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Comment by exogen | Hacker News Reader

Even as a cyclist, when I hear of new bike lane construction, my feelings on the matter are "meh" or even negative. I think we should instead just normalize cycling among the cars (mostly by educating drivers, who either get pissed or are too cautious to pass even when they have plenty of room). Bike lanes just create the mindset that bikes should be separate traffic, and screw you over as soon as you need to take a left (now you need to merge into the cars on your left instead of already being between them).

I rode my bike across the country and my favorite city for cycling is still Cleveland. Not a whole lot of bike lanes, but wide enough roads and flat terrain. And the only time I was ever struck by a vehicle was when I was riding in a bike lane (because they were trying to turn right).

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I probably would have agreed with you until I spent a lot of time in the Netherlands. Imagine saying the same thing about pedestrians: “I think we should normalize walking among cars. Sidewalks just create the mindset that pedestrians should be separate traffic.” Yes, to do this right, you need more than just bike lanes down each street that end in normal intersections. You need intersections with separate signals for bikes and cars, with no right on red, with grade-separated crossings at major roads. The Netherlands has done this for nearly every road in the country, and no it wasn’t always thus - it was done starting in the 1960’s as the result of a massive grass-roots people’s movement.

That's an old argument, the "vehicular cyclist."

Only 1% of people are brave enough to do this.

For bikes to have a significant mode share, it has to be more comfortable than "just mix in with the high speed SUVs."

Plenty of examples of high mode share, Copenhagen and Amsterdam above 50%, and they do not ask bicyclists to mix with fast dangerous cars.

Surely not every road or destination is going to have bike lanes, so isn't everyone going to have to mix with traffic eventually anyway? Having them in some places but not others is just confusing for everyone involved.

Watch the bicycle infrastructure get better as he get out into the Amsterdam suburbs.

Cycling showdown, Amsterdam vs. Calgary

https://youtu.be/M8F5hXqS-Ac

> Surely not every road or destination is going to have bike lanes

Why not? If there’s space for an entire road there’s more than enough for a bike lane or two. With the possible exception of mountain-side single-lane roads where cars barely fit.

I think that this cannot be solved by "educating drivers".

Physical separation is needed for lanes with radically different speeds. Today, sidewalks (4 kmph) are separated from cars (40+ kmph). Because of demand of people traveling around 20 kmph, we need another separated lane for bikes and other e-mobility crowd that is able to move approx. in range of 10-30 kmph. Because of safety new lane must be physically separated.

Also, there should be wise to set some speed limit for these lanes, like 30 kmph, for cases when lane is used by hi-powered e-mobility vehicles.

In theory, parts of town where car speed is so limited to speed of bikes (25 kmph?), separation in many cases disappear. Nobody wanna be driving in such speed anyway.

The “vehicular cyclist” is very rare. I tried it a handful of times and it felt like an unnecessary risk (ie, death or permanent disability). Way too many distracted or under the influence drivers on the road and all it takes is one to make a permanent life altering change.

US cities need to be built around bikes. There are known models that work (Amsterdam). There just needs to be a significant paradigm shift in American mindsets and dependency on vehicles.

I sort of felt the same way. But our city’s recently been building segregated lanes on the main central routes and it’s great to see little kids riding in them where before it’s was almost all folks in Lycra - point being it’s made cycling more accessible to people who can’t contend with full traffic.

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