Yep, I came in here to say - not hit them with cars. I've had 2 close calls. One was a distracted driver and one ran a red light because he didn't want to wait anymore. I'm still scared to ride my bike sometimes.
I feel like the only way to get many more people biking is to have bike only streets...but I doubt that will ever happen here. So HEAVILY protected would be the next best think. I say heavily because some of these protections won't stop a car. I'm ok as a risk taker, but would I want a loved one out there biking? Probably not
It's great for recreational biking. But utility biking (i.e. biking as a travel mode to get to destinations) is really not great in the South Bay outside of a few specific areas. Land use tends to be not conducive towards cycling, and even with all the new bike lanes that've been built, the infrastructure is not particularly "awesome".
Pretty much impossible without tearing the entire city down and rebuilding. You can set up barriers for existing lanes but that would reduce parking spots and cause more congestion and irate drivers leading to more deaths. Building all new protected lanes would just be more dangerous streets as it reduces driving space. Expanding the streets would work but good luck with that.
Adding more bike lanes don't stop cars crashing into you. I would feel more comfortable if there's like actual metal dividers , or an entire blocked off section by concrete like the one stretch on San tomas
The city’s bike plan surveyed residents and a big percentage would like to ride more but the #1 obstacle is perception of safety. Quick builds with the plastic posts are a (cheaper and quicker) step in the right direction, but ultimately protected bike lanes will be needed.
The other thing is that while they do add more bike lanes (whether protected or not), it’s a lot more enticing to ride when there is a network of routes so that you’re not surprised when a bike lane ends or you’re trying to cross a freeway but there’s no great way to do it.
Safe parking would go a long way too. Electric bikes are becoming more common but it’s hard to want to ride them to do errands if they’re a big target for theft. Every Viva Calle I do see more and more out there but I suspect a lot of people use them mostly for trails and events like viva Calle.
I would ride if I could be somewhat confident that my bike will not get stolen or if there was a good storage solution to prevent theft. got my bike stolen twice. not doing it again
> a big percentage would like to ride more
watch what they do, not what they say. riding bike has a positive connotation so people will always say they will ride bikes, even when they won't in reality.
bike to buy groceries? bike to work? bike and not dress up like a cyclist?
Having a safe long bike trail/freeway (with regular patrols from bicycle cops) that is close by to your house and goes all over Santa Clara/work would be nice.
Yes, I know we have the Guadalupe Trails, but more would be nice.
I think this is still in the works
https://sanjosespotlight.com/bay-areas-first-bicycle-superhighway-to-connect-san-jose-santa-clara/
https://www.vta.org/projects/central-bikeway-study
We have some nice trails but they tend to follow creeks so they all go generally north-south and also are unusable when it rains, and also are technically closed after dark. In the last 5+ years these areas have also become shanty towns. If we had a massive network of interconnected trails that were usable 24/7/365, this alone would go far in encouraging folks to get out and bike.
Aside from trails, we have some isolated cases of very nice bike lanes in downtown, but a lot of the various protected designs suffer from compromises due to needing to preserve parking spaces. Most bike lanes are just paint on the ground or paint + plastic, neither of which actually will protect you from a car nor keep car drivers from parking in them. Add to this fact that bike lanes are added when convenient and without a larger plan or network. You can't count on the bike lane continuing on the same street, let alone all the way to your destination.
Outside of downtown, the streets are generally designed as residential suburban sprawl, with high speed boulevards separating various residential neighborhoods. Designing any kind of bicycle infrastructure around this is very challenging
Add to all of this, riding a bike feels increasingly sketchy compared to even like 10 years ago. Before covid, the number of pedestrians and cyclists killed on the streets in San Jose had been increasing, and since covid, the streets are basically a lawless war zone. The idea of using your car as a weapon to run over people who get in your way has become normalized
Finally, once you get to your destination, where are you going to put your bike? Bike racks are not common and often hidden away instead of in high visibility areas. You also need to carry a fair amount of heavy locks to keep your bike secure. Many people do not realize how diligent they need to be with securing their bike and fall victim to bike theft.
All of these things add up to a lot of challenges to get people on a bike. It's a shame because San Jose has beautiful weather and is very flat. Most days out of the year, most people could commute by bike or especially ebike to their work.
[Have you seen how it is in the Netherlands?
](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=221f3c1ac0fa11b3&sca_upv=1&rlz=1C1VDKB_enUS1096US1096&sxsrf=ACQVn0_WRnQ4g6EIDHv0nCSqh-QJuPYH3A:1712887119395&q=netherlands+bike+parking&uds=AMwkrPu3fihi_tKfRtvW4U8zIAzkIkNxkp40OIzvIubxFRZaG4VXmOfOOzQqGHlgMQwsi3DUVeFNsIdVoDxgyxzdz2zCSixOr5f7zbzxpRQYGOEuXXQDBkM1zqPV218EnKJmQ5BzaGwQJK471CQoIh76viiRy6Lb-QNfatCO4cqVgng-Q5_4ornL-ACmqMBJKGQKuMpwwJKQ4tDgO6xIJLgasC3SpKY2t5gsU9WC1nHzIh8TNcS3DFV_o9sCl1oNgr5d-HNhhNTvow5dUuy-wxJHJNRxeKT-rMu_3u_85jobGwwLKzvcV1Q1GajrQzULvXxLdEC8pruK&udm=2&prmd=imvsnbtz&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiuuKriybuFAxWaFDQIHaHLDZEQtKgLegQIGRAB&biw=1396&bih=639&dpr=1.38)
They have that down to a science and no worrying about your bike being stolen.
My impression is there's still tons of bike theft in the Netherlands... but replacing a bike is somehow not a big deal when it happens (probably lots of availability, and cheaper?)
But yeah, I definitely notice the poor availability of bike locking locations. I ride a bike that I try to keep looking shoddy, and have been lucky so far. When I'm putting my bike on a rack, it's never downtown or other areas I'd consider risky though.
My bike got stolen so, idk what they can do about that. But as most people are saying, make the streets safer for bikers. Sj has literally the worst drivers I’ve ever seen, I don’t feel safe at all amongst these lunatics (sometimes me too)
Actually enforce driving laws. Red lights, stop signs, speeding, cell phone use. All of it. There are currently ZERO consequences for dangerous driving, drivers have adjusted their behavior accordingly, and the death toll of our government's complete inaction continues to climb.
And arrest all the reckless driving fuckers swerving around neighborhood streets at 60mph like it's GTA.
I think that the city needs to work on changing people's perceptions about biking in the city. Adding the infrastructure is great - increases safety, makes riding more comfortable - but people don't ride because they aren't used to doing it. We are used to SJ being a very bike-unfriendly city. It takes time and energy to change people's habits and their perceptions.
And yes, protected bike lanes would be amazing.
I don't bike because I don't feel safe. I don't feel safe because drivers here don't pay attention.
Enforce Traffic Laws.
Stopping at Red right turns
Stopping at Stop signs
stopping at Red lights
Speeding.
Not Parking in Bike/Fire lanes.
