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Have you ever tried riding a bicycle in the city? Bicycle lanes in many cities are close to unusable. For example: - they are right next to parked cars and y

Have you ever tried riding a bicycle in the city? Bicycle lanes in many cities are close to unusable. For example: - they are right next to parked cars and you can't ride on them without constant fear of getting doored - they abruptly stop and there is no obvious place where to continue riding - cars park on the bicycle lanes - bicycle lanes go right next to crowded bus stops and there are so many people that it's impossible to ride - crossings are designed in such a way that you need to wait for three (!) traffic lights to cross a single road, leading to a waiting time of at least 3 minutes There are only a handful of roads with usable bicycle lanes in my city. And guess what: In places where bicycle lanes are usable, people use them. Nobody rides a bicycle on the road if there is a usable alternative.

tomn 4y ago
some more reasons from a UK perspective: - if you want to turn across the road, you have to merge onto the road which can be dangerous and awkward, so it's better to be on the road for longer before you want to turn than you might expect. - cycle lanes are often too narrow (if just painted onto an existing road), so push you closer to the curb than is really safe. i often feel like the best position would be on the edge of the cycle lane, but then cars will not overtake properly - ungraded cycle lanes tend to fill up with the dirt and detritus that's flung off the road by vehicles if they're not cleaned regularly enough (this is especially a problem if there are bollards or other street furniture that is supposed to separate the bike lane from the road, as it makes them harder to clean) - cars are more likely to cut you off when turning across a cycle lane, than if they are forced to overtake properly most cyclists I've talked to here think the kind of cycle lanes we have are worse than useless

tomn 4y ago

some more reasons from a UK perspective: - if you want to turn across the road, you have to merge onto the road which can be dangerous and awkward, so it's better to be on the road for longer before you want to turn than you might expect. - cycle lanes are often too narrow (if just painted onto an existing road), so push you closer to the curb than is really safe. i often feel like the best position would be on the edge of the cycle lane, but then cars will not overtake properly - ungraded cycle lanes tend to fill up with the dirt and detritus that's flung off the road by vehicles if they're not cleaned regularly enough (this is especially a problem if there are bollards or other street furniture that is supposed to separate the bike lane from the road, as it makes them harder to clean) - cars are more likely to cut you off when turning across a cycle lane, than if they are forced to overtake properly most cyclists I've talked to here think the kind of cycle lanes we have are worse than useless