that have been built up for cars, what to do? And bells are important to that.
I think it’s a pretty fundamental mistake to say that cyclists should be like motorists. That’s just a way of making the case that bikers need to behave better, and not a frank appraisal of the situation. Speed, momentum, size, agility – these things matter for sensible regulation.
In countries where biking is handled best, they’re treated like a third thing altogether, as they are. That way lies progress.
Thanks for that post. I bike in New York City almost everyday as well. Out biking in NYC one afternoon this June, my biking companion was struck by a cab turning left to the right of another cab on Park Ave. She has recovered now, but it got me doing some research on NYC bike safety. I found this great study by the City which, although somewhat dated, is quite revealing.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pd f/episrv/episrv-bike-report.pdf
According to this study, there are only 2.8 New York City bike fatalities per million compared to the U.S. national average of 2.7. That statistic is amazingly low given the density of New York City and the car-bike-pedestrian mindset that you accurately describe. It is also incredibly low given that 11% of people in New York City bike to work compared to only 3% nationwide.
As you peruse this study, several things stand out. First, the City thinks of itself as very bike friendly (they have added over 200 miles of bike lanes in 10 years covered in the study). Second, the fatality rates and injury rates are about the national average.
Also interesting is that bike fatalities occur primarily on two-lane streets. Broadway, by the way, looks like the least safe street in Manhattan. (There is a map of the fatality locations in the study which is worth reviewing.)
All of this means that the City may not believe that anything that you complain about in your post is a high priority or even a problem.
City officials seem to have taken the first step–create bike paths, study the size of the problem, monitor the statistics–they now need to take the second step–enforce the law and raise awareness to make both bikers and pedestrians safer.
You would think with more that 10% of New Yorkers biking to work this should get some attention.
His response was both nonsensical and illuminating: he informed me in a very haughty manner that I shouldn’t have been biking on the street in the first place
It is difficult to tell from the details here, but it sounds like you have violated your own rules. Bikers in Manhattan are constantly taking one lane or even two lane streets and creating their own lane by riding to the right of traffic between the cars and parked cars or in between the two lanes of cars. The roads only work when everyone is playing by the same rules and having bikes creating their own lanes (as opposed to actual bike lanes) with their own traffic patterns is downright dangerous.
Heck of a good piece. I’d say you’ve got the kernel of a very worthwhile feature article here.
I gave up urban biking shortly after college, because I just don’t feel safe doing it, and it’s not something I’m going to put my life on the line for–long ago, one of my best teachers told me that, when you decide to pick a fight on principle, you have to ask yourself, “Is _this_ hill worth dying for?” And that seems to be quite literally the case with respect to cycling.
Ledbury22, yes, I was biking down an open lane which was more than wide enough for me, but too narrow for a car to fit down. Feel free to call that “creating my own lane” if you want. If a bikers rides down the street that doesn’t stop the roads from “working”. And it’s only dangerous if cars don’t watch out for them. There is NO rule of the road, express or implied, which says that bikes should stop behind a car in traffic even if they can ride around it.
Re: Felix Re: Ledbury–in Texas and California, where I have done the majority of my cycling, the traffic rules for cars apply to bikers except where specifically noted otherwise. So passing a car in a no passing zone (as designated by a double yellow line), at an intersection, or on the right would violate the letter of these states traffic laws. Yes, motorists pass bikers all the time in no passing zones so these laws are not always followed. But before we adopt a new unified theory for bikers, I think Ledbury and others are right in their suggestion that bikers should consume the entire lane and follow auto laws where required.
Lovely article, Felix. Though I would call out two implicit assumptions: one, that the “pedestrian state” is as “transportational” as cycling and driving, the corollary being that peds are obliged to be as attentive and rule-observing as cyclists and drivers — a presumption to which I don’t subscribe; two, that traffic rules other than red lights are secondary to civility and safety, notwithstanding that “driver turning into pedestrian right of way in crosswalk” and “driver’s aggressive passing of cyclist” have been shown to be the #1 fatal-crash “mode” to peds and cyclsits, respectively, in studies I supervised a decade or so ago (“Killed By Automobile”) and (“The Only Good Cyclist”).