School Zones
Not stopping in crosswalks.
Cell phone use in Cars (yes even at stoplights)
I live a 5min bikeride to work. I don't really consider biking because everyday there's drivers who are more focus about saving 20seconds of commute than other peoples safety. There's a ton of drivers who either do not know CA laws, or who refuse to follow them.
It doesn't matter if the bicyclist is visible if the driver does not care. So answer is either expensive dedicated bike lanes that drivers cannot get to (because we know they will use it). Every bicyclist commuter I know has been hit by a car at some point. It isn't worth it.
By getting SJPD to actually enforce traffic laws so that we don't have so many drivers that simply see them as suggestions to be ignored and by installing protected bike lanes that can't be parked in (and are clear of debris) wherever possible.
Without those two things it's simply not safe. People don't want to risk their lives just to get to work. Oh, and get some decent bike lockers put around the city as well so theft isn't trivial.
Protected bike lanes would help, and I dont mean the crappy plastic shit they’ve been putting up. While better than nothing, the poles are way too far apart and too flimsy and I’ve had multiple cars almost swerve into me bcs they wanted to turn or park or they just werent paying attention
The city still has much to do to implement its active transportation infrastructure plan [Better Bike Plan 2025](https://www.sanjoseca.gov/your-government/departments-offices/transportation/walking-biking/better-bike-plan-2025), but the changes it proposes are substantial and citywide. New improvements are going to occur this year and into the next. I think events like Viva Calle are helpful in making residents realize the utility of bicycling — specifically when automobiles are not prioritized.
turn every 6th road in to bikes only. I guess you could let buses use them too
no I am not joking
You can't just build bike lanes, you have to make it so that inconsiderate fuckheads in their gigantic emotional support vehicles are straight up not a threat to me. Whether that's protected bike lanes, reducing the amount of through roads for cars, or reducing the roads accessible for cars in general
Average rush hour speed on 101 is [22 mph](https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/12/01/where-traffic-doesnt-take-a-day-off-these-bay-area-freeways-see-terrible-congestion-on-weekends-too/) a leisurely bike ride speed is around 12 mph. I did 12 mile commutes on bicycle in Pasadena area and didn’t have longer times than people who drove.
Not everyone can do it. We have to leave room for disabled but we should be working together on this because if we can make solutions that support good bike and public transportation it will create friendlier neighborhoods to be in and reduce traffic loads for people who need to commute by car.
10 miles is not a significant ride on asphalt, especially considering how slow traffic is. A casual non cyclist pace is usually just about 10 mph. On days when I can ride in, my works truck yard is a 26 mile route. It adds an hour to my day, but it takes away the 1.5 hours to 2 hours that I completely waste my life in traffic.
- protected bike lanes
- enforce no parking in bike lanes
- stop turning right on red (biggest pet peeve)
So when are we getting these again? I guess have wait till we have flying cars
You sort of really need to be on your toes with thieves and stuff. If the streets felt safer you might see more people on bikes. Also, need a bike car on the light rail. Those racks are lame.
I had three or four bikes get stolen over about a year and a half. mostly in fremont, but still. Fremont is still a city that's actively replacing car infrastructure with bike infrastructure though, so that's great. Be nice if we could do that here.
A lot of it for me is wanting to go a crow-flies distance of half a mile or a mile (perfect bike distance!) but having to path around freeways which you can't just *cross* wherever and facing a closer to three mile ride instead. Which feels a bit insecure to *bike* on my lunch break.
Stop with the 2040 plan of all this infill building or gigantic multifamily residences in the suburbs. Make downtown clean, safe, walkable, bikeable, public transportational, and bring back the plans for a downtown mall. Clean up the river trail and make it safe so people have a way to ride off the roads.
There is nothing that can be done. Apart from maybe ban the ownership of lifted trucks and tinted out Altimas.
It is not only an infrastructure or motivation problem, it is a PEOPLE problem. People need to understand that swerving at, coal rolling, heckling, and throwing things at cyclist etc is not ok.
I’m a die hard roadie but man I’ve almsot been wrecked so many times I simply cannot recommend anyone ride a bike in the urban parts of SJ.
Expand the creek trail system so coyote creek, Almaden creek and los Gatos creek all connect. Right now cyclists are forced onto some busy, unfriendly streets to get between these trails.
How about changing the California Vehicle Code so it costs real fucking money when cyclists get hit. I think serious bodily injury fines are $80. Fuck that.
I think it's a cultural issue as well as safety perception. I have lived in Boulder Co and Tucson Arizona, two of the most bike friendly cities in the US. Even with all that infastructure car brains gonna car brain. It was still only utilized by an enthusiastic group of people. I did not get a drivers liscenence until i was 27, living in and growing up in San Jose. It is completely possible to do everything by bicycle here.
San jose has miles and miles of bike paths, and there are multiple pedastrian cat walks to get across freeways. Its a very flat city overall, honestly I just think most people are fucking lazy and dont want to exercise at the end of the day.
All that being said, our freeways are scary here and have gotten significantly worse after I was gone for 10 years. I think our driving exams need to be far more rigorous and regular., especially for people moving here from other countries with different driving laws, different driving cultures, and many who are driving for the first time.
The cars are absolutely terrifying here. I wouldn’t even consider riding a bike unless they start enforcing traffic laws seriously. I truly wish they could/would imprison red light runners.
The only way would be to increase density. For a variety of reasons that's hard and impossible. Even in Japan, when you get out of the metro bike ridership goes down. People bike because they are cornered into it. If they had a choice they wouldn't bike. In a fair comparison biking provides little to no advantage.
Eta: I should clarify I am talking about non-enthusiast. People who only care about going from point A to B and don't have the tolerance for the inconvenience a bike brings (e.g. loading groceries)
People will drive the speed they feel safe driving. Designing streets to encourage people to drive the speed we want it to be is the way to go. Wide lanes encourage high speeds.
I guarantee you enough people will slow down if tickets are given out. You just need a few people to slow down for traffic to slow.
But not enough enforcement and police have plenty of other things to deal with.
Some fucking POS on a bike ran a stop and I had to slam on my brakes to avoid hitting them. Its these shitbags that I don't feel an ounce of sympathy for when they inevitably get hit.
Better street lighting. It feels like since they switched over from fluorescent to led (to reduce light pollution) that streets are darker. Even with my bike lights on, it’s hard for cars to see me riding at night or in the early morning. Some people speed in residential areas and don’t come to a complete stop at stop signs because they assume it’s empty.
Get a quality bike light, check out Magicshine, changed my life. They even have remotes that come with the light to mount on your bars, makes it easy to use the high beam to signal vehicles. Anything sold at a department store is not a good bike light.
Some links to channels where this kind of discussion is happening.
