Originally Posted by
buzzman
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.
While I agree that most paths are poorly designed and are best suitable for some recreation cyclists... I also fully embrace that paths can be designed better to serve as transportation corridors.
What I disagree with is that transportation cyclists "are happy doing 13MPH." This is simply not true... the 13MPH is the average, and that average speed is based on stopping and starting at each darn traffic light and stop sign. Given the opportunity, cyclists will always desire to go faster and to not lose inertia at each and every intersection. But generally our traffic system is not geared for cyclists... it is geared for motor traffic; a situation where inertia is not much of an issue for someone merely flexing their right foot. However, even motorists tire of constant stopping and starting and prefer freeways to surface streets. Cyclists however have no alternative... and thus end up doing 13MPH averages as they cross town.
RE the commentary on Dutch streets... consider that many European cities have far more compact layouts, thus one can get where they want to go in reasonable time as one has a shorter distance to go. "Reasonable time" is always a factor... people tend to think in terms of how long, rather then how far... How long will it take me to get there... Ask anyone how far away something is and the usual reply will be in time... "20 minutes," "two hours..." etc. Even if the reply is in miles, it is often followed by "it's a short drive... only x amount of time... "
Going back to the path issue... the key is moving these things out of the domain of "parks departments" and putting them into the domain of transportation departments and establishing minimum standards based on speed and traffic load... in other words, making them true transportation corridors. The difference between a recreation path and a true transportation path is night and day.