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My point isn't that I'm looking for an excuse. Obviously a bike can't do 50. But it really disrupts traffic when someone is trotting along at 15. Be that a hor

by pnathan 14y ago

My point isn't that I'm looking for an excuse. Obviously a bike can't do 50. But it really disrupts traffic when someone is trotting along at 15. Be that a horse, dogcart, or tractor. In a car-centric infrastructure, it's a disruption. Obviously the USA infrastructure, particularly in rural areas, is car-centric and thus non-cars will be disruptive. That's my point.

JoeAltmaier 14y ago
Nobody has to be in such a hurry as to warrant legislating someone elses rights out of existance to save 30 seconds. That's MY point. It all looks car-centric when you're driving a car. In rural areas, if you've even been in one for even a short amount of time, you learn that the roads are almost exclusively there for the commercial traffic. Iowa has a grid on a 1-mile spacing of gravel roads - not so you can race to grandma's house in your car, but so all arable land can be serviced by tractor and truck.
- pnathan 14y ago
  I'm not advocating anything (I don't see a reasonable solution proposed to date), but I would like you to understand the problem. Let's say you're traveling 10 miles in either bike (15 mph, very fast cyclist) or car (55 mph). It will take roughly this many minutes to travel: (* 60 (/ 10 15.0)) 40.0 (* 60 (/ 10 55.0)) 10.90909090909091 The difference is half an hour, just going 10 miles. So really think a bit: if you're stuck behind $slow_traveller for 10 miles (curvy roads, hilly roads, whatever. Google for Palouse in WA if you want an idea of my local road system), you've just lost 30 minutes of your time. Fiddle the math how you like; it adds up to a lot more than 30 seconds. 30 seconds of hassle is what I get in town: not much. Note that I live in a rural area and bike around as much as I can. So I swing both ways here, and I still say that bikes disrupt road infrastructure which isn't designed to handle them.

by pnathan 14y ago

JoeAltmaier 14y ago

Nobody has to be in such a hurry as to warrant legislating someone elses rights out of existance to save 30 seconds. That's MY point. It all looks car-centric when you're driving a car. In rural areas, if you've even been in one for even a short amount of time, you learn that the roads are almost exclusively there for the commercial traffic. Iowa has a grid on a 1-mile spacing of gravel roads - not so you can race to grandma's house in your car, but so all arable land can be serviced by tractor and truck.

pnathan 14y ago
I'm not advocating anything (I don't see a reasonable solution proposed to date), but I would like you to understand the problem. Let's say you're traveling 10 miles in either bike (15 mph, very fast cyclist) or car (55 mph). It will take roughly this many minutes to travel: (* 60 (/ 10 15.0)) 40.0 (* 60 (/ 10 55.0)) 10.90909090909091 The difference is half an hour, just going 10 miles. So really think a bit: if you're stuck behind $slow_traveller for 10 miles (curvy roads, hilly roads, whatever. Google for Palouse in WA if you want an idea of my local road system), you've just lost 30 minutes of your time. Fiddle the math how you like; it adds up to a lot more than 30 seconds. 30 seconds of hassle is what I get in town: not much. Note that I live in a rural area and bike around as much as I can. So I swing both ways here, and I still say that bikes disrupt road infrastructure which isn't designed to handle them.