I agree. Cycling needs good stewardship.

The biggest problem with cycling adoption is “cyclists”. My hyperlocal blog has a guy that makes me want to throw my bicycle in the bay just so I’m not associated with him. And I love riding my bike.

Cycling needs a “you meet the nicest people on a Honda” moment.

E-bikes are a great opportunity for Americans to rediscover motorcycles but unfortunately cities are willing to allow motorized vehicles traveling at 20mph on mixed walking/cycling paths.

I think each near collision with a car radicalizes cyclists a bit. While cycling you build up experiences where cars prioritize speed over your safety. Most “annoying cyclists” I’ve met I feel like are arguing for the right things but they have a lot of bitterness.

It isn't just near collisions. I was once stuck be a car with enough force that it bent my bike frame, ripped the mirror off of their car, and created a crashing sound loud enough for people to hear inside their homes. As far as I can tell, the motorist never even slowed down. The people who came to my aid were nearby residents and pedestrians. How I managed to walk away from that one with little more than (nasty) bruises is a mystery.

Other times attentive drivers exhibit attitudes that are less than redeeming. I once flipped on some streetcar tracks. Attentive motorists simply drove around me and went on their way. The people who did check up on my condition were pedestrians.

I've had a number of other experiences in my life that leave me feeling as though people cease to be human as soon as they get behind the wheel of a car. While there are exceptions, they are exceedingly rare. Getting back to the article, I am extremely worried about children being on their own on the streets. It isn't because of those who would intentionally harm them, since that is relatively uncommon. It is because very few people behind the wheel even seem to care.

I want to find out what kind of architecture/design humanizes people. Because everywhere I go in Canamerica people have to drive and I agree with you that it makes people worse.

It is not having quarter acre single family homes with garages and 2 car driveways. And not having 6+ lane wide intersections. And using traffic circles instead of traffic lights.

But mostly the first one. The second you start giving everyone a 2k+ square foot home and backyard and front yard and 2 car parking, you now have everything spaced so far apart that you need cars. And everyone needs space to put their car, so that means huge setbacks for storefronts, huge parking lots, etc.

You cannot have a community optimized for both numerous cars and non car traffic. It is one or the other, and once the layout is done, it is not politically changeable. Certainly not the huge personal vehicles almost everyone drives today.

I agree perceptions change when behind the wheel of a car. I have had drivers try to ram me on my motorcycle when lane splitting.

It's a common American (but maybe elsewhere too?) attitude to feel something is being taken from you when another person is gaining -- in this case, it's you moving efficiently through traffic while they stand still. Most people will just rage inside their car, but there is definitely a subset of those that think they have a right to harm you over it.

There's some minority of people who are just jerks on the road. Drivers that don't account for other road users. Cyclists who blow through intersections forcing cars and pedestrians to take evasive action. Pedestrians that expect wheeled vehicles to defy the laws of physics on their behalf.

Beyond this minority damn near every road user (regardless of car vs bike vs pedestrian) behaves perfectly reasonably if you understand what they're trying to do. Once you understand what the other participants are trying to do things become very predictable and safe. The road user who is constantly having problems is probably doing it wrong themselves in a "man who smells crap all day should look under his own shoe" sort of way.

Crappy cyclists make crappy pedestrians make crappy drivers.

I've biked walked and driven at various points in my life. If you understand what everyone else is doing and choose your own actions to mesh with this you basically never have problems with other road users. You can blow through intersections on a bike. You can jaywalk. You can ignore turn specific arrows. You can do all these things safely. But you gotta have good situational awareness exercise good judgement about the time and the place you choose to do them or you will often be in conflict with other road users.

The laws and unwritten rules exist for both your and other's protection on the road.

So, that "just this once" blowing an intersection or red light might be this time that a huge crash happens or someone is killed. Not worth the few minutes saved.

And if repeated, it's unforgivable.

Exhaust gas contributes to global warming and pollution kills people.

Every time a red light is blown without directly harming someone net negative externalities are reduced.

There are plenty of stupid cyclists who don’t prioritize their own safety. One of my pet peeves is to have bikes on the road in the dark without lights. Most of these people are adults and they should know that a car driver can’t see them.

Cycling lights are the law in most places in Europe, it probably should be enforced in the US as well.

Just a curious question. Cycling lights are indeed the law in most parts of Europe[0]. Are there no laws in the US about cycling laws or are they not enforced?

[0] In my country cycling lights are traditionally used are traditionally used as a training ground for new police officers. These officers have to explain why you are actually breaking the law and also have to deal in a correct manner in the abuse from the perpetrators.

Yeah cycling without lights always amazed me.

