Those brake lights tell a different story. Still, what are we talking... a 1 or 2 km length of road for 150 cars to be passed by a single cyclist? Such an inefficient use of space.
True, there's that one point where the cyclist doesn't pass any cars because they're all completely stopped. It's also true that the rate of passing is completely the same the entire time because all the brake lights are on.
I had the same thought. It looked pretty tame to me, but I'm an experienced cyclist. It must look harrowing if you haven't cycled much, especially with the sped up video. Those of us "in the know" get the point op is trying to make, and in this space it's probably 99% of us, but I have to wonder if these kinds of posts hurt more than they help.
A fun game for cyclists : it's called The Race. I think there were rules somewhere on the internet. I've forgotten the details but this is basically how it goes.
You get 1 point every time you pass a "slow" bike: people who are taking their time, old contraptions, etc
2 pts for decent bikes
3 points for cyclists in racing attire
4 points for electric bikes
5 points for cars
You lose the same amount every time you get passed
On good days I can easily get in the thousands with all the cars commuting. Makes me feel so good.
I can’t imagine riding in a cable car lane. I’d be terrified of my tires getting stuck in the recessed tracks. Plus there are plenty of videos of cable cars mowing down drivers who were in their lane, with absolutely zero fucks given. At least the drivers have a cage.
It was like that in DC when they introduced the H Street streetcar. All those issues and more. There are ways to make the tracks safer for skinny tires, but they either couldn't find the money or just weren't listening. This was a while back, and I don't live there anymore, so I'm not sure if anything was improved.
I used to cross the Manhattan Bridge in NYC on my commute, sometimes the Q or D train would emerge out of the tunnel onto the bridge just as I was coming up the bike ramp and it was a really fun challenge to try racing it up to the apex. If you can manage to pace it on the uphill, you'll always pass it on the downhill, and then come ripping off the bridge at near 30 mph.
I bike to work everyday(25km back and forth), mainly in a city that is doing well in term of infrastructure (Paris, but I live in the suburbs), and sometimes when I'm home and think about it I wonder why I'm doing something that dangerous.
But then when I'm on the bike I don't feel in danger at all.
I feel similar. 5km to work for me and I ride it every day. Probably twice a week I have a bad encounter with a car. Usually just them not noticing me on a crosswalk (which is why I always pretend I'm invisible). And in my city, we have far above the national average of bike deaths from cars.
But I still enjoy biking, and don't enjoy driving. And think cars ruin cities. And want change. I guess that's enough for me to ignore the serious risks.
Some cities have streetcars/trolleys sharing the road. The Green Line in Boston does this. It's separated through some sections, but in others it's just raw-dogging the street. It seems to work out fine for them for the most part. There'd be riots if they tried that in my suburban town.
I ride a recumbent, which is good for me, people notice the weird bike, bad for the people ahead of me since cars tend to drift a bit as they keep watching me after they've passed me
And that's with a curb on the other side. I've been on many bike lanes with parking on the right. If it isn't blocked entirely, there are cars going back and forth, doors opening, clueless people standing there, etc.
I think we should join all those metal boxes together end to end, enlarge the space within, place them all on a track and make it run on a schedule. Just pitching ideas here, what do you guys make of it?
Yeah, we are about a mile from my kids' elementary school, so I drive about halfway to the school and walk the rest with them, because I just have zero interest in being stuck in the chaos that is that last quarter mile. Plus, I feel good having them walk a bit to get to school, I like to think it'll get them both used to being on foot more. My older one walks one day a week in a group about a mile to school. The younger one is four, and I have zero expectation that he'd do the entire walk, and even less expectation that we'd get there on time.
Besides a bike bus, if it's just one or 2 kids a well done cargo bike will get them there easily. A mile bike ride is doable even with horrifyingly bad roads.
