Re: [BicycleDriving] Digest for bicycledriving@googlegroups.com - 3 updates in 1 topic

[Sara Reid]

This is one city that hasn't had fatalities of cyclists and peds for years. I don't know what the crash rate is, and it's daylighting the intersections that seemed to improve safety for peds and cyclists. ZERO Roadway Fatalities in Hoboken for the Last Four Years! - The New Jersey Bicycle and Pedestrian Resource Center

ZERO Roadway Fatalities in Hoboken for the Last Four Years! - The New Je... Imagine a place with no roadway fatalities, where children and seniors can safely walk on the streets. There is ...

On Saturday, February 7, 2026 at 10:26:36 AM CST, bicycle...@googlegroups.com <bicycle...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

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Digest for bicycle...@googlegroups.com - 1 update in 1 topic

Frank Krygowski <frkr...@gmail.com>: Feb 06 11:52AM -0500 There was quite a lot of interesting reading there!   I've got a question based on a statement in one cited article, https://www.denvergazette.com/2026/02/03/vision-zero-as-denver-doubles-down-fatalities-keep-climbing/   In that article, they say former chief traffic engineer "Royer cited one study done in 2022 surveying cities that had adopted VZ.   “Every major city that had adopted it saw an increase in fatalities,” Royer said. “They’re doing the wrong things.”   I wonder what study that was.

khal spencer <recn...@gmail.com>: Feb 06 10:24AM -0700 Way back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, I wrote up a little piece on Bremen, Germany, where separated facilities were in the German model, with emphasis on intersection traffic control for motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians and people rigidly playing by the rules were part of the deal. Engineering controls can work (I worked 15 years in a high hazard nuclear facility and was in charge of one of the laboratories), but only if done right: they must be complete and solve the problem for each of the various hazards in the situation. That thinking is sadly lacking in the U.S., where we just put up bollards and paint stripes and declare victory. We recently had a cyclist killed in Santa Fe at the Cerrillos Road/St. Francis Drive intersection when the cyclist rode into an intersection in the Cerrillos bike lane with the green and a motorist made an illegal left turn across three "car lanes" and the "bike lane". The cyclist hit him hard enough to be killed at the scene.   I doubt the cyclist and the left turning motorist ever saw each other until, as someone here quips, "the moment of impact", as they were screened from each other by multiple lanes of large vehicles. The motorist was able to stop the oncoming vehicles by blocking the travel lane, but he did not block the bike lane. Bam. The motorist was cited for careless driving and was clearly at fault. I hope he is sued out of his firstborn. The cyclist, a very experienced racer, was dead.   I rode on similar urban arterials (Chuck Marohn calls them "Stroads") in Honolulu almost daily as it was on my bike ride to and from work (Kalanianaole Highway and Waialaie Ave in East Oahu, in case anyone here is from Paradise). I never entered an intersection without slowing a little, observing, and thinking "what the hell can go wrong here"? With or without bicycle infrastructure, defensive riding, situational awareness, and bike handling skills are needed.   I really liked Frank's piece and think Benedict's was myopic. Sure, there are serious tradeoffs. I hound our local designers about the multiple turning and crossing conflicts that are intensified if motorists and cyclists are lulled into thinking they are in different worlds. I was almost smeared all over the pavement on one visit to Boulder when riding in a "buffered bike lane" when a motorist made a high speed turn across it. Fortunately, as usual, I anticipated the worst and just watched him fly by.   Sadly, as Preston Tyree once muttered to us in an LCI training class, too many people think they learned everything they need to know about bicycling by the 4th Grade. And the "pure facilities" people agree.   Khal Spencer LCI 1173 Santa Fe, NM

khal spencer <recn...@gmail.com>: Feb 06 10:36AM -0700 Way back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, I wrote up a little piece on Bremen, Germany, where separated facilities were in the German model, with emphasis on intersection traffic control for motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians and people rigidly playing by the rules were part of the deal. Engineering controls can work (I worked 15 years in a high hazard nuclear facility and was in charge of one of the laboratories), but only if done right: they must be complete and solve the problem for each of the various hazards in the situation. That thinking is sadly lacking in the U.S., where we just put up bollards and paint stripes and declare victory. We recently had a cyclist killed in Santa Fe at the Cerrillos Road/St. Michaels Drive intersection (oops, I had to correct that) when the cyclist rode into an intersection in the Cerrillos bike lane with the green and a motorist made an illegal left turn across three "car lanes" and the "bike lane". The cyclist hit him hard enough to be killed at the scene.   I doubt the cyclist and the left turning motorist ever saw each other until, as someone here quips, "the moment of impact", as they were screened from each other by multiple lanes of large vehicles. The motorist was able to stop the oncoming vehicles by blocking the travel lane, but he did not block the bike lane. Bam. The motorist was cited for careless driving and was clearly at fault. I hope he is sued out of his firstborn. The cyclist, a very experienced racer, was dead.   I rode on similar urban arterials (Chuck Marohn calls them "Stroads") in Honolulu almost daily as it was on my bike ride to and from work (Kalanianaole Highway and Waialaie Ave in East Oahu, in case anyone here is from Paradise). I never entered an intersection without slowing a little, observing, and thinking "what the hell can go wrong here"? With or without bicycle infrastructure, defensive riding, situational awareness, and bike handling skills are needed.   I really liked Frank's piece and think Benedict's was myopic. Sure, there are serious tradeoffs. I hound our local designers about the multiple turning and crossing conflicts that are intensified if motorists and cyclists are lulled into thinking they are in different worlds. I was almost smeared all over the pavement on one visit to Boulder when riding in a "buffered bike lane" when a motorist made a high speed turn across it. Fortunately, as usual, I anticipated the worst and just watched him fly by.   Sadly, as Preston Tyree once muttered to us in an LCI training class, too many people think they learned everything they need to know about bicycling by the 4th Grade. And the "pure facilities" people agree.   Khal Spencer LCI 1173 Santa Fe, NM

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[PetevanNuys]

I believe it's speed limit reduction, from 25 to 20, that made the biggest difference. That's a 20% reduction in kinetic energy, reducing injury and the likelihood of death. Combined with daylighting intersections visibility from a car and therefore reaction time are enhanced. 
But-- the most important thing may be the public statements by city leaders and the consistency of work performed over several years-- this sends a strong public message that alt-trans modes are RESPECTED in Hoboken. Actual cultural change?!

[Willie Hunt]

BTW, Kinetic Energy = 1/2 * Mass * Velocity ^ 2 (squared).  Thus, dropping from 25 to 20 is a 36% reduction in kinetic energy, or increasing to 25 from 20 is 1.56x more energy.  This is why a 60 MPH crash causes so much damage compared with at 20 MPH crash; it's 9x the kinetic energy (basically a full order of magnitude) !  Of course the mechanics of a motor vehicle / cyclist crash is extremely complex, but to first order approximation the damage done will increase with the square of the motor vehicle speed.

Willie

[Frank J. Lehnerz]

That NJ Bike Ped article doesn't say how many fatalities there were per year before the VZ implementation which is a bit of a red flag.

But here's another thing - Hoboken is also a small city area-wise at just shy of 2 square miles not including the portion that extends out into the Hudson and is the fourth most densely populated municipality in the US. 

It's a grid layout with small blocks, narrow streets (especially with all the parallel parking) and void of stroad-ype roads making for a lot of built-in traffic calming even before the VZ projects. 

A good chunk of the residents live there but commute to NYC for work meaning owning or using a car (especially with the new cordon pricing) is a major pain in the butt. 

 This article is a bit dated (2013) but apparently their car ownership rate among city residents is extremely low for US standards at 20%. 

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