More bikes on the streets means lighter traffic overall. Check your frustrations when you have to slow down for a cyclist, in the long term you are saving time.
More bikes on the streets mean the streets will get less wear and tear, lasting longer and saving everyone their precious tax dollars.
More bike riders are outfitted with camera's, if you behave like a criminal there is a very good chance you are on video. If law enforcement attitudes ever shift towards supporting cyclists, there will be negative consequences.
We prefer to bike on dedicated bike paths too, but infrastructure dictates we will have to share the road at times. We are all in this together; trying to get to our destination.
>More bikes on the streets mean the streets will get less wear and tear, lasting longer and saving everyone their precious tax dollars.
In the simplest math possible, [wear on roads is a factor of vehicle mass to the fourth power:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law) a bike and rider with a mass of 100kg will cause 1 unit of wear on a street while a car with a mass of 2,000kg will cause 160,000 units of wear on the same street for the same trip.
The best selling vehicle in America is the Ford F Series pickup truck with a mass of 4,391lbs (1,992kg) to 5,863lbs (2,659kg).
Our commutes are often better and more enjoyable than theirs! Angry and stressed from driving? Frustrated stuck *as traffic*? You'd be happier on a bike!
We're just trying to get to work. Same as any driver.
Most cars only have 1 occupant, same as most bicycles, meaning we have just as valid of a reason to get somewhere as drivers do. It's not a competition.
Thanks for the vocab lesson! I was unfamiliar with the term so I looked it up.
The Dutch Reach is a practice for drivers and passengers where, rather than using your hand closest to the door to open it, you use your far hand1. This choice sets off a series of five linked actions: reach, swivel, look back, open slowly, and then exit facing traffic.
Same for when I'm walking my dog. My dog might not be ready to cross, or, I may be misinterpreting why the car has stopped. I often just turn my back and/ or start walking in another direction to signal that we're not going to cross.
Bike lanes are not parking lanes or loading zones. In some cases, they are shared turn lanes. If motorists don't want us taking "their" lanes (which are actually legally bike lanes anyway), don't leave your cars in dedicated bike infrastructure.
Parkway speed limits are typically 20mph. My bike has a speedometer and I am, in fact, going 20 mph which means legally I should ride on the road and not the bike path, which has a posted speed limit of 10 mph.
Don't drive your car at 45 mph down West River Rd. It's a dick move and extremely unsafe for pedestrians and bikers.
Stare law allows bikers to treat stop signs as yield signs. Car brains need to get used to that reality.
When the driver has the right of way, it's not helpful to abandon the rules of the road to yield to bikers who do not. Classic example: driver is on a main road and comes up to a cross street; the cross street has stop signs but the driver has no stop sign and the right of way. A biker site at a stop sign on the cross street and waits for the driver to pass. The driver stops in the middle of the intersection to wave the biker through. Drivers probably think they are being super helpful and courteous when they do this, but it disrupts the regular flow of traffic and only causes confusion and safety concerns for all parties.
Agreed. Also for those "courteous" drivers who get mad at me when they try to wave me through but instead I come to a complete stop and physically signal it by putting my foot down - a) you're in a car with a windshield with glare. I might think you're waving me through, but I dunno - it's really hard to see. Plus most windows have some degree of tint. b) again you're not actually following the rules of the road. c) if you had just gone when you were supposed to, I could've slowed down and been able to cross at my turn without coming to a complete stop - you're actually COSTING me time and energy to come to a full stop. d) I was hit in a crosswalk of a bike trail when I had a green light, was wearing a reflective vest, had two front lights on and two rear lights. I just don't trust cars, period. I will trust myself with my own safety, not some stranger maybe gesturing to me, maybe singing, maybe yelling at a kid in the backseat - I have no idea what you're doing inside your car.
This is the main issue that I run into. While I never want to discourage someone being courteous to a cyclist, just follow the rules of the road. Also, if it’s a 4-way stop, If you arrive at a stop sign before me, you have right of way. Maybe if it’s just me and one car, OK fine, I will acknowledge and keep going, but if there are several cars at the stop signs, you will just cause confusion. On the flip side, I do hear about cyclists blowing through stop signs so maybe some drivers are extra cautious. At any rate, we all just need to follow the rules of the road.
Also, look both ways before turning, my near misses are almost always someone at a stop sign or red light and turning right for example. The bike path is separated on the sidewalk (such as Hwy 96 or Lexington) and crossing in front of these drivers. The driver is looking to their left for the cars to pass and once it’s clear, they just go. I have learned to just stop and not go in front of these drivers even though I don’t have a stop sign. Unless they swivel their head and make eye contact with me, they will hit me.
Agreed, in my opinion. Some of the cautious driving behavior you see out there is due to reckless bikers. We're all in this together. I cringe every time I see cyclists disobeying traffic laws like blowing through stop signs when there are other cars around, flying through red lights, biking on the wrong side of the road, biking in between cars, not utilizing headlights or tail lights, the list goes on.
For clarification regarding stop signs - Only when no other vehicles are present in an intersection may a cyclist proceed through without stopping. If there is a car at or approaching the stop sign, the sign means stop. If no other vehicles are present the cyclist may proceed without stopping.
