Originally Posted by
bluefoxicy
Exactly. Most bike lanes seem to be too narrow. I have seen a few that have a painting of a life-size bicycle profile (that I could ride) down the middle, turned with the long end following, so the lane's a tad wider than a bicycle is tall. Around the city there's a few extremely high traffic (3-4 lanes each direction) roads that have a lane like that; it's huge, and at certain points (3-way intersections) there's actually a barrier that the bike lane turns off into, so bicyclists can actually (get this) pass through a red light by dipping off onto a barrier separated path that's just as long as a 3-way intersections, separating them from traffic.
Aside from those areas, bike lanes are narrower than most traffic shoulders. The bicycle and rider, upright, are just about as wide as the whole lane. These are often one or two lane roads each way, making passing difficult; roads that are low-traffic and very narrow tend to not even have a bike lane.
Riding on the sidewalk is shown to increase motor-bicycle accidents, I suspect because bicyclists can ride through the crosswalk when safe/legal but motorists glance, go "nobody there," and pull through. Bicyclists move faster than pedestrians and absolutely cannot stop that fast, so this strategy works extremely well for people walking and not at all for people going 15mph down the sidewalk.
I suspect bike path intersections with roads would have the same problem; bicyclists should stop and check the road out before crossing. I'd hate to think we'd need stop signs there to tell them to stop for traffic; you should be able to figure this out on your own. However, all that is theoretical.
As I said, though, off-street bicycle paths tend to be narrow, un-leveled BMX courses, except with pavement. The pave is hilly and bumpy and curvy, with no attention to banking, often following the curve of the terrain (which is okay) and even the texture of the terrain underneath, to a degree (which is not okay). What I wind up with here is a paved path that's like a mountain bike ride, complete with debris (sticks, branches, chunks of crushed wood) everywhere.
Exactly, which is why many of us here have said that biking infrastructure here in most US cities is an afterthought and not a primary part of the road design. That and so that it can provide the local politicians with both a photo op and the opportunity so that they can pat themselves on the back and say "look at the 'good' that we're doing for the cycling community."
Without actually getting much if any input from the cycling community as to what they/we really want/need. When in reality what city planners/engineers as well as street engineers need to do is to look at the overall needs of
ALL of their citizens needs and design both cities and roads that take into account everyone's needs. Not just those who are "stuck all day in a steel cage." Everyone from the pre-teen who wants to walk to school, to the teen who wants to ride their bike to school to the mother and father who want to work not too far from where they live.
Cities should be laid out so that with the exception of heavy industry/manufacturing/farming that the average person only has a handful of blocks to go to get to work to maybe a couple of miles. Trips that could easily be made walking, riding a bike or riding a bus. For those who live further way from their job there should be a rail option like we had not too many years ago.
The bottom line is that it is much harder these days for the average person to get to and from work without a car, when it should be easier to get around without one. And as it has been said before in other threads, for those few times when one does "absolutely" need a car or truck they should be able to rent one at a reasonable rate.
It would also help if more businesses would offer free or low cost delivery service of their goods. As that would also help to lessen the average person's dependence on their cars.