Category Archives: Please fix it

Public bikes vs Public infrastructure

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Madrid’s public bicycles are great: they include fenders, front and rear lights, they are electric, they have gears, a chain saver and even a front basket. There are plenty of them throughout the city and they aren’t expensive to use.

However, this doesn’t mean it is widely used. As a matter of fact, Madrid has 3+ million inhabitants but BiciMAD is only used about 150.000 times a day.

But why?. Well, on the one hand Madrid is quite a walkable city, but it’s also true that there are a lot of drivers which increase pollution way too much. The main reason, I think, is because the lack of bike related infrastructure. I had a really hard time finding bike ways, and even when I did, they were often blocked by tables, chairs or people because they weren’t properly differentiated. Additionally, most people will find frightening having a bike way you have to share with cars, which is what Madrid does on big avenues.

Therefore, I’d love politicians all around the globe not to think about public bicycles as an easy way to appear in the media, but to think about it in a global and organic way: Create a bike culture, provide good and safe facilities, and people will forever love you. Like the lads of en bici por Madrid ask.

bicimad

faltantornillos.net

Guess which color are bikeways in Seattle

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Patterns are used all around public infrastructure to help us remembering what should we do. Therefore, using different materials, colors and designs prevents drivers from remembering to look for bikes. The Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands know this well, that’s why they always use the same color and shade, and they have a very limited number of designs. However, consistency seems to be impossible to find in Seattle because the city is rather focusing on expanding its cycling facilities instead.guessWhichColorAreBikewaysOnSeattle

Paint Allergy

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Strange as it sounds, I often see people driving in the middle of a two way road. They can easily cause an accident, but they aren’t drunk or high. So what’s happening?. Simply put, the white lines that guide us in our journeys are not there, and this is often found around the city.

And the crazier thing is that in order to solve this issue all we need is some paint, to make sure our roads look like roads, instead of minimalist abstract paintings.

paintAllergy

Green is the wrong orange

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greenIsTheWrongOrange1

Every couple of days I witness a biker or a walker on the brink of being run over by a car. How come?: Seattle’s orange traffic lights are green!.

Incredible as it sounds, Seattle gives green lights to cars turning into crosswalks which have a green light too, resulting in a very dangerous situation that could be solved easily by making sure cars are given an orange light when turning into crosswalks with a green one, like the rest of the civilized world does.

This is a simple fix that requires no additional infrastructure, so please, Seattle, fix it!.

greenIsTheWrongOrange2

faltantornillos.net

How not to build a bike line

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Bike lines constitute an easy and visible way to put on a brave face regarding green politics. This is clearly how non- or little-cyclist believe it. In real life, it is far more complicated. Bike lines produce a false feeling of security while riding, specially when it is shared with pedestrians. Accidents are produced by distractions or by their bad locations. For example, look at the point A in the next photo.

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The fact of the small distance between the bike line and the wall, makes it perfectly possible to suffer an accident. This idea is reinforced if you take into account that the building at the right is a school and children run freely in working days.

Sometimes bike lines are given in to cars. In photo number 2, the bike line curves in an almost chaotic way in order to respect the parking car. Again, most cities are proned to cars, not to people.

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Few times bike line colors confound cyclists, like in the case of photos 3 and 4, both corresponding to the same avenue and different pavements. Here, red and green are used instead of define a homogeneous color.

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Photo 4 also shows obstacles and potholes make riding difficult. Constructing a bike line is much more than just painting lines in the pavement. Maintenance is needed and cases like photos 5 and 6 should be avoided.

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Absurdities like photo 7 can make us thinking in another reason why bike line should be on highways, not on pavements. Here, people and bikes are virtually incompatible.

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Moreover, curbs should be considered to facilitate an easy riding and avoid unnecessary jumps such as those in photo 8.

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Finally, if you want a free ticket to the roller coaster, just ride in the photo 9, where there are three ups-and-downs to access to car parkings corresponding to points A, B and C.

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