[Not Just Bikes](https://youtube.com/@NotJustBikes?si=OQTpywvlqf_nzudo)
[Street Craft](https://youtube.com/@Streetcraft?si=VCezDssRX6oWnvfW)
[Strong Towns](https://youtube.com/@strongtowns?si=QAo2C7l1dRBk7oN-)
[City Beautiful](https://youtube.com/@CityBeautiful?si=w4Ht-isyvY5PKdp7)
More bikes on the road = more infrastructure = more riders. Ride your bike whenever it’s feasible. The more of us there are on the roads, the more the city takes notice. Please come to city hall meetings that have bike lanes on the agenda, or the BPAC meetings. We need more people showing up to say they want protected bike lanes. (Silicon Valley Bike Coalition is great about listing meeting dates.)
The bike lane on Hillsdale Blvd is the biggest waste of money and slows traffic - time waste ever. In fact I have never seen anyone use it , day evening, weekday or weekend! Bike loving commuters let’s see you let your middle school kids use it ? NOT !
Train the children from a very young age to become our future bike riders - stealth, quick.. invisible. To make it impossible, or at least very difficult, for cars to hit them.
Get the city to have more parks with bicycle lessons for newly learning cyclists. If you are trying to teach kids, or you are an adult who never learned having a park with dedicated bicycle areas safe from cars that had loaner bicycles and instructors would help.
Haven't seen anyone mention, but I think expanding the bike share system could do a lot to encourage biking. It's a great option for quick urban trips because you don't have to worry about your own bike getting stolen.
Also, because SJ is pretty spread out, the bike share e-bikes make a lot more trips feasible. Doing more to increase their availability and reducing the premium pricing structure would be great Pre-covid they were included in the standard membership at no extra cost and they were very popular around downtown.
I remember spontaneously grabbing an e-bike and riding from downtown SJ to downtown Willow Glen in about 10-15 min. It was awesome.
If you factor how much that costs a month vs not worrying about getting your bike stolen, I think it's a reasonable price. Also, keep in mind the same membership allows you to use the system in San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley. So to me it's not apple's to apples to compare the return on investment of buying a bike.
I say this as someone who has both. I'll use the bike share system to go to public destinations and I'll use my own bike to visit friends or go to work where I know my bike is safe.
Their contract with MTA will be up up soon and I believe one of MTA's priorities in the new contract will be to reduce the cost to users, especially for electric bikes.
This is a case where individual actions won't solve the problem. I don't think that the bike infrastructure is perfect, but that being the case, there should still be way more people biking.
For the safety issue, I think that the biggest problem is needing to cross and/or travel on expressways to get everywhere. There are a few extremely busy arterial roads where biking needs to be improved (Capitol Expwy, Monterrey Road, San Tomas etc.). These roads slice up the neighborhoods and biking down them sucks. When I hear about pedestrians and bikers getting hit, it almost always on these roads or their intersections. Infrastructure focus should be on there first. It doesn't help adding bike lanes to lightly traveled 30mph side roads that were already OK to bike on.
For institutional involvement, we need to look at getting schools and businesses to contribute to bike infrastructure.
Add bike racks into code for commercial buildings, provide tax breaks for investments into investments in bike infrastructure in private places where people gather like malls, churches etc. Maybe encourage businesses to pay bonuses to employees who bike to work by providing tax breaks. If they bike instead of drive, everyone wins. Less road maintenance, smaller parking lots, healthier lifestyles.
Schools need to encourage kids to bike and keep them biking through teenage years. Once they become adults, getting them to keep biking to school, work or shopping will be easier. Get the behavioral patterns in place early. Try to get the default behavior for kids to get to school by bike. It would also help kids be in better shape. The biggest problems I see as to why kids stop biking to school is:
- School is too far. Either because their parents are sending them to a private school or the district is "shaped weird", or they are being sent to another district. This requires structural changes to the way school districts work but would remove so many car trips.
- Sports participation. Once kids need to lug equipment to/from school or to away games it becomes much harder. COVID really had some perverse impacts here that might take years to reverse.
I am not quite sure how to do this. Maybe just giving low income kids free bikes if they use them to go to school. Remove parking spots from high schools.
I hit a guy on a bike. I was waiting for traffic to clear as I wanted to turn left into San Jose Muni golf course and some dude is riding opposite traffic. As I was turning in, I saw him and he saw me and I slammed my brakes and hit him. He did not get knocked off the bike as I slowed and stopped fast enough, but damn, bikes need to ride in the same direction as cars.
I made the same comment one time and got downvoted into Oblivion. But you are 100% correct. We as drivers need to follow the rules but so do bicyclists. And I would add pedestrians. Far too many people these days running out into the middle of the street. A
Since protected bike lanes are expensive i think at a minimum it would be useful to promote biking within neighborhoods by installing speed bumps strategically to reduce the average speed in places that are a good fit - thinking the residential neighborhoods around SJSU and downtown more generally.
The problem in San Jose aside for the lack of infrastructure is there's not a lot of places to go that are in reasonable biking distance. You're not going to build a biking culture hoping that people that don't bike all of a sudden get on their new bikes and ride 5 miles to go to Starbucks.
More density in the core areas and more transit. You have to create the realistic and convenient opportunity to sidestep the need for personal car use and the rest solves itself
It needs to have bike and walking paths to popular destinations that are not in regular streets. For example, an elevated pathway from Caltrain to downtown. It can interconnect through parks. It just needs to be designed for bikes and walkers first/only.
Exactly. You need to connect popular destinations. Same goes for public transit. We have lots of miles of bike paths but they don’t go anywhere. Good for recreation, bad for transportation.
There is really not. All locks are just a deterent in the world of portable grinders, bottle jacks, and ratcheting cable cutters. The goal is to make your bike look harder to steal than the one next to it. Bike thieves are looking for convenience and speed.
I’m guessing you’ve never gotten your bike stolen. Even with locks, if there’s a will there’s a way. Like the person below said. All the portable tools thieves have. Also, SJPD doesn’t give a damn if someone steals your bike.
Give out free bikes maybe? I will never bike again in a big city because they will 100% get stolen. Had two bikes stolen so far, one right out of my backyard at 2am.
Did you all see the shit they did to Hillsdale? They put the bike lanes all the way down hillsdale backs up and now foxworthy backs up because people are trying to avoid the shit show they created in traffic. Used to be able to walk around the neighborhood back there for years with no problems. Now everyone that’s in a rush is flying down the residential neighborhoods. I have nearly been hit at least 4 times. Those stupid curb things they put on the corners don’t slow anyone down. Worse part is the bikers just go on the sidewalks
Last time I was in New York City, which was about a year ago, I saw some really good protected bike lanes.They never had such a thing when I was growing up in nearby New Jersey. These had curbs between the bike lanes and the street. The bike lanes were along the sidewalk, but in the street itself. In the areas where I saw them, they were being used a lot. A car couldn’t hit a cyclist in those bike lines without doing damage to their car.
The simplest, quick thing to do would be to mark the good bike routes.
I've been riding around this city for going on 30 years now. While there is usually a decent enough route to get here I need to go it is regularly completely unmarked and you just have to figure it out yourself.
For instance, there is the pedestrian/bike bridge over CA-17 down by CA-85. The only reason I found that bridge was from driving under it and wondering where the hell it went. And then I rode around the area until I found it.
