Originally Posted by buzzman

I toured the PCH (Olympia, WA to San Fran) back in the early 1970's and my memory of it was a combination of visual splendor and sections of some of the worst cycling I've encountered on any of my tours. The downside was logging trucks, "chip" (?) trucks and RV drivers that could barely control their vehicles at times. There weren't as many cyclists on the route at that time and certainly an increase in numbers may have made drivers somewhat more aware and accommodating.

My understanding is that the road has had little change since that time and before I posted my response thought I'd google for some on line comments about riding the PCH more recently. These were the first few hits on Google and I didn't have to do much looking before I came across these comments, which are pretty good examples of what most of the blogs and comments I found said.



And from a thread on BF about riding the PCH:



Now due to the road construction it is probably pretty accurate that much improvement to the existing infrastructure may not be all that possible. It's a pretty unique landscape and strong enforcement of passing and speeding laws might do some good. Using the PCH as an example of why bike infrastructure is not "cheaper and easier" is a bit of a reach.

And is the measure of whether bike infrastructure is worth it to be based on the "cheaper and easier" alternative? Since B.Carfree seems to advocate for "quality" infrastructure I'm guessing he understands that quality is not always cheap.

B.Carfree also makes mention of the "few thousands" of cyclists who take this route. Is that meant that the fewer numbers of cyclists are also a reason to not provide infrastructure? As someone who just rode home on a plowed bike path tonight in Boston as thousands of cars passed by and I counted the barely half dozen bike tracks for my 10 mile ride home I was glad that our small numbers warranted not only a path but plowing. I choose to ride a bike to work, to a lot of places and as someone who chooses that alternative I feel I deserve as safe a route to my destination as possible.

Expecting cyclists to accept conditions the average motorist would never tolerate seems inequitable at the very least. We deserve safe passage. The cyclists who ride the PCH are the hardier in spirit and nerve and not representative of the average citizen who would never take on such a challenge, in large part due to passing motor vehicular traffic.

In my opinion, every reasonable effort should be primarily made to make the roadways we travel on as safe as possible and then enforcement.

So for me: PRIMARY- infrastructure (and not always bike specific-only when necessary due to poor road conditions) and
SECONDARY- Enforcement and education.

But enforcing laws and educating drivers and cyclists but forcing them to share inadequately designed infrastructures is shortsighted.