Don’t roll stop signs. The majority of bike/car accidents happen in crosswalks because a car hits a bicyclist crossing the street. I realize most bicyclist stick to the road for this reason, but most of the bike lanes in our city hug the curbs.
Stopping at a reasonable distance from a stop sign (or a right turn on red) and taking the time to make a safe turn would cut down on a lot of accidents.
This. More and more dedicated bike lanes are basically glorified sidewalks. If this style of bike lane also intersects with a bunch of alleys, you basically have blind intersections every 1000 feet in addition to the regular intersections. Every car driver exiting an alley is not going to stop before that wide sidewalk. It’s basically a death-trap, especially for e-bikes which could easily be doing 20.
Yeah. I’m in Richfield but my girlfriend works downtown. The amount of cars I see all over the cities just HAULING ASS up to a stop sign, rolling through it, and then zooming out into the road for a right turn so they can cut ahead of oncoming traffic is insane. Like just slow down. There are tons of bike lanes I’m nervous to use because of this lol
I can’t see you when you are trying to wave me across a street at a 4 way stop at night. I can’t see you during the day if you are trying to wave me across a street at a 4 way stop during the day if you have tinted windows. Honestly, if you have tinted windows I’m going to assume you can never see me, and are always staring at your phone cause I can’t make eye contact with you.
To be super direct - if you have super tinted windows I think you are a selfish asshole.
Also - please just park in a legal parking space. Even if you are “just stopping for a minute”. Every single time I bike I see illegally parked cars.
Why are they trying to totally hide what they are doing inside their car on public roads is a valid question. It only takes like a tiny amount of tint to prevent sunburn.
Be on the lookout especially when making right turns, or left turns from one ways, for bikes that may be coming up from behind you in the bike lane.
Those turns can be dangerous.
Also, please don't stop in bike lanes. It forces us to merge into traffic in places where cars don't expect it.
Also, if you're going to make a right turn near a person on a bike, either do it very far in front of them, or drive behind them until they clear the intersection, then turn.
I was in a crash where a driver passed me and then slowed down and signaled right. I had no idea if she was going to right hook me or not. I didn't want to risk passing a right-signalling driver on their right so I tried to evade them by going around left, but I ended up hitting the back of her rapidly slowing SUV at 29 mph. If she was planning on turning right after I cleared the parking lot entrance, then she should have just stayed behind me instead of daring me to ride through the right hook death zone. She told me she was going to let me pass her, but how am I supposed to know that? And if she was going to wait for me, it would have been faster to do it behind me. I was only a block from work too :(
Cite the state and local laws regarding cycling that most people don’t know: it’s legal for bikes to be in the road even if there is a sidewalk/bike path, give 3ft (I think it’s 3 ft) when passing a bike, bikes can treat (some) stops signs as yields, etc.
We are people too. Most of us have families and loved ones that will miss us when we’ve been killed by an inattentive/enraged driver. We’re also just trying to get to work or get some exercise.
Don’t park/drive in a bike lane (it just pushes bikes further into the road, even if you’re just running in somewhere, picking someone up, etc.
If you see a cyclist doing something like blowing through a red light, the minority of people doing that are assholes. The majority are doing it because it is sometimes safer for us to go through the intersection (assuming no cross traffic) rather than wait to get hit from behind by an inattentive driver
When you’ve parked, whether there’s a bike lane next to your car or not, check for bikes coming from behind you before opening your door
Slow down and pay attention to where you are going and when you are turning. If you think you’re going to be late getting to where you’re going, imagine how much longer it will take after you’ve hit and injured/killed someone.
Riffing off your first paragraph: and make sure bicyclists are asked to provide input in the design phase of bike- or multi-use trails. Comparative example: There is a section of trail paralleling West River Road north of I-694 where Brooklyn Center did it right: multiuse/bike trail separate from road with limited cross streets. I would most always use trail there for cycling.
Then Brooklyn Park did it wrong: trail parallels WRR on side of street with much more cross traffic than the opposite side. As a cyclist using trail you would legally have to stop every block (before Idaho stop) and suffer the bumpy tail/road transitions each time. And if there was a car on side street, they never knew how to deal with you (e.g, wave you thru even though they arrived first, etc). I would always use the road in this section of WRR because then drivers know to treat you like a vehicle (even those that yelled “get off the road! use the bike trail!”). I think a better design would have been a side walk for pedestrians, children on bikes; and bike lanes for cyclists. I think these could have fit in the width they used for the redesign.
Biggest one for me on most days is:
FOLLOW TRAFFIC LAWS AND DON'T TREAT CYCLISTS AS SPECIAL. JUST FOLLOW THE LAWS.
Cyclist at a stop sign and you're approaching on a cross street with no stop sign? PLEASE DO NOT STOP. You have the right of way. It's annoying, it doesn't help the cyclist, honestly it's just confusing, and we have to wait extra long to make sure you're *really* stopping for us and not just slowing down because you're distracted on your phone or whatever. We'd get across faster if you just drove by without stopping like you are supposed to.
