Bikeforums.net is a forum about nothing but bikes. Our community can help you find information about hard-to-find and localized information like bicycle tours, specialties like where in your area to have your recumbent bike serviced, or what are the best bicycle tires and seats for the activities you use your bike for.LittleBigMan
06-24-01, 02:55 PM
On my Saturday commute to a different part of town, my custom has been to follow a carefully contrived route through adjacent neighborhoods and lightly trafficked throughways to reach my destination. It took careful planning to contrive this network of asphalt streets, following their way through many stops and turns. I was very proud of my accomplishment, using my maps. It was a 10 mile trip that took me a respectable 45 minutes.
Yesterday, I changed the program.
I got on Panola road, a wide four laner with high visibility and a 45 mph speed limit, meaning 50 plus mph traffic. I noticed some things almost immediately. I could keep up a 22 - 25 mph pace for long stretches due to the straight, relatively flat road design with few stops. The lanes were wide, and I never felt squeezed.
I could just about maintain half of the traffic speed much of the way. I was really moving along. The only person who honked did so because I passed them. I spent almost the entire time comfortably riding in the center of the right half of the right lane.
Upon arriving, I noticed my 10 mile, 45 minute trip had become an 11.2 mile, 42 minute trip. My average speed increased from about 13.5 mph to exactly 16 miles per hour.
If government planners were really as serious about bicycle transportation as they claim to be, they would provide bike routes with the same kind of efficiency they have planned into building the many freeways we drive on. These were designed with one objective in mind: safe, rapid, efficient routes to carry motor traffic as rapidly as possible to its destination with as few interruptions as possible.
Having said that, I must admit that these government planners have already provided these highly efficient bicycle routes in the roads already existing. Why they deem it practical (in urban settings) to go with a reverse logic for bike routes, that is, to provide slower routes with more interruptions, compromised safety and increased intersections and stops, is beyond my comprehension.
They simply cannot be cyclists, any of them.
Yesterday, I changed the program.
I got on Panola road, a wide four laner with high visibility and a 45 mph speed limit, meaning 50 plus mph traffic. I noticed some things almost immediately. I could keep up a 22 - 25 mph pace for long stretches due to the straight, relatively flat road design with few stops. The lanes were wide, and I never felt squeezed.
I could just about maintain half of the traffic speed much of the way. I was really moving along. The only person who honked did so because I passed them. I spent almost the entire time comfortably riding in the center of the right half of the right lane.
Upon arriving, I noticed my 10 mile, 45 minute trip had become an 11.2 mile, 42 minute trip. My average speed increased from about 13.5 mph to exactly 16 miles per hour.
If government planners were really as serious about bicycle transportation as they claim to be, they would provide bike routes with the same kind of efficiency they have planned into building the many freeways we drive on. These were designed with one objective in mind: safe, rapid, efficient routes to carry motor traffic as rapidly as possible to its destination with as few interruptions as possible.
Having said that, I must admit that these government planners have already provided these highly efficient bicycle routes in the roads already existing. Why they deem it practical (in urban settings) to go with a reverse logic for bike routes, that is, to provide slower routes with more interruptions, compromised safety and increased intersections and stops, is beyond my comprehension.
They simply cannot be cyclists, any of them.