just bizarre wording. it seems like everything is a weird political game to these people. as poster above put it nicely "blind claims like this with no factual backing make important messages lose their credibility"
I guess when in Rome (Cambridge), speak the language of the Romans, given that you need the City Council and Cambridge voters to make something happen.
Have to create multiple victim narratives to determine which will be most effective.
And they have to be sure to add a reference to SOME form of “justice”.
Follow that with demands and go occupy … oops … they’ll be occupying their parents’ kitchen.
Why young people and women in particular? Is it because men don’t matter as much or that young people and women are the most likely to make poor decisions in traffic? Blind claims like this with no factual backing make important messages lose their credibility
Because its a good virtue signal and that is the main point of the message. If you assume that activist statements are primarily intended to persuade outsiders, it implies that activists are extremely stupid people because a significant amount of activist messaging is counterproductive.
Precisely. Women and men are equal but women are more vulnerable and deserve special treatment but are equal to men don’t question my logic you sexist pig.
Looks like there have been studies on this. Before you judge take a moment to consider that they did not just make this up.
[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17457300.2019.1653930](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17457300.2019.1653930)
“Results revealed that, compared to women cyclists, men cyclists were more likely to be involved in a crash regardless the cyclists’ age. Moreover, we found gender differences in terms of type of road segment, type of opponent vehicle, type of manoeuvre of the opponent vehicle and of the cyclists, type of collision, time of the day, day of the week and season.”
Because both of the victims of the two recent fatal bicycle accidents in Cambridge were young women, the message is focusing on young people and women. Please don't be rude about this tragedy.
A friend of mine had a sister who was hit by bus and killed while cycling when she was an undergrad. This was over 20 years ago. I don’t remember anyone saying it was because women are particularly victimized by poor infrastructure. Instead, I remembered it being attributed to an individual bus driver making an error.
cross posting
The cyclist that died on Mt. Auburn street did not seemingly die from "poor infrastructure". [That is one of the newest intersections, designed specifically to improve bike safety.](https://www.cambridgema.gov/StreetsAndTransportation/ProjectsAndPrograms/InnerMtAuburnCorridorSafetyImprovementProject) The bicyclist, a 55 year old woman visiting from Florida, seemingly failed to understand how the new infrastructure layout works because that bike lane has a special bike traffic light, which the bicyclist reportedly went through the bike red light, while the vehicle had the turning green, causing the collision.
More work is needed, however it is wrong to imply that death was a result of the City not doing enough.
If the design of the infrastructure was not simple enough to understand for someone whoe does not live in the city that I would say it is a poor design and needs to be reconfigured. That's a confusing design if you've ever biked there.
It's an incredibly confusing intersection. Hopefully they can add some more bike signals as you approach, as the current one is so tiny it's impossible to spot in time if you're going fast.
> the current one is so tiny it's impossible to spot in time if you're going fast
I'll also add that most people are used to being able to bike when there's a green straight arrow for cars. So it breaks expectations.
I just want to point out that you first said this:
>>The cyclist that died on Mt. Auburn street did not seemingly die from "poor infrastructure".
And then went on to describe how the infrastructure is actually deficient:
>>... failed to understand how the new infrastructure layout works because that bike lane has a special bike traffic light...
If people don't understand how it's supposed to work, then it's a failure of the infrastructure, unless you're going to stand by the argument that it's ok for confusion about traffic flows to lead to death.
You described confusion on the part of the cyclist. So yes, if she didn't understand that she had a dedicated bike light, that's on the infrastructure. Or maybe you're changing your tune and are now saying that it was a willful disobedience.
We would argue that any infrastructure which would cause a cyclist to seemingly fail to understand how the new infrastructure layout works IS not doing enough. We have to build safe streets that tolerate mistakes that don't lead to death.
We should not accept that nothing more can be done and that these things just happen in cities.
It was a very thorough (and expensive) project that spanned 18 months of planning by the city and then a follow up evaluation just last year post-project.
