buzzman

Thank you for your extensive post and please pardon my thick head but I find the following things hard to understand:

Again, expressions like "Every lane is a bike lane.". It seems to me that statements like that are used not because they are true in any logical sense but because they stop the dialogue. What's hard for me to understand is how reluctant some people are to abandon those fallacious arguments and adhere to a kind of wishful thinking that they are, indeed, true. I'm not saying that is what you are doing but my general impressions when I read posts in the VC thread is that kind of thinking abounds and it makes progressive discourse virtually impossible. And I am not referring solely to roads like interstates where the law dictates that it is unridable but roads that are legally ridable but not necessarily a recommended route for any cyclist no matter their "skill level" or chutzpah.

What's also hard for me to understand is how quickly the analogy is made to "when I drive in my car". Please note your use of the word "rideable" in your automobile analogy- perhaps a simple error but reflective of a lot of thinking in these threads. When I can get my bike to go 60 mph from a dead stop in less than 12 second on level ground I'll better understand the analogy but while I agree that both are "vehicles" analogies between the automobile and the bicycle also lead to a kind of fallacious thinking when selecting routes, designing roadways and techniques applied when riding a bike on a roadway, bike lane, bike path or MUP. My bicycle is no more like my car than my car is like a semi-trailer truck.

I also find it difficult to understand the reluctance to refer to certain roads as "safer" or "less safe" for riding and instead euphemistic expressions like "more vigilance is needed" or "more enjoyable". These expressions are most often used with a qualifier like "it's equally rideable" as if to say, "if I wanted to I could ride on that road" perhaps out of a justifiable paranoia that to admit otherwise might mean risking the right to ride on certain roads. Some of us, like me, consider that roads needing "more vigilance" are actually, dare I say it- less safe and therefore not "equally rideable" as much as I might wish it to be. Often these suspicions are supported by accident statistics on these same roads. And while we support the right of cyclists to ride on every possible road we are pragmatic realists who recognize that some roads, due to design, traffic volume, condition of pavement etc, are just not worth it. And that despite all the experience, bicycle "education", vigilance and skill some cyclists may have nothing beats a well designed roadway conceived and built with bicyclists in mind.