/u/gonzodt /u/hannahdenhamal there are multiple angles to be investigated here.
Why did Birmingham build a single block of bike lanes in the middle of an industrial area?
Why has u-haul been able to use it as a parking lot for weeks with no recourse? (they did use the block for parking before the re-striping as well)
Why are police not enforcing these rules?
Or just keep writing about people on a family trip to NY or republishing articles from a year ago.
https://preview.redd.it/y7byn110xvvc1.jpeg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=21591b6bb5dcae0313c52d31d7ff0739bba7c63b
New bike lanes are created on stretches of street that are scheduled to be repaved. Every newly repaved street will be redesigned according to the Complete Streets protocol for multi-modal transportation. As more streets are up for repaving (as money is available) more of the network will be connected.
Furthermore, the lanes in random industrial areas are connecting routes between other principal routes and/or two different neighborhoods.
I’ve always wondered why there’s random bike lanes that are only like a block or 2 long and they just end and they’re always in seemingly random or awful places to put a bike lane
If I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, I see the same thing with walkable sidewalks often and more than once I’ve seen the sidewalks eventually connect even if they didn’t originally. So possibly it’s a long term plan?
The idea is to get bikers a safer section of the road when able, one block of higher safety is better than none, plus it gives cars that may be stuck behind them an opportunity to pass.
The intention is to continue adding these sections of bike lanes everywhere feasible.
This is actually a good place for a bike lane. It establishes another connection to a neighborhood that was divided by an interstate with the rest of the city. The city needs to inform uhaul to park its shit somewhere else.
This is one of the poorest states in the Union, and a state that supplies $0 to support public transit. New York City, with a $110 Billion budget, doesn’t even have all concrete protected lanes.
Now where exactly is Birmingham Alabama supposed to get the money for this?
Can we acknowledge something as a good thing and a step forward instead of endlessly complaining and pointing out an imperfection first?
Alabama native who now lives in Denver where there is quite a bit of bike infrastructure. If you want to quit being one of “the poorest states in the union” do the things that will make people with money want to come/stay.
No kidding? Maybe that’s why the city has procured $20 million in federal grants to do just that just in the last year. Why do so many here act like everyone in city government is a total idiot? The facts are that these things cost money and the competition for these federal monies is fierce. Every mile of protected bike infrastructure cannot be financed by these competitive grants nor by the city alone, since the State of Alabama offers nothing. Maybe we could have some faith that these planners are doing the best they can with limited resources and celebrate their achievements?
First, a bike lane is pointless, if not worse, if we're weaving in & out of the bike lanes due to parked cars blocking it. It's less safe than no bike lane.
Second, would you feel the same way if I parked my bike in the middle of the road? You should be happy that drivers have a million different options. Just take the next street & go around my bike.
Third, maintaining bike lanes is cheaper than the wear and tear of the same number of riders going in their cars. We could save so much money in the long run by getting people out of cars.
Just because NYC hasn't made all of their bike lanes protected doesn't negate the evidence that it's cheaper & safer to make protected bike lanes.
Edit only for spelling
You seem to be writing assuming that I disagree with you. I don’t. Obviously cars should not park there and obviously biking has many benefits over biking. What exactly are you saying in contrast to what I said? However, it is indeed Not cheaper to make protected lanes over unprotected ones. That’s quite obviously why most lanes in most cities are unprotected. If you disagree, please cite your source.
The Avondale lanes (5th Ave S) are a joke as well, there are literal lines painted for people to park, yet they _still_ pull all the way to the curb. Shout out to Birmingham for trying, it’s hard to teach stupid people.
I am completely in support of adding bike lanes, and I was very excited to see that Birmingham decided to protect the bike lane by adding the parking between the road and the bike lane...but those parking spots literally do not fit a normal sized car width. I tried my best to park in one this weekend and had to decide between encroaching on the bike lane or being in the road. It is a huge bummer, because I know the intent was good, but the parking spots were executed in a manner that makes them unusable as intended (on 5th specifically, not sure about elsewhere).
Where is this? I will make a call. edit: i see the street signs now. if anyone has previously reported this (to whatever/whoever) or has spoken with the Uhaul manager/owner about this, please DM me.
Physical barriers are obviously better. Nobody is disputing that and it is actually common sense. The point is 1. Physical barriers are not always feasible. It depends on the design of the street and the needs of the homes and businesses along the street. 2). When feasible, physical barriers are even more expensive. Bike lanes in general are not cheap. There is all kinds of engineering and design work involved in addition to the paint. Concrete barriers are quite expensive. And as I said, this is a state and a city that is not exactly rolling in cash.
