Lower speed limits. Bike infrastructure would definitely help.
I think some people get a little scared about it. They don’t consider themselves good cyclists and so get a little intimidated. For me, one of the quickest ways according to Google maps to get downtown is to take St. Marys St. I haven’t crossed Glenwood Ave at St. Mary’s St., but it does seem a bit intimidating. Once crossing Glenwood Ave, you go up a hill when you are heading towards downtown. Considering it uses a sharrow, and how busy it gets on St. Mary’s St., I don’t want to use it. In a sharrow lane, you are supposed to run in the middle of the arrow. With traffic at moving 35 mph, I’m not doing it. I went up Lassiter Mill Rd. towards North Hills and a car came up stupidly close at the Ramblewood intersection. Lassiter Mill has lanes and sharrows.
In downtown, I’ve generally felt comfortable riding. The speed limits are decently low so I don’t feel like I’m impeding traffic.
I’ve used North West St (north of Peace St) and haven’t had any problems yet. I’ve felt comfortable but mainly because I haven’t seen a ton of traffic on there. I haven’t gone during peak times so I’m not sure how it is at that time.
Bike parking is another thing. I mainly bike downtown on my days off. I’ve parked in front of Sir Walter Coffee, but I’m weird when it comes to leaving my bike out on the street. You can thank CA for that.
Realistically I don’t live downtown so that keeps me from using biking infrastructure there currently. When the office opens back up, I might use the bus to get to work and then bike home. I use the greenway quite a bit so I try to support the businesses around them. I did bike to Venture Pizza to meet up with a coworker for our lunch break. It’s a 2 minute bike ride from the greenway. On my day off, me and a friend biked to House of Hops next to it. I do wish that there was a good bike connection to the Loading Dock/Wilsons/Lynwood or Big Boss. I’ll get stuff from Wegman’s which is a 3 minute ride from the greenway although they really need a paved connection from Crabtree Creek to Industrial Drive. They also need a paved connection to the residences off near Mellowfield Dr/E Six Forks. That’s a huge miss as there is quite a bit of housing there.
My main problem with scooters is that they are not necessarily environmentally friendly (the dockless kind such as Lime, Spin, etc) and that they are decently pricey ← Further down I find that this was due to shorter trips. I think I spent about $5 to go half a mile. Get 2 people to do that and that $10 probably could have gotten you a Lyft/Uber with around similar environmental impact. I will admit the scooters are fun. There are people who are annoying with them when they ride full throttle on the sidewalk, but it doesn’t happen too often. I believe private e scooters are supposed to have less environmental impact but there’s a lot of back and forth on it.
From personal experience, what deters me and many people I know, are some of the higher profile news stories regarding bicycle accidents. The one in Cary where a guy ran into 4 people then proceeded to continue driving with one of the bikes on his hood, is still crazy, and countless other examples.
I will go out of my way to intentionally ride through the protected lanes of West and Harrington, people’s driving and level of distraction with cellphones is getting worse.
IMO, we have to do a few things beyond adding bike infrastructure to encourage cycling:
slow the traffic. we can do this in a variety of ways including adding more 4 way stops, narrowing streets, adding roundabouts, etc.
add more bike share stations at destinations along protected bike routes. this one is big and I’ve seen it be successful elsewhere. for Raleigh it’s particularly compelling because bike share includes electric assist for those hilly areas.
reduce parking and increase parking fees. Let’s not make it so easy to automatically jump in your car for doing everything, even if it’s just a few blocks away.
for downtown dwellers, model new behaviors. since Publix opened at SH, I have not driven there. I went on Amazon and bought a rolling grocery bag that holds about 2 large bags worth of groceries. I roll it to Publix empty, and I roll back full. People see me doing it, and someone even stopped me and asked me where I got it. People don’t know what they don’t know, and it’s not their fault that they don’t.
While I agree that drivers are more distracted than ever, it doesn’t help that our roads are designed to almost encourage paying attention to distractions. Design our city streets so that paying attention is required.
All of this, coupled with more housing and retail in downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods. Most people aren’t going to start biking when they’re four or five miles away from everything, but they might consider making the jump if they’re only looking at one or two miles. That’s one of the reasons the city is working on an ACU text change. A good transportation network is useless when the land use doesn’t support it.
