Originally Posted by
John Forester
It ain't that simple. On most roadways cyclists can ride safely as fast as their physical capacity allows. Why then should government build bikeways which are safe only when used at less than half of the roadway attainable speed? More important still, why should government then require all cyclists to use such facilities, where present? These issues are of importance, but are rarely discussed.
As you and I have discussed many times before... shared road use works in two circumstances... either the road speeds are low enough that everyone is traveling at human speeds... around 25MPH or so... similar to the conditions you met when you were young and lived in England, or that are shown in that typical 1906 San Francisco video. But when road speeds go up... when the speeds exceed 15MPH over what a cyclist can maintain, then negotiation between motorists and cyclists becomes difficult and cyclists become obstacles to motorists. And while the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles SHOULD allow that all can share the road, the selfish motorists tend to refuse to slow down to the speeds of the other road users moving slowly in front and start to cause grief for human powered vehicle road users. And enough slow road users will slow down the traffic for all road users, even as the motorists weave and dodge the slow road users.
The second scenario is roads wide enough to share safely... a somewhat ideal situation... but again not done everywhere. And such roads do tend to push cyclists to the far right of the road...
So either the government builds alternate roads or paths, or slows all traffic down to human speeds or builds wide roads.
Gas prices will continue to rise as Oil becomes a more and more limited resource; so over time, either alternatives to oil will be used to propel motorized vehicles, in which case the current shared road situation will continue, or more and more people will resort to human powered vehicles, in which case the government will have to respond in some manner by changing laws or building alternatives to high speed narrow roads.
The current status quo of oil based automobiles will not continue... although it is highly likely that neither you nor I will be around to see the end of the oil based automobile and thus the the changes that will happen.
Argue all you want, the reign of the oil based automobile is limited. Automobiles have only been around just over 100 years... a tiny blip in the history of man. And the resources to continue the use of the oil based auto are quite limited.
The World Has 53.3 Years of Oil Left
I suspect that electric based motor vehicles will then dominate the landscape... powered by nuclear power, solar power, wind power and perhaps even coal. In that situation, the same conditions I spelled out in the first paragraph will still exist between slow human powered vehicles and fast motor powered vehicles. We will still have to share space which leads to conflict.
Actually, John, I suspect over time Vehicular Cycling will really dominate... (your dream will be fulfilled) as electric motor based self driving vehicles dominate the landscape and the current use model of individual owned oil based automobiles fades away.
Where Robot Cars (Robocars) Can Really Take Us The self driving robot cars will strictly obey the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles and thus will obediently give way to slower human powered vehicles, but the public outcry of the delays that this will cause on narrow roads will cause alternatives to be built in areas where heavy traffic exists... in densely populated areas.
But again, we won't be around to see it. I may see some of it... as I am a couple decades younger than you.. and already I see changes to the driving landscape that you continue to deny... even simple things such as bike lanes in Lemon Grove... which did not exist back when I lived there in the '80s and '90s. But who knows.