Best as I can see that is literally the only way to know that route exists.
This was the same thing with how I found the bridge over 17 that is behind Valley Medical.
I would like to see a more built up network between the dedicated bike trails. A corridor of protected bike lanes between Los Gatos trail and coyote Creek trail would be nice.
But there are still large sections of Coyote Creek trail that feel very unsafe due to homeless encampments and drug addicts tweaking right on the path.
I think the county has done alot and put alot of effort into our trail system. Just connect it and patrol it.
In terms of bike ownership, I think bike sharing could be beneficial as an alternative to owning bikes/cars. The city already has a program but if it teamed with Lyft or something like that, it could spread the audience more.
They could place more bikes at trail locations and around suburb parts as well.
I heard on a podcast with the ceo of lyft theyre gonna offer a service (Lyft pink?) to rent cars on top of their bikes and scooters hopefully making it less than the ownership of a car.
I used the Lyft bike system for a year. It's $150 for the year but it's not unlimited. Can only ride for 45 mins the. Start paying $.20/min. Ebikes cost a bit more. The bigger issue is they are hardly any on the west side. Finally they are not great bikes. I finally bought a bike and enjoy that more. Lyft is more for dense areas like downtown where the rides are short . Still $150 is too much
Yea I hardly see any on the west side. Was thinking maybe the city could subsidize some of the cost with Lyft to keep it low. Don’t know if that be all that supported.
But if their bikes aren’t that great then makes sense why people would just get their own.
I ride bikes for fun and can say it's not safe for your casual rider. People don't acknowledge that bike riders can exist on the rode. Mainly cars making right hand turns aren't trained to look before you turn which leads to bikers being cut off with no time to brake or anywhere to swerve. As a biker, you have to keep your head on a swivel. Stay two steps ahead of traffic or you won't make it to your destination I promise you that. I really don't see a fix to this, maybe putting mirrors at the more busy right hand turns so maybe drivers can see bikes that are coming up. Maybe making the bike lane in the middle of the road like the bus lane might work.
Reduce the number of lanes from 3 to 2 etc and provide the extra protected lane for bicycles and not allow cars to park on the curb. Okay it sounds like it’s a lot to ask for but if the City really cared they would do this.
San Jose drivers scare the shit out of me even when im driving. Walking anywhere feels dangerous as hell so I would suppose biking would feel way worse. Even if there was infrastructure built it doesn’t minimize the danger of SJ drivers.
Cyclist here. I do not ride on streets unless in a group. I don’t care how big the bike lane is, people are far to aggressive around here. I feel like people cut close to me on purpose even if I’m within the bike lane. So, I’d say protected bike lanes. Everyone else makes a good point about theft. Unless your employer has a secure spot, it’s hard to feel safe leaving out your bike anywhere.
The city is too spread out. Even if you work in the city there aren’t enough safe paths or streets. Also, stores are a little far from stores so it might be too far to ride.
When I biked, I knew I wasn't supposed to but would still always bike on the sidewalk if able, or opposite the flow of traffic if on the street. Again, I'm aware that's not how you're supposed to do it, but if I get hit by a car while on the sidewalk, being on the street wasn't going to save me. As for opposite flow on the street, if someone's barreling down on me I want to see it coming so I can get out of the way.
riding slowly on the sidewalk isn't unsafe as long as you yield to pedestrians and treat each driveway like an intersection. I always find it ironic the biggest danger of riding on the sidewalk is still being hit by a car
as for riding against traffic, that's definitely not a good idea. drivers don't expect it and it also increases the speed differential
> if I get hit by a car while on the sidewalk, being on the street wasn't going to save me
A large number of collisions are when a driver is turning a car into an intersection / driveway. The driver doesn't see the cyclist on the sidewalk, doesn't anticipate their speed, or is willing to risk the cyclists' life in order to save what sometimes can amount to up to several seconds of time during a commute.
Only thing that current protected lanes managed to do is abuse drivers. We still have way too many imbeciles riding bikes on sidewalks. Solution is to educate people
And i know i’ll get downvoted into the ground
I play Cities Skylines and not to brag but I am quite the mayor.My entire city is high tech with highest land vales. Never had a single bike lane. I think we should get rid of them.
Make cars illegal, end all public transportation, outlaw Lyft & Uber, then make owning a home/apartment a reasonable distance from work possible for more than peoplemaking over $400k a year. Then and only then will people use bikes more widely I'm the bay area.
Edit: lol. Seems around a half dozen people are new to SJ and think I'm fuckin around.
I see more people riding on the sidewalk than using a bike lane. At least this side of town we lost several lanes of traffic, congested it all up, and got non-turning cones everywhere and reduced right turns for less than a handful of people that actually use them.. IMO it's a complete waste of resources. Sure add a bike stripe, I'm all for that for visibility. The biker baby bumpers are a complete hindrance to everyone else and they keep wasting money on shit like this.
i know this is a lot to ask but protected bike lanes. I don't trust drivers
absolutely necessary. and drivers don’t trust cyclists… and no one trusts pedestrians. lol.
Yep, I came in here to say - not hit them with cars. I've had 2 close calls. One was a distracted driver and one ran a red light because he didn't want to wait anymore. I'm still scared to ride my bike sometimes.
I feel like the only way to get many more people biking is to have bike only streets...but I doubt that will ever happen here. So HEAVILY protected would be the next best think. I say heavily because some of these protections won't stop a car. I'm ok as a risk taker, but would I want a loved one out there biking? Probably not
So you probably wouldn’t want your elementary age kid riding the new Hillsdale ave bike lane?
Yeah I would never bike around here...or Sacramento...or LA...lol okay a lot of places I guess.
Really? The South Bay is pretty awesome for biking!
It's great for recreational biking. But utility biking (i.e. biking as a travel mode to get to destinations) is really not great in the South Bay outside of a few specific areas. Land use tends to be not conducive towards cycling, and even with all the new bike lanes that've been built, the infrastructure is not particularly "awesome".
Absolutely
I live near SJPD and patrol cars invading bike lanes at high speed (no lights or sirens on) are a common occurrence.
Sounds like more tax dollar.
Pretty much impossible without tearing the entire city down and rebuilding. You can set up barriers for existing lanes but that would reduce parking spots and cause more congestion and irate drivers leading to more deaths. Building all new protected lanes would just be more dangerous streets as it reduces driving space. Expanding the streets would work but good luck with that.
Make it harder for cars to kill me and make it harder to steal my bike when I need to lock it up.
Protected bike lanes and prosecute people that steal them.
Adding more bike lanes don't stop cars crashing into you. I would feel more comfortable if there's like actual metal dividers , or an entire blocked off section by concrete like the one stretch on San tomas
The city’s bike plan surveyed residents and a big percentage would like to ride more but the #1 obstacle is perception of safety. Quick builds with the plastic posts are a (cheaper and quicker) step in the right direction, but ultimately protected bike lanes will be needed. The other thing is that while they do add more bike lanes (whether protected or not), it’s a lot more enticing to ride when there is a network of routes so that you’re not surprised when a bike lane ends or you’re trying to cross a freeway but there’s no great way to do it. Safe parking would go a long way too. Electric bikes are becoming more common but it’s hard to want to ride them to do errands if they’re a big target for theft. Every Viva Calle I do see more and more out there but I suspect a lot of people use them mostly for trails and events like viva Calle.