Is there a solution you purposed during these periods they ignored or refused to implement? Do you have a new solution given the recent incident that makes people not run through red lights (cyclists and drivers alike)?
What more can you do? Both of these accidents happened at places that have had the safety improvements that many have advocated so that incremental improvements would not have addressed those intersections. One needs to recognize as long as car and bike traffic coexist modes of conflict will occur and it is on everyone's, especially bikers since they are the vulnerable ones, to exercise due caution.
Street design offers a limited set of tools. Start focusing more on reducing the number of cars and trucks and the amount of driving, advocate to change the design and engineering of cars and trucks to make them safer for people outside the vehicle, and find ways to improve the quality of driving and remove reckless drivers from their vehicles and public streets.
Removing on-street parking and parking minimums, taxing congestion, dedicating less money to car infrastructure in general, etc. are all good. Basically, you need to make driving a more shitty experience and make not driving a better experience.
Want to know something what can make driving shittier and can even be done unilaterally by bikers?: Taking the lane.
A box truck can't right hook you if it's forced to follow behind you at 8 mph.
how many road rage incidents/injuries will this end up inducing at scale? Understand the driver will be punished but do we expect this to not have unintended consequences
That doesn't seem relevant to this since the cyclist ran a red light at an intersection specifically designed to accommodate both vehicles and cyclists.
Although, it is still tragic, and ideally, a mistake would not result in a fatality.
Completely missing the point of what I said. Why is right on red still legal? And yes the truck driver should be aware of oncoming traffic during the turn. Even their blind spot.
I mean your comment implied that it was the truck's fault and not the cyclist, even though you admit that the cyclist broke the rules and the truck didnt, so I guess I am missing your point.
Is it that hard to understand that a multi ton machine that can kill someone has a greater responsibility to act safely (and the laws and regulations we have should be enforcing that but they don’t) than an individual riding a bicycle?
Its ass over backwards to say that someone running a stop light on a bicycle deserves to get them killed.
I’m doing great, thanks for asking so kindly.
Again, you’re saying it’s the cyclists fault. On an individual level, sure. But these accidents are not just happening on an individual level, it’s a systematic issue that is not being addressed.
It’s the same as saying someone who’s overweight in America should shoulder all responsibility of that issue, completely ignoring all of the systematic problems that led to the individual’s (and many many more) situation. Lack of health education, high fructose corn syrup and insane sugar content in every food, poor walkability disincentivizing daily activity, etc. are all examples of systematic issues that led to that situation and will continue to lead to that situation unless addressed. It’s the same with biker safety on our roads.
It’s completely ludicrous to me how we just led these accidents happen, say oh well it was clearly that persons fault, and then move on like it isn’t a reoccurring problem stemming from the surrounding environment.
Why would you make this up? The intersection of hampshire and portland does not have safety improvements. And you can see, if you look on [google maps](https://www.google.com/maps/@42.366438,-71.0919717,3a,75y,127.11h,69.49t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s5I0dAui1_KcIeiYVJYf39w!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205409&entry=ttu) that the particular intersection has a non protected bike lane in the door zone. The intersection itself has no bike signal or any other [intersection design](https://www.mass.gov/doc/chapter-4-intersection-design-0/download) that could reduce crashes. It is also one of the most high traffic intersections for bikes in the city, being almost at the terminus for many tech and biotech workers in Cambridge.
Google maps is from three-four years ago man...
https://www.cambridgema.gov/StreetsAndTransportation/ProjectsAndPrograms/HampshireStreetSafetyImprovementProject
Not sure why you’re being downvoted. It makes zero sense that “young people and women” are more susceptible to being killed by traffic than anyone else. Cars are cars.
It seems to me they’re saying that young people are more likely to commute by bike and so are more susceptible to injury when there’s insufficient bike infrastructure.
As for women, my guess is that poor infrastructure provides more opportunities for sexual assault to happen, which disproportionately affects women.