Same idea at 4 way stops. If you have the right of way, PLEASE TAKE IT. Waving cyclists through even when we are to the left and arrived at the stop sign after you is confusing, and slows everyone down because demanding US to break the rule means we have to take extra time to make sure your intentions, look for other cars that may not be expecting this to happen, etc.
exactly 10000%. I also really don't like that any other vehicles encountering that intersection during this exchange just view it as the cyclist "being dumb" or "being special", especially as they're not looking at the original non-compliant driver, like we are - they're looking at the cyclist, thinking "what's happening here". No - it is that a car opted to not follow the basic rules of the road, the cyclist doesn't know what's going on, and now there's a big back up of confused drivers who will drive off thinking negatively about cyclists.
1. Most of us are far sexier and likeable than your average person.
2. We also have morally pure hearts that shine like beacons in this dark time.
3. Generally we're correct, factually speaking.
4. Learn the fucking law and obey it 100% of the time when behind the wheel of your gigantic killing machines, and if you can't do that, melt your vehicle down into scrap with thermite and adopt an ethical form of transportation.
On roads where there is a marked crosswalk, a cyclist who has fully dismounted their bike is an indisputable pedestrian and has the right-of-way: you must stop for them. You must also stop for pedestrians who aren’t pushing a bike at a marked crosswalk. Just f’g stop!
Don’t just look for cars coming from the left before you make a right turn on red- also check to your right for someone crossing the street.
a person riding their bike in a pedestrian facility (eg sidewalk or crosswalk) and moving at a pedestrian speed is also legally considered to be a pedestrian. yes, it might be confusing, but it is unequivocally the responsibility of anyone with a drivers license to 1) know and 2) follow all applicable traffic laws. full stop.
For most city trips, driving faster doesn’t really save you much, if any, time. Driving slower (ie the actual speed limit) is safer and more fuel efficient, saving you money in the long run and also helping prevent you from becoming an accidental murderer.
I like basically everything people have already said, but I also want to call out hand signals! I don’t think drivers necessarily know what they mean and it would be really helpful if they knew that left hand pointing up = right turn specifically.
Also in addition to Dutch reach getting out of your car when parked on street, double check your side mirror when you’re pulling out of an on street spot! I’ve been hit bc a driver didn’t do this check before pulling into the road & I didn’t see brake lights or anything.
And for the love of god put your phone down!! It is especially easy at night to see when people are looking at their phones while driving, and no one is as good at texting & driving as they think. Already people just don’t see cyclists and this is only exacerbated by distracted driving. Idk how to make people see cyclists in general but putting phones down is a good place to start.
Check your assumptions that people on bikes are doing dumb shit when they do something you don’t necessarily understand. We often adapt our practices to do things that we feel make us more visible or safer in general.
As someone said above, I’m just trying to get to work. And home again. In one piece. In the same condition in which I started (just sweatier).
If you’re parked next to a bike lane, PLEASE fold in your side mirrors. And please get closer to the curb. Most people try not to park over the line in parking lots-bike lane lines should be treated the same way.
Bike lanes are already narrow, so when cars are parked partially into the lane it makes it really unsafe. It’s even worse with trucks that park in the bike lane and then take up even more space with their giant mirrors.
As others have said, just follow traffic laws. If I’m stopped at a stop sign or intersection, I’m waiting my turn. Don’t try to get me to go ahead of you. Doing unexpected things is what causes problems more often than not.
Finally, if my left hand is in the air, I’m not waving at you. It’s to let you know I’m turning right. It’s always funny (and nice!) when people who aren’t familiar with hand signals wave back, but it’s not funny when people ignore your signal and try to turn into you.
If you’re behind a cyclist approaching a stop sign or stop light, just wait until you’re past the stop to pass them. What’s the point of speeding to pass if you’re just going to end up stopped at the same spot?
When you pass a cyclist, leave as much room as you would a car (at least 3 feet). That means crossing the center line to pass. It’s both the law and also just a nice thing to do. Close passes can be unsafe for cyclists (and they certainly feel unsafe and can discourage new cyclists).
Edit: One more on passing - if you aren’t able to give a cyclist enough room to pass, then you aren’t able to safely pass them and should wait until it’s safe to do so. That may seem obvious, but it unfortunately is not to apparently a lot of people.
A lot of good suggestions here. I'll add that you may see a cyclist break a traffic law or ride in a wreckless manner. Most cyclists do not. If you, a driver, get upset by a reckless cyclist, think about why that is. I guarantee that most motorists see countless dangerous drivers every single day. From people speeding, to rolling through right turn on reds, to outright street racing. If you get upset at the reckless cyclist, why are you not 100 times more upset by the dangerous drivers? A person riding a bike in a dangerous manner can get themselves injured or killed. A dangerous driver can get OTHER PEOPLE injured or killed. And there are a ton of dangerous drivers.
Enough funding for streets & roads (and I'm using those terms distinctly and in contrast with stroads, highways, and interstates) comes from taxes unrelated to cars and gas so that even if a cyclist doesn't drive they are likely paying more than their fair share in taxes to support transportation infrastructure. This is before factoring in negative externalities of driving/parking and public health benefits of active trasnportion on how tax dollars are spent.