The real question, though, is what to do next, i.e., how to constructively alter the uneasy and suboptimal equilibrium described so well in the article. What single initiative and/or policy change can break the logjam? I have a few ideas, but perhaps a new thread is the best venue for that discussion?
@Ledbury22 Lane splitting varies by law from state by state, and in some states (including California as well as most of Europe and Japan) it’s legal to do it even on a motorcycle.
I’m a biker who rides up sixth & down broadway to and from work and I agree with virtually every word of your article. I feel like I’m taking my life into my own hands everytime I ride up sixth even with the bike lane and I always have to swerve to avoid pedestrians using or walking into the bike bith on broadway. Your unified theory also explains why the west side bike path is frequently usurped by pedustrians blithly walking 3-4 wide or walking in the exact middle of the path
Felix – I’m just having trouble reconciling your two positions. You just posted a very lengthy piece suggesting that bicycles need to consider themselves automobiles rather than pedestrians. If a car tried to, at a high rate of speed, create an additional lane of traffic on a city street it would be considered inconsderate at best and reckless at worst.
It would be nice if everyone’s needs could be catered to. It would be great if there were designated spots on each street where a cab could safely load and unload, or if there were completely separated turn lanes long enough that cars who can’t turn because of pedestrians don’t end up creating a gridlock on the road or risk hurting a pedestrian. The truth is though that the streets aren’t big enough for all of that. And very pragmatically a bicyclist riding down the street in what essentially isn’t a lane of traffic is adding an element of danger for everyone.
And as for the legality argument, I understood his article to be about why people don’t always like bikers and how to improve safety, not what they are legally entitled to do.
@Felix, great piece but the one thing I’d call into question is whether bicycles belong on the road or the sidewalk. Used to agree completely but I was just out in Munich which while it doesn’t have the Copenhagen/Amsterdam reputation is an incredible bicycle city. Their approach is to integrate the bike lines into the sidewalk infrastructure not the roadway infrastructure and it works surprisingly well. It requires a slower style of riding then New York riders prefer and I think probably slower then Dutch/Dane style as well, but it did make me rethink where bikes belong.
In general I think the whole bike-car-pedestrian dialog needs to start talking about miles-per-hour a lot more. One of the big challenges of building effective bike lanes is that fast cyclists and slow cyclists have very different infrastructure needs and lanes that work well for one tend not to work well for the others. The major bicycling cities tend to be both flat and compact, with slow cycling infrastructures. It’s great, but it doesn’t necessarily scale to NYC sizes. Who wants to ride 8 miles at 6 miles-per-hour to work everyday?
That’s not an argument against building a slow Euro style cycling infrastructure in New York, I think it’s well needed. But a faster infrastructure needs to exist as well if we want to see cycling take off in the outer parts of the city, the very places where the public transit options are the weakest.
Simplest solution I think is just to slow cars down. A 15mph speed limit on city streets would mean that cars and bikes would basically put cars and bikes on an even pace, an hopefully eliminate a lot of the speed/passing sorts of conflicts that are all so prevalent.
As for the bike salmon, trickier problem especially for food delivery people. unfortunately the economics of bike food delivery pretty much ensures that the food delivery people have an incentive to go the wrong way. They make a living delivering in 10-20 block areas. The more deliveries they make the more they earn. Avenues are 4 N-S blocks long so going around the block to travel with traffic can double or even triple the time for some deliveries. Some runs obviously fit the traffic patterns better and require no salmoning, but overall I wouldn’t be surprised if the salmoning increased the number of deliveries they can do in a day by 50% if not more, plus it increase the number of fast deliveries which should increase tips. That’s a pretty big income increase to combat…
@Ledbury22 Most streets in the U.S. are wide enough to easily a car and a bicycle side by side. Are you really suggesting that bikes should ride in traffic and attempt to take up the same space as a car? Not only would that wreck havoc with traffic, it’s practically an invitation to get hit.
I’ve done almost all of my riding in Chicago, but other than an occasional dooring (which is almost always caused by motorist inattention) I’ve never seen any problems created by cyclist “creating their own lanes.” And as a practical matter, a bicycle wouldn’t be a very effective form of urban transport if you had to sit in traffic all the time.
As AbeB already noted, lane splitting is legal in California for motorcycles and bicycles. I always make room for cycles in traffic — if more people rode them, there wouldn’t be so much.
