Originally Posted by
UberGeek
I'll cede that there are some areas that are completely hostile to cycling, in all regards.
However, those areas, are, by and large, minimal when it comes to the vast majority of people deciding not to cycle more. It usually works out to just laziness.
The two largest cities in NYS, both of which are in the process of building more cycle facilities. And both have a mode share of under 2%. Neither are close to even being as hostile as your area. My city doesn't even have nearly as much infra as say, NYC, and it's almost a dream to cycle here.
Oh I fully agree... people rationalize that they have spent "good money" for their "rolling couches" and have a hard time pulling the bike out of the garage, putting air in the tires and then climbing aboard, especially when they know how much they "hate" encountering cyclists out on the road. The mentality is a negative circle; they end up reinforcing their laziness with justification about how bad cycling is and thus make cycling bad for others by driving in an aggressive manner.
Now that said and aside... the cool thing for me is I keep a boat in an area that is best reached by bike... there are good paths that parallel the high speed arterial road and there are actually nice bike path short cuts around some connecting traffic loops that are something of a pain to drive... so my incentive to bike is further increased by the really poor motor vehicle layout in that area, and the pretty good paths. Too bad that treatment only occurs in a small part of town... as always, tons of money goes into anything for motor vehicles while ignoring the obvious small improvements for cyclists.