Originally Posted by
mandovoodoo
I've ridden on two sets of MUPs extensively. I used to commute on the GW Parkway MUP in the 1970s, Alexandria to Georgetown. I still ride that sometimes. Nightmare on weekends. Highly mixed, random behavior. Most seem to understand how to work with others, but many don't, and that greatly cuts the safe speed. Still lots of weirdness on this system, including quite demanding drops towards Mt. Vernon, wet boards, plenty of crossings, and needless wandering of the path for some kind of misguided desire to make things interesting. Not that I can't ride it - I've done the whole thing on tandem many times.
I've also ridden the Maryville, TN system a bunch. Seems very typical. Blind corners, bumps, needless curves and hazards, incoherent users.
These systems work for slow speed recreational users. They may work somewhat for commuters in off hours. They simply don't work for actually using a bicycle to get places safely and quickly.
The need to blast around blind turns isn't the problem. The blind turns are the problem. A path for vehicles should have a great sight line to allow efficient use, not blind spots and other BS.
This is, of course, from the perspective of someone with lots of miles on roads, interested in riding at typical bicycle speeds (for performance road riders) averaging over 15 mph, often quite a bit more than 15 mph. The MUPs I've seen don't have sight lines, surfaces, camber, or anything designed to allow efficient road type cycling.
Of course slower riders are going to have a much different experience. On the other hand, I've seen slower riders picking up their teeth. The typical MUP mix when use level goes up creates unnecessary hazards. This is pretty well worked out.
And isn't misinformation, as suggested above.
I've only had that GW MUP go where I wanted.
None of the MUPs I've been on is at all suited for riding at my typical speeds, even if assured that no other traffic is present and that I could blow all the stops etc. They're tiny. Even compared to the smallest county road.
you make some good points, mandovoodoo, and many that I am sure I would agree with based on your description of the MUPs you described.
But, in a sense, the conclusion one could draw from your comments is that if the MUPs were straight, wider, went more directly to places one might likely want/need to go and intersections were properly designed and few and far between and pedestrians were prohibited, relegated to a side path or managed/educated to use the path in some way then a bike path
might be useful to you. A sizable wish list but, IMO, not completely out of the question.
It seems many of us talk about MUP's being fine for recreational use but not for transportation but I get the sense that often when we're talking about riding in a pack and/or 20+mph we're not talking about the usual commute. My commute speeds are considerably slower than my typical road ride for training or my longer transportational/touring type rides. In those cases, yes, a bike path might not be appropriate. Although, the only time in recent memory that I recall riding a pace line to work was when two or three of us fell in together on, of all things, the bike path- to do so on my streets route to work would be impractical.
If you visit the commuter's forum and read the posts in "How was your commute today?" you'll get the sense that most of the commuters who post there are happy to average about 13 mph. I lived in Rotterdam for a while and felt like a freak because my average speed, be it in a bike lane or on the bike paths, was easily a third to twice as fast as that of every other cyclist. At first I thought these Dutch are out of shape or something and then I realized they were thinking "where's the fire?" or "must be an American." (or idioot! klootzak!). When a substantial percentage of the general population genuinely uses a bike every day for transportation and there is an appropriate infrastructure to accommodate them the pressure to go at speeds approaching that of the automobiles around them is far less.