I definitely agree about bike lanes (divided by curbs or not) still having drawbacks. Any time car traffic crosses the bike lane, a potentially dangerous/lethal situation is created. I have been told by the local bike advocacy group (Bike East Bay) that novice cyclists are loathe to ride in traffic with cars.
This is consistent with my own personal experience. After a life threatening health problem, my wife has become a recent convert to cycling. We hit the road on a nearly daily basis on a vintage tandem. She is terrified by cars and always wants to head to any local bike path. Getting to any local bike path from our house always involves some travel on local roads with cars. The really interesting thing is that whenever we hit substantial traffic - she always screams "take the lane!". Thankfully, local drivers in our area are somewhat tolerant of bikes and it always works out. We do travel at the speed of traffic - so there is no real downside for them. While traveling solo, I almost never use the local dedicated bike lanes - they create potentially dangerous situations. I am much more comfortable making my presence known and getting the cars to accommodate me. Although dedicated bike lanes have gotten lots of press lately - in my opinion bicycle boulevards (where auto traffic is discouraged by permanent concrete barriers - much more substantial than curbs) are much more useful. If I am in the car trying to get somewhere in a hurry and encounter a barrier, I don't like it much. But it really saves the day when I am on the bike. Namaste, Corwin On Sunday, November 19, 2017 at 6:03:14 AM UTC-8, Marc Irwin wrote: > > I thought I would share what is happening in our little neck of the woods > in SW Michigan. > <https://simplecycle-marc.blogspot.com/2017/11/its-like-bureaucratic-seas-parting.html> > > Marc > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
