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Vehicular cycling is such a ridiculous ideology and mantra. John Forester has done more damage to not-cars-means-of-transportation than pretty much any other pe

Vehicular cycling is such a ridiculous ideology and mantra. John Forester has done more damage to not-cars-means-of-transportation than pretty much any other person riding a bike, and many more outside of that group. The "Well there's your problem" podcast goes over a lot of his ideas in great detail [0]. The crux of it is what the above study says: if you want to encourage cycling you have to build dedicated infrastructure (and maintain that infrastructure in all weather and conditions) in order for people to view it as something reliable. The key is to avoid what the parent poster specified by just increasing supply: to assuage fears that there are "only a handful of bike lanes and paths (and thus cyclists fear they are confined)" is to just build more. It's vastly cheaper than our current car-focused infrastructure. Cities exist today that seem to figure this out without turning into Amsterdam, so surely the rest of us can figure it out as well. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm29fd-s7tQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm29fd-s7tQ

epakai 4y ago
Vehicular cycling at least puts you where drivers expect other vehicles to be coming from. It's a good choice in many situations. Being in pedestrian areas, riding as far right as possible (area-specific mandate), or in a bike lane makes you practically invisible in many cases. Cycling specific infrastructure can do a lot, but it can never be a solution for all destinations because of limitations enforced by pre-existing infrastructure.
- trmsw 4y ago
  my knee-jerk reaction is: and because streets aren't just for cars! But more pragmatically, vehicular cycling is often the best choice because of visibility and predictability, and also as regards driver awareness and expectation: it at least seems safer if drivers are accustomed to sharing the road than if they never have to.
deadbeeves 4y ago
Nah. Unless you ride in a town where everyone rides and no one drives, you're gonna have to interact with cars at some point. It's just inevitable. You need to know how to ride on a road with other vehicles. I'm not convinced that the answer is just more infrastructure. IME, most bike paths are just bad. They're some combination of poorly designed, poorly made, or poorly maintained. There's one on the way to my office that has marked loading bays for trucks such that I have to keep getting off onto the car traffic because there's no way I'm passing between a vehicle and the sidewalk. Why would you build something like that there? And of course if you decide that it's just too risky to use the bike path people scream at you because they think they're entitled to that lane that you didn't even ask for.
- hooverd 4y ago
  Most "bike lanes" suck but physically separated bike lanes are great in my experience. You can also have slow streets or bike boulevards which filter the through traffic.
lmm 4y ago
> The "Well there's your problem" podcast goes over a lot of his ideas in great detail [0]. The crux of it is what the above study says: if you want to encourage cycling you have to build dedicated infrastructure (and maintain that infrastructure in all weather and conditions) in order for people to view it as something reliable. I can't read videos, but how does he sustain this claim given that Tokyo exists and has a large cycling modal share with virtually no bike lanes? Vehicular cycling is absolutely right IME. If you want to build "dedicated infrastructure", junction priority changes and advance stop lines should be a lot higher on the list than cycle lanes on plain road (which is not where the killing of cyclists by drivers is happening).
- midoridensha 4y ago
  I live in Tokyo. People generally ride bikes on the sidewalks, unless they're riding on the really narrow side roads that have virtually no car traffic. The big roads do have painted bike lanes, but you don't see them used much, definitely not by the mothers riding mamachari; they're all on the sidewalks almost hitting pedestrians. Also, things are really different in different parts of the city. Some parts are newer with much wider sidewalks (and even dedicated bike lanes separate from the road), other parts are not. Some parts are just terrible for cycling, because there's too many pedestrians and the roads are hazardous (like Shinjuku). The place would be a lot better for cycling if they installed more dedicated infrastructure, but it works as-is for many reasons: there aren't that many cars in most places, because parking is rare and expensive, vehicle speeds are rather low, motorized vehicles have most of the liability for accidents with pedestrians or cars (no matter what: if a kid runs out in front of you and you kill him, it's your fault), theft is very rare, and people are extremely non-confrontational so even though many pedestrians hate sharing the sidewalks with cyclists, they just put up with it. Back in the US, I had people screaming at me and trying to start physical fights with me when I rode on sidewalks and there was no one else on the sidewalk except them. Here, people just step aside. Another thing here: cyclists are legally required to carry liability insurance, in case they hit a pedestrian. Anyway, you're not going to replicate Tokyo's success with cycling by simply copying one feature. The whole culture here makes it workable despite the lack of great cycling infrastructure, as well as many other things that are basically impossible elsewhere. Finally, while the infrastructure could be better in many places, things are constantly improving; newer developments (housing, malls, Olympic sports venues, etc.) have bicycle parking as a standard feature, for instance.

