CrankyOne

A Kid, Some Bottles, and an Engineer On a Bike | streets.mn

What if cities and counties required all of their traffic engineers and planners to ride a certain number of miles every week within their city or county? What if they were required to ride every mile of every road in their city or county at least twice per year?

GP

Where I live several of the traffic engineers and planners are cyclists. They man a pit stop at Bike to Work Day every year.

FBinNY 

Great idea, but how will they get any work done. NYC has 6,000 miles of paved streets. Figure a fit traffic engineer (which he would be soon enough) could maybe ride 100 miles in an eight hour shift (that's a push). So 60 days needed to ride all the streets, if there's zero doubling back. Twice a year makes it 120 days, at a very minimum. With roughly 220 working days a year. he'd at the very minimum be spending over half his paid time riding his bike. Realistically, given weather, more reasonable estimates of what distance he could cover, fulfilling this mandate is more than a full time job in itself.

So with all engineers out riding, who'd do the work?

B. Carfree

Aside from the time involved in some cities, merely riding a road without actually having a destination changes the way it is experienced. If one is just riding, waiting two minutes for a signal to change or having to stop for traffic control devices every block or two isn't a very big annoyance. When one is trying to get somewhere, these time-sucks make a difference. Also, a lousy surface is far less jarring at ten mph than it is at twenty mph.

I would like to see traffic engineers be required to use the roads the way other riders are using them. Just as some cities have begun forcing their upper-level police to live inside the city, I'd like to see bike commuting (and shopping) be a condition of employment for traffic engineers. Sadly, my city gives the traffic engineer a car to cruise around in and he uses it to break every statute in the vehicle code.

klmmicro

In the end, if the engineers would be required to ride bike on the roads they are responsible for...the shoulders and bike lanes would like be better maintained than the driving portion!

Funny thing about that, riding through a town here in North County of San Diego I got into a small impromptu group. We were not riding that fast, maybe an 18 MPH average on the flats. One of the guys was asking what would make riding through town better. Out of the five of us, 4 of us gave our opinions. We all mentioned riding through areas where bikes shared the outer traffic lane with cars and how it felt safer when in a group than a bike lane. Fast forward a year and the town implemented that. Turns out, the guy was part of the road planning commission for the coastal county and is an avid cyclist. His town has the smoothest paved and best laid out bike accommodations that I can think of in the area.

genec

What area or part of town? (I know you said north county... but can you be more specific)

klmmicro

Solana Beach. Encinitas followed suit, but mostly for north bound. South bound still sucks.

CrankyOne

They can divide the city amongst all of them, just so that each mile of street gets ridden by one of them a couple of times each year?

Hey, maybe we can require politicians to do this?

mannie3moon

Not just ride, but walk and/or take public transit!

El Cid

I bet cities would look better if the engineers actually got what they wanted. But money is always an issue, and the final say rests either with city council or a financial officer who has no knowledge of urban planning. Arbitrary decisions are made; one project may get half done only to sit in limbo, while across town a six-lane road to nowhere gets built in a rush.

nd2010

Many roads that have multiple lanes should not have a right lane without an adequate shoulder. And no parking in the shoulder either.

AngeloDolce

Forcing the engineers to use the facilities they design is a fantasy of mine, but I don't see it happening any time soon. B. Carfree's point is critical.

I've run across at most 2 state planners that think bicycles can be ridden in traffic for more than a mile or two; other have told me they are scared of traffic or that bicyclists must always yield to motorists (including oncoming motorists turning left, and motorists going right or straight on red).

Needless to say, their designs don't accommodate useful bicycle transportation, since they think bicyclists should ride slowly enough to stop at every intersection, and and to be able to avoid being doored. If I tried to ride in these facilities, I'd be scared too; If I couldn't ride faster than 6mph or so, bicycling would be useless for transportation.

Fortunately the local drivers can see bicyclists in front of them even when they leave painted bike lanes to make left turns or avoid turning motorists, contrary to the engineers' (mis)instruction.

CrankyOne

NO. These should have adequate cycletracks or side paths.

CrankyOne

I agree with the others. Bicycles cannot be ridden safely with motor traffic. That is painfully and sadly clear when you compare our deaths and injuries per mile ridden with places like The Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Germany and others.



Bicycle riders should NEVER ride in the door zone (driver side) of parked cars. They should be on a properly designed cycle track on the pedestrian side of the parked cars.

