Originally Posted by John Forester

As is usual with Bekologist, his beliefs prevent him from separating the irrelevant from the relevant. His questions above are completely irrelevant to the vehicular-cycling versus incompetent-cycling-on-bikeways controversy, because that controversy is about government policy implemented by government practices. When a vehicular cyclist wants to reach a particular destination in a short period of time (as is frequently the case when riding to work), he chooses the least-time route, which is frequently a route involving arterial streets because of their directness and fewer delays. Government policy needs to recognize this fact, rather than building bikeways that produce longer trips because of indirectness and more delays, based on the superstition that cyclists don't belong on arterial streets. All streets should be designed to accommodate the volume and mix of traffic to be expected on them, and cyclists, like any other driver of a small vehicle (allowing heavy vehicles to be limited), should be allowed, expected, and accommodated, to choose their routes according to their needs and pleasures. This contrasts with the governmental bicycle planning policy, which produces bikeways according to bicycle transportation plans, a procedure that in both details and in gross is based on superstition and, at its base, on the desire to clear the way for motorists.