epakai 4y ago

Vehicular cycling at least puts you where drivers expect other vehicles to be coming from. It's a good choice in many situations. Being in pedestrian areas, riding as far right as possible (area-specific mandate), or in a bike lane makes you practically invisible in many cases. Cycling specific infrastructure can do a lot, but it can never be a solution for all destinations because of limitations enforced by pre-existing infrastructure.

trmsw 4y ago
my knee-jerk reaction is: and because streets aren't just for cars! But more pragmatically, vehicular cycling is often the best choice because of visibility and predictability, and also as regards driver awareness and expectation: it at least seems safer if drivers are accustomed to sharing the road than if they never have to.

deadbeeves 4y ago

Nah. Unless you ride in a town where everyone rides and no one drives, you're gonna have to interact with cars at some point. It's just inevitable. You need to know how to ride on a road with other vehicles. I'm not convinced that the answer is just more infrastructure. IME, most bike paths are just bad. They're some combination of poorly designed, poorly made, or poorly maintained. There's one on the way to my office that has marked loading bays for trucks such that I have to keep getting off onto the car traffic because there's no way I'm passing between a vehicle and the sidewalk. Why would you build something like that there? And of course if you decide that it's just too risky to use the bike path people scream at you because they think they're entitled to that lane that you didn't even ask for.

hooverd 4y ago
Most "bike lanes" suck but physically separated bike lanes are great in my experience. You can also have slow streets or bike boulevards which filter the through traffic.

lmm 4y ago

> The "Well there's your problem" podcast goes over a lot of his ideas in great detail [0]. The crux of it is what the above study says: if you want to encourage cycling you have to build dedicated infrastructure (and maintain that infrastructure in all weather and conditions) in order for people to view it as something reliable. I can't read videos, but how does he sustain this claim given that Tokyo exists and has a large cycling modal share with virtually no bike lanes? Vehicular cycling is absolutely right IME. If you want to build "dedicated infrastructure", junction priority changes and advance stop lines should be a lot higher on the list than cycle lanes on plain road (which is not where the killing of cyclists by drivers is happening).

midoridensha 4y ago
I live in Tokyo. People generally ride bikes on the sidewalks, unless they're riding on the really narrow side roads that have virtually no car traffic. The big roads do have painted bike lanes, but you don't see them used much, definitely not by the mothers riding mamachari; they're all on the sidewalks almost hitting pedestrians. Also, things are really different in different parts of the city. Some parts are newer with much wider sidewalks (and even dedicated bike lanes separate from the road), other parts are not. Some parts are just terrible for cycling, because there's too many pedestrians and the roads are hazardous (like Shinjuku). The place would be a lot better for cycling if they installed more dedicated infrastructure, but it works as-is for many reasons: there aren't that many cars in most places, because parking is rare and expensive, vehicle speeds are rather low, motorized vehicles have most of the liability for accidents with pedestrians or cars (no matter what: if a kid runs out in front of you and you kill him, it's your fault), theft is very rare, and people are extremely non-confrontational so even though many pedestrians hate sharing the sidewalks with cyclists, they just put up with it. Back in the US, I had people screaming at me and trying to start physical fights with me when I rode on sidewalks and there was no one else on the sidewalk except them. Here, people just step aside. Another thing here: cyclists are legally required to carry liability insurance, in case they hit a pedestrian. Anyway, you're not going to replicate Tokyo's success with cycling by simply copying one feature. The whole culture here makes it workable despite the lack of great cycling infrastructure, as well as many other things that are basically impossible elsewhere. Finally, while the infrastructure could be better in many places, things are constantly improving; newer developments (housing, malls, Olympic sports venues, etc.) have bicycle parking as a standard feature, for instance.