Re: cycle-paths, safe or not

This is anecdotal, not scientific . . . but when bike paths are crowded, I
generally prefer cycling in the street.

On NYC streets, one has to watch for car doors, motorists in a cell-phone
stupor, aggressive taxis, salmoning cyclists (especially those dressed in
black and riding unlit bikes at night), etc.  But those things are
predictable unpredictabilities.  One knows the score.  And I generally get a
wide berth in my orange vest, my lights lit, my rear basket hung with an
orange "slow vehicle" triangle (the kind used on tractors) that makes my
bike look wider than it is.

Worse are bike lanes on major streets, where one deals with pedestrians
plugged into iPods, staring at cell phone screens, wandering in and out of
the lanes, unhearing and oblivious.  Pedestrians are more careful when they
risk being hit by cars; the risk of being hit by a bike seems not to
register.

Also bad are dedicated bike paths when the crowds come out.  Manhattan has a
dedicated path that runs almost all the way around the island; long
stretches have stoplights for bicycles, few street intersections, and
wonderful views.  Those paths are trod by runners and walkers
(notwithstanding signs directing them to parallel pedestrian paths).  In
nice weather, particularly on weekends, the Spandex-clad skinny-tired
aggressive racing types put their heads down and, well, race, ignoring speed
limit signs (e.g., under the West Side Highway, where there are lots of
pedestrian crossings, the limit is 10 mph), weaving in and out of Sunday
cyclists, bringing their Wall Street winner-take-all ethos to the bike
paths.

In sum, I find it less stressful, and feel safer, to be on crowded streets
than on crowded bike paths.  The best are bike lanes on quieter crosstown
streets, where pedestrians keep to the sidewalk and when salmon head toward
me, there's more room, to move aside.

I find my preferences troubling because while I want a city with more bikes
and fewer cars, I like it best when other cyclists are few and far between.

Be careful what you wish for.

Cheers,

Jeffrey (NYC)

On Fri, Feb 11, 2011 at 9:35 AM, Joe DeLory <[email protected]>wrote:

> While I agree there are many advantages to have ing cycle-paths, it would
> be prohibitively expensive and practically impossible to create a system of
> paths that would reach every destination. Construction of cycle-paths should
> be viewed as an adjunct (not a substitute) to making the streets safer for
> ALL users. I also hope that construction of more "bike specific" facilities
> does not lead to "mandatory side path laws"
> _______________________________________________
> Touring mailing list
> [email protected]
> Browse and search the archives: http://search.bikelist.org
> Unsubscribe or list settings:
> http://www.phred.org/mailman/options/touring
>