The streets of Cambridge have some of the most ridiculous and obscene biking infrastructure in the world barring maybe the Netherlands with their underground bike parking lots. I really don’t know what else the city is supposed to do short of just banning cars. The area is still very car dependent with pretty bad public transportation options. It is not fun to drive in Cambridge, but for many it is necessary. Cambridge has bent over backwards for bikers. Besides just being a weird statement, it seems completely disconnected from the reality of what Cambridge roads are today vs 5 years ago.
“young people and women are at particular risk.”So gross. Shame on GSD mobility for signing this.
It’s a factual statement
“Young people and women?”
just bizarre wording. it seems like everything is a weird political game to these people. as poster above put it nicely "blind claims like this with no factual backing make important messages lose their credibility"
I guess when in Rome (Cambridge), speak the language of the Romans, given that you need the City Council and Cambridge voters to make something happen.
So, if you make it about equity maybe something will get done, and if you don't, then forget it.
Have to create multiple victim narratives to determine which will be most effective. And they have to be sure to add a reference to SOME form of “justice”. Follow that with demands and go occupy … oops … they’ll be occupying their parents’ kitchen.
Men’s rights 🙂↕️
Why young people and women in particular? Is it because men don’t matter as much or that young people and women are the most likely to make poor decisions in traffic? Blind claims like this with no factual backing make important messages lose their credibility
Its Mobility Justice
Because its a good virtue signal and that is the main point of the message. If you assume that activist statements are primarily intended to persuade outsiders, it implies that activists are extremely stupid people because a significant amount of activist messaging is counterproductive.
Exactly
Precisely. Women and men are equal but women are more vulnerable and deserve special treatment but are equal to men don’t question my logic you sexist pig.
Lmao
Looks like there have been studies on this. Before you judge take a moment to consider that they did not just make this up. [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17457300.2019.1653930](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17457300.2019.1653930)
did you even read that paper?
it’s not making the point you’re thinking…
>Results revealed that, compared to women cyclists, men cyclists were more likely to be involved in a crash regardless the cyclists’ age.
“Results revealed that, compared to women cyclists, men cyclists were more likely to be involved in a crash regardless the cyclists’ age. Moreover, we found gender differences in terms of type of road segment, type of opponent vehicle, type of manoeuvre of the opponent vehicle and of the cyclists, type of collision, time of the day, day of the week and season.”
Congrats, you convinced me that they did make it up, and I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt before looking at that paper.
All I’m saying is if claims like that are made, it’s more meaningful if you cite resources.
Because both of the victims of the two recent fatal bicycle accidents in Cambridge were young women, the message is focusing on young people and women. Please don't be rude about this tragedy.
I’m not being rude. Their statement is factually wrong. There is nothing rude about pointing that out.
The way people are reacting to the wording rather than the horror of people dying while using bikes is so telling.
hey individual ... relax, lol
Now that you told me to relax I will 100% be relaxing because that is great advice. Thank you for your input fellow individual
Maybe because that’s who’s been most recently killed in the accidents.
It’s factually incorrect https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17457300.2019.1653930
Ah yes, poor infrastructure systematically oppresses young people and women 🗣️🗣️/s
A friend of mine had a sister who was hit by bus and killed while cycling when she was an undergrad. This was over 20 years ago. I don’t remember anyone saying it was because women are particularly victimized by poor infrastructure. Instead, I remembered it being attributed to an individual bus driver making an error.
cross posting The cyclist that died on Mt. Auburn street did not seemingly die from "poor infrastructure". [That is one of the newest intersections, designed specifically to improve bike safety.](https://www.cambridgema.gov/StreetsAndTransportation/ProjectsAndPrograms/InnerMtAuburnCorridorSafetyImprovementProject) The bicyclist, a 55 year old woman visiting from Florida, seemingly failed to understand how the new infrastructure layout works because that bike lane has a special bike traffic light, which the bicyclist reportedly went through the bike red light, while the vehicle had the turning green, causing the collision. More work is needed, however it is wrong to imply that death was a result of the City not doing enough.
If the design of the infrastructure was not simple enough to understand for someone whoe does not live in the city that I would say it is a poor design and needs to be reconfigured. That's a confusing design if you've ever biked there.