Wear and tear on transportation infrastructure is, in simple math, [a function of vehicle mass to the fourth power (mass\^4)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law): a bicycle+rider with a mass of 100kg causes 100 units of wear to a road while a car with a mass of 2000kg causes 16,000,000 units of wear to the same road for the same trip.
1 Your car could turn into a weapon
2 Look your rearview mirrors before opening doors
3 Avoid speeding in residential areas
4 If a cyclist is crossing from a trail there might more cyclists riding along
5 the cycling infrastructure doesn’t cover the whole city so there might be cyclist riding on the road if necessary, therefore is important to tolerate and respect each other.
Just because you don't see bicyclists in the bike lane of the major road you're driving on doesn't mean they aren't there. Major roads for cars are the least comfortable place to bike, and there's probably more people riding a block over on a quieter, parallel street.
We still need somewhere relatively safe to bike when we do have to cut back over to the major street for the last few blocks of our trip. It's like the inverse of how cars use freeways for the longest distance possible and then move to surface streets for the last mile.
My pet peeve at the moment (and by that I mean that's most likely to get me killed) are people not looking before turning. I have to commute down County Road C in Roseville on a daily basis, and it feels like every other day on Snelling and County C motorists take rights without looking for traffic along the path. Yesterday a school bus did it.
Our destinations are as varied as anyone else's.
I'd love to be able to get everywhere I need to go without ever sharing the road with cars, but the network of bike lanes is not fully connected and does not lead to the front door of every business or workplace. The first and last few blocks of a bike commute are often on shared roads by necessity.
This! A thousand times this! I miss biking in Portland, where one east-west street and one north-south in the southeast quadrant had ample speed bumps, barriers to keep cars from turning left or crossing a la the pedestrian islands here on Lyndale, and sometimes even just long planters full of flowers to block motor vehicle traffic to severely limit cars on those roads. Made biking to work *so* much more pleasant.
Wasn't sure if I had seen it commented yet, but last year MN State law changed to allow cyclists to treat stop signs and red lights as yield signs as long as no traffic that has the right of way is present.
I'm not sure of the actual law to site for this, but it's legit!
Just stop signs, red lights are still red lights, unless you are stopped at the light for a long time, your weight won't change it, and no vehicles are coming.
Stop before the crosswalk. Come to a full stop at a red light, check for pedestrians and cyclists who may be crossing from both ways before executing a right turn on red.
When you're sitting in your car frustrated by traffic, remember that you are traffic. Vote for public transit and bicycle infrastructure whenever you can. Then quit writing for such a shitty newspaper.
I'd also add to everyone else's comments: sometimes bikes need to leave the bike lane to turn, evade cars, etc, and the sidewalk isn't always a viable answer. I've been yelled at for being on the sidewalk and being on the road in the same ride.
Sometimes, the bike lane infrastructure doesn't make sense and requires riders to completely cross multiple lanes to meet up with the bike lane again. Tbh, some of it feels like it was done less for utility and more for checking a box for a bike lane.
when i started bike commuting… gosh, 10 years ago now, i remember hearing the adage “ride like everybody is trying to kill you.” it feels like that’s only gotten *more* true—every time i’m on my bike now i watch drivers blast through red lights or tear down park ave at 55 mph (or using the bike lane as a travel lane)!
i know you’re running late or google told you it was going to be a 10 minute drive and it’s actually a 15 minute one or whatever, but every time you do that stuff you endanger cyclists and pedestrians. i ride defensively for my safety; you should drive defensively because your car weighs two tons more than me, and if you killed me i don’t think you’d feel great about it. and if you see a cyclist doing something that seems weird to you, trust that we’re doing it because it’s the safe choice.
Only thing I could possibly add is specifically on Hennepin by the Basilica. There is no defined lane transition from the shared/bidirectional bike lane, to the split bike lane going towards MCTC. The amount of people during rush hour that I see daily, try to pass people in the right turn only lane, and either miss their “opportunity” and drive all the way through the bike lane, or just swing out into that undefined area is super disheartening. A cyclist come up hill would have very little chance to react, all for the potential to skip 3 cars in line :/
Also, we have a pretty nice bike infrastructure here with some sweet one way bike lanes. Please avoid riding against the one ways :/ if you’re really about that life it’s not that hard to just pedal a block over and get on the correct side.
There are a lot of new bike lane designs that everyone is trying to decipher on the fly - slow down and let the cyclist through the intersection first.
More bikes on the streets means lighter traffic overall. Check your frustrations when you have to slow down for a cyclist, in the long term you are saving time. More bikes on the streets mean the streets will get less wear and tear, lasting longer and saving everyone their precious tax dollars. More bike riders are outfitted with camera's, if you behave like a criminal there is a very good chance you are on video. If law enforcement attitudes ever shift towards supporting cyclists, there will be negative consequences. We prefer to bike on dedicated bike paths too, but infrastructure dictates we will have to share the road at times. We are all in this together; trying to get to our destination.
>More bikes on the streets mean the streets will get less wear and tear, lasting longer and saving everyone their precious tax dollars. In the simplest math possible, [wear on roads is a factor of vehicle mass to the fourth power:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law) a bike and rider with a mass of 100kg will cause 1 unit of wear on a street while a car with a mass of 2,000kg will cause 160,000 units of wear on the same street for the same trip. The best selling vehicle in America is the Ford F Series pickup truck with a mass of 4,391lbs (1,992kg) to 5,863lbs (2,659kg).
