<story><title>Bike lanes have sped up car traffic in New York City</title><url>http://www.vox.com/2014/9/8/6121129/bike-lanes-traffic-new-york</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bane</author><text>The road is not a perfectly good place for bikes to travel. It&amp;#x27;s like saying the conveyor belt in an automated slaughter house is a good place to dance because it&amp;#x27;s flat and doesn&amp;#x27;t move too fast or that pedestrians should just walk down the middle of the road because it&amp;#x27;s not a bad walking surface.&lt;p&gt;The biggest possible problem is that as the auto driver &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt; become responsible for any bike rider you come into contact with because they are unprotected regardless of the circumstances of the contact. I didn&amp;#x27;t ask them to get on the road with me, but I&amp;#x27;ll sure as hell be held responsible for their decision if something happens.&lt;p&gt;More importantly, as a tax payer, I&amp;#x27;ve helped fund literally dozens of miles of really nice dedicated paved and marked bike only trails, complete with parking and overpasses, tunnels and signals at busy intersections. There is literally no excuse for them to play &amp;quot;Tour de France&amp;quot; on the same road I&amp;#x27;m trying to get to work on.</text></item><item><author>shiftpgdn</author><text>A cyclist is just a brief inconvenience. It&amp;#x27;s the same as a school bus or slow driver in a lane requiring you to go around.&lt;p&gt;Every bike on the road is one less car causing traffic. It&amp;#x27;s crazy to want infrastructure for JUST cyclists when the road is a perfectly good way to travel.</text></item><item><author>bane</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m one of those drivers who hates sharing roadways with bikers. It&amp;#x27;s not that I have to share, but between slowing traffic down, pure safety concerns for the biker (who &lt;i&gt;I&lt;/i&gt; as the automobile driver am responsible for in the case of an accident) and the generally shitty entitled attitude lots of bike riders seem to have (probably earned from dealing with irritated drivers like me) I get my hackles raised every time I see one on the roads. Bikes aren&amp;#x27;t automobiles no matter how much we debate about it. They shouldn&amp;#x27;t be sharing the road with cars.&lt;p&gt;But you know what? I&amp;#x27;m absolutely in favor of this kind of road engineering. Regardless of making traffic faster or not, it&amp;#x27;s just smart design. Between roads, sidewalks and bike lanes, this provides a designated travel area for everybody regardless of the mode they choose to travel with. Bikes shouldn&amp;#x27;t be sharing the road with cars, they &lt;i&gt;should&lt;/i&gt; have their own designated travel areas.&lt;p&gt;It eliminates all three of my issues in one swoop and provides equitable space for sharing the travel conduits in a city. In fact, it would probably get &lt;i&gt;me&lt;/i&gt; out on a bike more often.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Pxtl</author><text>&amp;gt; The biggest possible problem is that as the auto driver you become responsible for any bike rider you come into contact with because they are unprotected regardless of the circumstances of the contact. I didn&amp;#x27;t ask them to get on the road with me, but I&amp;#x27;ll sure as hell be held responsible for their decision if something happens.&lt;p&gt;If there were only cyclists on the road, the worst accident would be a few broken bones.  You chose to bring a potentially lethal device onto the roads, of &lt;i&gt;course&lt;/i&gt; it&amp;#x27;s your responsibility.  If I juggle chainsaws in a crowded plaza, I don&amp;#x27;t get to blame the guy who bumped into me for flinging chainsaws into people.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; More importantly, as a tax payer, I&amp;#x27;ve helped fund literally dozens of miles of really nice dedicated paved and marked bike only trails, complete with parking and overpasses, tunnels and signals at busy intersections. There is literally no excuse for them to play &amp;quot;Tour de France&amp;quot; on the same road I&amp;#x27;m trying to get to work on.&lt;p&gt;Try it.  You might be surprised that these bike lanes have dead ends or obstacles or just astonishingly crappy terrain.&lt;p&gt;And don&amp;#x27;t give me the &amp;quot;taxpayer&amp;quot; line, an &lt;i&gt;astronomical&lt;/i&gt; amount of cash is spent on roadways and expressways over and above any gas taxes or fees.  Complaining about the small amount spent on bikes just makes you seem extremely petty.</text></comment>