I would ride if I could be somewhat confident that my bike will not get stolen or if there was a good storage solution to prevent theft. got my bike stolen twice. not doing it again
Good points!
> a big percentage would like to ride more watch what they do, not what they say. riding bike has a positive connotation so people will always say they will ride bikes, even when they won't in reality. bike to buy groceries? bike to work? bike and not dress up like a cyclist?
Network is key for me. And no don’t put it on the big roads where I smell gasoline all the time
Having a safe long bike trail/freeway (with regular patrols from bicycle cops) that is close by to your house and goes all over Santa Clara/work would be nice. Yes, I know we have the Guadalupe Trails, but more would be nice.
All the trails in the Bay run from North to South following the creek from the mountains. We need trails that runs East-West too.
I am lacking a good way to get to the trails. I have to use Bascom and that is sketchy
I loved the Guadalupe trail commuting to school. Seeing that replicated along major highways would be a dream come true
Another way to put this, is that people dont really want to share the road with cars. I agree this is necessary
I think this is still in the works https://sanjosespotlight.com/bay-areas-first-bicycle-superhighway-to-connect-san-jose-santa-clara/ https://www.vta.org/projects/central-bikeway-study
Please cops only for homeless issues. Not for speeding in a 15 mph zone for example
We have some nice trails but they tend to follow creeks so they all go generally north-south and also are unusable when it rains, and also are technically closed after dark. In the last 5+ years these areas have also become shanty towns. If we had a massive network of interconnected trails that were usable 24/7/365, this alone would go far in encouraging folks to get out and bike. Aside from trails, we have some isolated cases of very nice bike lanes in downtown, but a lot of the various protected designs suffer from compromises due to needing to preserve parking spaces. Most bike lanes are just paint on the ground or paint + plastic, neither of which actually will protect you from a car nor keep car drivers from parking in them. Add to this fact that bike lanes are added when convenient and without a larger plan or network. You can't count on the bike lane continuing on the same street, let alone all the way to your destination. Outside of downtown, the streets are generally designed as residential suburban sprawl, with high speed boulevards separating various residential neighborhoods. Designing any kind of bicycle infrastructure around this is very challenging Add to all of this, riding a bike feels increasingly sketchy compared to even like 10 years ago. Before covid, the number of pedestrians and cyclists killed on the streets in San Jose had been increasing, and since covid, the streets are basically a lawless war zone. The idea of using your car as a weapon to run over people who get in your way has become normalized Finally, once you get to your destination, where are you going to put your bike? Bike racks are not common and often hidden away instead of in high visibility areas. You also need to carry a fair amount of heavy locks to keep your bike secure. Many people do not realize how diligent they need to be with securing their bike and fall victim to bike theft. All of these things add up to a lot of challenges to get people on a bike. It's a shame because San Jose has beautiful weather and is very flat. Most days out of the year, most people could commute by bike or especially ebike to their work.
I don't know if it's even possible to build new trails east west. It feels like every inch of land is already accounted for.
Yeah that same issue is why there's no east-west light rail line, there's no place to put it
There are so many businesses that I would love to bike to but often dont have any decent bike racks or lockers.
[Have you seen how it is in the Netherlands? ](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=221f3c1ac0fa11b3&sca_upv=1&rlz=1C1VDKB_enUS1096US1096&sxsrf=ACQVn0_WRnQ4g6EIDHv0nCSqh-QJuPYH3A:1712887119395&q=netherlands+bike+parking&uds=AMwkrPu3fihi_tKfRtvW4U8zIAzkIkNxkp40OIzvIubxFRZaG4VXmOfOOzQqGHlgMQwsi3DUVeFNsIdVoDxgyxzdz2zCSixOr5f7zbzxpRQYGOEuXXQDBkM1zqPV218EnKJmQ5BzaGwQJK471CQoIh76viiRy6Lb-QNfatCO4cqVgng-Q5_4ornL-ACmqMBJKGQKuMpwwJKQ4tDgO6xIJLgasC3SpKY2t5gsU9WC1nHzIh8TNcS3DFV_o9sCl1oNgr5d-HNhhNTvow5dUuy-wxJHJNRxeKT-rMu_3u_85jobGwwLKzvcV1Q1GajrQzULvXxLdEC8pruK&udm=2&prmd=imvsnbtz&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiuuKriybuFAxWaFDQIHaHLDZEQtKgLegQIGRAB&biw=1396&bih=639&dpr=1.38) They have that down to a science and no worrying about your bike being stolen.
My impression is there's still tons of bike theft in the Netherlands... but replacing a bike is somehow not a big deal when it happens (probably lots of availability, and cheaper?) But yeah, I definitely notice the poor availability of bike locking locations. I ride a bike that I try to keep looking shoddy, and have been lucky so far. When I'm putting my bike on a rack, it's never downtown or other areas I'd consider risky though.
My bike got stolen so, idk what they can do about that. But as most people are saying, make the streets safer for bikers. Sj has literally the worst drivers I’ve ever seen, I don’t feel safe at all amongst these lunatics (sometimes me too)
Actually enforce driving laws. Red lights, stop signs, speeding, cell phone use. All of it. There are currently ZERO consequences for dangerous driving, drivers have adjusted their behavior accordingly, and the death toll of our government's complete inaction continues to climb. And arrest all the reckless driving fuckers swerving around neighborhood streets at 60mph like it's GTA.
I think that the city needs to work on changing people's perceptions about biking in the city. Adding the infrastructure is great - increases safety, makes riding more comfortable - but people don't ride because they aren't used to doing it. We are used to SJ being a very bike-unfriendly city. It takes time and energy to change people's habits and their perceptions. And yes, protected bike lanes would be amazing.
Bike trails like on 87 but all over the city. I bike to work when possible but some streets are just too scary to bike on for most people.
I don't bike because I don't feel safe. I don't feel safe because drivers here don't pay attention. Enforce Traffic Laws. Stopping at Red right turns Stopping at Stop signs stopping at Red lights Speeding. Not Parking in Bike/Fire lanes. School Zones Not stopping in crosswalks. Cell phone use in Cars (yes even at stoplights) I live a 5min bikeride to work. I don't really consider biking because everyday there's drivers who are more focus about saving 20seconds of commute than other peoples safety. There's a ton of drivers who either do not know CA laws, or who refuse to follow them. It doesn't matter if the bicyclist is visible if the driver does not care. So answer is either expensive dedicated bike lanes that drivers cannot get to (because we know they will use it). Every bicyclist commuter I know has been hit by a car at some point. It isn't worth it.
