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Bikes are only a legitimate form of transportation in like 3 or 4 cities in the US. New York, Philadelphia, San Franciso and maybe another. And mainly only in the form of electric bike.
In these cities legitimately electric bicycles will get you to your destination faster than a car. And it'll have you parked for free.
In every other city just maintain the side walks. Barely anyone walks on them. Any kind of bike lane there would be a waste of money and straight up dangerous to the bicyclists.
Bikes are only a legitimate form of transportation in like 3 or 4 cities in the US. New York, Philadelphia, San Franciso and maybe another. And mainly only in the form of electric bike.
In these cities legitimately electric bicycles will get you to your destination faster than a car. And it'll have you parked for free.
In every other city just maintain the side walks. Barely anyone walks on them. Any kind of bike lane there would be a waste of money and straight up dangerous to the bicyclists.
For those who deny the existence of a Deep State this is an example. Career bureaucrats taking the laws passed by the Legislature and then developing the regulations using their personal preferences and current theories.
And this exists at every level of government, from the US Congress down to the smallest town.
This poll needs another option:
Noodle-armed dorks wearing brightly-colored skin tight spandex while riding an equally dorky bicycle should be banned entirely.
We just had what was a two-lane "country" road that leads to my neighborhood upgraded to a 4-lane with grass median and curbs/gutters. Took them forever (literally 15 years for a 3.5 mile stretch).
But to the point. On one side of the road is a nice 12-foot wide asphalt "multi-use path", intended for walkers, runners, and bikers. So what does the city do? They install "Share the Road" signs on the side of the road for bikes to use the roadway. That's what the multi-use path is for! So far it's not been an issue, but it certainly could be.
There are plenty of cities that have the rental bikes you can use. I am in Chicagoland and they are quite popular. In suburbs, it’s also a good way to get to the train station to avoid paying for parking (or having to find parking). One of my neighbors got a cheap bike to use just to get to the train station and said it was nice to be able to get there in 7 minutes instead of a 20-30 minute walk.
When I lived in a beach community, many people used bikes to get around because parking was limited in certain areas. It was a lot more convenient to ride a bike instead of driving.
Place like Tampa could be great for bike riding. The weather is warm enough most of the year to do it, but the implementation of the bike paths there makes no sense. Like there will be one intersection on Dale Mabry - one of Tampa’s main north/south roads-with a bike path and that’s it. Are you just supposed to ride along a large highway and hope for the best?
I ride road bike maybe 1000-1500 miles per pear... not a cat 3 superstar decked in lyrca or anything but a passtime I enjoy, and I think bike lanes are a waste of road space. Nobody likes to ride them the way they get implemented out here because they get covered in road dirt and rocks and other debris, and it's cold out here 6 months a year so nobody's going to want to use them.
I don't understand why they simply can't widen sidewalks and have bikes use them, why it's so taboo for bikes to use the sidewalk. They could make one of the roads in my town that typically has slow elderly drivers on it that clog up the roads 4 lanes instead of 3 lanes with a middle left turn lane and a bike lane on each side of the road. I suppose the safety nannies think that in the off chance a bike and a pedestrian might cross paths on a sidewalk they don't want them hitting one another. However wider sidewalks would be safer for pedestrians anyways, though it might annoy people who have to shovel them in the winter.
Most bikers would rather avoid busy roads entirely and ride in rural areas. I suppose in large cities in warm climates they might make more sense I just think wasting so much road space is cringe. Again it's very situational and should be determined on a case by case basis.
They almost tried to narrow a busy section of roadway in my town that was 4 lanes down to 3 lanes and bike lanes and boulevards instead of the way they did do it with 5 lanes... 2 lanes and a middle turn lane, and the state shot them down on the 3 lane idea... they wouldn't help fund that project. I'll credit them for that move. One of the busiest 2 roads in town why would you remove lanes? This is a mid sized town in South Dakota in the middle of nowhere where they try doing this. Chalk it up to the types of people who end up on city councils and city manager positions.... nannies without functioning brains. Basically the people who make these decisions probably never ride a bike.
I used to work in a long range urban planning environment. Most of the planners I worked with were rabid Democrats who were OBSESSED with the idea of “getting people out of their cars” even though they themselves owned cars. In some cases, bike lanes were desired by various communities, but in other cases, they were not really asked for or used, but looked at as a way to make driving more inconvenient for cars, as a “push factor” for people to consider alternate forms of transportation.
Exactly. Cities have rabid anti-car people running their transportation departments. Atlanta started doing a bunch of bike lanes when studies show there are 700 bike commuters in the metro. And I would bet the majority go to Georgia Tech, Emory or the Atlanta University Center, so its a tiny number in the rest of town.
This poll needs another option:
Noodle-armed dorks wearing brightly-colored skin tight spandex while riding an equally dorky bicycle should be banned entirely.
I ride road bike maybe 1000-1500 miles per pear... not a cat 3 superstar decked in lyrca or anything but a passtime I enjoy, and I think bike lanes are a waste of road space. Nobody likes to ride them the way they get implemented out here because they get covered in road dirt and rocks and other debris, and it's cold out here 6 months a year so nobody's going to want to use them.
I don't understand why they simply can't widen sidewalks and have bikes use them, why it's so taboo for bikes to use the sidewalk. They could make one of the roads in my town that typically has slow elderly drivers on it that clog up the roads 4 lanes instead of 3 lanes with a middle left turn lane and a bike lane on each side of the road. I suppose the safety nannies think that in the off chance a bike and a pedestrian might cross paths on a sidewalk they don't want them hitting one another. However wider sidewalks would be safer for pedestrians anyways, though it might annoy people who have to shovel them in the winter.
Most bikers would rather avoid busy roads entirely and ride in rural areas. I suppose in large cities in warm climates they might make more sense I just think wasting so much road space is cringe. Again it's very situational and should be determined on a case by case basis.
They almost tried to narrow a busy section of roadway in my town that was 4 lanes down to 3 lanes and bike lanes and boulevards instead of the way they did do it with 5 lanes... 2 lanes and a middle turn lane, and the state shot them down on the 3 lane idea... they wouldn't help fund that project. I'll credit them for that move. One of the busiest 2 roads in town why would you remove lanes? This is a mid sized town in South Dakota in the middle of nowhere where they try doing this. Chalk it up to the types of people who end up on city councils and city manager positions.... nannies without functioning brains. Basically the people who make these decisions probably never ride a bike.
5-lane roads with a center shared left-turn lane are accident magnets. Signaled intersections on these routes are never timed right resulting in backups. Drivers pulling left out of businesses and side roads lose patience and risk getting t-boned. Bicycles and pedestrians on sidewalks add to the chaos.
I would love to see 5-lanes reduced to 4-lanes (eliminate the turn lane and replace it with a barrier island), permit only right turns in and out of entrances and side roads, and put roundabouts at major intersections for u-turns. The flow of traffic and safety would improve so much.
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Basically the people who make these decisions probably never ride a bike.
