3 ms·

In general, the urban infrastructure for biking in the cities and suburbs is horrible in the United States compared to Europe. In places like the Southern Unite

In general, the urban infrastructure for biking in the cities and suburbs is horrible in the United States compared to Europe. In places like the Southern United States I would say it can even get dangerous. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/03/braving-the-deep-deadly-south-on-a-bicycle/284293/ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/03/braving-... Some cities are getting much more "bike friendly", thankfully. The other issue is distance. The American West in particular is rather big and has large parts that are sparsely populated. If you bike from, say, San Francisco to Los Angeles, you are covering a much longer distance compared to biking from Hamburg to Copenhagen. There has been progress, in that it seems there's been more interest in long distance trails (usually "rail trails") of late. Beyond these trails, you'd have to bike on highways. Many highways are designed primarily for automobiles and are not terribly "bike friendly" at all.

Grishnakh 11y ago
In the US, riding a bicycle on an interstate highway is completely illegal. Rail trails are great, but I've never seen any that were actually useful for practical purposes. They're usually in rural areas or other places where they're not going to actually help you travel between two points that you would want to travel between. They're fun because they usually have nice scenery (they're usually rural), there's no cars on or near them, they're almost nearly flat (they were built for trains, which can't go up and down hills easily), they let you see stuff that you can't see from the road, and they're usually long enough to make it worth doing. However, you still need a car, to transport yourself and your bike to the rail trail.... as I said, they're not practical, they're just a fun excursion. Another similar thing is tow paths: back in the 1800s they built tow paths along canals so that mules could pull barges. Now these paths are all used for hiking and cycling, and can stretch for very long distances, usually much longer than rail trails. Rail trails are frequently not that long, because they're not able to secure rights to the land for the trail for that much distance; either part of it is still used by the railroad, or the railroad is eliminated and the land sold off. Frequently landowners adjacent to the railroad oppose efforts to turn it into a trail and get the local government to prevent this because they don't want cyclists robbing them and vandalizing their property (yes, these are actually raised as valid concerns!).

Grishnakh 11y ago

In the US, riding a bicycle on an interstate highway is completely illegal. Rail trails are great, but I've never seen any that were actually useful for practical purposes. They're usually in rural areas or other places where they're not going to actually help you travel between two points that you would want to travel between. They're fun because they usually have nice scenery (they're usually rural), there's no cars on or near them, they're almost nearly flat (they were built for trains, which can't go up and down hills easily), they let you see stuff that you can't see from the road, and they're usually long enough to make it worth doing. However, you still need a car, to transport yourself and your bike to the rail trail.... as I said, they're not practical, they're just a fun excursion. Another similar thing is tow paths: back in the 1800s they built tow paths along canals so that mules could pull barges. Now these paths are all used for hiking and cycling, and can stretch for very long distances, usually much longer than rail trails. Rail trails are frequently not that long, because they're not able to secure rights to the land for the trail for that much distance; either part of it is still used by the railroad, or the railroad is eliminated and the land sold off. Frequently landowners adjacent to the railroad oppose efforts to turn it into a trail and get the local government to prevent this because they don't want cyclists robbing them and vandalizing their property (yes, these are actually raised as valid concerns!).