One route I ride is incredibly scenic, at one point there's a really nice view over the local lake (the local lake at the city end rather than the less scenic lake at my suburban end of the ride) I'm always torn between stopping and soaking in the view, or enjoying a descent about as steep as any built after 1990, zigzagging down at up to your aerodynamic limit which is enormous fun
Centre Street in Boston. Amusingly enough, this video starts a stone's throw away from a major transit hub connecting three commuter rail lines to the T.
And worth noting, it looks like this backup is almost entirely caused by the reduction to one lane at the Allandale Street intersection due to construction.
I'm from Arvada CO and I'm allowed to drive my Honda ruckus in bike lanes on the road since I'm 50ccs or less, I never see actually bikes though, feels as if all ebikes just use the sidewalk lol
Well there's not a motorbike lane, and it's a bit safer than lane-splitting, so we can share. It's not like OP is blasting past bicycles doing faster than a fast bicycle can.
Meanwhile in my city: passed cars: 1. The second car is already blocking the bike lane for mysterious reasons and you cannot get around. Then first right turn possibility: all the cars turn right without watching out for bikes. Then the light is red again. Maybe you can make it alive during the next green phase 🥲
Yes, but also friendly reminder that there is no such thing as a "car lane." There is only a general-purpose lane, which allows cars along with all other vehicle types (including bicycles, even if there's also a bicycle-only lane).
Not in my town. We're not allowed in the general lane without a good reason if there's a bike lane (indicated by signs, painted lanes with bike symbols in them aren't necessarily bike lanes, painted or separated lanes with start and end signs are bike lanes)
Absolutely, I was always faster with my bike inside the outer city ring, mainly because I saved looking for a parking space. Now? Not so much. My commute is 50km across the mountains, 45 minutes by car, three hours by bike if I take the electric one.
If I ride in peak hour the most blocked up road is quite downhill so you fly past many cars
But I don't like riding in peak hour, as crossing entrance ramps is slow and crossing exit ramps is frightening, though the great bulk of drivers are careful around bikes
I used to leave my house at 4:30am to get to work for 6.
I watched the sun rise most mornings, the streets would be dead. Then around Christmas time, suddenly cars would be out on my roads.. yes my roads lol. I'd curse them, because they would scare me doing 50mph+ right by me. I rode in winter, and I swear one time this fucker was trying to play chicken with me or something. I had to maneuver very quickly, he watched me dump my bike on some ice, and then suddenly was able to speed pass me as he watched me fall.
All well and good if you can afford to live in a city. Commuted by bike for a decade. Commuted by train+bike for a few years. I honestly never wanna get on a bike again. Maybe a train if it’s fast.
Not sure what you want me to do about that. Most cities are overpriced because of corpo-controlled properties and greedy private landlords. Biking as commute option is only viable if you live in a large urban area.
There are less obvious costs to living outside a city, especially if the city has transit. All the car costs, for one relevant example. The health loss from walking less. The isolation takes a toll. The shallower social pool. Fewer cultural options.
Also it's not like apartments are dirt cheap in the suburbs outside NYC. I could pay $2000/mo for a nice apartment in Plainsfield, NJ... or I could pay a similar amount, not have a car, and live someplace where stuff happens.
If you're using Boost or app capable for controlling playback speed, turn it to 0.25. That's the actual speed. Look out for the jogger at 25 second mark, that's the hint. Any other speed and the jogger will run in cartoonish speed.
Lol, I reviewed it at .25 and I think you're right. I did that part again at .5 and it looked straight up silly. Those cars are fucked with how slow that is going, although I do think construction near the end might be impacting it.
Limit seems to be 20 and assuming that is mph, it's around 32kmph. Slowing down the footage, it seems they ride in a speed around 22 to 26kmph? Doesn't seems that fast to me, i tend to ride around 17kmph and it seems to past the stationary car just a bit faster than i do, and feels similar when i do it with my ebike on 25kmph. The camera seems to be wide angle which often give the viewer the false sense of speed.
The speed limit does apply to cyclists, but that 20 mph sign was for a school zone and is only in effect when the lights are flashing, which they weren't.
