John forester's statements shows little to no recognition of basic traffic engineering concepts and wholly ignore federal policy mandates and guidance planning for bicycles in the transportation mix on american roadways.

Federal policy guidance emphasizes the recognition and planning for bike traffic on the vast majority of roads in this country.

Regarding bikes and cars mixing it up on public roads, One simple issue: right hook and right of way violations by other road users. Even the most rudimentary look at right hook collisions makes it clear that even when all road lines are removed, right hook dangers remain.

Another issue, a real gorilla on the basketball court is speed differential. Speed differential increases right hook and left cross dangers. Speed differential can create road friction between two distinct styles of vehicles operating on the roads.

Harassment as a result of speed differential is often written about in bike forums, for instance, indeed stands as the single most significant factor in motorist/bicyclist friction (but not actual collision) by all popular accounting of the issues.

Higher speed differentials and high volumes of traffic combine to makes claiming travel lanes or safe lane negotiation difficult for bicyclists.


the combination of speed and traffic volumes can make road sharing more challenging for bicyclists. the FHWA recognizes this and john forester does to. john has written about the palpable difficulty of speed differentials to a bicyclist. His patented 'road sneak maneuver' of not taking up lane space between two platoons of faster moving traffic while changing lanes for example, is a nod from john to the gorilla of speed differential.

Another issue is popular uptake of bicycling and rider share. Why does Germany see such high rider share by its men AND women senior citizens? What are some of the tangible social and roadscape differences between germany and the US, and how does it affect each countries' bikeshare?

Could american policy and roadscapes be reworked to remove barriers affecting populist roadway bicycling in this country utilizing some of the ways seen in other countries with much higher rider shares?



John forester opines conditions for bicycling transportation in this country would be at the most optimal if the following conditions are met:

a)mandatory bicyclist training;

and

b) federal recognition of bicyclists as drivers of vehicles.

That 'plan' is void of even the most basic traffic engineering concepts regarding mixing bike and car traffic on public roadways.

how should traffic engineers deal with the potential of bike traffic on high speed road cooridors?
How might a traffic engineer plan to better destination position bikes for thru travel on high speed roads with dedicated right turn only lanes?

Vacuous proclamation about 'recognizing bicyclists as drivers of vehicles' is NOT an engineering intervention. Mandatory bicyclist training and recognition bikes are vehicles falls far short of anything substantive to effectively plan for bike traffic on the public roads and highways of america.

states and the feds do much better already.


-kind of like when john forester insisted on those early pocket bikelane designs four decades ago, in the early days of bikeways design in California.