Lemme whisper in your ear, "The sidewalks are getting redone with paver stones, the intersections are getting raised to sidewalk level, and the bike lanes will connect directly with a larger protected bike lane network and directly to an in-progress new automated light metro station that will have 2.5-minute headways."
What’s the benefit of paver sidewalks? I would think they’d be harder to keep clear of snow, like I know people with brick/paver drives and they’re less easy to shovel. Plus more points to become unsettled/uneven and have edges come up for tripping. I assume there’s positives I’m missing!
They've already installed some in my neighborhood, and they have a very smooth, even surface. Beyond that, I think it's just an aesthetic thing: create really attractive, pleasant spaces and you'll attract more pedestrians. And of you're in a dense neighborhood, the local tax revenues are more than enough to afford nicer surfaces than if you're having to cover a ton of sprawling suburbia.
They also feel they are less slippery when it rains and allow rainwater to seep into the ground directly rather than direkt it to the sewers. This unburdens the sewer system and the humitity in the ground helps cool cities.
Thanks for your response!! I agree they’re aesthetically better, by a mile! I was just worried about their functional practicality.
Awesome! I just got back from Montreal. The impression we (Europeans) got was that it's pretty car-centric and the nicest parts of the city are used for parking lots, but it's better than, say, Toronto. Nice to hear it's improving.
Yeah, it's probably the most urbanist major city in North America (except NYC, but that's in a league of its own), but even with that it's still got way too many cars. Best thing about it, though, is that the populace is pretty pro-urbanism, and we got a very pro-density and pro-transit mayor and city council.
Hope more cities do this. Separating bike lanes makes a ton of sense. Bike commuting was stressful sometimes knowing the only thing between me and 4,000lbs of metal was a painted line.
Also would notice a good number of tailpipes faced towards the bike lane, which sort of negates the health benefit of biking to work.
I just saw this sideways tailpipe nonsense on a truck for the first time yesterday and couldn't figure out why they would modify it like that. Is this really a thing just to roll coal on bikers??
A lot of old trucks had exhausts that come out the side. A lot of people (mostly older in my experience) prefer the look, but it wouldn't shock me of some people put those pipes on their trucks specifically to fuck with bicyclists.
My city promised similar for several roads, then the mayor hired a construction company he has stake in to build it, then he didn't do any construction and pocketed the money. He's currently under investigation by at least 3 different bodies and at least 50% of town still supports his re-election
This is happening right now on a major road that goes through our city. There are complaints about it daily on our forum. I'm getting tired of reading it.
Part of the cycle superhighway on my part of the A10 has kerbs to stop cars getting onto the cycle lane. I couldn't use it last time I was there because there were cars parked on it. The cycle superhighway is pointless. Half of it is on the pavements, so I have to use the (pothole-ridden) bus lane because I have better things to do than dodge pedestrians who can't be bothered to look where they're going.
Anyway, even where there are cycle lanes, the babies are too lazy to cross the road to use it so they just cycle on the pavement.
And during its construction, a bus I was on hit a cyclist and sent him flying because the driver didn't want to wait until the roadworks were ending to overtake him (there were signs all down that part saying narrow lane, don't overtake cyclists). And he didn't even stop the bus until after the roadworks, and only because the passengers were yelling at him to stop.
I tried to look up any news about that cyclist, but I couldn't find any reports about the incident. I don't think he was even wearing a helmet. I hope he was okay.
oh my god i fuckin wish. half of my city is straight up inaccessible on bike unless you want to drive on the roads and get killed by distracted motorists.
Until it's actually built, don't count on it. NIMBYs will fight tooth and nail every chance they get. Even after it's built there will be a constant barrage of unfounded complaints about how it hurts traffic flow and makes it more dangerous for drivers. Show up to your city council meetings and make sure to hold them accountable for their promises.
If you can't impeach whoever was responsible for this barbaric decision, democracy will have failed.
In this case, civil war will be the only solution.
I know which side I'll be in for that civil war. Unlike you, I'm already serving in the strategic nuclear Navy. Come and fucking get it.
Why does the best one have to be about them taking something away from someone else?
That just rubs me wrong.
Other than that I liked it though.
It's not about taking it away from someone else, it's about removing unnecessary car lanes that just induce car traffic.
If you take my city as an example: everything is build around cars, we don't have any bike lanes. To fix this, they painted those dottet lines on the road, easy to ignore for drivers.
The knowledge that they have to take away space from car infrastructure to repurpose it for sidewalks and bikelanes would be a huge step, because there is simply no other solution. Every expertise the city ordered is saying it, but they still won't except the facts and try to weasel out with those painted bike lanes.
So in general you are right, one shouldn't be happy when your gain is based on another beings loss. But in infrastructure planing terms it would simply make the city a better place for everyone.
The fact car infrastructure was built in cities is usually already based on a loss for others. This is just taking it back.
Exactly. They demolished entire historic, dense neighborhoods and displaced countless hundreds of thousands to build freeways. They took all the streets away from pedestrians and cyclists and streetcars and gave it to cars, save for a tiny sliver of sidewalk. And cars are the most space-inefficient mode of transit, mind you.
All this is doing is reclaiming a little bit of that space back.
