Adding more bike paths to reach city center from suburbs and locking down city center for cars should follow next. There are plenty of research which shows that slow traffic brings more business to shops
To me the answer is making dedicated travel roads for bicycles and pedestrians. This idea is ok, in that it slows cars down, and maybe that's enough, but what I'd love in a city like San Francisco are dedicated roads that allow bicycles to safely travel across the entire city without having to worry about getting run down at every intersection.
There are some streets that are safer than others, but what would be great is if say Valencia, Cortland, Market, Haight, Cole, Columbus and some other roads through downtown (like minna St. and Stevenson) were dedicated to bikes. Some have main bus lines, so maybe allow those to continue to operate as mixed use with bikes and buses. The intention is to make bike thorough fares which are safe from collisions with cars and especially delivery trucks.
This in my mind is the fastest way to transition from a car gridlocked city to one where alternative things like bikes, and battery assisted bikes, can operate safely. Most travel in cities is under 2 miles, perfect for biking (I have a bike that has seats for both my kids, which makes it great for families too).
Safety is probably the largest reason why more people don't bicycle, and targeting main shopping districts would encourage their use to get to those places, while also increasing the general enjoyment of those areas, with the added benefit of increasing traffic to businesses in those areas.
> Slow traffic; prioritize human movement over auto mobility;
This will most probably bring extra gentrification plus damn the businesses that might need that extra road-traffic for recurring clients. Bicycle-ing in a downtown-ish area is mostly done by people like us (yuppies, more or less), the person who has to get tho his/her job at Walmart or at a logistics center at 5-6AM doesn't have time for this, and after his/her job is done most probably doesn't have the energy for taking a bike-ride just for pleasure. The same goes for walking.
The first step to improving bikeability is not closing traffic lanes, it's improving density. For example be taxing parking space appropriately. There is no good reason why supermarkets should be so far apart from each other in a city or why commutes need to be two hours long. Where I live I can reach five supermarkets in less than ten minutes on a bike.
Long term it might be better if we find a way out the the car-centric local maxima we find ourselves in, rather than heading further in that direction.
As you suggested in reply to a sibling comment, more bike lanes make sense. Parking on some roads could be converted to bike lanes. Perhaps it makes sense to lower the speed limits for cars, also.
Changing the way cars function inside the city is only part of what would need to change. Near me things just aren't laid out well for pedestrians. It would take me about an hour to walk to the nearest grocery store (not counting corner stores, because all they sell is junk food). Biking should be much shorter, though I can't say I've ever tried. We would need to stop the trend of having a small number of large stores and move back towards having a large number of smaller stores. That comes with it's own trade offs in planning an efficient city.
The other thing worth mentioning is that bikes/pedestrians can go anywhere cars can, but the opposite is not true. If we made streets that were "bike only" cars wouldn't be able to access them. Cars are on a pedestal not only because of convenience and speed, but because they're the lowest common denominator.
I want to be clear, I'm talking about the city metro areas. Not commuting from suburbia. We should have fully separated bike paths for longer distance commute bike traffic, because mixed speed traffic with cars just doesn't work when cars are going faster, and unprotected bike lanes are just a bandaid solution to that problem.
But once you're in the metro area, everyone should slow right down. The dominant traffic in the city is foot traffic.
Cars go at 50km/h through my city, meaning they need to be separated really strictly. Slow them down to 20km/h with narrower roads, and you can reclaim the area for mixed pedestrian traffic, allowing more free movement for everyone in the city. Something as simple as crossing the road shouldn't take 10 minutes for 200 people just so five cars can cross the road.
With narrower streets and slower traffic, you can reasonably cross the road anywhere you want. That also allows bikes to move reasonably along the road but slowly on the footpaths, you open the whole area up for the people using the city.
It's all a balance, not everywhere in a city should be like that. I'm just advocating to move away from the heavy car-oriented lean many places currently have for their city centers.
It's weird how your solution is to replace bikes with safer, human powered cars when there are so many simpler solutions.