I didn't see any other speed limit signs, so we have no way of knowing what the normal limit was (short of turning it into a game of Geoguessr), but my educated guess is that it's probably 35 mph. Edit: another commenter named the street and I found a speed limit sign for the opposite direction on Google Street View. It's 25 mph.
it's obviously sped up and even if it wasn't this seems like a perfectly reasonable speed to bike at. This looks to be america and so you rather have to go fast in order to reach your destination within the hour..
Where this video was taken, cyclists do have to adhere to posted speed limits. However, we don't actually know what the speed limit was here (the 20 mph sign did not apply because it wasn't flashing). Edit: found it based on another commenter naming the street. 25 mph.
That's against the law in MA, passenger would be at fault.
Motorist Responsibilities (see MGL Chapter 89, Section 2 and Chapter 90, Section 14)
Motorists and their passengers must check for passing bicyclists before opening their door. Motorists and their passengers can be ticketed and fined up to $100 for opening car or truck doors into the path of any other traffic, including bicycles and pedestrians.
I took a closer look and that doesn't look like a traffic light? I'm not actually sure what it is, it's kind of a red stand alone red bulb. Maybe it's meant to be a stop sign (but those usually blink), but yeah, take a look at the video one more time at a slower speed and it's clearly missing the two other lights for it to be a traffic light 🚦
It’s a fire box. You can actually see a pretty good shot of another one in the first frame of the video. They’re basically public fire alarms with a pull lever, just like you’d find in buildings. When you pull the lever, it automatically alerts the fire department. They pass several throughout the video; Boston is full of them.
Gamewells were put up before the wide availability of telephones. So, unless you live in an area that was developed prior to that, you wouldn't see them. The older parts of LA probably still have some gamewells if there are any old telephone poles remaining.
A few observations:
The cars aren't standing still.
Those brake lights tell a different story. Still, what are we talking... a 1 or 2 km length of road for 150 cars to be passed by a single cyclist? Such an inefficient use of space.
True, there's that one point where the cyclist doesn't pass any cars because they're all completely stopped. It's also true that the rate of passing is completely the same the entire time because all the brake lights are on.
Say the cars are 4.5m long each, 150 cars long half a metre between them for 650m, so quite likely 1km given the roughness of my estimates
Imagine how many other bike riders we would have if bike lanes weren't this terrifying
I had the same thought. It looked pretty tame to me, but I'm an experienced cyclist. It must look harrowing if you haven't cycled much, especially with the sped up video. Those of us "in the know" get the point op is trying to make, and in this space it's probably 99% of us, but I have to wonder if these kinds of posts hurt more than they help.
I think they help.
We just also need to encourage physical barriers for bike lanes instead of paint and good faith.
A fun game for cyclists : it's called The Race. I think there were rules somewhere on the internet. I've forgotten the details but this is basically how it goes.
You lose the same amount every time you get passed
On good days I can easily get in the thousands with all the cars commuting. Makes me feel so good.
How many points for busses? Trains?
Where I am, cyclists and busses share the same lane, so it would be extra hard to pass one. 20 points?
Passing a train would make you the king/queen of bicycle forever
cable car?
dirigible?
I can’t imagine riding in a cable car lane. I’d be terrified of my tires getting stuck in the recessed tracks. Plus there are plenty of videos of cable cars mowing down drivers who were in their lane, with absolutely zero fucks given. At least the drivers have a cage.
Neither can I!
It was like that in DC when they introduced the H Street streetcar. All those issues and more. There are ways to make the tracks safer for skinny tires, but they either couldn't find the money or just weren't listening. This was a while back, and I don't live there anymore, so I'm not sure if anything was improved.
I used to cross the Manhattan Bridge in NYC on my commute, sometimes the Q or D train would emerge out of the tunnel onto the bridge just as I was coming up the bike ramp and it was a really fun challenge to try racing it up to the apex. If you can manage to pace it on the uphill, you'll always pass it on the downhill, and then come ripping off the bridge at near 30 mph.
