Comments on: Bike Lanes: Waste of Paint?

By: paramecium

paramecium — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:12:01 +0000

The bike lanes are there to remind people that bikers have just as much of a right to be on the road as cars. that is all.

By: plywood

plywood — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:31:39 +0000

I can hold my own in traffic, and have for many years. I'm not talking about myself. I'm talking about the future and the trends in transportation. Riding a bike is just more dangerous than it needs to be and more a daily routine than many non-bicycle riders realize. My dad never owned a bike. I ride one every day. I think there should be bike lanes for reasons stated earlier. We will probably never see eye to eye on this so why don't just let it go. In response to justaview who said:

Not me, but if you need a designated area maybe you should be walking! No?

By: justaview

justaview — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:18:23 +0000

Not me, but if you need a designated area maybe you should be walking! No? In response to plywood who said:

Which is one of the reasons people don't (especially children). Who is a bike lane hurting?

By: homeworld

homeworld — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:17:47 +0000

Not in the bike lane, they don't. There used to be a sign that said bikes and roller bladders only. In response to Thomas Jefferson who said:

@JerseyCityFrankie The last I heard pedestrians had the right of way.

By: matt_72

matt_72 — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:00:24 +0000

A. It is more than 150 parking spots (I bet it is almost 150 if you count just the spots north of 8th st)

B. And all those metered spots are short term parking for the local businesses

C. I’d agree if you can get 150 or so residents who actually park on Washington St nightly to give up their cars AND every business on Washington St. who would be impacted agrees to give up a large percent of the short term parking their customers depend on.

D. Neither condition will ever happen in my lifetime, just like you won’t pop open Google maps and see for yourself that it is a heck of a lot more than 150 cars that would be removed to accomodate a few bikers that don’t know how to ride a bike on the right hand side of the road in a lane that is almost wide enough to accomodate a car passing a double parked car.

In response to YipYap who said:

Matt_72 – “1 parking space is 1 parking space too many in my book.” and “150 fewer spaces in town”

Don’t let anyone ever accuse you of being too flexible Matt.

If we could get 150 residents to commit to trading in their cars for bicycles then would you agree?

By: plywood

plywood — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:42:19 +0000

Which is one of the reasons people don't (especially children). Who is a bike lane hurting? In response to justaview who said:

if you can't ride a bike in hoboken without a bike lane you shouldn't be riding a bike at all.

By: justaview

justaview — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:31:04 +0000

if you can’t ride a bike in hoboken without a bike lane you shouldn’t be riding a bike at all.

In response to YipYap who said:

Matt_72 – “1 parking space is 1 parking space too many in my book.” and “150 fewer spaces in town”

Don’t let anyone ever accuse you of being too flexible Matt.

If we could get 150 residents to commit to trading in their cars for bicycles then would you agree?

By: YipYap

YipYap — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:22:16 +0000

Matt_72 – “1 parking space is 1 parking space too many in my book.” and “150 fewer spaces in town”

Don’t let anyone ever accuse you of being too flexible Matt.

If we could get 150 residents to commit to trading in their cars for bicycles then would you agree?

By: plywood

plywood — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:02:38 +0000

Meant to end last sentence in post 30 with “especially if every bike ride WASN’T a crap-shoot”.

By: plywood

plywood — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:37:11 +0000

Yip yap- nice link in post 15. Interesting what happens when something like accommodating bicycles is given more than a moment’s thought. However, like I was alluding to earlier, many people think street markings are stupid, reject physically separated bike lanes, yet bring no other ideas to the table. That’s why I was on about “the bikes aren’t going away”. If ALL of Washington Street was made diagonal parking on one side and a bike lane on the other for instance (since a bike lane doesn’t have to be that wide) there would be minimal net loss in total parking spots.

It’s easy to forget that there was a day where automobiles were a retrofit in Hoboken. This town was planned for horse and buggy. It’s time to look forward and have cars and bicycles co-exist. Bicycles are just going to become more popular over time, especially if every ride was a safety crap-shoot.

In response to YipYap who said:

Matt, re: “Because most of the 50K residents drive”

I was speaking of your estimate of 300 parking spaces on the east side Washington avenue. A standard parking space is 19 feet long multiply by 300 and you get 5700 feet, over a mile. Even with the diagonal spots north of 8th street there isn’t room for more than perhaps 150 cars on the entire eastern side of Washington St because of the fire hydrants, bus stops and 15 blocks of intersections.

If anything a bike path physically separated from car traffic down the east side Washington St. could be just like 8th avenue south of 23rd street which by the way allowed weekday parking and they removed most of it for the bike lane.

FYI most people that are residents of Hoboken do not own cars and drive, there aren’t 50k cars or even 25k cars. There are perhaps 10k cars and thousands of those are in garages.