[dsfyu404ed]

>You build bike infrastructure in the places where you want more of them, not the places where you have more of them. Or as we say in the active transportation advocacy business, they didn’t count swimmers to decide to build the Golden Gate Bridge.

These sorts of statements are analogous to the median vs mean slight of hand (aka lying) that people routinely employ to intentionally mislead.

At the very best it's "not the whole truth". To just build stuff and have it be used to a useful degree you need latent demand for transportation of all forms. These assumptions are generally questionably optimistic or untrue outside of urban areas (like real ones, not the census definition).

A bike lane to a strip mall off the highway that has nothing else immediately around it does nobody any good. Slap up a bus stop. Even if the bus service is crappy it will still benefit somebody.

[dang]

We've banned this account for continuing to break the site guidelines after many requests to stop.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [e-mail] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

[jeffbee]

First of all if you are going to say that my remark is "analogous" to a lie, and that I "intentionally" mislead people in the course of bicycle infrastructure advocacy, then my reply is that you are analogous to a guy who needs to intentionally fuck off. Where the hell do you get off saying something like that about me?

Secondly, there is a massive latent demand for cycling infrastructure in highly populated places that are suitable for cycling. That there are other places unsuitable for cycling is irrelevant. Another thing we often say on this topic is there are no transportation solutions to land use problems. But in America even when the development pattern is reasonable the infrastructure for cycling still doesn't exist. The dangerous, unpleasant, and inconvenient scattered bike lanes that we have in most American cities are acceptable to < 1% of potential cyclists, which is why the bicycle mode share in most American cities is << 1%.

[dang]

You broke the site guidelines badly here. I realized you were provoked, but users need to follow the rules regardless of what other commenters are doing.

I'm not going to ban you right now because, after skimming through your recent history, it looks to me like you've been making a good-faith effort to stick to the rules, which I appreciate. But if you keep resorting to aggressive/abusive posting, we're eventually going to have to. We've cut you a ton of slack over the years, but it's not infinite!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34537078 (Jan 2023)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33914274 (Dec 2022)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33311881 (Oct 2022)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30890360 (April 2022)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26628758 (March 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26307811 (March 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25561372 (Dec 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24724281 (Oct 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24458954 (Sept 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24380545 (Sept 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23170477 (May 2020)

[bluefirebrand]

> Secondly, there is a massive latent demand for cycling infrastructure

A claim like that needs some evidence. I don't believe you at all that many people are eager to get rid of more convenient transportation (cars) for less convenient (bikes)

> The dangerous, unpleasant, and inconvenient scattered bike lanes that we have in most American cities are acceptable to < 1% of potential cyclists, which is why the bicycle mode share in most American cities is << 1%

These numbers suggest that if we had perfect cycling infrastructure that netted 100% of potential cyclists, we would still be seeing actual "bicycle mode share" usage of about 1-2% of commuters?

Seems like a poor use of infrastructure to me to cater to such a small demographic of cyclists.

[Firmwarrior]

I think the Mountain View - San Jose area is one of the bike-friendliest in the whole USA, and there's still no way I'm riding a bike around here (or letting my wife take our kid on one)

So long as morons are browsing Instagram on their 3 ton deathboxes while speeding around town, it's just too risky. My coworker got tapped by an SUV in a very low-speed fender bender. He was out of commission for months, all sorts of broken bones, it was brutal.

[bluefirebrand]

Would it be a case of improving infrastructure even further to convince you to cycle then? Or would it require more or less removing all cars from the roads?

[Firmwarrior]

I'd ride a bike on a completely separate path with no cars near it, or if they make an exercise suit that makes me impervious to car crashes, but otherwise I think I'm going to opt out