This change just happened in Lille, France
This change just happened in Lille, France
The tables on the road were only there for the inauguration day, but bike lane is here to stay.
110 comments
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Lady in pink would be killed if she came to Amsterdam
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I damn nearly got murdered by an angry speeding cyclist in Paris, near a canal. I crossed the lane without realizing, not being used to their presence. Bike lanes are simply nonexistent where I live, and I was only staying in Paris for a couple weeks. The dude got super mad at me, like super super mad. To this day I still fantasize about throwing him and his fucking bike in the canal. I really should have done it.... why do I have to second-guess everything
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Learn how to cry on command. That would probably have taken the wind out of his sails. I'm not a car freak. If I could get by in my suburban hell without one I would. That being said, if cars have to be aware of cyclists then cyclists need to be aware of pedestrians.
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I was being inconsiderate and dangerous in traffic, and it's the other guy's fault
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I mean, honest mistake on your part, but still your mistake. Dude shouldn't have raged at you for an honest mistake, but you should rage at them even less, as they didn't even do anything wrong (except raging).
You'd be a somewhat justified if it happened in a pedestrian only zone or sidewalk, as it frequently does in my city but you were the one in the wrong area.
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This is beautiful
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I thought you were replying to the comment on top
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My hard line opinion is that roads are dead spaces. There is no opportunity for anything to grow or flourish; this includes things like community. More roads = more dead space.
If you want to activate a space, i.e. bring community back, reduce road space. And, of course, with reduced road space you need to counter balance with better infrastructure for other modes of transport to get people moving to and from.
Basic town planning! Looking at you... Local council...
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Don't look up parking lot rules in america, dead space like it's going out of style just so crowds can shop on black Friday and Christmas.
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Ohoho... I have seen those rules and having visited both California and Texas last year, I can safely say that I don't want any of that where I live. California was marginally better than Texas though but not by much.
It was insane to me that it was a 3hr public bus ride to NASA, and that included a 20 minute walk from where the bus drops you off.
...And those Stepford Wives-like suburban hellscapes with nothing but roads and freeways for miles.
Madness.
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Get off the bike path grandma
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In my experience cycling in London, it wouldn't be a bike lane without some doofus walking on it 😅
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That bitch just walkin' in the bike lane.
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Bet there's some kind of psychological trick you can play on cyclists, distracting them with pictures of people walking in bicycle paths.
Everyone else in that scene could be raw-fucking mid-sized Gumby sex dolls and I'd still be like "Get out the damn bike lane!"
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I think many cyclists refuse to acknowledge how much they carry over from car brains. Minor inconveniences should be common and expected. Some bikers react to someone jogging on a bike path as if their life were threatened. Save the anger for legitimately dangerous situations like sprinting into the lane without looking or excessive speed.
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I can understand.
We have some new dedicated cycle lanes in our city (I mean, they are a few years old now. But fairly unique in our country).
I feel bad for the cyclists. They have a dedicated path, which pedestrians are super ignorant of (they are better marked than this picture).
My parents think they are a menace when they visit, because they are unaware of them and get menaced by cyclists.
Except, that's literally what roads are. They just grew up with roads and (even faster) cars.So, I am understanding of the transition.
And everyone needs to call everyone out over it. It will make everyone safer-
I got pretty heated after an event bicycling home. Pedestrians all ignorant walking on the bike lane. That was fine so long as they moved but someone yelled at me and I very angrily yelled back.
People criticize cyclists in the road, they'd criticize you riding on the sidewalk (rightly so), but when we have a dedicated bike lane they walk all over it and act like you're the asshole.
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The after picture looks so much more welcoming, clean, and active. Like the place is suddenly more alive.
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But small businesses will suffer if people have nowhere to park 😡
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Leave it like this (well replace the asphalt for nice tiles) and you'll actually get more people to come by and stay for a coffee, use the stores, etc..
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It just looks sweaty and smelly to me. Why all the tarmac when it’s been explicitly and expensively rebuilt for a new purpose?
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Because it's probably still a road (even its road markings are new), and they just closed that section for some pedestrian event.