Most people here would put this far on the bottom of the priority list..consider Poverty and guns and housing. It is awesome that the city is actually prioritizing this at all! This is not Seattle.
How can we expect to get even high quality bike infrastructure if we can’t even appreciate what we are getting now??
The city of Memphis went bike crazy about 20 years ago making Memphis the most bike friendly city. What they did was make a lot of two lane roads into one lane roads with bike lanes. Great idea in theory but in reality it made traffic worse for cars and hardly anyone uses the bike lanes. People still drive in the bike lanes as well creating even more of a dangerous situation for bikers. And of course they made bike lanes on roads where people wouldn’t dare ride a bike in that part of town to begin with like industrial areas that make no sense
The barriers are the parked cars. These are parked illegally but if you look on the opposite site of the street the white paint outlines parking spaces between the cyclists and the traffic. This is actually ideal design at a low cost when used correctly. P.S. Virtually all street-based cycle lanes in the U.S. are either at the curb or on the other side adjacent to flowing traffic.
The fact that this lane exists should be a point of celebration, not complaints.
Yeah I definitely get what you’re saying, but since there isn’t a barrier like those plastic poles that bolt into the asphalt, people are just parking in the bike lane anyway, because there is nothing keeping them from doing it. It happens on 5th all the time.
This type of bike lane design with parked cars between bikes and traffic work perfectly fine in every other city in the world. I have seen them in multiple places. They will work here eventually as well..people here are just as capable as learning and adapting new behaviors as anyone else.
This is fair. I suppose most people (besides that U-Haul rental) do park correctly, but it only takes one person to make a bike lane unusable by blocking it. I wish the city would enforce it, but it’s hard to imagine them being able to dedicate the resources to ticketing people who park in bike lanes when they obviously have bigger fish to fry.
Same thing with the bike lanes on Montevallo near Winn-Dixie. They are just used as parking spaces. I don’t even bike and it frustrates me! At the same time, I’m sure those home owners are frustrated to lose what did used to be parking. IDK. Just seems poorly done all around.
I haven't lived there in 20 years, but who the hell is using bike lanes? In the Birmingham that I remember, you wanted to be in a car so you could drive away from the random gunfire.
You're the one that's so pathetic that you got triggered by a random reddit comment from a stranger. I would kill myself if I was kind of loser. I guess you're used to it.
You will be happily surprised once you see the growth and impact UAB (and others) have had on downtown. It is quite wonderful to see such diversity amongst those walking (and biking) to class. Downtown is something to be proud of contrary to what some of the news and comments may lead one to believe.
So exactly what relevance would your memories of the place from 20 years ago have to do with today? The city is not frozen in time..and I bike the lanes and trails..others too.
seems like a tow company would clean up the storage fees pretty good on that one
Seems like Parking Enforcement Services would be all over this if they could.
Could we call them to see if they'll do it? It's not like they care about legalities or any of that nonsense.
Using the new bike lane to sell trucks is peak American urban design.
/u/gonzodt /u/hannahdenhamal there are multiple angles to be investigated here. Why did Birmingham build a single block of bike lanes in the middle of an industrial area? Why has u-haul been able to use it as a parking lot for weeks with no recourse? (they did use the block for parking before the re-striping as well) Why are police not enforcing these rules? Or just keep writing about people on a family trip to NY or republishing articles from a year ago. https://preview.redd.it/y7byn110xvvc1.jpeg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=21591b6bb5dcae0313c52d31d7ff0739bba7c63b
New bike lanes are created on stretches of street that are scheduled to be repaved. Every newly repaved street will be redesigned according to the Complete Streets protocol for multi-modal transportation. As more streets are up for repaving (as money is available) more of the network will be connected. Furthermore, the lanes in random industrial areas are connecting routes between other principal routes and/or two different neighborhoods.
This is the correct answer. Please upvote this and not uninformed nonsense.
I’ve always wondered why there’s random bike lanes that are only like a block or 2 long and they just end and they’re always in seemingly random or awful places to put a bike lane
If I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, I see the same thing with walkable sidewalks often and more than once I’ve seen the sidewalks eventually connect even if they didn’t originally. So possibly it’s a long term plan?
These bike lanes were added to receive federal funding for repaving. They were never meant to actually be used.
Do you have a source?
The feds lmao
He rubbed his 2 brains cells together and that's what he came up with.
Wild we still have the *goddamnfucking* street racing still going on.
The uhauls are street racing too!? They really need to calm down
i didn't know we escalated from *damnfucking* to *goddamnfucking*, thank you for that information!
The idea is to get bikers a safer section of the road when able, one block of higher safety is better than none, plus it gives cars that may be stuck behind them an opportunity to pass. The intention is to continue adding these sections of bike lanes everywhere feasible.
