Originally Posted by
Bekologist
I don't know, invisible hand, if you DON'T think cycling conditions have worsened since the 1970's, you are living in denial or otherwise belive statistics are the only measurable metric of road conditions and cyclist/driver interactions.
I dispute those statistics you gathered as accurate metrics of road conditions for bicyclists.
Regarding the tables, just one more idea to add ...
I don't think that the world has changed so much that old experiences and studies are worthless. And I do think that fundamentally, people are very similar to their counterparts 20, 30, and 40 years ago. I don't know what is driving the results; but some of the stories described earlier (by me too) just don't appear in the tables. Perhaps if there we an urban/suburban/rural breakdown we could see something then. But as other posters have implied, the data is unable to support many strong statements in either direction.
I believe that the cycling environment is changing and certain environments are more foreboding than others. For instance, I have been trying to find a reasonable non-MUP route past the beltway for a while without any success for the past two or three months. I have also been trying to find an alternative to the WOD (45 mile MUP) without any success. We also know that the type of neighborhoods people live in have been changing over the last 50 years. I can say from a few months experience out here that unless one wants to travel some high pressure roads or take extremely circuitous routes, using a bicycle for transportation or "serious" recreation would be difficult. These "hard to travel" neighborhoods, of course, have been developed in the 70s onwards which might explain why certain people traveling in older suburban neighborhoods have not seen many changes (Arlington is fairly easy to bike ... Fairfax is a lot more work) whereas people living in new neighborhoods or the dense downtown districts may have more complaints.