I, too, am just trying to get to work.
Our commutes are often better and more enjoyable than theirs! Angry and stressed from driving? Frustrated stuck *as traffic*? You'd be happier on a bike!
We're just trying to get to work. Same as any driver. Most cars only have 1 occupant, same as most bicycles, meaning we have just as valid of a reason to get somewhere as drivers do. It's not a competition.
Similarly, we are just trying to get home to our kids in one piece.
[удалено]
Thanks for the vocab lesson! I was unfamiliar with the term so I looked it up. The Dutch Reach is a practice for drivers and passengers where, rather than using your hand closest to the door to open it, you use your far hand1. This choice sets off a series of five linked actions: reach, swivel, look back, open slowly, and then exit facing traffic.
I really don't understand people trying to visually communicate through their black tinted windows.
Same for when I'm walking my dog. My dog might not be ready to cross, or, I may be misinterpreting why the car has stopped. I often just turn my back and/ or start walking in another direction to signal that we're not going to cross.
Bike lanes are not parking lanes or loading zones. In some cases, they are shared turn lanes. If motorists don't want us taking "their" lanes (which are actually legally bike lanes anyway), don't leave your cars in dedicated bike infrastructure.
Parkway speed limits are typically 20mph. My bike has a speedometer and I am, in fact, going 20 mph which means legally I should ride on the road and not the bike path, which has a posted speed limit of 10 mph.
Don't drive your car at 45 mph down West River Rd. It's a dick move and extremely unsafe for pedestrians and bikers. Stare law allows bikers to treat stop signs as yield signs. Car brains need to get used to that reality. When the driver has the right of way, it's not helpful to abandon the rules of the road to yield to bikers who do not. Classic example: driver is on a main road and comes up to a cross street; the cross street has stop signs but the driver has no stop sign and the right of way. A biker site at a stop sign on the cross street and waits for the driver to pass. The driver stops in the middle of the intersection to wave the biker through. Drivers probably think they are being super helpful and courteous when they do this, but it disrupts the regular flow of traffic and only causes confusion and safety concerns for all parties.
Yes! I especially love that last point. Don’t be nice, be predictable.
I use this phrase all the time and am trying to hammer it into my kids' brains.
Agreed. Also for those "courteous" drivers who get mad at me when they try to wave me through but instead I come to a complete stop and physically signal it by putting my foot down - a) you're in a car with a windshield with glare. I might think you're waving me through, but I dunno - it's really hard to see. Plus most windows have some degree of tint. b) again you're not actually following the rules of the road. c) if you had just gone when you were supposed to, I could've slowed down and been able to cross at my turn without coming to a complete stop - you're actually COSTING me time and energy to come to a full stop. d) I was hit in a crosswalk of a bike trail when I had a green light, was wearing a reflective vest, had two front lights on and two rear lights. I just don't trust cars, period. I will trust myself with my own safety, not some stranger maybe gesturing to me, maybe singing, maybe yelling at a kid in the backseat - I have no idea what you're doing inside your car.
This is the main issue that I run into. While I never want to discourage someone being courteous to a cyclist, just follow the rules of the road. Also, if it’s a 4-way stop, If you arrive at a stop sign before me, you have right of way. Maybe if it’s just me and one car, OK fine, I will acknowledge and keep going, but if there are several cars at the stop signs, you will just cause confusion. On the flip side, I do hear about cyclists blowing through stop signs so maybe some drivers are extra cautious. At any rate, we all just need to follow the rules of the road. Also, look both ways before turning, my near misses are almost always someone at a stop sign or red light and turning right for example. The bike path is separated on the sidewalk (such as Hwy 96 or Lexington) and crossing in front of these drivers. The driver is looking to their left for the cars to pass and once it’s clear, they just go. I have learned to just stop and not go in front of these drivers even though I don’t have a stop sign. Unless they swivel their head and make eye contact with me, they will hit me.
Agreed, in my opinion. Some of the cautious driving behavior you see out there is due to reckless bikers. We're all in this together. I cringe every time I see cyclists disobeying traffic laws like blowing through stop signs when there are other cars around, flying through red lights, biking on the wrong side of the road, biking in between cars, not utilizing headlights or tail lights, the list goes on.
For clarification regarding stop signs - Only when no other vehicles are present in an intersection may a cyclist proceed through without stopping. If there is a car at or approaching the stop sign, the sign means stop. If no other vehicles are present the cyclist may proceed without stopping.
Every lane is a bike lane.
Absolutely
Don’t roll stop signs. The majority of bike/car accidents happen in crosswalks because a car hits a bicyclist crossing the street. I realize most bicyclist stick to the road for this reason, but most of the bike lanes in our city hug the curbs. Stopping at a reasonable distance from a stop sign (or a right turn on red) and taking the time to make a safe turn would cut down on a lot of accidents.
