Originally Posted by
gcottay
Back here in the real world experienced, novice and even prospective cyclists benefit from vehicular cycling skills as well as well designed bike lanes/trails. I consider those who try to make it an either/or worse than useless.
Agreed, the answer is a melding of VC and dedicated bike infrastructure. Not an insistence that one or the other is the best way to go.
As has been pointed out on slower less frequently traveled roads bike lanes/infrastructure really isn't need and is a waste of taxpayer money. And the worst is the substandard and often dangerous infrastructure that get's shoved down our throats for our "protection." Add to that some states like Florida have passed mandatory bike lane laws.
Which sadly have resulted in some in of the states the LEOs so intent on "punishing" cyclists that they don't fully understand the law(s) that they're suppose to be enforcing. As most states do allow cyclists to exit the lane for safety reasons. Yet, some LEOs and motorists don't realize that.
Originally Posted by
genec
It doesn't. Insisting that VC alone is all you need to cope with our nations roads is what keeps ridership low.
I agree with mnemia and others that it is a combination of VC technique and well designed infrastructure is will get folks out there and riding. VC techniques work quite well at low speeds... "human scale speeds" if you will. Even Forester states that when there is a speed differential greater than 15 MPH negotiation becomes difficult between cyclist and motorist...
So the bottom line is that while we do have roads that need very little in the way of modification to be comfortable for most people to cycle upon, we also have roads that even the most experienced cyclists might find to be of a white knuckle nature... We need to find suitable solutions to those problems... whether it be a separate path, or an alternate traffic calmed road, or something else such as a buffered bike lane... we cannot insist (as some VC "evangelists" do) that all roads are just fine. Of course the flip side is that some cycling infrastructure just sucks... really.
But as far as teaching VC... I have no problem with it... in fact I would like to see cycling techniques taught in public schools... and as a prerequisite for learning how to drive... also taught in public school (as it was when I went to school at Southwest High School).
So it is not the teaching of, but the insistence that VC is all you need that is the problem.
As a classic example I offer the fact that London has reached a point where cyclists now outnumber motorists in the city core...
http://cyclelondoncity.blogspot.com/...were-anti.html
The above didn't happen solely through the use of VC techniques, but a combination of vehicular cycling, congestion charges (too many cars), and new bike facilities (blue lanes and bike "highway").
Agreed, those who see only one mode of bicycle travel is the best/only way to go. The best answer as has been said before is a combination or merging of both VC, bike infrastructure, dedicated bike infrastructure.
And dedicated bike infrastructure shouldn't be so "safe" that cyclists are still left being "invisible" to motorists. Such as placing us so far to the right side of the road that there is a line of on street parking "separating" us from traffic.
The problem with that is that traffic then doesn't see us (granted one can say that they don't "
see" us now) and increases the chance of conflicts at intersections.