Originally Posted by
CB HI
Honolulu has bike lanes, bike paths and sharrows. So based on the methods used in the article to determine weather has no impact, then it is clear that bike facilities have no impact.
Funny that you draw that conclusion from the article when it says:
Honolulu has worked in recent years to improve its biking infrastructure, Seitz said, but it’s playing catch-up with other cities. It has about half the share of bike commuters as Minneapolis and ranks 12th in the census survey.
Studying in Honolulu dissuaded Seitz of the notion that biking participation was related to climate. “It was eye-opening,” she said. Here, people bike in winter because “the city is built for it.”
Van Santen, who uses the Cedar Lake Regional Trail and Midtown Greenway, likes “that added feeling of safety” that trails separated from traffic provide, especially in winter.
And in previous posts you seemed to defend the sidewalk riding of half the cyclists in the most recent Honolulu bicycle count because of on road traffic congestion and a lack of room for cyclists on the road, unless they want to sit in traffic.
Originally Posted by CrankyOne
I'm not against increased cycling infrastructe; I'm only saying you can't assume that if you build it they will come.
I agree with much of what you say in your post.
I, too, had been a pretty strict road rider with little use or affinity for bicycle infrastructure. But my tune has changed.
While I support separated infrastructure in concept it depends on implementation much like your comments on bike lanes and sharrows. The difference here is that separated facilities require more time, money, space, investment and commitment so the same cautions you make about poor implementation and design are greater for me around separated structures. Paint is relatively easy, cheap and easy to remove or modify.
I am certainly not saying, nor do I think most of us posting in favor of facilities are under the delusion that simply building facilities will lead to more ridership. I recall visiting in laws in Florida in an area where the road riding was horrible, narrow roads and aggressive drivers with not another cyclist in sight. The next year I got a call from my relatives saying "Bring your bike. They've built a bike path right near the house." When I got there I hopped on the path only to discover that it ran parallel to a side road that was fine for riding, went about two miles running between two city parks and ended. It didn't take you into town or to the beach or anywhere. It attracted some joggers, elderly walkers and mothers with baby strollers who seemed annoyed at the presence of a cyclist.
But building facilities or painting sharrows or lanes, adding bike share programs, bicycle parking, racks on city buses and on commuter trains not only has a strong correlation to increased ridership but for many new cyclists is the direct cause of why they start riding. Denying this link seems to be the indicator of the entrenched, locked down "bike experts" that are near to impossible for anyone, even many fellow cyclists or more enlightened traffic engineers to work with effectively.