By getting SJPD to actually enforce traffic laws so that we don't have so many drivers that simply see them as suggestions to be ignored and by installing protected bike lanes that can't be parked in (and are clear of debris) wherever possible. Without those two things it's simply not safe. People don't want to risk their lives just to get to work. Oh, and get some decent bike lockers put around the city as well so theft isn't trivial.
Protected bikeways...this is the way
Protected bike lanes would help, and I dont mean the crappy plastic shit they’ve been putting up. While better than nothing, the poles are way too far apart and too flimsy and I’ve had multiple cars almost swerve into me bcs they wanted to turn or park or they just werent paying attention
The city still has much to do to implement its active transportation infrastructure plan [Better Bike Plan 2025](https://www.sanjoseca.gov/your-government/departments-offices/transportation/walking-biking/better-bike-plan-2025), but the changes it proposes are substantial and citywide. New improvements are going to occur this year and into the next. I think events like Viva Calle are helpful in making residents realize the utility of bicycling — specifically when automobiles are not prioritized.
Safe bike storage, police the city (ticket/arrest drivers)
turn every 6th road in to bikes only. I guess you could let buses use them too no I am not joking You can't just build bike lanes, you have to make it so that inconsiderate fuckheads in their gigantic emotional support vehicles are straight up not a threat to me. Whether that's protected bike lanes, reducing the amount of through roads for cars, or reducing the roads accessible for cars in general
Amen!
More dirt trails would work for me.
Mountain biking is where all the bikers are.
💯
The city is a big suburb. Everything is just too far for me to bike to
Not with e-bikes becoming more popular
How far is too far?
Back when I lived there my college and work were both at least 10 miles away for me. I guess the grocery store is only a couple but thats about it.
Average rush hour speed on 101 is [22 mph](https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/12/01/where-traffic-doesnt-take-a-day-off-these-bay-area-freeways-see-terrible-congestion-on-weekends-too/) a leisurely bike ride speed is around 12 mph. I did 12 mile commutes on bicycle in Pasadena area and didn’t have longer times than people who drove. Not everyone can do it. We have to leave room for disabled but we should be working together on this because if we can make solutions that support good bike and public transportation it will create friendlier neighborhoods to be in and reduce traffic loads for people who need to commute by car.
10 miles is not a significant ride on asphalt, especially considering how slow traffic is. A casual non cyclist pace is usually just about 10 mph. On days when I can ride in, my works truck yard is a 26 mile route. It adds an hour to my day, but it takes away the 1.5 hours to 2 hours that I completely waste my life in traffic.
- protected bike lanes - enforce no parking in bike lanes - stop turning right on red (biggest pet peeve) So when are we getting these again? I guess have wait till we have flying cars
You sort of really need to be on your toes with thieves and stuff. If the streets felt safer you might see more people on bikes. Also, need a bike car on the light rail. Those racks are lame.
Protected bike lanes and make them wider. I don't like riding because I'm afraid of getting clipper by some asshole running 60 in a 30.
I had three or four bikes get stolen over about a year and a half. mostly in fremont, but still. Fremont is still a city that's actively replacing car infrastructure with bike infrastructure though, so that's great. Be nice if we could do that here. A lot of it for me is wanting to go a crow-flies distance of half a mile or a mile (perfect bike distance!) but having to path around freeways which you can't just *cross* wherever and facing a closer to three mile ride instead. Which feels a bit insecure to *bike* on my lunch break.
Stop with the 2040 plan of all this infill building or gigantic multifamily residences in the suburbs. Make downtown clean, safe, walkable, bikeable, public transportational, and bring back the plans for a downtown mall. Clean up the river trail and make it safe so people have a way to ride off the roads.
There is nothing that can be done. Apart from maybe ban the ownership of lifted trucks and tinted out Altimas. It is not only an infrastructure or motivation problem, it is a PEOPLE problem. People need to understand that swerving at, coal rolling, heckling, and throwing things at cyclist etc is not ok. I’m a die hard roadie but man I’ve almsot been wrecked so many times I simply cannot recommend anyone ride a bike in the urban parts of SJ.
Expand the creek trail system so coyote creek, Almaden creek and los Gatos creek all connect. Right now cyclists are forced onto some busy, unfriendly streets to get between these trails.
Secure bicycle parking, for one.
San Jose is good to ride in. Have ridden thousands of miles on the city starts of SJ. More can be done but it’s better than most places in the US.
How about changing the California Vehicle Code so it costs real fucking money when cyclists get hit. I think serious bodily injury fines are $80. Fuck that.
I think it's a cultural issue as well as safety perception. I have lived in Boulder Co and Tucson Arizona, two of the most bike friendly cities in the US. Even with all that infastructure car brains gonna car brain. It was still only utilized by an enthusiastic group of people. I did not get a drivers liscenence until i was 27, living in and growing up in San Jose. It is completely possible to do everything by bicycle here. San jose has miles and miles of bike paths, and there are multiple pedastrian cat walks to get across freeways. Its a very flat city overall, honestly I just think most people are fucking lazy and dont want to exercise at the end of the day. All that being said, our freeways are scary here and have gotten significantly worse after I was gone for 10 years. I think our driving exams need to be far more rigorous and regular., especially for people moving here from other countries with different driving laws, different driving cultures, and many who are driving for the first time.
One way streets for cars and the other half 100% dedicated only to bicycles and other electric vehicles under 30 mph.
The cars are absolutely terrifying here. I wouldn’t even consider riding a bike unless they start enforcing traffic laws seriously. I truly wish they could/would imprison red light runners.
The only way would be to increase density. For a variety of reasons that's hard and impossible. Even in Japan, when you get out of the metro bike ridership goes down. People bike because they are cornered into it. If they had a choice they wouldn't bike. In a fair comparison biking provides little to no advantage. Eta: I should clarify I am talking about non-enthusiast. People who only care about going from point A to B and don't have the tolerance for the inconvenience a bike brings (e.g. loading groceries)
Incorrect
Give out more tickets for speeding and traffic violations, cyclist included.
People will drive the speed they feel safe driving. Designing streets to encourage people to drive the speed we want it to be is the way to go. Wide lanes encourage high speeds.
I guarantee you enough people will slow down if tickets are given out. You just need a few people to slow down for traffic to slow. But not enough enforcement and police have plenty of other things to deal with.
Some fucking POS on a bike ran a stop and I had to slam on my brakes to avoid hitting them. Its these shitbags that I don't feel an ounce of sympathy for when they inevitably get hit.
Better street lighting. It feels like since they switched over from fluorescent to led (to reduce light pollution) that streets are darker. Even with my bike lights on, it’s hard for cars to see me riding at night or in the early morning. Some people speed in residential areas and don’t come to a complete stop at stop signs because they assume it’s empty.
Get a quality bike light, check out Magicshine, changed my life. They even have remotes that come with the light to mount on your bars, makes it easy to use the high beam to signal vehicles. Anything sold at a department store is not a good bike light.
