I'm an urban cyclist. I get around town by bike whenever I can, though my family does still own cars for longer trips or moving large objects. I certainly don't

I'm an urban cyclist. I get around town by bike whenever I can, though my family does still own cars for longer trips or moving large objects. I certainly don't try to slow everybody down. Getting into the main traffic lane has that effect, but it's a side effect, and I don't do it very often or for very long. In most cases, I could probably make a safe bet that dipping into the traffic lane isn't slowing down anybody's actual travel time by any appreciable amount. But I greatly prefer to choose routes that avoid fast, congested car traffic. This also appears to be the approach of my city when developing new or improved roadways. But truth be told, the major thing slowing cars down is other cars. Trying to increase traffic flow through a given area will eventually cause it to slow down to a crawl, bikes or no bikes.