Hard News by Russell Brown

To accommodate bikes on footpaths would require a culture shift and a lot of investment in footpaths. After 3-4 near misses where I’m living overseas, as they silently glide up past you, I’ve got used to checking over my shoulder before moving sideways on a footpaths. In busier or more dangerous places there are markings and sometimes barriers. Admittedly there is a much denser population here and a lot of infrastructure and normalcy around bike use.

And e-bikes and scooters are in a bit of purgatory then. Because they are not bikes, but motorised.

I couldn't see any relationship between your communist comment and the tweet after the colon. But ok.

I've recently been bingeing "not just bikes" on youtube, so comparing the Amsterdam focus on street design to keep people safe to the Auckland focus on keeping cars fast is a bit of a shock. The platitudes from Auckland Transport PR especially. From the talk you'd think they'd used the lockdown to glue temporary speed humps down all over the place, rather than just painting dots on footpaths.

Mind you here in Sydney nothing has been done at all to roads, the best we've got is keeping the trains running (presumably also buses etc, but since I've mostly stayed home except for early morning bike rides I don't know). There's been no media coverage that I've seen, of any changes.

I think what got quoted there was the shared tweet that garnered the “communist" accusation.

Looks like the US is experiencing a surge in bicycle sales

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/nyregion/bike-shortage-coronavirus.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

As an Anarchist I sometimes get confused for a Communist, and who in this day is not an avowed Socialist even if you maybe of the Corporate variety, anyway I love cycling the 15mins to work. A glorious way to start the day in Christchurch.

There are a lot of shared cycle/walker paths in my suburb and the biggest hazard is not cyclists but pedestrians who have sealed themselves off from their immediate surroundings with headphones.

Fixing the streets is one tool. We need all the tools to reduce car dependency. We need ways to get cars off the roads. We don't have time to wait for perfect streets. How do we get Level 4 streets sooner?

The main thing that is wrong with streets in our cities is that we keep blithely accommodating dangerous polluting heavy private vehicles, often speeding and operated by occasionally inebriated, frequently distracted, and generally incompetent, impatient drivers.

Driving is the new smokingDriving is the new smoking. We should be looking at measures that can help heal addiction. Interventions.

Not all pedestrians can hear you, nor see you even without headphones - you have to assume that none of us can see or hear you. We all can't jump out of your way either - I broke my achilles a few years ago, my reaction to hearing a bell behind me is to make no sudden moves, not to jump out of the way.

Having said that I'm all for sharing the footpath, but carefully, respectfully, please don't treat pedestrians the way that drivers treat you

d the biggest hazard is not cyclists but pedestrians who have sealed themselves off

Really? How many people do they kill in an average year?

My ex informs me that buses and trains now have dots on some seats with “sit here” text. I got a photo with “I told you you’re not supposed to sit on the floor, but would you listen?”

They have also added crowding info to the app and indicator boards: https://transportnsw.info/news/2020/helping-you-maintain-physical-distancing-on-public-transport

Separation by speed is the answer. Cyclists and scooters can get on fine if they do around 15-25kph. Cyclists and walkers on longer paths won't work, but in city centres everyone is more alert, and the mix will work.The 5-10kph group (walkers, families with pets and kids, old people) need their own lane.