And so many of them can't stay on their side of the line. Glad nobody was opening doors.
It's actually an amazing feeling when this happens. Makes me pedal way harder.
I'd bet a bunch of them would rather be on their bikes with you if there were decent bike infrastructure...
Infrastructure is the key. I've had a lot of people tell me they're too scared to cycle.
I bike to work everyday(25km back and forth), mainly in a city that is doing well in term of infrastructure (Paris, but I live in the suburbs), and sometimes when I'm home and think about it I wonder why I'm doing something that dangerous. But then when I'm on the bike I don't feel in danger at all.
It's weird, and I guess it is a brake on change.
I feel similar. 5km to work for me and I ride it every day. Probably twice a week I have a bad encounter with a car. Usually just them not noticing me on a crosswalk (which is why I always pretend I'm invisible). And in my city, we have far above the national average of bike deaths from cars.
But I still enjoy biking, and don't enjoy driving. And think cars ruin cities. And want change. I guess that's enough for me to ignore the serious risks.
If only separated bike lanes were more common. I'm really not comfortable riding with all those cars just right there.
You don't like it when the cars randomly drift into the bike lanes? You really need to learn to share the road, my friend.
We should have shared lanes between freight trains and cars, without any signalling or crossing. Everyone should share
Some cities have streetcars/trolleys sharing the road. The Green Line in Boston does this. It's separated through some sections, but in others it's just raw-dogging the street. It seems to work out fine for them for the most part. There'd be riots if they tried that in my suburban town.
I ride a recumbent, which is good for me, people notice the weird bike, bad for the people ahead of me since cars tend to drift a bit as they keep watching me after they've passed me
And that's with a curb on the other side. I've been on many bike lanes with parking on the right. If it isn't blocked entirely, there are cars going back and forth, doors opening, clueless people standing there, etc.
I think we should join all those metal boxes together end to end, enlarge the space within, place them all on a track and make it run on a schedule. Just pitching ideas here, what do you guys make of it?
Ah, the good old Adam Something trick! In the end everything can become a train!
I also always love these long ass comment chains where people optimise any problem / solution for traffic/transport until it becomes a train.
What is this, Communalism?
150 cars locking up several buses and an ambulance, no less.
All those school busses indicates this is at maximum possible congestion condition time.
The blocks around my kids school become an instant popup blockade for about 30 minutes everyday.
Public transit options are so necessary.
Yeah, we are about a mile from my kids' elementary school, so I drive about halfway to the school and walk the rest with them, because I just have zero interest in being stuck in the chaos that is that last quarter mile. Plus, I feel good having them walk a bit to get to school, I like to think it'll get them both used to being on foot more. My older one walks one day a week in a group about a mile to school. The younger one is four, and I have zero expectation that he'd do the entire walk, and even less expectation that we'd get there on time.
Have you thought about a bike bus? A Mile bike ride is very doable if the roads aren't terrible.
Besides a bike bus, if it's just one or 2 kids a well done cargo bike will get them there easily. A mile bike ride is doable even with horrifyingly bad roads.
It also ends at road works
Flying by traffic really is one of the best feelings, not quite up there with being on a trail with no traffic, but still... just great.
Even more satisfying is doing it on foot while walking my dog!
One route I ride is incredibly scenic, at one point there's a really nice view over the local lake (the local lake at the city end rather than the less scenic lake at my suburban end of the ride) I'm always torn between stopping and soaking in the view, or enjoying a descent about as steep as any built after 1990, zigzagging down at up to your aerodynamic limit which is enormous fun
God I hate the assholes that can't even stay in the lines when atopped.
150 people, likely? So a couple busses or a single crowded LRT? Heavens...
What is this, a bike lane for ants!?
Centre Street in Boston. Amusingly enough, this video starts a stone's throw away from a major transit hub connecting three commuter rail lines to the T.