As for the long, long article, I think it boils down to ‘I wish people weren’t such jerks.’ Which is a sentiment I applaud. But it doesn’t have much to do with vehicle/bicycle/pedestrian interaction. People are jerks.
The right policy likely is something that encourages public transit use and respectful bicycling. Cities are great places when you have more streetcars, careful cyclists and fewer autos.
I feel ya. I commuted by bike in DC for 6 years and the dynmanics you describe translate perfectly to any urban environment. Couple of points of note. Bike messengers are by far the most egregious flouters of rules of the road and serve as the proxy for all animosity towards bikers in general. But driver animosity towards bikers extends from the urban environment to the rural, where road cyclists train, where there are no pedestrians, bike messengers, delivery bikes, bike lanes, etc., yet drivers there express the same sentiment about bikers not being on the road, which proves to me that the animosity between bikers and drivers is based on more fundamental beliefs than the interactions you describe. Drivers simply believe their rights are primary and superior to those of bikers, which leads to the depressingly frequent incidences of drivers running down bikers in non-urban settings.
Also, I think you should reconsider your non-aggressive approach to confrontations. I can be satisfying and effective.
There are a lot of interesting points in this blog. I bike commute in Chicago and I agree that there are really only three types of mindsets = Car/Car, pedestrian/pedestrian and Car/pedestrian. Bikes are somewhere in the netherworld. We are hated by both pedestrians and motorists. I also agree and acknowledge that there are bad cyclists out there that make their own rules.
What I don’t agree with is the idea that cyclists have to follow the “Rules” of motorists or pedestrians. Instead there should be a third, separate rule of cycling. If, like some people suggest, cyclists had to follow every rule of motorists, cycling would not be a very efficient mode of transportation any longer. We would actually become MORE of a hindrance to motorists then they think we are now. I can cite several ways if anyone wants to know them, as well as SHOW an instance on Milwaukee avenue in Chicago, where hundreds of cyclists line up every day at traffic lights, increasing auto traffic because of speed.
Cyclists do need a set of ‘rules of the road’ that are enforced however, the benefits of RIDING a bicycle need to come into play. The rules can not be made by angry motorists who just want to “Show us!” The fact of the matter is that we should be allowed certain privileges that motorists don’t have. We are different!
I feel it is perfectly acceptable as a cyclist to go through a red light if there are no cars coming on the cross street. I feel the same about right on red or coming up along side of cars at a red light instead of stopping in the line of traffic. I also use a one way lane in the opposite direction every morning on my way to work, along side pedestrians doing the same thing because there is no sidewalk on Lower Wacker Drive. I use a sidewalk in winter when/where no pedestrians use because it’s safer but I don’t use sidewalks in smaller neighborhoods.
AND for that matter, what about children on bikes? Do they have to ride in the streets in their neighborhoods or are they allowed on the sidewalks? Why can they and I can’t? Because for some reason their safety is more important than mine?
My point is that it’s not all black and white. While there does have to be an entirely third set of rules of the road for cyclists, we also need to have the respect of motorists and pedestrians. That is the only way it’s going to work.
Great piece, but I don’t think it fully explains the level of animosity some people display towards cyclists. I haven’t tried biking in the South, but acquaintances who have report being forced of the road regularly and even physically attacked by drivers.
Also, I’d like to add bike ninja to the vernacular: cyclists who wear all black at night with no helmets or lights and cut you off. We have many in San Francisco who are sufficiently aggressive that I’ve almost hit them with my bikes accidentally.
“Why do bicyclists ride on the sidewalk?” I only use the sidewalk when it is sort of suicidal to get on the road without a bike lane. In the Bronx, Fordham Road is not suited for bikes, you have to be willing to die if you try to move East or West through it. Great article.
I find it extremely crazy when people in electric wheelchairs salmon their way.
Ledbury, it’s simply impossible for bikes to behave like cars in NY, stopping behind them rather than overtaking them. If you don’t believe me, try it one day. Cars will NOT happily sit behind you, as though you’re simply a slow car. Instead, they will honk, repeatedly, and try to overtake you. And obviously, if cars can overtake bikes on a road without a bike lane, then bikes can overtake cars.
I think your analysis is dead on.