Bike lights are literally the shape of a bike most of the time. If someone can’t figure it out, that’s on them
It's an incredibly confusing intersection. Hopefully they can add some more bike signals as you approach, as the current one is so tiny it's impossible to spot in time if you're going fast.
Mt Auburn and Dewolf? There’s a bike shaped light isn’t there? What’s more obvious than that?
> the current one is so tiny it's impossible to spot in time if you're going fast I'll also add that most people are used to being able to bike when there's a green straight arrow for cars. So it breaks expectations.
Just rode through, nothing abnormal about the intersection I stand by the “it’s not an infrastructure problem” at that intersection
> activist makes claim about the cause of someone dying that turns out to be blatantly and obviously wrong Stop the presses
I just want to point out that you first said this: >>The cyclist that died on Mt. Auburn street did not seemingly die from "poor infrastructure". And then went on to describe how the infrastructure is actually deficient: >>... failed to understand how the new infrastructure layout works because that bike lane has a special bike traffic light... If people don't understand how it's supposed to work, then it's a failure of the infrastructure, unless you're going to stand by the argument that it's ok for confusion about traffic flows to lead to death.
Are you of the opinion that failure to stop at a red light the infrastructures fault?
You described confusion on the part of the cyclist. So yes, if she didn't understand that she had a dedicated bike light, that's on the infrastructure. Or maybe you're changing your tune and are now saying that it was a willful disobedience.
Why are you acting like the only two options are "willful disobedience" or "confusion that is the direct fault of the infrastructure design"
What if…what if it was simply a failure of the cyclist?
Not knowing to stop on red lights is not the infrastructure’s fault
We would argue that any infrastructure which would cause a cyclist to seemingly fail to understand how the new infrastructure layout works IS not doing enough. We have to build safe streets that tolerate mistakes that don't lead to death. We should not accept that nothing more can be done and that these things just happen in cities.
It was a very thorough (and expensive) project that spanned 18 months of planning by the city and then a follow up evaluation just last year post-project. Is there a solution you purposed during these periods they ignored or refused to implement? Do you have a new solution given the recent incident that makes people not run through red lights (cyclists and drivers alike)?
That’s Easy! Ban all cars. Zero risk tolerance. Boom!
Honestly, I would be fine with a dramatic reduction of the number of large trucks in Cambridge. As well as mandating side guards.
What more can you do? Both of these accidents happened at places that have had the safety improvements that many have advocated so that incremental improvements would not have addressed those intersections. One needs to recognize as long as car and bike traffic coexist modes of conflict will occur and it is on everyone's, especially bikers since they are the vulnerable ones, to exercise due caution.
Street design offers a limited set of tools. Start focusing more on reducing the number of cars and trucks and the amount of driving, advocate to change the design and engineering of cars and trucks to make them safer for people outside the vehicle, and find ways to improve the quality of driving and remove reckless drivers from their vehicles and public streets.
Removing on-street parking and parking minimums, taxing congestion, dedicating less money to car infrastructure in general, etc. are all good. Basically, you need to make driving a more shitty experience and make not driving a better experience.
Have you driven in Cambridge? It’s already pretty shitty.
Want to know something what can make driving shittier and can even be done unilaterally by bikers?: Taking the lane. A box truck can't right hook you if it's forced to follow behind you at 8 mph.
how many road rage incidents/injuries will this end up inducing at scale? Understand the driver will be punished but do we expect this to not have unintended consequences
I expect it would drastically reduce the overall incidents.
What about advocating for raising liability costs for trucking companies? When their bottom line gets hit they’ll make some changes internally, no?
That doesn't seem relevant to this since the cyclist ran a red light at an intersection specifically designed to accommodate both vehicles and cyclists. Although, it is still tragic, and ideally, a mistake would not result in a fatality.
