Originally Posted by
njkayaker
??? This makes no sense.
Bike facilities are isolated by "scary" streets. Freeways are not isloated at all (cars can easily get from one freeway to another). The analogy is pedestrian walkways. These are frequently blocked by freeways which make things very inconvenient for pedestrians.
Bike paths are like interstate freeways... they do not need to go everywhere... Freeways ARE indeed isolated... can you take one from your front door to the mall 10 miles down the road... NO... you use residential streets, to get to arterial roads to get to freeways. Just as freeways terminate to surface streets, bike paths can terminate into low speed residential streets or low speed downtown streets. There is nothing wrong with cycling on low speed streets... Cycling in such areas tends to be safe.
Paths are only really needed when and where suitable low speed (30MPH and lower) are not available for cyclists. When the ONLY roads available are 50MPH and 65MPH arterial roads... then suitable paths should be provided for cyclists. And yes, suitable sidewalks should be provided for pedestrians.
This is the very core of the problem with our current autocentric designs... a car can go everywhere, but not so bikes or peds... If a car can get there, there should be safe provisions for both bikes and peds.
Originally Posted by
njkayaker
And then, you contradict your point here! Oye!!
Hardly a contradiction... I wrote about the current state of paths... which is that they are generally 2nd class and hardly usable for transportation... which is why I call for real standards when designing real transportation paths...