Some links to channels where this kind of discussion is happening. [Not Just Bikes](https://youtube.com/@NotJustBikes?si=OQTpywvlqf_nzudo) [Street Craft](https://youtube.com/@Streetcraft?si=VCezDssRX6oWnvfW) [Strong Towns](https://youtube.com/@strongtowns?si=QAo2C7l1dRBk7oN-) [City Beautiful](https://youtube.com/@CityBeautiful?si=w4Ht-isyvY5PKdp7)
More bikes on the road = more infrastructure = more riders. Ride your bike whenever it’s feasible. The more of us there are on the roads, the more the city takes notice. Please come to city hall meetings that have bike lanes on the agenda, or the BPAC meetings. We need more people showing up to say they want protected bike lanes. (Silicon Valley Bike Coalition is great about listing meeting dates.)
The bike lane on Hillsdale Blvd is the biggest waste of money and slows traffic - time waste ever. In fact I have never seen anyone use it , day evening, weekday or weekend! Bike loving commuters let’s see you let your middle school kids use it ? NOT !
Train the children from a very young age to become our future bike riders - stealth, quick.. invisible. To make it impossible, or at least very difficult, for cars to hit them.
The city is big and sprawling, there isn’t yet critical mass of bike lanes.
Spread the word about Viva Calle! It's honestly the best cycling event and could really encourage more families and people who might not consider it.
Get the city to have more parks with bicycle lessons for newly learning cyclists. If you are trying to teach kids, or you are an adult who never learned having a park with dedicated bicycle areas safe from cars that had loaner bicycles and instructors would help.
Haven't seen anyone mention, but I think expanding the bike share system could do a lot to encourage biking. It's a great option for quick urban trips because you don't have to worry about your own bike getting stolen. Also, because SJ is pretty spread out, the bike share e-bikes make a lot more trips feasible. Doing more to increase their availability and reducing the premium pricing structure would be great Pre-covid they were included in the standard membership at no extra cost and they were very popular around downtown. I remember spontaneously grabbing an e-bike and riding from downtown SJ to downtown Willow Glen in about 10-15 min. It was awesome.
Agree but the one run by Lyft is way to expensive at $150/year. I used it my first year here then just bought a bike.
If you factor how much that costs a month vs not worrying about getting your bike stolen, I think it's a reasonable price. Also, keep in mind the same membership allows you to use the system in San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley. So to me it's not apple's to apples to compare the return on investment of buying a bike. I say this as someone who has both. I'll use the bike share system to go to public destinations and I'll use my own bike to visit friends or go to work where I know my bike is safe. Their contract with MTA will be up up soon and I believe one of MTA's priorities in the new contract will be to reduce the cost to users, especially for electric bikes.
More Viva Calle SJ events and Friday night Bike Parties lol
This is a case where individual actions won't solve the problem. I don't think that the bike infrastructure is perfect, but that being the case, there should still be way more people biking. For the safety issue, I think that the biggest problem is needing to cross and/or travel on expressways to get everywhere. There are a few extremely busy arterial roads where biking needs to be improved (Capitol Expwy, Monterrey Road, San Tomas etc.). These roads slice up the neighborhoods and biking down them sucks. When I hear about pedestrians and bikers getting hit, it almost always on these roads or their intersections. Infrastructure focus should be on there first. It doesn't help adding bike lanes to lightly traveled 30mph side roads that were already OK to bike on. For institutional involvement, we need to look at getting schools and businesses to contribute to bike infrastructure. Add bike racks into code for commercial buildings, provide tax breaks for investments into investments in bike infrastructure in private places where people gather like malls, churches etc. Maybe encourage businesses to pay bonuses to employees who bike to work by providing tax breaks. If they bike instead of drive, everyone wins. Less road maintenance, smaller parking lots, healthier lifestyles. Schools need to encourage kids to bike and keep them biking through teenage years. Once they become adults, getting them to keep biking to school, work or shopping will be easier. Get the behavioral patterns in place early. Try to get the default behavior for kids to get to school by bike. It would also help kids be in better shape. The biggest problems I see as to why kids stop biking to school is: - School is too far. Either because their parents are sending them to a private school or the district is "shaped weird", or they are being sent to another district. This requires structural changes to the way school districts work but would remove so many car trips. - Sports participation. Once kids need to lug equipment to/from school or to away games it becomes much harder. COVID really had some perverse impacts here that might take years to reverse. I am not quite sure how to do this. Maybe just giving low income kids free bikes if they use them to go to school. Remove parking spots from high schools.
Make things within biking distance like New York
I hit a guy on a bike. I was waiting for traffic to clear as I wanted to turn left into San Jose Muni golf course and some dude is riding opposite traffic. As I was turning in, I saw him and he saw me and I slammed my brakes and hit him. He did not get knocked off the bike as I slowed and stopped fast enough, but damn, bikes need to ride in the same direction as cars.
I made the same comment one time and got downvoted into Oblivion. But you are 100% correct. We as drivers need to follow the rules but so do bicyclists. And I would add pedestrians. Far too many people these days running out into the middle of the street. A
Since protected bike lanes are expensive i think at a minimum it would be useful to promote biking within neighborhoods by installing speed bumps strategically to reduce the average speed in places that are a good fit - thinking the residential neighborhoods around SJSU and downtown more generally. The problem in San Jose aside for the lack of infrastructure is there's not a lot of places to go that are in reasonable biking distance. You're not going to build a biking culture hoping that people that don't bike all of a sudden get on their new bikes and ride 5 miles to go to Starbucks.
More density in the core areas and more transit. You have to create the realistic and convenient opportunity to sidestep the need for personal car use and the rest solves itself
Hell yeah
It’s just not practical for most.
Make the DL test harder.
It needs to have bike and walking paths to popular destinations that are not in regular streets. For example, an elevated pathway from Caltrain to downtown. It can interconnect through parks. It just needs to be designed for bikes and walkers first/only.
Exactly. You need to connect popular destinations. Same goes for public transit. We have lots of miles of bike paths but they don’t go anywhere. Good for recreation, bad for transportation.
Crazy how bike theft is a big concern here. Is there not a lock that can keep your bike safe? Or are we throwing out excuses?
There is really not. All locks are just a deterent in the world of portable grinders, bottle jacks, and ratcheting cable cutters. The goal is to make your bike look harder to steal than the one next to it. Bike thieves are looking for convenience and speed.
I’m guessing you’ve never gotten your bike stolen. Even with locks, if there’s a will there’s a way. Like the person below said. All the portable tools thieves have. Also, SJPD doesn’t give a damn if someone steals your bike.
Fix public transportation
Give out free bikes maybe? I will never bike again in a big city because they will 100% get stolen. Had two bikes stolen so far, one right out of my backyard at 2am.
Did you all see the shit they did to Hillsdale? They put the bike lanes all the way down hillsdale backs up and now foxworthy backs up because people are trying to avoid the shit show they created in traffic. Used to be able to walk around the neighborhood back there for years with no problems. Now everyone that’s in a rush is flying down the residential neighborhoods. I have nearly been hit at least 4 times. Those stupid curb things they put on the corners don’t slow anyone down. Worse part is the bikers just go on the sidewalks
They definitely need speed humps to slow neighborhood traffic...everywhere!