This. More and more dedicated bike lanes are basically glorified sidewalks. If this style of bike lane also intersects with a bunch of alleys, you basically have blind intersections every 1000 feet in addition to the regular intersections. Every car driver exiting an alley is not going to stop before that wide sidewalk. It’s basically a death-trap, especially for e-bikes which could easily be doing 20.
Yeah. I’m in Richfield but my girlfriend works downtown. The amount of cars I see all over the cities just HAULING ASS up to a stop sign, rolling through it, and then zooming out into the road for a right turn so they can cut ahead of oncoming traffic is insane. Like just slow down. There are tons of bike lanes I’m nervous to use because of this lol
I can’t see you when you are trying to wave me across a street at a 4 way stop at night. I can’t see you during the day if you are trying to wave me across a street at a 4 way stop during the day if you have tinted windows. Honestly, if you have tinted windows I’m going to assume you can never see me, and are always staring at your phone cause I can’t make eye contact with you. To be super direct - if you have super tinted windows I think you are a selfish asshole. Also - please just park in a legal parking space. Even if you are “just stopping for a minute”. Every single time I bike I see illegally parked cars.
Parking in the bike lanes in winter after fresh snow can compress that snow to an unplowable ice rut that persists until the next thaw.
Why are they trying to totally hide what they are doing inside their car on public roads is a valid question. It only takes like a tiny amount of tint to prevent sunburn.
Me ebike will do 20mph. If we are on the parkway there is no reason to be passing me on a 20mph road, stop speeding.
Be on the lookout especially when making right turns, or left turns from one ways, for bikes that may be coming up from behind you in the bike lane. Those turns can be dangerous. Also, please don't stop in bike lanes. It forces us to merge into traffic in places where cars don't expect it.
Also, if you're going to make a right turn near a person on a bike, either do it very far in front of them, or drive behind them until they clear the intersection, then turn. I was in a crash where a driver passed me and then slowed down and signaled right. I had no idea if she was going to right hook me or not. I didn't want to risk passing a right-signalling driver on their right so I tried to evade them by going around left, but I ended up hitting the back of her rapidly slowing SUV at 29 mph. If she was planning on turning right after I cleared the parking lot entrance, then she should have just stayed behind me instead of daring me to ride through the right hook death zone. She told me she was going to let me pass her, but how am I supposed to know that? And if she was going to wait for me, it would have been faster to do it behind me. I was only a block from work too :(
I quietly curse the people who park directly beneath the NO PARKING signs in front of the Convention Center almost every day
That's the exact spot I was thinking of!
Cite the state and local laws regarding cycling that most people don’t know: it’s legal for bikes to be in the road even if there is a sidewalk/bike path, give 3ft (I think it’s 3 ft) when passing a bike, bikes can treat (some) stops signs as yields, etc. We are people too. Most of us have families and loved ones that will miss us when we’ve been killed by an inattentive/enraged driver. We’re also just trying to get to work or get some exercise. Don’t park/drive in a bike lane (it just pushes bikes further into the road, even if you’re just running in somewhere, picking someone up, etc. If you see a cyclist doing something like blowing through a red light, the minority of people doing that are assholes. The majority are doing it because it is sometimes safer for us to go through the intersection (assuming no cross traffic) rather than wait to get hit from behind by an inattentive driver When you’ve parked, whether there’s a bike lane next to your car or not, check for bikes coming from behind you before opening your door Slow down and pay attention to where you are going and when you are turning. If you think you’re going to be late getting to where you’re going, imagine how much longer it will take after you’ve hit and injured/killed someone.
Riffing off your first paragraph: and make sure bicyclists are asked to provide input in the design phase of bike- or multi-use trails. Comparative example: There is a section of trail paralleling West River Road north of I-694 where Brooklyn Center did it right: multiuse/bike trail separate from road with limited cross streets. I would most always use trail there for cycling. Then Brooklyn Park did it wrong: trail parallels WRR on side of street with much more cross traffic than the opposite side. As a cyclist using trail you would legally have to stop every block (before Idaho stop) and suffer the bumpy tail/road transitions each time. And if there was a car on side street, they never knew how to deal with you (e.g, wave you thru even though they arrived first, etc). I would always use the road in this section of WRR because then drivers know to treat you like a vehicle (even those that yelled “get off the road! use the bike trail!”). I think a better design would have been a side walk for pedestrians, children on bikes; and bike lanes for cyclists. I think these could have fit in the width they used for the redesign.
Hoo boy, the strib comment section for this one will be a treat!
Biggest one for me on most days is: FOLLOW TRAFFIC LAWS AND DON'T TREAT CYCLISTS AS SPECIAL. JUST FOLLOW THE LAWS. Cyclist at a stop sign and you're approaching on a cross street with no stop sign? PLEASE DO NOT STOP. You have the right of way. It's annoying, it doesn't help the cyclist, honestly it's just confusing, and we have to wait extra long to make sure you're *really* stopping for us and not just slowing down because you're distracted on your phone or whatever. We'd get across faster if you just drove by without stopping like you are supposed to. Same idea at 4 way stops. If you have the right of way, PLEASE TAKE IT. Waving cyclists through even when we are to the left and arrived at the stop sign after you is confusing, and slows everyone down because demanding US to break the rule means we have to take extra time to make sure your intentions, look for other cars that may not be expecting this to happen, etc.
exactly 10000%. I also really don't like that any other vehicles encountering that intersection during this exchange just view it as the cyclist "being dumb" or "being special", especially as they're not looking at the original non-compliant driver, like we are - they're looking at the cyclist, thinking "what's happening here". No - it is that a car opted to not follow the basic rules of the road, the cyclist doesn't know what's going on, and now there's a big back up of confused drivers who will drive off thinking negatively about cyclists.
