Originally Posted by Daily Commute
Bike lanes do make many cyclists feel more comforatable, but they generally don't actually make the road safer. In fact, the comfort level can actually make cyclists less safe because cyclists let their guard down.
I used to be strongly pro-bike-lane. I became a skeptic when I noticed that pro-bike-lane people focused on making cyclists feel better about themselves. Bike lanes skeptics focused on efficiently and safely designing roads to get cyclists from Point A to Point B.
Getting hit from behind is one of the least-frequent accidents cyclists face. So, at their best, downtown bike lanes mitigate one of the least-frequent hazards cyclists face. Bravo.
If you aren't interested in whether cyclists
feel safe or not, you're going to be stuck with the same type of roads you have now, so I hope you like them, bike lanes or not.
People in general don't care about things they don't know about. The average driver who hasn't ridden a bicycle since he was 11 years old, and has never ridden one in traffic, doesn't really concern himself with the safety of bike lanes. This person is not going to show up at city council meetings and support bike-safe roads, whether they have bike lanes or not. He's not going to do
anything that goes out of his way to help cyclists, because he doesn't care.
Now, there are plenty of people who might ride a bike to work, but they don't, and they often give a reason like "It's not safe to ride on the street". Now, it doesn't really matter whether it's actually safe to ride on the street or not - what matters is thier perception. When they perceive the road as safe, then they might actually get on the bike and ride to work. Once they do that, they are cyclists. They start to take an interest in the way that motorists treat them, and they're a lot more likely to show up at that city council meeting and demand more support for cyclsits on the roads. If enough people do this, city councils will actually start to listen.
You are not going to win converts to cycling with John Forester's "Effective Cycling". It doesn't matter how good the book is, because only cyclists read it. People don't walk into Barnes and Noble and think "hmm, maybe I'll get a book that will teach me to ride my bike to work safely!" However, there's a better chance that someone will drive 2 miles to work next to a nice wide bike lane and think "Hey, these bike lanes are pretty wide, and it's only two miles to work - I could get in shape if I rode a bike to work!"
The fact is, if people don't
feel an activity is safe, they're not going to start doing it. So, if you can't make novice cyclists
feel safe, you will not have the number of cyclists on the road grow, and you will not have the number of supporters for bicycle commuting grow.