Originally Posted by Serge *******
As billh surmised, I do have an objection to this. These two sentences imply all of the following assumptions, all of which I strongly disagree with:
- Riding bicycles to work safely without bike lanes is not possible.
- Riding to work with bike lanes is safer than riding to work without bike lanes.
- You can ride to work without "contending with traffic on roads" if the bike lanes are clear (this points out one of the greatest dangers of bike lanes - the false sense of safety they convey).
Other than that, it's a great letter.
You've obviously never ridden around here. I kid you not, that in the last two days I have ridden a total of 10 miles on the roads immediately surrounding my house. Today, I was almost killed by a car who almost swerved into another car to avoid me, and then swerved back into me, and yesterday I came within less than a foot of getting hit by a driver who tried to gun into a parking lot right in front of me (he had to lock his brakes to avoid me). Grand Rapids is notorious, nay, infamous, for its horribly incompetent drivers--its scary enough driving, let alone riding a bike. At least with bike lanes, you aren't riding IN traffic and you have SOME room. There is no argument in this world that can sway me to believe bike lanes aren't safer than riding in the road itself.