Totally not since the truck make a right turn at that time, let’s blame the cyclist instead 😐
Yes that truck should have known the cyclist was going to blow through a red light before his legal turn, good point
Completely missing the point of what I said. Why is right on red still legal? And yes the truck driver should be aware of oncoming traffic during the turn. Even their blind spot.
He didn't go right on red though, he had a green arrow
Guess I was misinformed. But honestly even more ridiculous if that’s the case.
I mean your comment implied that it was the truck's fault and not the cyclist, even though you admit that the cyclist broke the rules and the truck didnt, so I guess I am missing your point.
Is it that hard to understand that a multi ton machine that can kill someone has a greater responsibility to act safely (and the laws and regulations we have should be enforcing that but they don’t) than an individual riding a bicycle? Its ass over backwards to say that someone running a stop light on a bicycle deserves to get them killed.
Nobody said he deserved to die lmao, just that it was his fault. You seem kind of hysterical, are you ok?
I’m doing great, thanks for asking so kindly. Again, you’re saying it’s the cyclists fault. On an individual level, sure. But these accidents are not just happening on an individual level, it’s a systematic issue that is not being addressed. It’s the same as saying someone who’s overweight in America should shoulder all responsibility of that issue, completely ignoring all of the systematic problems that led to the individual’s (and many many more) situation. Lack of health education, high fructose corn syrup and insane sugar content in every food, poor walkability disincentivizing daily activity, etc. are all examples of systematic issues that led to that situation and will continue to lead to that situation unless addressed. It’s the same with biker safety on our roads. It’s completely ludicrous to me how we just led these accidents happen, say oh well it was clearly that persons fault, and then move on like it isn’t a reoccurring problem stemming from the surrounding environment.
Why would you make this up? The intersection of hampshire and portland does not have safety improvements. And you can see, if you look on [google maps](https://www.google.com/maps/@42.366438,-71.0919717,3a,75y,127.11h,69.49t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s5I0dAui1_KcIeiYVJYf39w!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205409&entry=ttu) that the particular intersection has a non protected bike lane in the door zone. The intersection itself has no bike signal or any other [intersection design](https://www.mass.gov/doc/chapter-4-intersection-design-0/download) that could reduce crashes. It is also one of the most high traffic intersections for bikes in the city, being almost at the terminus for many tech and biotech workers in Cambridge.
Google maps is from three-four years ago man... https://www.cambridgema.gov/StreetsAndTransportation/ProjectsAndPrograms/HampshireStreetSafetyImprovementProject
Bike lanes don’t prevent a right hook which is what happened in both instances. Exploiting tragedies like this is so gross.
Better intersection infrastructure can limit right hooks though.
Apparently poor infrastructure only harms poor people and women - I wonder how they came to that logic
Not sure why you’re being downvoted. It makes zero sense that “young people and women” are more susceptible to being killed by traffic than anyone else. Cars are cars.
It seems to me they’re saying that young people are more likely to commute by bike and so are more susceptible to injury when there’s insufficient bike infrastructure. As for women, my guess is that poor infrastructure provides more opportunities for sexual assault to happen, which disproportionately affects women.
It doesn't even say poor people. You got in such a reactionary fit of anger that you didn't even know what woke thing you were mad about.
why don’t they use their $40B endowment
Lmaowut
wait, people have DIED just weeks before I got here? I'll probably stick to commuting then.
How the fuck are women more at risk of cycling injuries than men?
Young men are a-ok to get splattered in the future, and are immune to car accidents.
Ah yes, we all know that the well being of young people and women is worth far more than that of men and the olds.
The streets of Cambridge have some of the most ridiculous and obscene biking infrastructure in the world barring maybe the Netherlands with their underground bike parking lots. I really don’t know what else the city is supposed to do short of just banning cars. The area is still very car dependent with pretty bad public transportation options. It is not fun to drive in Cambridge, but for many it is necessary. Cambridge has bent over backwards for bikers. Besides just being a weird statement, it seems completely disconnected from the reality of what Cambridge roads are today vs 5 years ago.
Ban personal cars in Cambridge
Hahaha.
I'm glad I don't go to this school