I live in downtown Chicago and have been riding a fix gear bike for the past 3 years. I am 22-years old. I go to school out here. SO I have really seen firsthand a subculture spawn to emulate bike messengers (i think that is what you meant by delivery-boys?).
the Bike Messenger has a really unique mentality toward the mortorist, and actually the entire world: “Fuck’em.”
That being said, they take pride in disobeying traffic laws. You can watch youtube videoes of NYC messengers flying through Times Square’s red lights and crosswalks – the point is people find this really badass. So, it is emulated by the hipster crowd (look for neon clothing) – often without the same level of expertise, which gets really nuts.
Overall, just wanted to say that I read your blog every day at work. I think you’re econ and capital market stuff is great.
obviously I meant your not you’re… its 2:30 here… My mind doesn’t work.
Bike messengers are a whole other blog entry unto themselves. By delivery guys, I mean the restaurant employees delivering food.
For your consideration Mr. Salmon. New York State vehicle traffic law, Title 7, Article 34, “Operation of bicycles and play devices”;
§ 1234. Riding on roadways, shoulders, bicycle or in-line skate lanes
and bicycle or in-line skate paths. (a) Upon all roadways, any bicycle
or in-line skate shall be driven either on a usable bicycle or in-line
skate lane or, if a usable bicycle or in-line skate lane has not been
provided, near the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway or upon a
usable right-hand shoulder in such a manner as to prevent undue
interference with the flow of traffic except when preparing for a left
turn or when reasonably necessary to avoid conditions that would make it
unsafe to continue along near the right-hand curb or edge. Conditions to
be taken into consideration include, but are not limited to, fixed or
moving objects, vehicles, bicycles, in-line skates, pedestrians,
animals, surface hazards or traffic lanes too narrow for a bicycle or
person on in-line skates and a vehicle to travel safely side-by-side
within the lane.
(b) Persons riding bicycles or skating or gliding on in-line skates
upon a roadway shall not ride more than two abreast. Persons riding
bicycles or skating or gliding on in-line skates upon a shoulder,
bicycle or in-line skate lane, or bicycle or in-line skates path,
intended for the use of bicycles or in-line skates may ride two or more
abreast if sufficient space is available, except that when passing a
vehicle, bicycle or person on in-line skates, or pedestrian, standing or
proceeding along such shoulder, lane or path, persons riding bicycles or
skating or gliding on in-line skates shall ride, skate, or glide single
file. Persons riding bicycles or skating or gliding on in-line skates
upon a roadway shall ride, skate, or glide single file when being
overtaken by a vehicle.
(c) Any person operating a bicycle or skating or gliding on in-line
skates who is entering the roadway from a private road, driveway, alley
or over a curb shall come to a full stop before entering the roadway.
asimmo6, you’re totally right…they have no respect for the law and should be…shot?
@iflydaplanes, thanks! I think that makes my point to Ledbury reasonably well. If the road doesn’t have a bike lane, bicyclists are LEGALLY REQUIRED to bike “near the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway or upon a
usable right-hand shoulder in such a manner as to prevent undue interference with the flow of traffic”. Which makes Ledbury’s idea that we should behave just like cars illegal.
One thing that wasn’t mentioned here was the etiquette on the green ways. I recently had an accident on the west side highway bike path because some guy decided to pass me on the right without even an “on your right,” or a bell. He clipped me and took me down and I was left with three stitches in my chin and a broken elbow. There are signs all along that path that say “keep right,” meaning – pass on the left, just like you would in a car. But somehow this guy decided that it was okay to pass on the right without warning, and yelled at me for “swerving into him.”
I think that drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians alike in New York City are all just used to being aggressive, period. People will do whatever it takes to get somewhere quicker than the next person. We just all need to relax and start thinking about safety a little more.
Felix, this post is spot-on. As a Manhattan bike commuter, I find your words incisive. I also would like to note that I wish people wouldn’t make comments when they clearly don’t know anything about the topic.
You forgot to mention how all the delivery guys have been switching to electric motors turning them into turbo-salmon. Also, these guys never ever have anything resembling a light or reflector on their bikes at night. And why is it always guys? Have you even once seen a female delivery person?
