asmac

Streetcar tracks major cause of serious downtown cycling crashes, new study finds - Toronto - CBC News

FBinNY 

Well ------Duh!!!!!!

They had to study it because a generation or two went by, and in the intervening years without tracks people forgot about the problem.

asmac

Maybe where you live. The agony never ended here.

FBinNY 

Then, how could they need a new study to "prove" the obvious?

northernlights

Easy enough to jerk the front tire over the track if you have a flatbar, and the fatter tires help.

canklecat

Lots of railroad tracks on my riding routes, including those mini tracks for kids and families in the park. Gotta be careful. But we can cross most of those perpendicularly or at least at a safe angle.

If I had to routinely ride parallel to tracks I'd seriously consider a fat bike. Or avoid the entire area.

howsteepisit

Looking at the article, the authors hope that by putting actual number to the cause (about 1/3 of the serious accidents) they can focus solutions where needed. Otherwise you might as well use the A&S forum to determine the causes, with the inevitable claims of your making that up and calls for sources. In other word its a good idea to have some facts when trying to determine the ordering of causations.

CB HI

CB HI

At least our USA tax dollars did not have to pay for it.

vol

A while ago we had a thread here: https://www.bikeforums.net/advocacy-s...-disaster.html

northernlights

That's his opinion, and the researchers had a different one.

CB HI

You mean the researchers and you with no practical experience riding on roads let alone roads with rails?

The bike shop mechanic has more actual experience dealing with the situation. My own experience with such wheel traps leads me to believe that thinner tires are more often safer. The fat tire drops in and gets hard stuck there. A thinner tire drops in, has some room on the sides and an experienced rider can lift it back out (I have done that) .

Bet the researchers did not even research the impact of tire size, they just did like you so often do, pull it out of their ass and call it common sense.

B. Carfree

The tracks in Toronto have 35 mm flange widths, as opposed to our 45 mm flange widths. A wide tire (55 mm) is going to have trouble getting stuck in a 35 mm flange, but will often squeeze quite readily into a 45 mm flange owing to the rounded shape of the tire. If someone is considering a sub-40 mm tire to be wide, then they're in for disappointment. I agree with the mechanic is we're talking about US street car tracks, but in Toronto I'd just roll 55 mm tires and not worry in the slightest.

79pmooney

For a while Portland, OR had a designated bike lane running along the new trolley tracks on Lovejoy in the Pearl district. That winter, an organized ride ran down that bike lane. I had no idea the bike lane was there as I never rode it, always using the street a block over (because that street had RR tracks, duh!). The ride took place in February and, surprise!, the road was wet. A bunch of riders crashed trying to adhere to the bike lane.

The next town west has designated bike lanes on a road that crossed three sets of severely angled tracks. (5th Street near the 217 underpass.) The sign warns you that they are angled but not that there are multiple sets and that they cannot be done at any kind of speed unless you plan to use the full car lane. Now both directions have options, wide pavement to the right on one side and access to the pedestrian sidewalk on the other but still no warning that a routine angled track crossing will crash you or that other options exist. I have talked to a lot of riders who have crashed there and it isn't ever a very heavily traveled bike route.

Ben

northernlights

Wow why so much rage? Take a chill pill and sign up for some anger management classes would be my suggestion to you.

Don't try to pass off your opinion as fact. If you can't handle others having a different opinion then yours without cursing and swearing like a madman then maybe you shouldn't be on the forum until you learn to deal with your anger issues. It's not good for your health!

Everyone has different opinions and experiences on the issue and you're not the center of the universe, sorry to break it to you. Who do you think you are? You think yours is the last and only word on every thread and no one is allowed to say differently? You really do need to pull that stick out your rear end and a get a life. Either that or get a more comfortable bicycle seat, maybe you wouldn't be so bitter and enraged all the time.

mr_bill

This is Kay. That is one of her bikes. Any questions?



This is Meghan. That is one of her bikes. Any questions?



-mr. bill

mr_bill

"We complemented this with engineering information about the rail systems, interviews of personnel at seven bike shops about advice they provide to customers, and width measurements of tires on commonly sold bikes."

