We have allowed the automobile to become far too dominant. Cars de-socialize us. Around 30,000 people a year die in automobile accidents in the US and tens of thousands more are injured. Cars pollute our air and warm the planet and we fight wars at staggering costs to procure oil to fuel them. Perhaps the future will not be completely car free; perhaps it shouldn’t be. Today’s car-centric culture, though, is pure poison.

It seems clear that bicycles cannot be the only answer but they will have to play a much greater role than they do today. As we reengineer our transit systems, perhaps bicycle highways, especially in urban areas, will play a greater role. In outlying suburbs, perhaps multi-modal systems that combine short-range cycling with longer-range rapid transit are the key to the future

Germany gives green light to bicycle highways

Ditto!!!! 100%!!!!!

Compare the auto / oil industry with the tobacco industry an it is clear that there is a twenty year battle ahead of us for overall public realization of the true reason we have the personal automobile. The cold calculated greed in the controlled marketing, brain washing methods, convincing the average you and me that car ownership is essential to be part of the modern community. Rational thinking people see the big picture but try and convince your friends and neighbours of the cold, calculated way in how the big industry controls the multi thousand dollar purchases the average person makes. I just do what I think is right, and have stopped making a noise about it.

I often wonder what the world would look like if tomorrow every car on the road disappeared. Freeways could be used for biking, and the general fitness level of the population would rise. I'd miss being able to take long trips easily, but perhaps that is a good thing?

Watch Mikael Colville Anderson on youtube. And while I was searching for other bicycle advocacy videos, I learned that the bicycle is a big driver of local economies in a lot of African villages. Then when the community grows and automobiles are introduced, the automobile-centric roadways push everybody aside and ruin the bicycle economy to the extent a father earning money by driving a bicycle taxi is now out of business because it's illegal.

What exactly are you "advocating" for to take place in North America - Americans and Canadians should strive to emulate the local economies and living standards of primitive African villages?

Or the Netherlands...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1RNisaWSbM

Looks like fun. Unfortunately, here in Canada, there is much that the Netherlands enjoys which is simply not possible due to insufficient population density and underdeveloped hinterlands.

I always thought bike highways should be available for cross town trips... the idea would be something that would permit a cyclist to get up to speed and then not have to worry about intersections or traffic lights. Such a highway would use exit ramps and on ramps (not really that big of a thing for a good bike path). Such a highway would go under or over surface streets used for pedestrians or automobiles. Of course the highway would have to serve the same areas as an automotive freeway... for cyclists are people and want to access the same resources as other people.

I saw a pretty good example of something close to this in Oulu Finland... no it wasn't perfect, but it was vastly better than any thing I had experienced in the US.

In San Diego there was a new bike path installed by Caltrans years ago... it was designed for cyclists after the state highway road was turned into a limited access freeway. I am talking about the route 56 bike path. And on certain parts of that bike path, there are designs similar to the Oulu paths... and they work well.

This first photo shows a ramp for leaving the bike path and going to the surface street.


This shows how the path goes under the surface streets and is laid out right next to the freeway.


Of course the biggest disadvantage of being right next to the freeway is the noise. But in this layout, you also access the same exits that the freeway offers.

Between Davis and Sacramento is a long intracity bike highway. Somewhat similar to the idea discussed in the OP. Seems like a good idea for tying together close cities and bedroom communities.

Hey all it takes is the same commitment that went into the construction of the Interstate Freeway system in 1956.

Doesn't look like a primitive African village to me. Is that what you and Daniel4 dream that the living standard is like in primitive economies without motorized transport?

I think that's great what DE has decided to do. But I have to say, it took them a while.

I dislike riding there for one reason: It is an autobahn culture. They are more obsessed with the automobile than the USA.

I think the overall idea of huge bike transit systems is a bit backwards. Oil and the automobile will rule for a long time to come.

More efficient, automatized, smaller vehicles are the future of transport.

I will however still ride a bike.

electricity you mean

Yep
e-bikes

I suspect it won't be oil but electricity that "drives" us in the future.

Ha! Touché!

The town I live wants to make Exchange Street friendlier to cyclists and walkers, but there are two thoughts about what is the best approach: along with building a sidewalk, widen the roads to add bike shoulders OR build a bike path to separate bikers from traffic altogether. Each has its pros and cons.

Always interesting when someone makes a post so dumb. You, sir, have missed the point. By far.

true. I truly like the idea of having a separate route for cyclists to ride on to where ever they are going to. Just imagine how much money the government will save when people grow more healthy, lower cholesterol levels, improved heart rate, lower blood pressure, and lower stress levels. Not only that, the environment would improve drastically as we do not spew out oil, smoke, tire dust, brake dust, etc. I found that it can be difficult for people to accept and be open minded about being more environmentally conscious. But in time, they might change.

W

I have to laugh avery time I read another posting saying "never seen this in US". Bicycle freeways this time. Car crazy Los Angeles has had them since at least the 70s, and there is over 100 miles of them now. The LA river trail is parallel to the 710, San Gabriel trail the 605, Anaheim trail to the 55. And there are other shorter ones sprinkled about.

The problem is they are not part of a working network, and security at night is a problem. So they are far from their potential as part of the transit system. Also, exiting such a bike path usually puts you out near freeway ramps, which are crazy places to ride a bike.

"Electricity" means nothing if it's generated by coal, oil and gas or if its production floods vast areas, ruins landscapes with windfarms or produces nuclear waste. Electricity is more of a pipeline than an energy source.

That's the point, that every society/economy/area has its own structure and needs and we can't drag what works for a rural African village and emulate in in Toronto or pretend that Amsterdam bike culture can be recreated in Los Angeles. Interesting to look at other ways of life but that's about it.

So instead you'd prefer we "ruin landscapes" by scraping oil out of tar sands, or fracking, which ruins ground water supplies... right. What happens when that runs out... it is not renewable.

100 years ago the idea of what LA has become would have been "interesting" and considered "doubtful." The future is what we make of it...

That is the point I was making. The evolution of these African villages are replicating what had already happened in North American and European cities. I had already read in other threads in BikeForums that the paving of the cobblestones were to accomodate the growing popularity of cycling. But when the automobile came along, it pushed everything else aside to the point where today motorists often say that roads are made for cars.

History repeats itself.

Are you proposing that electricity replace "scraping oil out of tar sands, or fracking"?

As [MENTION=250609]asmac[/MENTION] said perfectly, electricity is simply a means of transferring energy. The only way that you could 'capture' electricity is maybe in a superconducting loop. You could also consider a capacitor 'stored' electricity. What we should be talking about are the stable sources of energy that we actually harvest to generate electricity or shaft power.

I could use my petrol engine to run a generator to generate electricity to then feed a motor to generate shaft power, but it would probably be more efficient to simply use the petrol engine's shaft power. Of course, a massive turbine at a power plant is probably more efficient than a 3-liter automobile engine at burning fossil fuels.

I am suggesting that the notion of "ugly windfarms" doesn't hold a candle to what we are doing to the environment for oil... And that we had better find some other way to harness other sources of energy, vice simply "burning whatever we can get our hands on..." be it wood, coal or oil. Wind power works at night, wave energy works at night, hydroelectric works at night... just to name a few renewable sources...

But ultimately "ugly windfarms" are nothing compared to the scraped lands and environmental disasters left behind in the pursuit of oil.