I wish I had something intelligent to say about how to improve the current situation. Unfortunately its so completely out-of-control at the moment it feels helpless. I just make sure my helmet is on securely and hope for the best as I unfold my Strida. There needs to be a massive awareness campaign on the part of the city to coincide with the introduction of all these bike lanes.
You know the summer Saturdays where they shut down Park Ave to cars? I feel like that is sending the wrong message. Its like saying that bikes get a special day where they’re allowed to ride on the road like a first-class citizen.
I happen to think very differently, based on my 4 years of bike commuting in Miami. First, riding the wrong way on a one-way street is only sensible. If I am riding with traffic, I have no hope in avoiding being run over. So I am powerless to avoid a collision with a car. In FL (no lie) my best friend got run over by a driver (while going in the “right” direction), but luckily was okay as she was thrown from her bike onto a sidewalk. When she got the insurance and license info from the driver who actually stopped to see what happened, she realized that they guy was 99! years old and still driving. You want to trust a man almost 100 years old to drive safely by you going in the right direction, with you having no ability to avoid him because you cannot see him.
Better to drive in the wrong direction, and at least have some control over avoiding being killed.
The problem is mostly street design. We are simply not equipped for bicycle and car traffic. And we never will be. Ditch the bikes or ride at your own peril. Support mass transit and fund it fully if you want better transportation.
One thing possibly overlooked: riding a light road bike with high pressure tires through traffic in any major city can be thrilling. Cheap thrills maybe, but still loads of fun. You’ve got the speed of a car in city traffic but infinitely more maneuverability. I love it. I try to obey traffic laws to the greatest extent possible, but the longer you ride in a city the more inclined you are to blast the signs and lights.
IN interactions with a pedestrian, a biker is a vehicle. In interactions with vehicles, more like a pedestrian apart from right turns (in the UK, left turns in US).
This salmoning is just insane though. Tempting when on a big avenue and crossing the road twice seems like a comparable distance to how far you will go down that road, but insane nontheless. How many near death experiences do you have to have before you give it up?
This is a dangerously stupid post made only stupider by the comments.
First, to get rid of the worst bit of misinformation: New York City cyclists are not obligated to ride to the right.
The rules of the city specifically supersede VTL § 1234 cited by Ledbury22. See this page for more information:
http://bikingrules.org/rules/rulesofther oad
This city rule gives cyclists the necessary right to hold any lane all to themselves when needed. Not doing so is often tantamount to suicide.
Ledbury also harumphs about the very idea–the idea!–of cars taking it on themselves to create an extra lane. But this happens all the time! I invite you and Ledbury22 to watch cars as they move down Rogers, Bedford, and Nostrand Avenues in Brooklyn. Inventing lanes is practically all cars do there! And that’s at the heart of the Prospect Park West bike lane controversy: the desire to make sure that drivers get to make up as many lanes as they want, not be restricted to just two.
This brings me to why this post is dangerously stupid. As an aside, you claim that “nearly all” motor vehicle drivers “follow nearly all the rules” of the road. This is insane–and suggests you know very little about the rules of the road.
Here are a few things that I see every single day that drivers do to violate the law: speed, double park, fail to signal lane changes or turns, blow stop signs, drive while distracted, push their way through busy crosswalks, make u-turns in the middle of a street, and, yes, blow red lights and drive the wrong way down streets.
I recommend you do this: stand on a street corner with someone who knows something about the rules of the road and have them do a count of the infractions on the part of drivers versus bikers. The number of drivers who violate the law will, on a per capita basis, dwarf the number of number of cyclists any day of the week–I guarantee it.
Finally: I’m an absolutist when it comes to obeying bike laws. I stop for the full cycle at every single light (no matter what the weather, time of day, neighborhood, etc), never salmon, and on and on. And I’m seriously exasperated by cyclists who do those things, and I’m no fan of NYC pedestrians either. But I’m not confused about what group is the most dangerous: motor vehicle operators.
Pedestrians in NYC simply cannot bear the narcissism of bicyclists. They are deadly. Bicyclists do not have pedestrian mindset, they have a “me” mindset. Not all of them, perhaps not most of them. But enough to make walking along the sidewalk or through the intersection dangerous.
Still, the problem is with the police. If NYPD were to ticket every bicyclist seen breaking a traffic law, this behavior would change.