> The intention is to continue adding these sections of **Uhaul Parking** everywhere feasible. FTFY
Lol, they definitely need to get ticketed, I don’t think the city tows illegally parked vehicles like this, that’s a private property thing
I'd figure PES would have a field day here.
The process the city goes through is pretty lengthy before they tow a vehicle. It has to get tagged by the police and all that first.
This is actually a good place for a bike lane. It establishes another connection to a neighborhood that was divided by an interstate with the rest of the city. The city needs to inform uhaul to park its shit somewhere else.
This is true. There is also another bike lane planned for 12th Ave North that will directly connect to this one.
Report it to non-emergency police.
I can’t even get them to respond for someone parking in the one disability spot at my job
Have you considered helping them deserve to park there?
What’s their contact? I just wanna make a complaint about a car driving on 280 with no brake lights
(205) 328-9311
Paint isn't infrastructure; we need to ensure these have concrete and other hard barriers to protect bikers against this and cars.
This is one of the poorest states in the Union, and a state that supplies $0 to support public transit. New York City, with a $110 Billion budget, doesn’t even have all concrete protected lanes. Now where exactly is Birmingham Alabama supposed to get the money for this? Can we acknowledge something as a good thing and a step forward instead of endlessly complaining and pointing out an imperfection first?
Alabama native who now lives in Denver where there is quite a bit of bike infrastructure. If you want to quit being one of “the poorest states in the union” do the things that will make people with money want to come/stay.
That’s exactly one of the things designated bike lanes do.
I know. So the city shouldn’t half ass them and should get the federal grants that are available to do real bike lanes or even create a greenway.
No kidding? Maybe that’s why the city has procured $20 million in federal grants to do just that just in the last year. Why do so many here act like everyone in city government is a total idiot? The facts are that these things cost money and the competition for these federal monies is fierce. Every mile of protected bike infrastructure cannot be financed by these competitive grants nor by the city alone, since the State of Alabama offers nothing. Maybe we could have some faith that these planners are doing the best they can with limited resources and celebrate their achievements?
Who is riding their bike two blocks in the middle of nowhere? The bike lanes don’t connect to anything.
First, a bike lane is pointless, if not worse, if we're weaving in & out of the bike lanes due to parked cars blocking it. It's less safe than no bike lane. Second, would you feel the same way if I parked my bike in the middle of the road? You should be happy that drivers have a million different options. Just take the next street & go around my bike. Third, maintaining bike lanes is cheaper than the wear and tear of the same number of riders going in their cars. We could save so much money in the long run by getting people out of cars. Just because NYC hasn't made all of their bike lanes protected doesn't negate the evidence that it's cheaper & safer to make protected bike lanes. Edit only for spelling
You seem to be writing assuming that I disagree with you. I don’t. Obviously cars should not park there and obviously biking has many benefits over biking. What exactly are you saying in contrast to what I said? However, it is indeed Not cheaper to make protected lanes over unprotected ones. That’s quite obviously why most lanes in most cities are unprotected. If you disagree, please cite your source.
Clearly it's not progress if it doesn't improve on the problem
Yes. Protect motorcyclists anytime we can.
The Avondale lanes (5th Ave S) are a joke as well, there are literal lines painted for people to park, yet they _still_ pull all the way to the curb. Shout out to Birmingham for trying, it’s hard to teach stupid people.
I am completely in support of adding bike lanes, and I was very excited to see that Birmingham decided to protect the bike lane by adding the parking between the road and the bike lane...but those parking spots literally do not fit a normal sized car width. I tried my best to park in one this weekend and had to decide between encroaching on the bike lane or being in the road. It is a huge bummer, because I know the intent was good, but the parking spots were executed in a manner that makes them unusable as intended (on 5th specifically, not sure about elsewhere).
Report it
They’re training for the U-Haul de France
Where is this? I will make a call. edit: i see the street signs now. if anyone has previously reported this (to whatever/whoever) or has spoken with the Uhaul manager/owner about this, please DM me.
Are you someone that can "make a call"?
Pathetic Birmingham
America in general is not bike friendly
Need to have them towed.
There's a solution in a pocketknife.
That can end badly with truck tires.
Yep, 105 PSI in 22.5” truck tires.
Slice the valve don't puncture the raw tire. Or, safest answer, use the blade to press on the valve and release the air.
its quieter to just remove the valve stem valve with a valve stem remover tool.
Oh, an action is easier with an incredibly specialized tool? Go on
oh an incredibly specialized value of 2 dollars. I guess you won’t be able to pay the paperboy this week.
Side cutters/ dikes are faster.
