I don't know how to ride a bike but I am now learning. My children love riding their bikes but in our neighborhood the bike lanes are not continuous. The streets that we do find some bike lanes that are often blocked by cars. Where are the ticketing agents when you need one. 

Bike lane blocked by multiple vehicles

Biker ride on left to avoid cars on the bike lane.

Eventually the biker avoiding vehicles parked on the bike lane decide that he was safer riding on the sidewalk. 

Life is Full of Distractions

As a native Long Islanders who shies away from the hustle and bustle of New York City, I've yet to ever actually ride a bike in New York City. When I do find myself in the city for leisure purposes and stroll through Central Park, I often think to myself, "Everyone riding a bike today looks so happy!" Then I find myself strolling down 5th Avenue and I think to myself, "All the bicyclists look like they hate themselves."

Since I've been traveling into the city twice a week for the last 2 years, I've noticed all of the distractions occurring at a single intersection, or along a segment of roadway. You have drivers in their private vehicles attempting to navigate along the roadway, you have bus drivers in their buses that somehow never manage to stay in their lane, you have pedestrians totally following the rules of the road by jaywalking because they own the place, and then you have bicyclists that may or may not have a safe right-of-way to ride their bicycles in. After being told a story a few weeks ago by a classmate who witnessed a woman (on her phone, obviously) driving, avoid a bicyclist and hit a little boy, it's become more apparent that riding a bike in the city isn't the easiest thing to do. On my way home this evening, I noticed at least 10 cars double parked in the bike lane. How are bicyclists supposed to stay safe when half the time they can't even use their own designated right-of-way?

Not to mention all the other distractions bicyclists have to compete with such as drivers texting while cruising down the street in their multi-ton vehicle, pedestrians not paying attention when they decide it's their turn to cross the street, those who double park, and massive buses to name a few. So next time someone asks, "Hey Jen, you've lived in New York for HOW MANY YEARS and you've NEVER ridden a bike in New York City? Not even in Central Park?" I'll think to myself, well, I much rather be in control of my own destiny than some distracted driver.

Pedestrians Ignoring Bicyclists?

So I've never been an avid bicyclist. When I was a kid, I would bike alongside my mom while she would run her 5 miles every day. She liked me coming with her because I would keep her company and be another set of eyes on the road. She always stressed the importance of looking out for cars, especially because the majority of her 5-mile route was on the side of the road with very little separation between us and the traffic. And that was all I knew... until I began working in New York City.

New York City had all of these bike lanes and at first, I just saw it as extra space. I wasn't used to ever sharing the street with bicyclists and I didn't realize this was a reality. I'll be honest, for the first summer I worked in the city, I frequently walked in the bike lanes to be able to pass other slow-moving tourists/pedestrians in Midtown. I still do it when I'm absolutely desperate and need to walk fast, but I now realize how wrong and dangerous this is.

I work with a lot of people who ride their bikes to work every day - rain, snow, or shine. They often complain about pedestrians, not vehicles, and mostly they discuss the issue of pedestrians in the bike lanes. I rarely took part in these conversations because I was not a bicyclist and even worse, I've been one of those annoying pedestrians. But the longer that I've been at my job, working on designing bike lanes and ensuring bicycle safety, I have realized truly how important it is to be a safe/smart pedestrian.

As a pedestrian, I understand the common mentality that pedestrians typically feel, that they are able to walk anywhere and will be able to stop any traffic. Just look at how pedestrians in the city cross busy streets: they will walk when the light is green and cross 5 lanes of traffic even when vehicles are zipping by. They feel invincible and if they feel this way about vehicles, they definitely feel this way about bicyclists. Pedestrians walk in or cut across bike lanes because they feel that bicyclists, like vehicles, will stop for them and that it isn't a big deal. But this mentality needs to be broken because from what I've learned while working, bicyclists need a safe space and they never deserve their own right of way. Everyone in the city is typically in a rush, and if everyone feels invincible, Vision Zero will never work. So as a pedestrian, be smart and remember that you do not own the road. You're sharing it with vehicles, and now, bicyclists.