The NYPD is never going to have the resources to go after bad bicyclists, so the solution is probably for the better-behaved among us to start exerting peer pressure on our upstream-swimming, pedestrian-buzzing co-transportationists. I’ve taken to barking “Wrong way!” at the salmon I meet on my daily commute (not to mention making them go out into traffic instead of me, which frequently entails a hair-raising game of chicken). And I scream at riders I see zipping within inches of pedestrians. Over time, if a lot of us do this, it’ll reset the norms and everybody will settle down. Now if I could only figure out how to stop all those jerks from parking in the bike lane.
First, a quick read tells me that bikes are the only group you actually call on to change behavior. Also, one gets in trouble when one proclaims what another person’s or group’s thinking is. You do that throughout.
*The “quantum leap” NYC “needs” is into treating bicyclists like bicyclists;* not into treating them like motorists. This “quantum leap” will have to be in the form of new, real bike infrastructure (not the lousy bike lanes we have now (and yes, I include the new ones) that truly incorporates bikes’ advantages and disadvantages. One example of how, off the top of my head, would be to suit signal timings more to bike speeds, so bikes get more green lights. And give them REAL space on the street, not bike lane ghettos.
For all the good that bicycle travel represents (more space efficient and fuel efficient, and less harmful to pedestrians, among other benefits), bikes deserve to be treated distinctly from both cars and peds. Only THEN will there be more peace among the three modes.
Bikers account for about 2% of NYC’s commuters. The problems described in this article will get solved much faster when that number reached 5%. Rules will be created when every biker can see the behavior of many other bikers. Outliers will be easier to spot. The small bike lane on 6th Ave will have to be converted to the type of lane found on 8th and 9th Aves. The bike lanes will have to extend through Midtown instead of disappearing between 34th and 59th Streets.
There is the assumption that bikers break the rules more often than drivers. Although drivers stop at red lights and stop signs more predictably than bikers, they break other rules very often. On of the biggest rules they break is double parking. Can you imagine a couple bikers just standing in a lane, holding up traffic, waiting for someone to pick something up at a store? It seems like every block in NYC has a double parked car. Cumulatively, this hold back traffic everywhere and makes it very dangerous for bikers.
Definitely the worst thing a biker can do is ride the wrong way down a one way street. It’s incredibly dangerous to everyone – bikers, pedestrians, and drivers. That should stop immediately.
I bike to work often, probably 1-2 times a week, from Astoria to the Flatiron area and love it. I will be very sad when Sadik-Khan leaves.
@Felix — You raise interesting and valid points, but I find the unified theory–or the proposals for remedy–incomplete. So I second clayf and say, bicyclists are a third thing, apart from motorists and pedestrians. They ought to have their own rules of traffic that a) every cyclists understands and follows and b) every motorists can and should expect from them.
For instance, you say it’s NY law that cyclists stay to the right of their lane. How do you make a left-hand turn? I’ll tell you how European first graders are taught to accomplish this feat: use your outstretched arm to indicate your intention to turn, look behind you to make sure you’re clear, then swerve to the median line. Now, not having to worry about the traffic in your own lane, you can focus on crossing the opposing lane to complete your left turn. Pretty straightforward! And reminiscent of how cars turn left: motorists get in the left-most lane before making the turn. I’ve tried this trick in NYC traffic, with mixed results. For one, motorists aren’t used cyclists using indicators. Nor are they exactly cool with my camping out in the median, waiting for the opposing traffic to clear. The reason is that car drivers aren’t expecting this level of traffic participation from me. But what are we cyclists to do? The alternative is to cross the street like a pedestrian would, either waiting for a light or “jay biking”. The remedy to this is drivers and bikers ed that lays down proper protocols for both. In America, as far as I know, such efforts are virtually non-existent. It’s a failure of government.
Another issue is the virtual lack of enforcement. Although I’ve heard of the occasional exception, bicyclists, myself included, can break traffic laws with impunity — even in plain sight of a traffic cop. I couldn’t count with my hands and feet the number of red lights I’ve run in front of a cop. Shame on me. But they don’t care! Now, while I agree with your point that our cavalier attitude toward rules of traffic are harmful to our long-term clout as legitimate participants in traffic, it’s important that bad behavior be disciplined and good behavior be protected. This includes strict enforcement of red lights for bicyclists as well as a clamp-down on cars and trucks pulling over, parking, idling, text-message-stopping on all those newly won bike lanes.