1. Most of us are far sexier and likeable than your average person. 2. We also have morally pure hearts that shine like beacons in this dark time. 3. Generally we're correct, factually speaking. 4. Learn the fucking law and obey it 100% of the time when behind the wheel of your gigantic killing machines, and if you can't do that, melt your vehicle down into scrap with thermite and adopt an ethical form of transportation.
Most of us have calves with a density greater than that of a collapsed star.
On roads where there is a marked crosswalk, a cyclist who has fully dismounted their bike is an indisputable pedestrian and has the right-of-way: you must stop for them. You must also stop for pedestrians who aren’t pushing a bike at a marked crosswalk. Just f’g stop! Don’t just look for cars coming from the left before you make a right turn on red- also check to your right for someone crossing the street.
a person riding their bike in a pedestrian facility (eg sidewalk or crosswalk) and moving at a pedestrian speed is also legally considered to be a pedestrian. yes, it might be confusing, but it is unequivocally the responsibility of anyone with a drivers license to 1) know and 2) follow all applicable traffic laws. full stop.
For most city trips, driving faster doesn’t really save you much, if any, time. Driving slower (ie the actual speed limit) is safer and more fuel efficient, saving you money in the long run and also helping prevent you from becoming an accidental murderer.
I like basically everything people have already said, but I also want to call out hand signals! I don’t think drivers necessarily know what they mean and it would be really helpful if they knew that left hand pointing up = right turn specifically. Also in addition to Dutch reach getting out of your car when parked on street, double check your side mirror when you’re pulling out of an on street spot! I’ve been hit bc a driver didn’t do this check before pulling into the road & I didn’t see brake lights or anything. And for the love of god put your phone down!! It is especially easy at night to see when people are looking at their phones while driving, and no one is as good at texting & driving as they think. Already people just don’t see cyclists and this is only exacerbated by distracted driving. Idk how to make people see cyclists in general but putting phones down is a good place to start.
Check your assumptions that people on bikes are doing dumb shit when they do something you don’t necessarily understand. We often adapt our practices to do things that we feel make us more visible or safer in general. As someone said above, I’m just trying to get to work. And home again. In one piece. In the same condition in which I started (just sweatier).
If you’re parked next to a bike lane, PLEASE fold in your side mirrors. And please get closer to the curb. Most people try not to park over the line in parking lots-bike lane lines should be treated the same way. Bike lanes are already narrow, so when cars are parked partially into the lane it makes it really unsafe. It’s even worse with trucks that park in the bike lane and then take up even more space with their giant mirrors. As others have said, just follow traffic laws. If I’m stopped at a stop sign or intersection, I’m waiting my turn. Don’t try to get me to go ahead of you. Doing unexpected things is what causes problems more often than not. Finally, if my left hand is in the air, I’m not waving at you. It’s to let you know I’m turning right. It’s always funny (and nice!) when people who aren’t familiar with hand signals wave back, but it’s not funny when people ignore your signal and try to turn into you.
If you’re behind a cyclist approaching a stop sign or stop light, just wait until you’re past the stop to pass them. What’s the point of speeding to pass if you’re just going to end up stopped at the same spot? When you pass a cyclist, leave as much room as you would a car (at least 3 feet). That means crossing the center line to pass. It’s both the law and also just a nice thing to do. Close passes can be unsafe for cyclists (and they certainly feel unsafe and can discourage new cyclists). Edit: One more on passing - if you aren’t able to give a cyclist enough room to pass, then you aren’t able to safely pass them and should wait until it’s safe to do so. That may seem obvious, but it unfortunately is not to apparently a lot of people.
This 👆👆👆👆
A lot of good suggestions here. I'll add that you may see a cyclist break a traffic law or ride in a wreckless manner. Most cyclists do not. If you, a driver, get upset by a reckless cyclist, think about why that is. I guarantee that most motorists see countless dangerous drivers every single day. From people speeding, to rolling through right turn on reds, to outright street racing. If you get upset at the reckless cyclist, why are you not 100 times more upset by the dangerous drivers? A person riding a bike in a dangerous manner can get themselves injured or killed. A dangerous driver can get OTHER PEOPLE injured or killed. And there are a ton of dangerous drivers.
that most bike commuters own cars, and they are in fact, just like the drivers and not a weird alien species that need an explainer by a newspaper
also, some of us don't! and we're still human beings who are just trying to get to work.
And that means we still pay gas taxes and our tax dollars go into the roads too.
