Originally Posted by genec

The reasons I understand are that BL are not strictly vehicular; putting cyclists in positions that are not destination positioned and or putting cyclists in a place on the road that is not in compliance with the rules of the road; such as to the right of slower moving traffic... therefore BL are not part of the whole vehicular stance... another reason is that BL set certain expectations in motorists minds about where cyclists are supposed to be... and last, that BL are discriminatory in that they create a special "class" of vehicle with it's own rules.

However the above reasoning while having some merit, tends to fall on deaf ears because bicycles do not fully fit into the traffic pattern of faster moving traffic... Unlike the often given examples of cement trucks and tractors; bicycles are human power vehicles that have different "behaviour" patterns from powered vehicles (and yes I am speaking of cyclists verses vehicles... comparing humans to machines vice comparing the rights of cyclists to the rights of motorists). HPV have different speed and load patterns, and for the most part are a very narrow vehicle that can also easily merge with and operate with walking pedestrians in nearly any environment that peds also access (stairs being the limit).

So while the rights of the operators of each vehicle may be equal, the charateristics are not... and these charateristic differences should not be "equalized" by laws but should embraced and flaunted. We expect cars to go faster... we expect bicycles to "sneak" between cars at stops, we expect bikes to go slow up hills... we expect bikes to be able to access sidewalks. There are expectations based on realities that simply do not fit into a strictly vehicular picture.

In some cases cycling may mean being strictly vehicular... in others it may mean sidewalks and paths offer access to locations that autos cannot access. In some cases the road may be so designed that cyclists are at a severe disadvantage due to speed... do we then force all operators of other vehicles to acquiesce to the limitations of HPV, or do we simply provide different facilities? Where is the line we are willing to draw?

Where the vehicular only stance falls short is that being strictly vehicular misses embracing some of the unique charateristics of a bicycle... and attempts to force HPV to fit into the powered vehicle world.

Bike lanes are an attempt to capitalize on some of the charateristics of bikes while granting acceptable access to the roads... in an attempt to maintain the aforementioned rights of all users of the road. The result has been some perceived diminished rights to the road, but these diminished rights are not based on the designs of BL, but on the misconceptions of the powered vehicle operators and an overwhelming desire to give the majority vehicles on the road (with different operating charateristics) a majority of the road surface.

BL are not perfect... but then neither is strict vehicular cycling... the reality is that utilizing all the charateristics of a bike, an operator is likely to be in many different modes... and using BL are just part of the larger picture.