<story><title>Bike lanes have sped up car traffic in New York City</title><url>http://www.vox.com/2014/9/8/6121129/bike-lanes-traffic-new-york</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bane</author><text>The road is not a perfectly good place for bikes to travel. It&amp;#x27;s like saying the conveyor belt in an automated slaughter house is a good place to dance because it&amp;#x27;s flat and doesn&amp;#x27;t move too fast or that pedestrians should just walk down the middle of the road because it&amp;#x27;s not a bad walking surface.&lt;p&gt;The biggest possible problem is that as the auto driver &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt; become responsible for any bike rider you come into contact with because they are unprotected regardless of the circumstances of the contact. I didn&amp;#x27;t ask them to get on the road with me, but I&amp;#x27;ll sure as hell be held responsible for their decision if something happens.&lt;p&gt;More importantly, as a tax payer, I&amp;#x27;ve helped fund literally dozens of miles of really nice dedicated paved and marked bike only trails, complete with parking and overpasses, tunnels and signals at busy intersections. There is literally no excuse for them to play &amp;quot;Tour de France&amp;quot; on the same road I&amp;#x27;m trying to get to work on.</text></item><item><author>shiftpgdn</author><text>A cyclist is just a brief inconvenience. It&amp;#x27;s the same as a school bus or slow driver in a lane requiring you to go around.&lt;p&gt;Every bike on the road is one less car causing traffic. It&amp;#x27;s crazy to want infrastructure for JUST cyclists when the road is a perfectly good way to travel.</text></item><item><author>bane</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m one of those drivers who hates sharing roadways with bikers. It&amp;#x27;s not that I have to share, but between slowing traffic down, pure safety concerns for the biker (who &lt;i&gt;I&lt;/i&gt; as the automobile driver am responsible for in the case of an accident) and the generally shitty entitled attitude lots of bike riders seem to have (probably earned from dealing with irritated drivers like me) I get my hackles raised every time I see one on the roads. Bikes aren&amp;#x27;t automobiles no matter how much we debate about it. They shouldn&amp;#x27;t be sharing the road with cars.&lt;p&gt;But you know what? I&amp;#x27;m absolutely in favor of this kind of road engineering. Regardless of making traffic faster or not, it&amp;#x27;s just smart design. Between roads, sidewalks and bike lanes, this provides a designated travel area for everybody regardless of the mode they choose to travel with. Bikes shouldn&amp;#x27;t be sharing the road with cars, they &lt;i&gt;should&lt;/i&gt; have their own designated travel areas.&lt;p&gt;It eliminates all three of my issues in one swoop and provides equitable space for sharing the travel conduits in a city. In fact, it would probably get &lt;i&gt;me&lt;/i&gt; out on a bike more often.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nether</author><text>&amp;gt; The biggest possible problem is that as the auto driver you become responsible for any bike rider you come into contact with because they are unprotected regardless of the circumstances of the contact. I didn&amp;#x27;t ask them to get on the road with me, but I&amp;#x27;ll sure as hell be held responsible for their decision if something happens.&lt;p&gt;This is bullshit. If you hit and kill a pedestrian, you&amp;#x27;re not always at fault, even though they always have the right of way. Likewise, often drivers who kill cyclists get off scott free:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok-to-kill-cyclists.html?pagewanted=all&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;11&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;opinion&amp;#x2F;sunday&amp;#x2F;is-it-ok-to...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;and here&amp;#x27;s an example of it happening again, from five days ago:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ocregister.com/articles/beach-633885-city-attorney.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ocregister.com&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;beach-633885-city-attorne...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Drivers like you are the reason cyclists have started wearing GoPros. If cyclists were so belligerent, you should mount a dash cam to start documenting their offenses.</text></comment>