Biking in Boston

cden4 said:
Bostonians are (a) selfish, (b) rude, and (c) impatient
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As if to put a point on it, I had two close calls yesterday, with drivers that made illegal maneuvers.

The first one, where I was waiting to make a left from a small street onto Cambridge Street (Cambridge). When a gap appeared, I started to make the left turn -- and then realized that some older woman in a silver sedan had come up behind me, to my right, and was trying to do the same thing. Basically: she tried to pass me on my right in order to make her left turn. And she would have driven straight into me if I hadn't made a lot of noise at that moment.

The second incident occurred on Franklin Street, which is a quiet "main" street in North Allston. I happened to notice a little hint of movement on a side street, and I instinctively slowed down. Then a black hatchback driven by some younger looking man blasted out from that side street, from behind some parked cars. He did not stop for the stop sign at all. Missed my front tire by inches.
 
kjdonovan said:
I confess this is me in all modes of transportation.

I usually bike and I follow the rules but bend them when I think it's safe or, quite frankly, most convenient. Same with driving. And walking. And I hate every non-bus thing slowing me down when I'm on a bus.

One mode being more disrespectful than the other isn't the issue. As others have said, as mixed mode transit continues to increase, any anomalies seen from subsets of a given population should be balanced out by the crowd. So, it isn't that cyclists break more laws, merely that they break DIFFERENT laws than cars. This isn't my opinion. It's this guy's: https://medium.com/cycling-in-the-city/why-bikes-make-smart-people-say-dumb-things-9316abbd5735

So let's put aside the us-vs-them for a moment and assume for the sake of argument that all travelers will make the same efforts to get to their destination as any other traveler using a different mode, and will take advantage of the benefits of their respective mode (speed, bus lane, alternate routes for bikes). Assuming again that each mode will bend or break the rules in equal amount, which is the most dangerous mode? We all know the answer to that. (It's cars http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0739885912002156)

A more troubling concern I have is that driving not only is the most dangerous mode when we all behave the same, it's also that drivers have more indications of extremely dangerous behavior outside the norm. Intentionally killing people because of travel rage is pretty much exclusive to cars. I found lots of examples of car on car rage incidents. Then I tried to find something involving bicycle road rage causing a death. Google "bicycle rage kills" and all you get is cyclists getting murdered by cars.
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=bicycle+rage+killing

If I never biked another day in my life and got everywhere by car, sitting in traffic I'd probably hate everything (bikes, walkers, and cars) that was cutting me off and slowing me down. I'd be as bitchy as our anti-bike friend on this thread and blame the other modes for screwing up the whole system. I'd be (a) selfish, (b) rude, and (c) impatient. I'd think I was right. And I'd be wrong.
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This is all very well said.
 
kjdonovan said:
A more troubling concern I have is that driving not only is the most dangerous mode when we all behave the same, it's also that drivers have more indications of extremely dangerous behavior outside the norm. Intentionally killing people because of travel rage is pretty much exclusive to cars. I found lots of examples of car on car rage incidents. Then I tried to find something involving bicycle road rage causing a death. Google "bicycle rage kills" and all you get is cyclists getting murdered by cars.
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=bicycle+rage+killing

If I never biked another day in my life and got everywhere by car, sitting in traffic I'd probably hate everything (bikes, walkers, and cars) that was cutting me off and slowing me down. I'd be as bitchy as our anti-bike friend on this thread and blame the other modes for screwing up the whole system. I'd be (a) selfish, (b) rude, and (c) impatient. I'd think I was right. And I'd be wrong.
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This seems like a mental health issue more than anything. When your life is spiraling out of control, being stuck in traffic can amplify a lot of the negative feelings associated with that. It's easy for us to tell people to just "chill out" but reality is something different, and it's hard to understand true desperation unless you've actually experienced it yourself. The problem with cars is similar to guns - they put put deadly weapons in the hands of the desperate with nothing to lose, who might be stuck in the throes of mental illness as a result. It's impossible to predict how people like that are going to respond to an adverse or stressful situation. 99% of the time it blows over with no incident, but it only takes one bad response to alter lives forever. I'm not saying the solution is to strip people of their licenses because they are depressed - that's a horrible idea considering much of our countries infrastructure makes driving a requirement. I do think it means we need to look at the issue from a different perspective than merely trying to decide who is "right" and who is "wrong".