“I was riding down 44th Street recently and saw a guy wanting to cross the street mid-block. He looked at me, we made eye contact — and then he stepped out, right into my path!”
Ya know, when i was in Regina, Saskatchewan, if a pedestrian walked into the street, all the cars would stop for the pedestrian.
In fact I think the pedestrian has the right of way in a lot of jurisdictions… or am I talking bollocks?
Cheers.
Wow! What an excellent piece this is, and a joy to read! I am also a NYC cyclist and I agree with all of the statements you made in this blog – I couldn’t have put it better myself. Unfortunately cyclists are still the step-child of transportation alternatives in this city. We have made strides and the Bloomberg Administration has supported us more than any administration before, but I agree we have a long way to go.
I once explained to a non-biking friend what biking in the city is like and had to explain how I follow the law, except in times when it puts my life in danger – such as cars and pedestrians in the bike lane or taxis cutting me off and causing me to swerve in to rush hour traffic on Sixth Ave. I also personally find it safer to ride on the left hand side of one-way roads to avoid car doors and I avoid Times Square and Herald Square by all means possible!
We ALL need to learn how to follow the laws propererly, and I feel the only way we can do that is through proper education and policing. NYC DOT should consider a bike safety campaign educating pedestrians, cyclists and motorists on the laws and responsibilities of riding. I also feel we need to start ticketing motorists for being in bike lanes, cyclists for salmoning down the street (this is my BIGGEST pet peeve, especially delivery people!) and pedestrians – well we might be SOL on that one.
Thank you again for taking a truly objective look at this topic and I will be sure to pass this along!
Sorry, I don’t buy the whole argument that “cyclists don’t deserve any respect or space on the streets until they obey all traffic laws”. That is just an excuse used by the media and politicians for not improving conditions for cyclists on our streets, and I’m sorry you have drank the kool-aid that is fed to us through the mainstream media.
Imagine we told pedestrians that they don’t deserve sidewalks until they all stop jaywalking? We wouldn’t have sidewalks.
I also have to disagree with your assessment that “nearly all motorists follow the rules” and “most cyclists treat the rules of the road as strictly optional”.
Here in Toronto, you’d have trouble finding a single motorist who drives under 100km/h on the highway – the MAXIMUM speed limit (outside of congested traffic hours of course). So to say that most motorists obey the law is completely false.
I see some cyclists go through reds here in Toronto – but 95% of the time they are using common sense and only doing it on quiet intersections with no traffic and pedestrians. Sure, you get the odd bicyclist who might put a pedestrian at risk, but there are plenty of motorists out there who put people at a LOT more risk using their automobiles. Cars KILL people.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for enforcing ALL road users. But to rationalize drivers’ intimidation and disrespect for all cyclists because some of them break the rules is simply ludicrous.
If you want cyclists to change their behavior give them proper infrastructure, laws that consider bicyclists, and better enforcement.
So I almost ran over a cyclist this morning. He was comming the wrong way down the sidewalk of a one way street, then ran a red light right in front of me. Also, he wasn’t wearing a helmet. Luckily for him, I was awake enough to brake hard.
Now, I would much rather not have to ever drive and sympathize with efforts to make cities more pedestrian/cyclist friendly, but stuff like this is infuriating and does make me a little more sympathetic to the drivers’ point of view.
New York is probably like most states in that the cyclist must be Far Right as Practicable instead of “to the right of the road”. What this means is that if the lane is too narrow to share safely, the cyclist _is_ allowed to full use of the lane or ride in the middle of the lane. Too narrow to share safely is 14 feet according to AASHTO** although sometimes local ordinances define it otherwise.
Please see Bob Mionske’s book or http://www.bicyclelaw.com/ for more details.
** The American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials.
BTW, bicycles really can function well as regular vehicles on the road. I’ve done it for years — in NYC too before it become gentrified — and have had very successful results.
