The problem with the NYT article about vision zero is that it casts the problem as one of “the reality on the street” with hardly any mention about the reality in the state capitol or the reality in the courthouses…

Vision Zero is hardly Quixotic. Many other countries have much, much better safety records than the USA. In particular, The Netherlands has the world’s safest roads, with death rates about one third of those in the USA. Source:

http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2009/05/worlds-safest-roads.html

Please notice from the same source that cycling is 17 times more dangerous in the USA than in The Netherlands.

A little closer to home, roads in Canada are about twice as safe as in the USA. In particular, the province of Ontario has the safest roads of any jurisdiction in North America. Source:

http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/safety/orsar/orsar09/foreword.shtml

The two major reasons for these striking differences in road safety are infrastructure and enforcement, with infrastructure being the most important. Dutch pedestrian and cycling infrastructure puts stout physical barriers between people and car drivers. Dutch pedestrian and cycling routes are also largely unravelled from car routes so that people rarely have to interact with car drivers at all. In particular, residential streets in major cities are NOT through routes for car drivers. See:

http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2012/04/100-segregation-of-bikes-and-cars.html

I don’t mean this quite literally, but Hamburg seems to have a real Vision Zero. (Sort of saying this in response to @disqus_ggY8CnVn5H:disqus’ s comment.)

Needless to say, I approve of Hamburg’s goal to join the ranks of cities with car-free downtowns. I see that Hamburg will have a car-light zone around the car-free zone.

In the car-light zone, streets are only through streets for walking, cycling and public transit. Car and truck drivers can only drive there as a destination for people or cargo, and not drive through to somewhere else.

This is the formula in virtually every Dutch city, and seems to work well. In particular, residential streets are NOT through streets for car drivers. This makes residential neighborhoods so much nicer!

New York can easily do the same with a car-free Island of Manhattan. See:

http://www.auto-free.org/

An excerpt:

“Next Tuesday, February 18, Auto-Free New York will celebrate the 25th Anniversary of its advocacy for sustainable transport in NYC.

The meeting will be held at the Transportation Alternatives office, 127 West 26th Street, 10th Fl., in Manhattan, from 6 to 8PM.”

I haven’t had any issue getting a bike locked into a dock. However, twice in the last month I’ve had the dock give me a red light after securely locking the bike. Go figure.

I had a similar issue recently. For me, clearing the snow under the rear wheel did the trick. A couple inches of snow is enough to change the angle of the bike, similar to lifting from the seat to undock it.