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[I realize you can't quite compare American and European roads in the context of bicycling, given the huge surface area in the US. Still, a small anecdote.] I

[I realize you can't quite compare American and European roads in the context of bicycling, given the huge surface area in the US. Still, a small anecdote.] I live in a small Western European city with a serious biking culture. As an everyday bicycler, lately I was happy to see some pleasant incremental changes (to the already pretty good infrastructure) for bicyclers and pedestrians: they are turning streets where cars are allowed into "mainly bicycle" lanes (and the existing narrower bike paths get freed up for pedestrian use), fully painted in maroon, with some wooden signboards on the side, reading: "This is a bicycle-first path, cars must remain behind bicyclers". This makes it much more spacious, not to mention safer, to bike along, especially so on busy bicycle routes, on previously-narrower lanes. To make a poor analogy, it's like an upgrade from economy to business class.

steelframe 7y ago
> fully painted in maroon, with some wooden signboards on the side, reading: "This is a bicycle-first path, cars must remain behind bicyclers". As a regular bicycle commuter in the United States who has also ridden a bicycle on Amsterdam's infrastructure, converting a handful of existing roads into "bicycle-first" seems to me like the best solution for dense cities that already have serious congestion problems. People need to feel safe. If they don't feel safe, they won't want to do something. One of the things that really makes cyclists feel unsafe is when motorists are constantly trying to aggressively "get around" them. This often results in close passes and right hooks. Not to mention the animosity. A strictly enforced policy of "This is a bicycle-first path, cars must remain behind bicyclers" on a handful of narrow well-connected roads leading into and out of the city center would be brilliant. It would address the complexity and cost of building new bicycle infrastructure such as separated bicycle tracks. I would additionally reduce the speed limit to that of a typical bike trail: 15 mph. It wouldn't ban cars from these existing roads. It would simply establish a norm for those roads. That is, that a bicyclist is a first-class citizen on them. No bicyclist on that road will feel that they're "holding up" traffic behind them, because cars slowing down to the speed of a bicycle would be the norm. And no motorists will pull dangerous maneuvers to try to pass them or cut them off on those roads, or they'll pay a hefty penalty when caught doing that. Motorists who want to go faster and pass cyclists can use all of the existing "motorist-first" roads for that. With the increased number of people riding bicycle instead of driving because of how much more nice those "bicycle-first" roads are, perhaps that will make the other "motorist-first" roads less congested.

steelframe 7y ago

> fully painted in maroon, with some wooden signboards on the side, reading: "This is a bicycle-first path, cars must remain behind bicyclers". As a regular bicycle commuter in the United States who has also ridden a bicycle on Amsterdam's infrastructure, converting a handful of existing roads into "bicycle-first" seems to me like the best solution for dense cities that already have serious congestion problems. People need to feel safe. If they don't feel safe, they won't want to do something. One of the things that really makes cyclists feel unsafe is when motorists are constantly trying to aggressively "get around" them. This often results in close passes and right hooks. Not to mention the animosity. A strictly enforced policy of "This is a bicycle-first path, cars must remain behind bicyclers" on a handful of narrow well-connected roads leading into and out of the city center would be brilliant. It would address the complexity and cost of building new bicycle infrastructure such as separated bicycle tracks. I would additionally reduce the speed limit to that of a typical bike trail: 15 mph. It wouldn't ban cars from these existing roads. It would simply establish a norm for those roads. That is, that a bicyclist is a first-class citizen on them. No bicyclist on that road will feel that they're "holding up" traffic behind them, because cars slowing down to the speed of a bicycle would be the norm. And no motorists will pull dangerous maneuvers to try to pass them or cut them off on those roads, or they'll pay a hefty penalty when caught doing that. Motorists who want to go faster and pass cyclists can use all of the existing "motorist-first" roads for that. With the increased number of people riding bicycle instead of driving because of how much more nice those "bicycle-first" roads are, perhaps that will make the other "motorist-first" roads less congested.