We could stop building suburbs, stop building massive parking lots around big box stores, add more public transportation such as light rails, make some highway lanes dedicated to bus transportation (thereby reducing induced demand for cars which would actually reduce traffic), etc.
Should municipalities instead be forced to spend tax dollars on more roads? Bike paths are cheaper, more people on bikes leaves more space for cars, and less cars means less traffic deaths.
Lots of people want to bike or would appreciate it once they get used to it, but often the infrastructure simply isn't there. If you build good bike infrastructure (nut just the occasional bike path, but a network of them), it will be used, and will remove a lot of strain from the car infrastructure.
If you look at many historic city centres in the Netherlands the solution is to changeover a fraction of those narrow streets into single way streets + cycle path. There is now enough evidence that more lanes does not improve traffic it is just met with more cars to match the increased capacity.
"transferred the benefit of lots of public property from car commuters and small retail businesses"
I wonder how many studies have to be done to prove small businesses grow when bike lanes are added. Box stores 20miles away suffer. I'm okay with that.
It's interesting that you say the cycleway unquestionably put small businesses out of business--why do you think that?
In North America small businesses and town centres are generally under threat from big shopping centres and the way large highways that literally split communities in half. After seeing how smoothly dense cities in the Netherlands can function with advanced bicycle infrastructure I'm convinced that bikes should have an effect opposite to what you mention.
Like others have said, this would make things so spread out as to be unusable for walking/biking. You want more density, but with large, nearby swaths of mixed use spaces with lots of greenspace and walking paths, biking paths, shops and activities, and public transit. The higher density supports the local shops in walking/biking distance, as opposed to suburbs where you drive to larger more central locations for shopping. This also means you need less space devoted to roadways and parking spaces, so you get even more space available for mixed use type greenspaces. You then have a city that is comprised of lively individual neighborhoods where people can go about their daily lives and activities within a half mile of green space filled walkable area, or they can hop on public transit (or ride bikes on protected paths) to go to one of the other lively individual neighborhoods.
I think that frequently, a city will be so optimized for cars that (1) no other infrastructure can effectively work around it, and (2) any changes away from that optimized solution feel aggressive toward cars.
For example, consider curb radius at intersections. The smoother the curve, the nicer the experience for cars. If you can take the turn at 35 mph, then you don't even need to slow down. The car behind you doesn't need to slow down as you turn, and it's altogether more enjoyable to drive. But that means that the intersection is much larger, to accommodate the smoother turn. That means cars are making a right turn at higher speeds, leading to more dangerous collisions with pedestrians.
And this happens for pretty much every tradeoff. That might be why you see it as an impasse between different groups, because either tradeoffs need to be made, or the overall cost goes up significantly (e.g. moving all parking spaces underground).
* Bike lanes are adjacent to car traffic, decreasing usage. We could have separated bike lanes, but that space was already used for more car lanes.
* Bike lanes take circuitous routes, increasing distance. We could have more direct routes, but that space was already used for wide roads.
* There's no walkable area in the city center, because the shops have large set-backs, and are spaced far from each other. We could have storefronts closer together, but that wouldn't allow for as much parking space.
* Bike parking is rare, and typically pretty far from your destination. We could have bike parking at every storefront, but that would require cars to be parked further away. (Though, given that you can fit 10-15 bicycles into a single car spot, the impact even there would be minimal.)
These things are self-reinforcing because as things stand bikes can't be used for commuting by most people because the infrastructure doesn't exist. Make it easier and safer to bike, and you'll see the demographics shift.
Another part of this problem is affordable housing. People can't live close to where they work. Reduce this problem along with improving biking infrastructure and you'll see an uptick in biking.
"Several businesses along Valencia Street have posted signs in their windows that read[...]"
Sure. Several businesses said the same thing about protected bus lanes, but studies have shown it's increased business for those on the path, because it makes it possible for _more_ customers to actually access their businesses.
Cars are fundamentally worse than public transportation or biking for small businesses as a whole, as they reduce density, and further consolidation, which favors larger businesses and hurts small businesses. The problem is that business owners tend to be drivers and their biases don't line up with reality, which is why you tend to see their personal politics interfere with their business interests.
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