-mr. bill

Stadjer

Interesting, I always thought that not crossing them at a wide enough angle was the cause of getting stuck in it, which doesn't have to qualify as an accident btw.

mr_bill

Don't even think that North American trolley tracks are anything like Dutch/German trolley tracks (light rail, tram, strassenbahn, stadtbahn). Your rails are designed with flange-ways large enough for light rail but small enough so that they generally present minimal hazard to other road users.

That is *NOT* at all like what we have in most of North America, *especially* on turning sections of track in intersections. Our flange-ways are, uh, jaw opening.

-mr. bill

Stadjer

Judging by the picture they're not wide enough to catch your front wheel no matter in which direction it points. I'll take for a fact that there design makes them more of a problem, that can't be solved by very wide tyres, but it's possible to steer inside Dutch rails to and that can lead to an accident. Only a few weeks ago someone got hurt quite bad in Amsterdam by steering into one. It turned out to be a shirtless Frenchman on a daytime bachelor party with rental bikes, so I wouldn't point at the rails as the primary cause.

They're dangerous, stay between them or cross them at a large angle, mind the rear wheel follows on a different angle, and if there are a lot of rails crossing, navigate carefully and slowly.

mr_bill

The picture used in the article is from a year old crash with a car - nothing at all to do with the article or tracks - other than the bicycle and its front wheel happened to land between tracks after the crash.

But you are quite wrong - those rails can absolutely capture either the front or rear wheel.

Again, compare and contrast.

Toronto - Tee-rail, concrete flange-way of varying width.

Frankfurt - Groved-rails with gaskets.

Bottom line.

Better engineering makes a HUGE difference.
Education makes a difference.
But until you get to a fat bike, tire width doesn't make much of a difference.

-mr. bill

dynodonn 

"His safety advice? "It's really just about paying attention."




This is a key piece of advice when I go on my urban commutes, with some cyclists being geared up for the higher concentration intensity level and some are not.


I liken my the urban commute situation to the one segment of TV program where a business man recently acquired a pilot's license, then goes out and buys a vintage WWII fighter plane, in the thinking that he can go and fly and relax, leaving the daily work grind behind. The business man quickly learned on his maiden voyage with the plane, that with the plane's much higher speed requirements, along with more "seat of the pants" flying, that his concentration level was far greater than anything he experienced at work, along with maneuvering plans having to be made much, much farther in advance.

Stadjer

Not really:


It might help cyclists with fat tyres, it's not foolproof.


And Skill, at 2.28 there's an Amsterdammer who knows how to cross the tracks, but appearantly he's had a about 10 beers too many and didn't pay attention. Just make enough of an angle when you cross them.

JoeyBike

Streetcar tracks in New Orleans around Lee Circle (traffic circle) were designed by an evil genius. First place I ever got tracked back in the early '70s. Remember it like yesterday. A merging car forced me into trouble, I crashed, my riding buddy caught up with the car and kicked a big dent in the driver's door. Ahh...to be young again!

Had to stand on my steel rear wheel to make it round enough to get to a bike shop about 7 miles away. Dude sold me a wheel, moved the freewheel over for me all for $20, which is all I had on me. Will never forget that guy either.

Happened right here: MAP LINK
================

An aside:

I used to ride with a club back in the late '80s, early '90s (before I became a crotchety old man who pretty much hates everybody). One particular ride called the "Double Ferry Ride" went past a bunch of shipyards and other industry along the Mississippi River. Before the ride began the ride leader would give a quick overview of the route, caution everyone about the multiple train tracks crossing the road on about a 5* angle, and then point to me and another friend of mine to let everyone know that after the tracks my friend and I would become the ride leaders for the remainder of the route. Why you ask? Because the ride leader would have to drive his car, not his bike, so he could take one or two cyclists to the E.R. every freaking time! It never failed - like moths to a flame. If you refused to dismount and portage over some of these tracks, God help you. Or George help you (the ride leader in the follow car).

northernlights

So much for the previous ass-umptions.

Why would someone from Hawaii be so up in arms about streetcars anyway,
when they don't have any? I guess some people just like to hear themselves talking.