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Oakland, California is redoing all the downtown roads. Going from four lanes to two lanes with physically separated bike lanes and tiny gardens. I welcome it.
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All is bit of a stretch. Oakland’s budget is in rough shape right now. They’re doing a few roads here and there, and they usually start with some low cost experimentation in areas with plastic cones and paint to test first.
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I both live and work in downtown Oakland. They appear to be working toward all downtown roads from my perspective. Two of the four sides of the building that I live in have been redone and they're doing sections of the street that I walk to work and others that I see when I'm out and about. Traffic is gnarly by the lake where they've closed lanes.
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I can't honestly believe that some people would rather have the hellscape in the top photo, rather than the paradise in the lower one.
Communities, and society as a whole, need more of the "after", please!
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Paradise is a stretch. Paradise to a non-cyclist like me would be a robust tram system with cheap monthly pass. This looks nicer I agree, but if you're not a cyclist you're still driving.
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Paradise to a non-cyclist like me would be a robust tram system with cheap monthly pass. This looks nicer I agree, but if you’re not a cyclist you’re still driving.
Ironically, there's a subway directly under where this photo is taken, so robust public transportation can still move people to these destinations. No need to drive to these shops now, since you can get there without needing a car.
Before this transformation, there was barely a sidewalk, and almost no people enjoying this public space.
Here's another angle of that street, so you get a better idea:
Two things strike me the most.
The first is that in the "before", there's just all wasted space and no people.
Now you now see elderly and children enjoying that space, people talking, people sitting down to eat or rest. You don't have to be a cyclist to appreciate that this is what streets should look like.
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Moving from a car to a bike is a choice, though. Become a cyclist :)
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Complete idiot local business owners keep trying to remove the bike lanes in San Diego because “their customers need to parallel park there”. Up to and including a fucking bike repair shop. Even when people have this better way right in front of them they reject it
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Yes, idiot business owners.
Why do they believe they are in competition with people? As if having more people in front of their shop (vs. parked cars) is somehow bad?
What they should be worried about is online businesses stealing their market share.
And what better way to offer something more than what online businesses do then by making your brick and mortar shop friendly to people!
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In defense of business owners, when their customers are trained from birth to drive everywhere, their customers expect parking. When there is no parking, they lose business
Every major US city receives immense backlash from local businesses when roads/parking are unavailable due to added bike lanes, traffic calming projects that reduce parking, or much-needed major construction projects such as water main or sewer work. This is happening right now in downtown Burlington, VT, for example
https://m.sevendaysvt.com/news/main-street-construction-is-hurting-burlington-businesses-43270506
There's no easy answer in most cases
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I don’t see the immigrants in the second picture
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Look at all the foot traffic for the shops. I have no idea why shops complain about this.
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A study in my hometown found that shopkeepers are mostly concerned about their own commute, not decrease of patrons.
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I like everything except the road-style bidirectional bike lane. They should split the directions of the bike lane. Head on collisions are very bad. Splitting the lanes makes those essentially impossible. It also makes it much easier for pedestrians to cross since they only need to deal with one direction of traffic at a time.
Just put that plant boulevard between the directions of the bike lane and create pedestrian islands to stand on.
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Also make accessing the shop on the other side possible without riding on the road, this kind of layout mean you're forced to ride on the road for the whole stretch if you using a bakfiet.
But either way, it's a one step forward.
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We do a pedestrian mall in our downtown district from June to September. I absolutely love it and it has been a huge driver of local business. I would love to see some of our streets become pedestrian only but that would also mean my town acknowledging that pedestrians deserve a path at all in the winter.
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It's beautiful 🥹
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I know, Smart Fix updated their sign!
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Voilà la vie vrai
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The curb in the middle is totally unfriendly to disabled people.
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It looks like there is a cut over built into the curb that you can see in the picture right above the head of the person in the blue shirt
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I'm really not a fan of these "Bike lane and pavement are not the same hight and the kerb is a wedge so can't see it very well". We have them at se places where I live (and sometimes pavement and bikelane are the same height to make it even more confusing) and I've seen multiple cyclists (and pedestrians) having accidents because they did not realize there was a difference in height.
110 comments