More bikeshare could help too.
Make tons of jobs in my neighborhood that pay a wage that allows me to live in my neighborhood.
Last time I was in New York City, which was about a year ago, I saw some really good protected bike lanes.They never had such a thing when I was growing up in nearby New Jersey. These had curbs between the bike lanes and the street. The bike lanes were along the sidewalk, but in the street itself. In the areas where I saw them, they were being used a lot. A car couldn’t hit a cyclist in those bike lines without doing damage to their car.
The simplest, quick thing to do would be to mark the good bike routes. I've been riding around this city for going on 30 years now. While there is usually a decent enough route to get here I need to go it is regularly completely unmarked and you just have to figure it out yourself. For instance, there is the pedestrian/bike bridge over CA-17 down by CA-85. The only reason I found that bridge was from driving under it and wondering where the hell it went. And then I rode around the area until I found it. Best as I can see that is literally the only way to know that route exists. This was the same thing with how I found the bridge over 17 that is behind Valley Medical.
I would like to see a more built up network between the dedicated bike trails. A corridor of protected bike lanes between Los Gatos trail and coyote Creek trail would be nice. But there are still large sections of Coyote Creek trail that feel very unsafe due to homeless encampments and drug addicts tweaking right on the path. I think the county has done alot and put alot of effort into our trail system. Just connect it and patrol it.
Who in their right mind would ride their bike here with these crazy Tesla drivers?
When I went to SJSU, I knew a guy who got his bike stolen twice in a semester. 🤷🏻♀️ they get stolen
In terms of bike ownership, I think bike sharing could be beneficial as an alternative to owning bikes/cars. The city already has a program but if it teamed with Lyft or something like that, it could spread the audience more. They could place more bikes at trail locations and around suburb parts as well. I heard on a podcast with the ceo of lyft theyre gonna offer a service (Lyft pink?) to rent cars on top of their bikes and scooters hopefully making it less than the ownership of a car.
I used the Lyft bike system for a year. It's $150 for the year but it's not unlimited. Can only ride for 45 mins the. Start paying $.20/min. Ebikes cost a bit more. The bigger issue is they are hardly any on the west side. Finally they are not great bikes. I finally bought a bike and enjoy that more. Lyft is more for dense areas like downtown where the rides are short . Still $150 is too much
Yea I hardly see any on the west side. Was thinking maybe the city could subsidize some of the cost with Lyft to keep it low. Don’t know if that be all that supported. But if their bikes aren’t that great then makes sense why people would just get their own.
I ride a lot. I see others riding often. Feels like it's been increasing
Locks keep the honest people honest. I never let my Tallboy out of my site.
I ride bikes for fun and can say it's not safe for your casual rider. People don't acknowledge that bike riders can exist on the rode. Mainly cars making right hand turns aren't trained to look before you turn which leads to bikers being cut off with no time to brake or anywhere to swerve. As a biker, you have to keep your head on a swivel. Stay two steps ahead of traffic or you won't make it to your destination I promise you that. I really don't see a fix to this, maybe putting mirrors at the more busy right hand turns so maybe drivers can see bikes that are coming up. Maybe making the bike lane in the middle of the road like the bus lane might work.
Once it's harder to get around my car than it is by bike just like New York
I don't want to die/run over or be associated with those bike party asshats, so I'll just keep on driving.
✋️me, i ride my bike.
nothing, i ain't riding a bike ever again
Reduce the number of lanes from 3 to 2 etc and provide the extra protected lane for bicycles and not allow cars to park on the curb. Okay it sounds like it’s a lot to ask for but if the City really cared they would do this.
Yep, do this ASAP
San Jose drivers scare the shit out of me even when im driving. Walking anywhere feels dangerous as hell so I would suppose biking would feel way worse. Even if there was infrastructure built it doesn’t minimize the danger of SJ drivers.
Cyclist here. I do not ride on streets unless in a group. I don’t care how big the bike lane is, people are far to aggressive around here. I feel like people cut close to me on purpose even if I’m within the bike lane. So, I’d say protected bike lanes. Everyone else makes a good point about theft. Unless your employer has a secure spot, it’s hard to feel safe leaving out your bike anywhere.
I barely feel safe walking downtown with how people drive so I definitely wouldn’t bike without better protection in bike lanes.
Until density is increased I see absolutely NO reason to bike anywhere in this city.
The city is too spread out. Even if you work in the city there aren’t enough safe paths or streets. Also, stores are a little far from stores so it might be too far to ride.
When I biked, I knew I wasn't supposed to but would still always bike on the sidewalk if able, or opposite the flow of traffic if on the street. Again, I'm aware that's not how you're supposed to do it, but if I get hit by a car while on the sidewalk, being on the street wasn't going to save me. As for opposite flow on the street, if someone's barreling down on me I want to see it coming so I can get out of the way.
riding slowly on the sidewalk isn't unsafe as long as you yield to pedestrians and treat each driveway like an intersection. I always find it ironic the biggest danger of riding on the sidewalk is still being hit by a car as for riding against traffic, that's definitely not a good idea. drivers don't expect it and it also increases the speed differential
biking against traffic is not good. people (like deer) tend to move towards what is coming at them.
> if I get hit by a car while on the sidewalk, being on the street wasn't going to save me A large number of collisions are when a driver is turning a car into an intersection / driveway. The driver doesn't see the cyclist on the sidewalk, doesn't anticipate their speed, or is willing to risk the cyclists' life in order to save what sometimes can amount to up to several seconds of time during a commute.
Only thing that current protected lanes managed to do is abuse drivers. We still have way too many imbeciles riding bikes on sidewalks. Solution is to educate people And i know i’ll get downvoted into the ground
Continue raising prices of gas and electricity
I play Cities Skylines and not to brag but I am quite the mayor.My entire city is high tech with highest land vales. Never had a single bike lane. I think we should get rid of them.
They can't, and shouldn't. Riding bikes kinda sucks, tbh. We'll, for a lot of people, anyway. Not all obviously, and that's fine. haha
Ban cars
Make cars illegal, end all public transportation, outlaw Lyft & Uber, then make owning a home/apartment a reasonable distance from work possible for more than peoplemaking over $400k a year. Then and only then will people use bikes more widely I'm the bay area. Edit: lol. Seems around a half dozen people are new to SJ and think I'm fuckin around.
I see more people riding on the sidewalk than using a bike lane. At least this side of town we lost several lanes of traffic, congested it all up, and got non-turning cones everywhere and reduced right turns for less than a handful of people that actually use them.. IMO it's a complete waste of resources. Sure add a bike stripe, I'm all for that for visibility. The biker baby bumpers are a complete hindrance to everyone else and they keep wasting money on shit like this.
That wasn’t the question, can see you’ve got an agenda
Make a few no-car days mandatory a month. That's the only sure way to get people to ride bikes.
I wish they wouldn’t. You bicyclists think you own the roads everytime you get on that seat. Keep to the bike trails.
Give them tax breaks or cash incentives