CrankyOne

What did they implement?

CrankyOne

Great points. I still think just getting them to ride a bit every week would provide immense benefit though. They would start to get the message, particularly when they have to ride along busy 4 lane county roads. Some might fight it, do the minimum to meet the requirement, and not learn from it. I think most would take it for what it is and learn from it and the way they plan streets and roads would change for the better. And some (most?) might actually begin to like riding and a few become advocates.

spare_wheel

You are confusing the north american bike sidewalk with a properly designed cycle track.

Copenhagenize.com - Bicycle Culture by Design: Danish Bicycle Infrastructure History
Copenhagenize.com - Bicycle Culture by Design: Copenhagen's Design Manual for Bicycle Infrastructure and Parking

dpeters11

In Cincinnati, I know of at least two traffic engineers that ride. We came across one on his bike on a group ride, have seen him in other situations. The other is a woman.

They can make all the recommendations and designs they want, but there are a lot of other factors, including the Mayor.

squirtdad

Point one: That is absolute over statement (nice for BS) people ride safely with motor traffic every day. Comparing US with europe is an apples to oranges comparison.

point two: that is a terrible design. It does not eliminate dooring (passenger doors open), will never be clear of pedestrians, dog strollers etc, and has huge issues with intersections.

there is no one single answer for bike/car interaction.

The reality it is not possible to build bicycle specific infrastructure for every mile of road/possible destination that cyclist would want to use/go to. Cyclist have deal with riding on the road with other traffic.

hotbike

You might want to read this article:
Why General Motors wants to put 19,000 tech employees on bicycles - LA Times

GM is putting 19,000 employees on bikes.

CrankyOne

Sure, and people survive Ebola everyday. That doesn't mean that we don't want to improve the chances of everyone to survive it. You are still about 5 to 10 times as likely to die riding a bicycle here as in Europe.

How is comparing us to Europe apples to oranges? Why should we not strive to be able to ride as safely as Europeans?

I-Like-To-Bike

You might want to read your own reference. GM plans to make available bike-share to those of the 19,000 employees at the Warren campus who choose to use the bike share program to get around the work site campus. A step forward, and to be commended but not exactly putting 19,000 employees on bikes or anything close to it

hotbike

You guessed it, I was in a rush and didn't read the whole article.

But it is sort of relevant to the topic … while they are not traffic engineers, GM's tech employees are kind-of, sorta related to the general field...

I was stretching it a little bit, to show that the OP was Not that far off.

It's like this: a traffic engineer decides where to put the Stop Signs, an automotive engineer decides where to put the Brake Pedal...

Almost sorta related, aren't they?

FBinNY 

About as related as people who ride bikes and people who fix them, and we know that everybody who rides knows how to work on their bike.

AngeloDolce

I think you are over generalizing. While I would not want to ride a bicycle on the Washington Beltway (I-495; bumper to bumper at 70mph), locally there are many roads with 25mph speed limits (average speed no more than 15 mph due to lights and turning traffic) and rush hour traffic is closer to 9-11 mph.

I think bicycles can easily be ridden with motor traffic in these areas, but to install cycle tracks, you'd have to remove sidewalks and 100 year old buildings, or prohibit most city residents from owning cars (no place to park them, very limited bus service). I think this is neither politically feasible, nor necessary.

Yet it is even in these environments and speeds that the planners are petrified to ride, and drivers often become annoyed that bicyclists are riding below the speed limit. (If they would get all the cars and buses out of my way I could go faster too.)

They don't design your parking buffered lanes here, and even if they did, they require bicyclists to stop at all intersections (green or red lights) since turning motorists can't see bicyclists past the buffer, and turning motorists are not (current law enforcement) required to stop.

This fits the planners comments that bicyclists ride 6-8 mph and are required to stay in bike lanes (never detected by traffic lights; left turns virtually impossible). I can (and did) commute by bicycle when it's 5-10 min longer that driving - their facilities would make the same trip 30-45 min longer. Each way.

Do you live some place where motorists are punished for hitting pedestrians or bicyclists?


Seriously, in Japan pedestrians and bicyclists are considered people with rights to use public roads, drivers are expected to control motor vehicles, and punished if they do not. I hear this is the case in Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden also (don't doubt your others, just don't know).

DOT in DE, MD, and PA expect motorists to go fast; pedestrians and bicyclists are treated as obstructions to traffic.