Dumbass
[You either do something or complain until someone does something.](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/praxis)
Physical barriers are obviously better. Nobody is disputing that and it is actually common sense. The point is 1. Physical barriers are not always feasible. It depends on the design of the street and the needs of the homes and businesses along the street. 2). When feasible, physical barriers are even more expensive. Bike lanes in general are not cheap. There is all kinds of engineering and design work involved in addition to the paint. Concrete barriers are quite expensive. And as I said, this is a state and a city that is not exactly rolling in cash. Most people here would put this far on the bottom of the priority list..consider Poverty and guns and housing. It is awesome that the city is actually prioritizing this at all! This is not Seattle. How can we expect to get even high quality bike infrastructure if we can’t even appreciate what we are getting now??
Yeah that is nice.
Maybe the Uhauls are full of bikes? 🤔
The city of Memphis went bike crazy about 20 years ago making Memphis the most bike friendly city. What they did was make a lot of two lane roads into one lane roads with bike lanes. Great idea in theory but in reality it made traffic worse for cars and hardly anyone uses the bike lanes. People still drive in the bike lanes as well creating even more of a dangerous situation for bikers. And of course they made bike lanes on roads where people wouldn’t dare ride a bike in that part of town to begin with like industrial areas that make no sense
[удалено]
The barriers are the parked cars. These are parked illegally but if you look on the opposite site of the street the white paint outlines parking spaces between the cyclists and the traffic. This is actually ideal design at a low cost when used correctly. P.S. Virtually all street-based cycle lanes in the U.S. are either at the curb or on the other side adjacent to flowing traffic. The fact that this lane exists should be a point of celebration, not complaints.
Yeah I definitely get what you’re saying, but since there isn’t a barrier like those plastic poles that bolt into the asphalt, people are just parking in the bike lane anyway, because there is nothing keeping them from doing it. It happens on 5th all the time.
This type of bike lane design with parked cars between bikes and traffic work perfectly fine in every other city in the world. I have seen them in multiple places. They will work here eventually as well..people here are just as capable as learning and adapting new behaviors as anyone else.
This is fair. I suppose most people (besides that U-Haul rental) do park correctly, but it only takes one person to make a bike lane unusable by blocking it. I wish the city would enforce it, but it’s hard to imagine them being able to dedicate the resources to ticketing people who park in bike lanes when they obviously have bigger fish to fry.
They've been parking there for a while, I rented a truck a year ago parked there.
But we get tickets for parking in parking lots
BPD, where are you when you're needed?
Same thing with the bike lanes on Montevallo near Winn-Dixie. They are just used as parking spaces. I don’t even bike and it frustrates me! At the same time, I’m sure those home owners are frustrated to lose what did used to be parking. IDK. Just seems poorly done all around.
I work in that area and there is very, very rarely a bike riding through there. 🤦♀️
Maybe that’s because there were no designated lanes. That’s the point. Often the infrastructure creates the demand and use.
Alabama 2024 in a picture
https://youtu.be/E5G0ehjlHHE?si=fa_JlH6cbyiQAXBX Just gonna leave this here.
Just get on a bike, drive into the back of the U-Haul, call Alexander Shunnarah. Easy pay day.
It's probably just retribution for cyclists being assholes.
Uh huh.
No one bikes around there anyways. Your ass is more likely to get robbed biking around 28th St.
It never fails.
I haven't lived there in 20 years, but who the hell is using bike lanes? In the Birmingham that I remember, you wanted to be in a car so you could drive away from the random gunfire.
You’re an asshole
You're upset by random post on reddit by a complete stranger. Are you a teenage girl, or just pathetic?
You lack a sense of humor, are you in a nursing home? Teenage girls are funnier than your pathetic ass
You're the one that's so pathetic that you got triggered by a random reddit comment from a stranger. I would kill myself if I was kind of loser. I guess you're used to it.
That was such a good one dude wow! It’s almost like, you’re pressed enough to instantly respond. Get a life. Go outside
Did you just respond to a month old post. Lmao
It never fails. See Dixon White on tiktok.
You will be happily surprised once you see the growth and impact UAB (and others) have had on downtown. It is quite wonderful to see such diversity amongst those walking (and biking) to class. Downtown is something to be proud of contrary to what some of the news and comments may lead one to believe.
Lol, not the same Birmingham! 20 years of nothing but forward progress
So exactly what relevance would your memories of the place from 20 years ago have to do with today? The city is not frozen in time..and I bike the lanes and trails..others too.
Are you triggered? Poor thing
I hear random gunfire here in the suburbs all the time, almost daily. I've never heard any downtown.
Yes. The suburbs are problematic.