by reallydontask on 10/23/21, 6:00 PM with 149 comments
by yawaworht1978 on 10/23/21, 9:14 PM
A role model implementation as far reducing car traffic issues go. Many people use these electro kind skateboards(forgot name) and scooters. And many people just walk. Of course , it needs to be mentioned that Barcelona is not built like American suburb areas, it's all apartment blocks of 3-7 stories, all blocks glued together. It's tight, they even have a convention on how to dry your clothes on balconies and how not to do it. Barcelona has many other issues, the typical ones for large cities, but transport and car traffic, I haven't seen better in Europe.
by GekkePrutser on 10/23/21, 7:14 PM
But if I had kids I wouldn't really let them participate. Even with the police escort, they might lose the group and be on their own in this busy city.
I'm from near Amsterdam myself and there cyclists are the kinds of the road. Here it's very different.
The mayor is very green and she's trying to pedestrianise a lot, but it's limited to a few lane closures and a handful of "superilla" test blocks. I think there is a lot of resistance to it. I really support her efforts but sadly she doesn't seem to be that popular. She also tried to clean up an area near the seafront with seedy nightclubs and casinos but got a lot of flak for that. I often see graffiti blaming her for stuff :(
by frereubu on 10/23/21, 9:16 PM
It was called "Cycle Pods", which would be mini-critical mass rides for commuters. You'd probably need between five and ten riders who cycle the same route each day at a roughly similar pace, so you could register with a route and see whose rides were similar to yours.
The other idea was even more loose, where you'd wear something like a tabard with an identifiable "cycle pods" logo where anyone who was wearing one was effectively advertising that they were open to riding with other people. I preferred this version because it's simpler and decentralised. Anyone could make something with the logo on it, so no purchase or registration needed.
I love the idea of doing it with kids, but honestly some of the reactions we got from car and van drivers with the Critical Mass rides, even when we were going at a decent pace, were incredibly dangerous, and I'd worry about that with kids unless the police were involved, as they were in this Bicibús. We had to have outriders looking out for car drivers who'd try to drive into the middle of the mass. There's something about cyclists taking over the road that really provokes some drivers.
by moralestapia on 10/23/21, 6:20 PM
It got so big that at one point the city decided to close some of the main roads every Sunday, making them exclusive to pedestrians, bicycles, scooters, or whatever-thing-that-is-not-a-car.
by yokaze on 10/23/21, 7:13 PM
6000cars/km² in Barcelona.
San Francisco/Oakland metropolitan area has 4000/sq mi... 1540/km²
Guttenberg, NJ has the highest in the US with 20,600/sq mi (8000/km²)
Source: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.planetizen.com/node/45622%3...
by LeoPanthera on 10/23/21, 8:09 PM
As explained the followup tweets: By extending the route to cover multiple schools, with fixed arrival times at each destination, people can join and leave the "bike bus" as it passes through. Even regular business commuters are joining the bike bus.
I love it.
by alkonaut on 10/23/21, 9:08 PM
by Fargren on 10/23/21, 6:43 PM
by throwaway984393 on 10/23/21, 11:43 PM
Edit: I was not disappointed.
by Aachen on 10/23/21, 7:06 PM
by throwaway2016a on 10/23/21, 8:55 PM
I wish I lived in a more bike friendly area. Here that would result in people being honked at and cars impatiently passing them at high speeds.
by Tomte on 10/23/21, 8:40 PM
by Anthony-G on 10/23/21, 10:43 PM
by throwawaysea on 10/23/21, 8:28 PM
by reducesuffering on 10/23/21, 6:39 PM
by curiousgal on 10/23/21, 7:07 PM
by rektide on 10/23/21, 9:16 PM
i imagine the phones on the bike bus advertising who they are, what their schedule is, who can join, how to join, and letting folks about know what the route is, what disruption to expect, how to plan around this happening.
hoping on the bandwagon is enough to make this happen in some places but i think the core kernel idea could use some shareability & amplifiability in other places. a more reductionist expression is simply that the real world lacks virality potential. projects like Google's Eddystone[1]/Project Lighthouse (2015) are few & far between, underfunded & in Eddystone's case seemingly abandoned, but embuing reality with more of the neat connective capabilities of the computerized info-verse remains- i think- a key enabler.
by xg15 on 10/24/21, 1:54 PM
by gwbas1c on 10/24/21, 12:34 AM
Not exactly the same thing, but quite similar.
by senectus1 on 10/24/21, 1:39 AM
for the record, I cycle, drive a hybrid and am looking to buy an electric car. I'm not singling out cyclists as a hate target. I'm genuinely curious how this is going to work.
by pvaldes on 10/24/21, 9:12 AM
Positive news that are heartwarming and nice but will be irrelevant for the grand scheme of things. Call me cynical if you want, but this is not a real change, is just another PR stunt stuff.
by throw63738 on 10/23/21, 7:31 PM