Some thoughts:
Bikes are a third class of public roadway user. Best treated as a subset of vehicle instead of pedestrian class thus requiring actual laws for appropriate interaction with all road users. This implies the use of licenses similar to powered vehicles. Powered vehicle driver licensing should require knowledge of the rights and rules for cyclists (could be included in renewal procedures to eventually include/educate all drivers)and vice versa in cyclist licensing. It is tempting to treat pedestrians as squirrels listening to iPods (expect the the ridiculously unexpected) but most are probably also drivers and/or cyclists and the forced education by licensing procedures for the two vehicle classes should eventually get to most of them.
I would question the assumption that bikes have to fit into one of the two existing boxes – the pedestrian world or the automobile world. As you’ve pointed out, they fit in neither. Yet the knee jerk reaction is always to chuck them in the box where they can do least harm, but have the most harm done to them.
The true solution, as has been said, is to treat bikes like what they are – a third thing altogether. Anyplace that is heralded as a “good” bike city does this.
Until then, sorry, but I’m going to ride as if there are hundreds of people with 3000lb hammers trying to kill me – because that is exactly the situation cyclists on American streets face. This can be done well, and considerately. Read Robert Hurst. Cyclists need to use every advantage available to them. I’m not excusing bad cycling behavior, but I don’t think “pretend you’re a car” works either.
Hi Felix.
This is a great article and is a very positive way to deal with a near miss experience.
I’ve also been commuting 20 miles a day in London for some time. We have some brand new dedicated cycle way at the side of some roads, separated from cars by kerb stones. When I first saw these green lanes I was bowled over and really impressed. And then after a few days of riding on these I gave up. Pedestrians do not obey the rules. They feel that this green painted cycle way, which they have to step down to, are good places to wander about without looking. They don’t seem them as road at all. I am saddened to hear your friend was killed in such a lane but I can see why. They look like this… http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-22470190 -cycle-lane-in-central-london-uk.html
I choose to ride down the insanely busy Marylebone road, 3 lanes wide in places and full of traffic and our 60ft long ‘bendy buses’. This road is insanely dangerous and every traffic user on it knows it. Everyone is quite alert and this madness is safer than my alternate route, the segregated green lane. What’s more, when there is an incident I have found people much more apologetic amid the carnage than they are in Cambridge, which is famous for being a cycling city but where in reality there is little provision for bikes and a great deal of quick to inflare tension between cyclists and drivers.
Here is Marylebone Road…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maryle bone_road_large_2003.jpg
I think I once heard the head of safety at a car manufacturer explain that the best way to make our roads safer would be to fit an iron spike in the centre of every car steering wheel pointed at the chest. Making it clear that driving is dangerous would make us all a bit more careful.
Salmoning is not something you see much of in the UK. You might see someone cheekily nip the wrong way down a one way street but not between lines of oncoming vehicles. Oddly, even on streets where cyclists are legally allowed to contra flow down one way streets motorists think they are breaking the law anyway!
One law I sometimes break is jumping the lights. If a cyclists obeys the law with lights they might find that they are wedged in 3 cars back from the lights and other drivers in the traffic cannot see them. As we inevitably wobble off from stationary we do it within thick and narrow traffic with no margin for error and little visibility to other road users. Instead, if we get to the front when the lights are read, and STOP, have a look around and then sneak ahead if it is clear, by the time the other cars take off we are clearly visible andindeed, might have had 30 seconds to get completely out of the way. I sometimes wonder if we need a 4th traffic light which lets bikes go earlier than cars.
The last accident I had on a bike was when I was stationary and was sitting behind a truck in traffic. The car behind didn’t see me at all because of the low sun and just rear ended me. Had I squeezed to the front of the line and jumped the lights it would not have happened.
I think we have a way to go before we catch up with the dutch or the germans on bike lanes!
Carl
“This is one are where improved bicyclist behavior can’t help.”
There is one thing you didn’t mention (though mentioned a few times in comments) that we can do to make bike lanes safer from wandering pedestrians: we should all have bell’s on our bikes!
Having a bell is an often missed component of the bike safety gear. First, it provides a great tool for going around blind corners, especially going through an intersection where cars have parked to close to the crosswalk (where you *know* a pedestrian is going to jump out one of these days).
Second, if every cyclist had and used a bell it could do an even greater service by reminding passersby every once in a while that cyclists are about and you should take a look for them before crossing the street. Every bike bell sounded is a passive (and pretty friendly) reminder to pedestrians and drivers alike that wherever they might be from, in NYC, we