It's funny how these traffic debates always get so virulent online. We're talking about transit here, getting from point a to point b. Yes there are safety issues involved which naturally will get people worked up, but on the whole it's a pretty mundane thing and shouldn't be such a major point of contention. Most of the flame wars will be just that, online expressions of rage that have zero effect in the real world other than the occasional uncalled for horn or middle finger. Occasionally though you get somebody at their breaking point. I think most of us, whether we are behind the wheel, on a saddle or our own two feet, are cognizant of this fact when we are out and about, and thus have adapted a defensive mindset towards the very idea of transit. It's something we should be aware of when rationally trying to solve the issues facing us as we all try to move about this city in a safe and reasonably efficient manner.
 
The incidence of mental illness is about 1% +/- an order of magnitude. If you encounter 50 cars on each commute, nearly every day you will interact with someone who is struggling.
 
Let's not stigmatize people with mental illness. That's not right either.
 
kjdonovan, very well said. In particular I think you're on to something about why car drivers go completely mental. I think cars give drivers a false sense of being in control, which is continually thwarted by traffic and the behavior of other road users. That breeds frustration and rage. The best example of this is traffic on a multi-lane road. People constantly change lanes believing they'll find the faster lane, and the belief that one could go faster (but they actually can't) makes people act outrageously. Another example would be a driver stuck behind a bike taking the lane.

Whereas when walking or biking, there really are very few external forces that reduce your control. For about the last 8 years I've primarily commuted by bike and I'd say that aside from one crash, two flats, and snow deeper than about three inches, the only thing that significantly effected the length of time it took to complete the commute was simply how fast I pedaled.
 
I thought I'd share this image. According to the original source, none of the (motor)bikes pictured can be seen by the truck driver (neither directly nor by mirror).
1901503_10151918203901330_1675294564_n.jpg
 
Matthew said:
Let's not stigmatize people with mental illness. That's not right either.
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Of course it's not right, but that isn't the point. If we were to de-stigmatize mental illness and give those suffering the resources to get help, we'd have less problems to worry about when getting around in traffic. Of course in my personal opinion almost everybody in this society is harboring some degree of mental illness, some just manage to hide it better than others.
 
rinserepeat said:
should be state-wide (or at least the entire Boston Metro) - not just Brookline - I think it will create a lot of confusion if it's just one municipality.
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The anti-highway movement c.1970 started with State Rep Dukakis in Brookline stopping i-95. You gotta start somewhere. Hopefully it'll gain acceptance fast enough that confusion will be minimal and short-lived.
 
Arlington said:
The anti-highway movement c.1970 started with State Rep Dukakis in Brookline stopping i-95. You gotta start somewhere. Hopefully it'll gain acceptance fast enough that confusion will be minimal and short-lived.
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I do think we should institute the "idaho stop" here - I'm just thinking that maybe it needs more than just Brookline - I feel like BPD might be more receptive than Cambridge or Somerville....
 
I don't have strong feelings about the "Idaho stop" or whatever it is, but I worry that it would cause significant confusion in the traveling public even if it were instituted in multiple towns. For years, some cycling allies or advocates have been towing the line that bikes should obey all the rules of the road "just like cars." For this idea to be thrown out the window overnight could be somewhat disruptive, or even hurt the movement's credibility. And for whatever drivers didn't get the memo (tens of thousands?), or who disagree with the new rules (hundreds of thousands?), their frustration with scofflaw cyclists might only grow.

Even if my fears proved to be well-founded, that doesn't necessarily mean this rule change would be a bad idea. But I do worry that it might cause considerable strife in an already-charged discussion.
 