Colorblind Cyclists - Why Bikes Should Be Allowed To Run Red Lights

So you’re driving, waiting at the stop light, obeying the law. Okay, maybe you’re on facebook – but that’s just a technicality, you’re basically being a responsible driver and following most of the important road rules. You look out the window while you’re deciding whether your friend’s status deserves a ‘like’ or not, only to see a cyclist zoom past, glance up at the light, see that it’s red, and then keep going right through the intersection. How annoying – cyclists should obey the law like everybody else, right? Drivers hold these truths to be self-evident, all vehicles are created equal, etc.

Well, no.

There is no good reason why cyclists should be obliged to stop at red lights. On the other hand, there are (at least) four good reasons why cyclists should be allowed to run red lights. The first is cyclist safety, the second is that the methods used to decide that red lights should exist are designed for cars and not applicable to cyclists, and the third is car driver convenience, and the last is cost. Specifically, cyclists should legally be required to treat a red light as if it were a stop sign, and a stop sign as if it were a yield sign.

Currently, Idaho is the only state which has such a law (since 1982). Some European capitals like Paris and Amsterdam have something similar, and London Mayor Sadiq Khan apparently said before his recent election win that he would consider it in London.

Cyclist Safety
In the year after the Idaho Stop was introduced, cycling accidents fell 15%, and now Idaho has 30% better bike safety than comparable cities without the law. Current fashionable planning focuses on bike lanes, but the reality is that intersections/junctions are responsible for between 60% and 75% of cyclist crashes (higher than for cars at 40%). There is evidence that other cycling law-breaking maneuvers, such as riding on the sidewalk or the wrong way up the street, are the cause of many of the bike-car crashes where the cyclist is at fault, but running red lights is not one of them. One of the main causes of cyclist-car crashes is right-turning traffic hitting a cyclist in their blindspot (note: in the UK this is a left turn). Running a red light allows cyclists to clear the intersection ahead of the left turning cars, without having to delay the cars at all.

Where Do Signals Even Come From?
A quick look at the Federal Highway Department website shows 9 factors (or ‘warrants’) that lead to implementing signals at intersections, and every single one of them is comically inapplicable to cyclists. A quick read through makes it clear that bikes have not been considered at all when designing traffic lights, and so we should naturally question their place in them rather than assuming without any good reason that they should act the same as cars, which weighs 40 times as much and travels at over three times the speed (for 400x the kinetic energy...)

The first 'warrants' are about vehicle volume – counting cyclists is even optional. Clearly the volumes of cyclists are not enough to trigger the installation of a traffic signal. Warrant 4 refers to pedestrian volume – with an Idaho Stop cyclists must give way to pedestrians on a red light, so this isn’t relevant. Warrant 5 is school crossing. I’m willing to concede that bikes should have to stop at red lights for school crossings. Warrant 6 is based on coordinating signal timing with other intersections. Since those timings are done for car speeds and not bike speeds, bikes will be out of synch regardless so this isn’t relevant. Warrant 7 is that there are too many crashes and adequate trial of alternatives … has failed to reduce the crash frequency. And the only trial of an alternative is Idaho, and it’s been a success, so we can’t rely on warrant 7. Warrant 8 is about traffic density and warrant 9 is about railway crossings. So nowhere is it actually decided that cyclists need traffic signals. The warrants were formulated based on vehicle size, stopping time, and travel speeds which are entirely irrelevant to cyclists.

Car Driver Convenience
I’ll keep this short. If a bike at the front of the queue has to wait for a red light, a car (especially one turning right) has to wait for the bike to move before it can go. If the cyclist has crossed on the red, the car is free to turn.

Cost
Installing bike priority signals, ‘bike boxes’, or other infrastructure changes to improve bike safety at intersections is expensive. Changing the law so that bikes are allowed to run red lights leads to the same safety improvements (if you don’t believe me, ask Idaho!), is instantly applied to all intersections, and at a fraction of the price.

Intersections and traffic lights have been designed for motor vehicles, and are dangerous places for cyclists. Allowing cyclists to run red lights improves their safety at virtually no financial cost. Clearing cyclists from intersections also benefits cars (reducing their start-up time), and improves trip times for cyclists, so everybody wins. So what’s stopping it?