The additional bike lanes have made West and Harrington dramatically safer in numerous ways. Sight lines were out of control for making turns onto these streets prior to the bike lanes. Crossing the street was also difficult, although I would argue there still needs to be pedestrian prioritized crossings.
That said, there are still people riding bikes/scooters both on the street and on the sidewalk instead of using the dedicated lane and it’s infuriating.
People have different risk tolerances. I have no problem biking in traffic lanes, while others do. At least the bike lane provides the option for those who are more risk averse.
It looks like dockless e-scooters emit about 202g per passenger mile (single rider). Average passenger vehicle is 334.74 grams /mile or potentially 435.45 grams/mile. If 2 friends rent a scooter, then you are talking about 404g per passenger mile; Get 3 friends and it’s more than using a Lyft/Uber car. The LA Times article talks about how e-scooter trips at times cause people to choose them over walking or bus which are more environmentally friendly.
I’ve looked up my vehicle and it emits 287 grams/mile but I don’t know if it takes into account operation, maintenance, and roads like the chart in Unagiscooters does. I found that by this link, searching for a vehicle, and then clicking on “Energy & Environment” https://www.fueleconomy.gov/
I try to avoid using my car as much as possible. We have 2 in our household so I only try to only use a car when I’m with someone else. I typically will bike to NH for groceries or Wegman’s. As mentioned I do try to support businesses along the greenway. I used to live by RTP so I did use the 100/105 bus to get to work. I do plan on using the bus to get to work when the office reopens.
I don’t hate scooters because there are other ways to cut emissions if I really dig into it. I just don’t like that they are marketed as an environmentally friendly option. According to the LA Times article, it could be taking riders from busses which are considered more environmentally friendly. It is better than a single occupancy vehicle gasoline car trip. Once you throw in a second person in the car, then it’s a different story.
I think the reason was that I did short trips (the price to “unlock”). One of my friends wanted to try a short trip for fun. We did and according to the history went only .4 miles. Total cost was $3.75. After doing the math (divide 3.75 by 4 to get cost per .1 miles then multiply by 5 to get .5 miles, you get $4.6875 for a half mile).
For a different ride in Baltimore: Me and a friend took a scooter ride for 1.2 miles back to the hotel. Cost was at $4.44 so it’s actually only about $1.85/half mile. I’m going to edit my post (strikeout). After looking again, it seems that the pricing isn’t bad on longer trips.
With the way people try and read that phone while driving you are brave to be riding on these streets, I have seen too many cars just drive right off the road and onto side walks, bike lanes and so on. It’s just a matter of time before your ass gets hit. Use the greenway or something to stay safe. Same with walking in the road. Road made for car Ugg, gonna get run over. Good luck and try not to get hit. God bless
Drivers will pay attention to the road when there’s something in it for them. If they felt like they need to pay attention to the road in order to not damage their car, they pay more attention. The way most of our roads are designed encourage speed and distraction driving because drivers feel safe allowing themselves to participate in distracted driving behaviors. Sadly, it’s a WIFM type situation. If you want drivers to stop driving in a distracted way, they have to see how it benefits them.
I’m with you. I have seen this way too often. As both a cyclist and a walker, I resent when a cyclist is ringing a bell at me on a sidewalk to get out of their way. This is especially infuriating when that sidewalk is next to a PROTECTED bike lane. I mean, wasn’t the justification to build/invest in these lanes to make people feel safe riding a bike? This might ruffle some feathers, but if you are a capable teen/adult and you don’t feel safe riding in a protected bike lane, then maybe you shouldn’t be on a bike. And if you don’t feel safe in a protected bike lane, you sure as hell don’t have the right to act like you own the sidewalk and presume that walkers have to accommodate you first.
Need dedicated infrastructure like they have in say like Germany. Entire network of of walking and bikeways that coexist with the roads, NOT part of the road. Squeezing bike lanes into existing skinny roads is not good. Just because you put a green line on the road and some cones up does not make you safe. Some of these so called alternative lane markings make you even more of a target for the distracted. Good luck out on these screets yo
I had a professor in college say that the worst thing they ever did was put airbags in cars. That they ought to put a big metal spike in the middle of the steering wheel instead. He said it would guarantee to reduce accidents to near zero.
That’s assuming our means of electricity production stays fixed. Solar and other renewables is growing. In the Triangle, our power is nuclear with significantly less emissions.