At the same time, idiotic cyclists are only risking their own lives and that’s it. Idiotic drivers are risking other people’s lives but not their own.

When there is a crash between and a car and a bike that involves a fatality, 100% of the time that fatality is the cyclist and not the driver.

95% is closer to reality. Sometimes a driver trying to avoid a crash will do something wrong and get injured with no harm to cyclist or pedestrian.

Or will harm someone else than the perpetrator.

It’s still overwhelmingly other people than the driver who pay the price.

I think there's a self-selection phenomenon. The inherent danger of American roads select for cyclists who are more reckless than the average person.

I strongly believe that when good protected bicycle infrastructure is built, average folks will be more represented among cyclists — and so cyclists will appear nicer and more cautious.

I try to be a good ambassador for cycling on my bike — got a rear radar, always hand signal, and always stop at lights and signs. But I've already been indoctrinated into cycling by having lived in the Netherlands.

> The biggest problem with cycling adoption is “cyclists”.

Most like probably number 3 or 4. The "cyclists" are annoying and silly, but on the other hand they aren't literally killing many people.

I was going to say, 40,000 Americans die every year in car accidents. People get into their cars when they're drunk and when they're so tired that they're nodding off at the wheel. People eat tacos, apply makeup, and text their friends while flying along at 45 miles per hour in a 2000-pound death missile.

I find "cyclists" to be as cringey as everyone else does, but cyclists aren't killing 40,000 people a year. They wear silly outfits and are kinda irritating. As far as sins go, those are pretty small in the grand scheme of things. By and large, when a cyclist acts a fool, they're endangering themselves. When a driver acts a fool, they're endangering everyone else on the road.

I live in an European city, where the infrastructure for biking is well established.

To be honest, average people riding bicycles for commuting or getting around cycle on the safe side, use the proper bike lanes, do not make left turns in front of the cars etc... while the "cyclists" insist on cycling on the car lanes, taking left turns and changing lanes while going 25-30 km/h on 50km/h road. Those people annoy me to the death while driving and cycling as well.

> E-bikes are a great opportunity

Until you round the corner on a sidewalk and narrowly avoid collision with a 7 year old on an electric bicycle.

I lived in Denmark for a bit in the 80s and I don't know how it is there these days, but back then, the police pulled you over and ticketed you for the tiniest infractions on a bicycle.

I can't imagine 1/10th of that level of enforcement in the NYC metro area without full scale rioting.

Your selective quoting really changes the meaning of my statement. The rest of that sentence makes clear that e-bikes are more like motorcycles.

It was crazy to me in NL that motor scooters (Vespas) could use the bike paths.

last year this was reatricted, now only scooters with a speed limiter installed are allowed

It's the same in Parts of Asia: bikes and scooters can go in the dedicated non-car lane. Sometimes you'll see a hand or bike pulled cart as well. Still safer than comingling with cars.

A few exceptions from my experience, where the cycling is okay (more space on the shoulder than Japan, but also larger vehicles): Madison , WI; Tucson, AZ; and Minneapolis, MN. I’ve put more time into bicycling as transportation than most other optional activities I can think of (other than walking, reading, videogames?). San Diego, CA boasted of many miles of bike lanes, but we found them often not connected, dumping us into a five-way intersection with no guidance, for example. A hard problem for city planners, maybe.

In my teens I cycled to my last three years of high school because I could sleep in (bus took over an hour) and visit friends on the way home. Thankfully the highway had a decent shoulder. I wore my helmet and eventually saw the benefit of wearing a neon-orange reflective vest (rather than stowing it once out of parental sight).

Where I’m living now I’m pushing for improved bicycle routes between towns, in part for tourism and so we don’t have to drive our kid to school.

I don't want the perfect to be the enemy of the good, but road shoulders aren't safe cycling/pedestrian spaces. Roads have the shoulders as a run off space for cars travelling at speed, so only having the option of cycling on the shoulder (car run off space) is a bad option that cities need to remedy. Painting the shoulder a "cycling lane" doesn't solve this either, it doesn't change the infrastructure at all it just reminds drivers of their responsibility to safety.

A network of bicycle lanes meant for transportation (rather than silly meandering lanes designed by someone who’s last experience biking was as a child, swerving down the road for the fun of it) would be awesome, potentially requiring less maintenance and reducing wear on automobile-roads, too.

As a pedestrian and ocassional roller blader in any major Metro City i visit, I'm actually far more afraid of bicycles than of any car.

My only times I've near-collision or actual Collision have been with bikes. this is invariably because they far exceed the speed limit in some sections that are really close to pedestrian traffic or because they bike near a curve full of parked cars where he cannot have enough time to break for incoming pedestrian traffic when the bikers going to ~30 miles per hour.