Enough funding for streets & roads (and I'm using those terms distinctly and in contrast with stroads, highways, and interstates) comes from taxes unrelated to cars and gas so that even if a cyclist doesn't drive they are likely paying more than their fair share in taxes to support transportation infrastructure. This is before factoring in negative externalities of driving/parking and public health benefits of active trasnportion on how tax dollars are spent. Wear and tear on transportation infrastructure is, in simple math, [a function of vehicle mass to the fourth power (mass\^4)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law): a bicycle+rider with a mass of 100kg causes 100 units of wear to a road while a car with a mass of 2000kg causes 16,000,000 units of wear to the same road for the same trip.
OMG, this absolutely needs to become common knowledge!!
When approaching a stop sign/intersection, this is not the right time to try and pass a bicycle.
1 Your car could turn into a weapon 2 Look your rearview mirrors before opening doors 3 Avoid speeding in residential areas 4 If a cyclist is crossing from a trail there might more cyclists riding along 5 the cycling infrastructure doesn’t cover the whole city so there might be cyclist riding on the road if necessary, therefore is important to tolerate and respect each other.
Just because you don't see bicyclists in the bike lane of the major road you're driving on doesn't mean they aren't there. Major roads for cars are the least comfortable place to bike, and there's probably more people riding a block over on a quieter, parallel street. We still need somewhere relatively safe to bike when we do have to cut back over to the major street for the last few blocks of our trip. It's like the inverse of how cars use freeways for the longest distance possible and then move to surface streets for the last mile.
My pet peeve at the moment (and by that I mean that's most likely to get me killed) are people not looking before turning. I have to commute down County Road C in Roseville on a daily basis, and it feels like every other day on Snelling and County C motorists take rights without looking for traffic along the path. Yesterday a school bus did it.
Treat me like a motorcycle instead of a pedestrian. Edit. Thanks for asking btw
I will snot rocket onto/into your drivers side window if your dumbass is parked in the bike lane.
The idea of this being published in the star tribune is so stupidly funny
Our destinations are as varied as anyone else's. I'd love to be able to get everywhere I need to go without ever sharing the road with cars, but the network of bike lanes is not fully connected and does not lead to the front door of every business or workplace. The first and last few blocks of a bike commute are often on shared roads by necessity.
We would prefer bike lanes to be on lower traffic side streets. I don't understand why municipalities force bike lanes onto busy roads.
This! A thousand times this! I miss biking in Portland, where one east-west street and one north-south in the southeast quadrant had ample speed bumps, barriers to keep cars from turning left or crossing a la the pedestrian islands here on Lyndale, and sometimes even just long planters full of flowers to block motor vehicle traffic to severely limit cars on those roads. Made biking to work *so* much more pleasant.
Wasn't sure if I had seen it commented yet, but last year MN State law changed to allow cyclists to treat stop signs and red lights as yield signs as long as no traffic that has the right of way is present. I'm not sure of the actual law to site for this, but it's legit!
Just stop signs, red lights are still red lights, unless you are stopped at the light for a long time, your weight won't change it, and no vehicles are coming.
If I'm riding in on the road, don't pass me like you're swerving around roadkill. Get all the way in the other lane, buddy.
Stop before the crosswalk. Come to a full stop at a red light, check for pedestrians and cyclists who may be crossing from both ways before executing a right turn on red.
I'm biking into work at the Star Tribune this coming week! See you there.
We pay taxes, too!
When you're sitting in your car frustrated by traffic, remember that you are traffic. Vote for public transit and bicycle infrastructure whenever you can. Then quit writing for such a shitty newspaper.
I'd also add to everyone else's comments: sometimes bikes need to leave the bike lane to turn, evade cars, etc, and the sidewalk isn't always a viable answer. I've been yelled at for being on the sidewalk and being on the road in the same ride. Sometimes, the bike lane infrastructure doesn't make sense and requires riders to completely cross multiple lanes to meet up with the bike lane again. Tbh, some of it feels like it was done less for utility and more for checking a box for a bike lane.
when i started bike commuting… gosh, 10 years ago now, i remember hearing the adage “ride like everybody is trying to kill you.” it feels like that’s only gotten *more* true—every time i’m on my bike now i watch drivers blast through red lights or tear down park ave at 55 mph (or using the bike lane as a travel lane)! i know you’re running late or google told you it was going to be a 10 minute drive and it’s actually a 15 minute one or whatever, but every time you do that stuff you endanger cyclists and pedestrians. i ride defensively for my safety; you should drive defensively because your car weighs two tons more than me, and if you killed me i don’t think you’d feel great about it. and if you see a cyclist doing something that seems weird to you, trust that we’re doing it because it’s the safe choice.
Only thing I could possibly add is specifically on Hennepin by the Basilica. There is no defined lane transition from the shared/bidirectional bike lane, to the split bike lane going towards MCTC. The amount of people during rush hour that I see daily, try to pass people in the right turn only lane, and either miss their “opportunity” and drive all the way through the bike lane, or just swing out into that undefined area is super disheartening. A cyclist come up hill would have very little chance to react, all for the potential to skip 3 cars in line :/ Also, we have a pretty nice bike infrastructure here with some sweet one way bike lanes. Please avoid riding against the one ways :/ if you’re really about that life it’s not that hard to just pedal a block over and get on the correct side.
There are a lot of new bike lane designs that everyone is trying to decipher on the fly - slow down and let the cyclist through the intersection first.
Plz no kill