Originally Posted by
SquidPuppet
That is incorrect. Whether urban, suburban, rural, residential, single lane, multi lane, or super highway, all motorways were designed to accommodate and route motor vehicle traffic.
You're moving the goalposts. The terms
motorway,
freeway and
expressway usually refer to roads on which slow moving vehicles and bicyclists are not allowed. I'm talking about roadways where bicycling is allowed. The roads in that video I posted above are not motorways. Nor is the street my house is on, or any of the roads I use to ride to work, or to ride on the weekends.
Originally Posted by
SquidPuppet
The evidence is abundant. The width of the lanes, the speed limits, the painted lines, the distance by which instructional signage precedes routing changes, rumble strips, Botts' Dots, traffic signal light timing, traffic signal activation triggers, emergency vehicle siren volumes, railroad crossing barrier positions, overpass heights, all of it is designed specifically to accommodate and control the flow of motor vehicle traffic.
The lane widths allow for 9 foot wide buses (plus mirrors) - and are unnecessarily wide for 5 foot wide Smart cars as well as 2 foot wide Harleys and Treks, but they accommodate all, equally. So bicyclists are at the opposite end of the width spectrum... so what?
Similarly, the speed limits provide a MAXIMUM speed - lower speeds are legal. Plenty of slow moving vehicles, including tractors, construction equipment and horses and buggies, are allowed on the streets and roads, as well as bicyclists. While unnecessary impeding can be illegal, if it can't be reasonably and safely avoided, it is not. That's why slow moving vehicles are relegated to the rightmost lane, and are required to use turnouts only after five or more are behind and only on two lane roads.
It's sad for me to see avid bicyclists buy into motoring-centric thinking. Dude, you
need a
paradigm shift! :-)
Originally Posted by
SquidPuppet
In Many areas we now have bicycle lanes (hooray) that share the motorways. In most areas (not all) these bicycle lanes were an afterthought that have been shoehorned into the existing infrastructure.
Yes, and, sadly, they've contributed to reinforcing the motoring-centric thinking you espouse. Who hasn't heard someone yell, "GET IN THE BIKE LANE!" on a road that doesn't even have a bike lane? Bike lanes are the symbolic embodiment of, "bikes don't belong on roads - roads are for CARS!" - motoring-centrism. Not that I'm against bike lanes, but that is something that bothers me about them.