Originally Posted by
Stubby
I agree. There are many reasons why vehicular cycling doesn't work except for a small minority. Most bike users simple do not feel comfortable taking the lane and for very good reasons. A bike is slower and much more vulnerable then a motor vehicle. Asking someone on a 20 or 30 lb. bike to take the lane with 2000+ lb. motor vehicles traveling at higher speeds is foolish. The subjective safety level is very low. It works fine in slow moving residential areas, but not feeder and arterial roads. One bad driver and it's a disaster.
You will never advance the cause of bike commuting and get more people on bikes by pushing the idea of vehicular cycling. We need our own protected bike paths, and where that is not possible traffic has to be slowed down.
Will those protected bike paths go everywhere that cyclists want/need to go? Here in St. Pete/Pinellas County we have the Pinellas Trail that pretty much goes from one end of the county to the other.
BUT it does
NOT go everywhere that we want/need to go.
As an example, when I am going out to the VA I take 1st N. south to 30th Ave. N. Than I take 30th Ave. N. west to the Tyrone Mall area where I am able to hop onto the Pinellas Trail. That is also the only section of the trail that I use or goes where I want/need to go.
Also how is the city/county/state suppose to secure the property to build these protected paths? Property owners are not going to want to give up part of their property, and using imminent domain to seize the property is just going to piss them off.
As has been said before within city limits we need to slow down the speed of the roads, we also need to have those speed limits strictly enforced. And motorists need to be encouraged to car pool, use public transportation (demand more public transportation) and ride bicycles.
As it is because there are still so few of us on the road on bikes we are seen as someone that drivers can ignore.