And worth noting, it looks like this backup is almost entirely caused by the reduction to one lane at the Allandale Street intersection due to construction.
I've heard construction is pretty rare in Boston.
Bicycles FTW
But fuck those motorbikes in the bicycle lane
I thought that's what this was at first, then I realized the video is just sped up.
I'm from Arvada CO and I'm allowed to drive my Honda ruckus in bike lanes on the road since I'm 50ccs or less, I never see actually bikes though, feels as if all ebikes just use the sidewalk lol
Well there's not a motorbike lane, and it's a bit safer than lane-splitting, so we can share. It's not like OP is blasting past bicycles doing faster than a fast bicycle can.
But also I'm 99% sure that's a bicycle.
Oh I know it's a bicycle in the video. I mean I was almost hit by a motorbike in the bicycle lane few months ago
Meanwhile in my city: passed cars: 1. The second car is already blocking the bike lane for mysterious reasons and you cannot get around. Then first right turn possibility: all the cars turn right without watching out for bikes. Then the light is red again. Maybe you can make it alive during the next green phase 🥲
I like this feeling when I take the bike.
Shouldn't it be about double that number because of the second car lane?
Yes, but also friendly reminder that there is no such thing as a "car lane." There is only a general-purpose lane, which allows cars along with all other vehicle types (including bicycles, even if there's also a bicycle-only lane).
I mean, motorized vehicle only roads exist…
Pretty sure they're being annoyingly pedantic considering things like motorcycles etc
That's going to depend on your local area's laws.
Not in my town. We're not allowed in the general lane without a good reason if there's a bike lane (indicated by signs, painted lanes with bike symbols in them aren't necessarily bike lanes, painted or separated lanes with start and end signs are bike lanes)
This was my favorite thing to think about back when I lived somewhere bikable
Absolutely, I was always faster with my bike inside the outer city ring, mainly because I saved looking for a parking space. Now? Not so much. My commute is 50km across the mountains, 45 minutes by car, three hours by bike if I take the electric one.
If I ride in peak hour the most blocked up road is quite downhill so you fly past many cars
But I don't like riding in peak hour, as crossing entrance ramps is slow and crossing exit ramps is frightening, though the great bulk of drivers are careful around bikes
I used to leave my house at 4:30am to get to work for 6.
I watched the sun rise most mornings, the streets would be dead. Then around Christmas time, suddenly cars would be out on my roads.. yes my roads lol. I'd curse them, because they would scare me doing 50mph+ right by me. I rode in winter, and I swear one time this fucker was trying to play chicken with me or something. I had to maneuver very quickly, he watched me dump my bike on some ice, and then suddenly was able to speed pass me as he watched me fall.
Not including the buses that are sadly stuck there because of cars, I imagine that would be roughly 150 persons 😄
😭
They passed alot more cars than that as it is only counting the right lane here
The fools! The cowards! We should take away their metal boxes!
*METAL BAWKSES
Thought I'd have to scroll past the Omnissiah's blessed tits before I found this.
All well and good if you can afford to live in a city. Commuted by bike for a decade. Commuted by train+bike for a few years. I honestly never wanna get on a bike again. Maybe a train if it’s fast.
I started commuting by bike. I've never enjoyed commuting more.
Not all cities are expensive, and they usually offer higher wages to compensate.
Enjoy it while you enjoy it.
Your experience is not universal. As my dad has done before me, I will bike my entire life and will always enjoy it more than driving
I drove for 2 years hating every single commute.
"afford to live in a city" is such a violently american sentence it just gave me heartburn
Not sure what you want me to do about that. Most cities are overpriced because of corpo-controlled properties and greedy private landlords. Biking as commute option is only viable if you live in a large urban area.
There are less obvious costs to living outside a city, especially if the city has transit. All the car costs, for one relevant example. The health loss from walking less. The isolation takes a toll. The shallower social pool. Fewer cultural options.