"Just like cars" was a mistake, and not really true anyway (bicycles are legally allowed to pass on the right, unlike cars, in MA). It doesn't work, we need to figure out a better model, and hopefully one with fewer vagaries and contradictions too.

The Idaho Stop law does not legalize reckless behavior at stop signs or stop lights. If you fail to yield to a vehicle or pedestrian that has the right of way you have still broken the law.

The way I see it, the Idaho Stop law tells police to only focus on enforcement in the case of reckless behavior. Under current law, a bicyclist proceeding through an empty intersection -- with no cross traffic -- is one of those "victimless crimes" that is a waste of police resources to go after. Instead of going after people who are doing no harm, the police should be working on stopping dangerous behavior. A bicyclist going through a red light and causing a crash or emergency braking would be considered dangerous behavior, for example.

If some driver throws a temper tantrum because they saw a bicyclist harmlessly pass through an empty intersection, then that is their personal problem, and not a good basis for public policy -- which should be focused on doing what is most sensible and safest.

Anyway, most bicycle riders seem to follow the Idaho stop law implicitly. And pedestrians have been doing it since time immemorial. Some people find that frustrating. But life goes on.

P.S. Most BPD bicycle officers that I've seen also seem to practice Idaho stop when just cruising around.

P.P.S. this discussion brings to mind an excellent article by Chuck Marohn over at Strong Towns, "Follow the rules, bikers"
 
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I would be in favor of Idaho stop if I felt like bicyclists would actually obey it. Based on how many people blow through red lights at full speed during all-walk phases, NOT yielding to pedestrians, I'm skeptical. (I bike every day BTW.)
 
cden4 said:
I would be in favor of Idaho stop if I felt like bicyclists would actually obey it. Based on how many people blow through red lights at full speed during all-walk phases, NOT yielding to pedestrians, I'm skeptical. (I bike every day BTW.)
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daily bike commuter here... I usually only see this kind of insane deathwish behavior where the stupid teenagers are - I watched a couple kids doing wheelies down the mass ave bridge the other day...

I think a big part of the problem is that there's virtually no culture of adults teaching kids how to safely ride in traffic. We have a lot of young people just now starting riding who grew up in car-only culture, and their learned bike behavior is doing jumps off speed bumps in empty parking lots - and their only prior taste of "adult" urban cycling is maybe bike messenger snuff films or bmx/mountain bike style riding on youtube... This is all very new - and there's unfortunately a couple generation gap in urban cycling in this country.

I think we've got another 5 years before we start seeing a critical mass of well behaving cyclists - especially once more segregated bike infrastructure starts appearing.
 
cden4 said:
I would be in favor of Idaho stop if I felt like bicyclists would actually obey it. Based on how many people blow through red lights at full speed during all-walk phases, NOT yielding to pedestrians, I'm skeptical. (I bike every day BTW.)
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But how is opposing Idaho Stop going to help prevent reckless people from blasting through lights like that?

Right now the police have no incentive to go after reckless behavior like that: because they can sit back and issue the same ticket to the person who yields to pedestrians. And that's what happens (see: Somerville). It's much easier for an officer to go after a slow-moving cyclist who is trying not to harm others than to go after a fast-moving cyclist who doesn't give a shit.

Same thing goes for speeding cars, by the way, which is probably why so few people get pulled over for speeding on city streets.
 
Matthew said:
Same thing goes for speeding cars, by the way, which is probably why so few people get pulled over for speeding on city streets.
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Just as speeding is better deterred by "calming", most of these "bad behaviors" are better addressed by street design & intersection design, such that people naturally choose to do the safe thing and mix safely

Upthread, we saw a motorist complain of cyclists' behavior "just as I was going to try to beat a light". We can fault the driver (his obligation is to coast or slow), but More and More I ask: Why isn't that a 4-way stop?

I think the problem is that as traffic volumes increased, many lights now have just two modes: "race to beat me" and "stop even though there's no cross traffic"

4-way is particularly good where all the roads coming into the intersection are 1-lane anyway.
 
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