Also it's not like apartments are dirt cheap in the suburbs outside NYC. I could pay $2000/mo for a nice apartment in Plainsfield, NJ... or I could pay a similar amount, not have a car, and live someplace where stuff happens.
The video is sped up, right?
Looking at the jogger about halfway through, and the moving cars at the end, looks like it's 1.5x or 2x speed.
I estimate probably 3x speed. 0.25 playback feels a little slow and 0.5 playback is clearly too fast.
Mods: Just ban this neckbeard troll already.
Seriously. Over half this thread is people feeding this troll.
This video had obviously been sped up.
If you're using Boost or app capable for controlling playback speed, turn it to 0.25. That's the actual speed. Look out for the jogger at 25 second mark, that's the hint. Any other speed and the jogger will run in cartoonish speed.
Lol, I reviewed it at .25 and I think you're right. I did that part again at .5 and it looked straight up silly. Those cars are fucked with how slow that is going, although I do think construction near the end might be impacting it.
Limit seems to be 20 and assuming that is mph, it's around 32kmph. Slowing down the footage, it seems they ride in a speed around 22 to 26kmph? Doesn't seems that fast to me, i tend to ride around 17kmph and it seems to past the stationary car just a bit faster than i do, and feels similar when i do it with my ebike on 25kmph. The camera seems to be wide angle which often give the viewer the false sense of speed.
Also speed limit might not applicable to bicycle.
The speed limit does apply to cyclists, but that 20 mph sign was for a school zone and is only in effect when the lights are flashing, which they weren't.
I didn't see any other speed limit signs, so we have no way of knowing what the normal limit was (short of turning it into a game of Geoguessr), but
my educated guess is that it's probably 35 mph. Edit: another commenter named the street and I found a speed limit sign for the opposite direction on Google Street View. It's 25 mph.it's obviously sped up and even if it wasn't this seems like a perfectly reasonable speed to bike at. This looks to be america and so you rather have to go fast in order to reach your destination within the hour..
Dunno about where you are but where I live cyclists do not have to adhere to "posted speed limits".
Where this video was taken, cyclists do have to adhere to posted speed limits. However, we don't actually know what the speed limit was here (the 20 mph sign did not apply because it wasn't flashing). Edit: found it based on another commenter naming the street. 25 mph.
And a red light. Which was also blocked by gridlock, but still.
I don't think we see a traffic light in the video. A red light on its own is very unlikely to be a traffic light
Also, oops a Uber passenger just ended their ride early and got out to walk, opens door on the biker because they are flying too fast.
That's against the law in MA, passenger would be at fault.
Motorist Responsibilities (see MGL Chapter 89, Section 2 and Chapter 90, Section 14)
It's a fucking fire emergency box
I took a closer look and that doesn't look like a traffic light? I'm not actually sure what it is, it's kind of a red stand alone red bulb. Maybe it's meant to be a stop sign (but those usually blink), but yeah, take a look at the video one more time at a slower speed and it's clearly missing the two other lights for it to be a traffic light 🚦
It’s a fire box. You can actually see a pretty good shot of another one in the first frame of the video. They’re basically public fire alarms with a pull lever, just like you’d find in buildings. When you pull the lever, it automatically alerts the fire department. They pass several throughout the video; Boston is full of them.
Good to know! I was wondering about that, ironically we don't seem to have those in CA, or at least not in LA.
Gamewells were put up before the wide availability of telephones. So, unless you live in an area that was developed prior to that, you wouldn't see them. The older parts of LA probably still have some gamewells if there are any old telephone poles remaining.
Log off, go for a bike ride.
Not a red, but funny enough, all those cars are blocking the intersection...
I think you should buy some glasses mate
That's not a standard stop light. It looks like a globe light that happens to be red - which is admittedly very confusing. What is that thing?
Is that a red light? Looks more like a red balloon or lamp post thing, but it is kind of grainy.
Looks like a reflection on the camera lens for me?