Cycling Infrastructure

>>1003352
Cager here, I would love for you fags to have separate designated cycling streets and bike paths in every city so I don't have to deal with or even see you on the road.

>>1003354
We need to start carrying caltrops for faggots like you.

>off street paths are the best
No, those are band aids
Bike only (except for service vehicles) streets are the apex of cycle infrastructure

>>1003352
Buffered or separated. Both are pretty darn nice, also signed routes tend to have barely any cars on them in my experience so I enjoy them as well.

>>1003352
Anything where I don't have to deal with cagers really.

The best kind of infrastructure is a street that works for all users without any special accomodations (except wayfinding/route signs, which are a nice convenience if they can be done). After that, off-street, separated, and buffered lanes are the best, in that order, because they're the most inclusive kinds of infrastructure that allow cyclists of all ability levels. Painted lanes and sharrows are the worst, because they do practically nothing to encourage timid/slow riders and can actually create new problems by confusing drivers.

>I don't understand why anybody would travel by bicycle on a busy road, especially if there's a perfectly good cycle path available to them. Why would somebody do that?
Where I live at least, the cycle paths are very nice - but there aren't very many of them, and even when there is an off-street path it takes a meandering route and adds a lot of distance and time to a trip compared to a direct on-street route.

>>1003352
I really don't mind any of them. Being able to ride safely with traffic is a skill every cyclist should have.

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>>1003364 (You)
Pic related - it's a random street from my city that could be practically any residential area outside of the central city in any part of the US that was developed before 1950, and it's perfect for cycling without any kind of special adaptation. Traffic is low, the trees discourage speed (unlike modern suburbs that have lots of setback and open sightlines to make things comfortable for drivers), and it's part of a grid (as opposed to a suburb organized around arterial roads).

Cyclists don't need infrastructure - we need neighborhoods that aren't designed for cars at the expense of all other uses.

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>>1003352
>What kind of cycling infrastructure do you like and don't like?
I don't like any. All it does it harm me in practice.

>I generally like any kind of cycle path that is separated from motorized traffic. Shared lane markings are useful only on quiet roads; otherwise, they are useless.
I would agree, however, you can't possibly have separated cycle paths which won't cause issue when you actually have to cross or turn or some shit.

>I don't understand why anybody would travel by bicycle on a busy road, especially if there's a perfectly good cycle path available to them. Why would somebody do that?
Biggest reason is how utter shit most bike 'lanes' are.

>>1003364
Bike lanes are the most poorly maintained part of the road, act as a trashcan for McFatties, will stop randomly, have you ride along doorzones,and in the event this is too much bullshit for you and you ride outside the lane, this enrages the McFatties which could literally, not exaggerated, end in my death.


>>1003371
This. I still run into cager problems around town, but it's generally not ever a close-call hitting situation.
More just harassment and trying to scare me, but no lane will prevent that kind of behavior.

>>1003355
>we need to start carrying caltrops
>implying we don't already
>implying I don't have a glock in my saddle bag

>>1003388
Don't you waste a lot of money throwing guns on the ground like that?

>>1003389
this is america, son
there are so many guns they're basically free
especially if you get them from dead people

Honestly, my preference as an American is simply a street with wide shoulders. I have found that bike lanes are usually very half-assed and cut off in random places, and in those random places where they cut off, drivers start to think that cyclists do not belong on the street. Now of course, Class 1 Bikeways are the best and safest, but they are rare.

>>1003384
>you can't possibly have separated cycle paths which won't cause issues when you actually have to turn
check out what they do in the netherlands, it actually works really well

>>1003364
>can actually create new problems by confusing drivers.

>go to DMV
>take written test
>take driving test
>pay $20 and get license
>driving my new ford flex down the road, speed limit says 45 but I'm going 55 because nobody /really/ goes the speed limit anyway, its too slow
>suddenly
>ahead I see something that makes my vision blur and by stomach knot up
>I don't understand it
>an impossibly small lane to my right
>some kind of ancient hieroglyph imprinted on my once pristine road surface
>looks like some sort of man straddling two orbs
>I must know its purpose
>begin drifting towards the lane, enchanted by its mystery
>my 10 minute drivers ed course told me nothing about this
>most of it was asking me how many points I would get on my license for stuff like texting while driving and drunk driving (true story)
>my driving instructor was texting most of the time so she couldn't prepare me for this
>finally reach nirvana, as I travel inside this lanes vast glory, I hear the sounds of heaven rattling outside my steel fortress
>strange creatures are in front of me
>some kind of biketaur, half man half stripped down motorcycle
>they dance in front of me when I get close, flipping in every direction
>when I get home I frantically google what I might have experienced, but my son installed all those damn games on the computer and now it has a virus so I cant do it
>decide to just go on some dirty websites and meet local singles in my area to tell them about what I saw

>>1003368
8 year olds? 80 year olds?

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>>1003352
separated can be quite shit if the planner is a stupid fuck

>>1003491
I dunno what your point is but when I was 8 I was riding (on streets) to school. When I'm 80 I expect to be riding. I know people in their late 70s who grocery shop on a bike, why do you think that's crazy? Are you from some cager shit hole like Miami or LA?

>>1003430
There is a MASSIVE culture difference there.

>>1003564
No. Just stop already. You've lost the argument. Netherlands isn't some magical land where bike infrastructure works that doesn't work elsewhere. Obviously shitty implementations of segregated bike lanes are shit. Well implemented they're by far the best.

>>1003568
What? Absolutely not.
Motorists right now say they don't look for cyclists, when they're in the same lane and right in front of them. Now you're going to tell me they'll suddenly start looking when you're out of sight out of mind, shocking them when you actually have to interact with cars? Laughable.

Motorists try and hit cyclists or push them off the road on purpose here, you think we could even start to get those kinds of bike lanes funded? Are you retarded?

>>1003572
fucking this

>people constantly put the hammer down to cut me off when I'm riding on the left side of a right turn lane (a.k.a the right side of the lane thats continuing straight, which is where I need to fucking be)

every day

not to mention people who I pass at right turns who didn't start turning when I passed them slamming on the accelerator and giving me zero space.
even when people do give you space they do it angrily, I can hear cars jerking the wheel behind me and then flooring it past me because they shit themselves over seeing a cyclist in real life.

>>1003572
>>1003579
I'm not claiming it's something you can do overnight. However segregated lanes is what makes most people FEEL safe on a bike. It means that more people will ride a bike as they feel safer doing it. More people riding bikes means that cyclists are present in bigger numbers and cars will see them. It won't be overnight change but if you never start you'll never succeed.

Netherlands wasn't always the same bike paradise it is nowadays. They just started to do the right things earlier than the rest so it's more ingrained into their culture.

>>1003593
I dunno. I like your line of thinking, and ideally it follows, but we're SUCH. Car country, I dunno if I could see it in my lifetime or ever.

>>1003388
>checked

You know, this with practice on the draw is actually a very nice way to carry while riding.

I like the kind of infrastructure where I ride through oceans of cager blood spilled from their crucified bodies along both sides of my glorious road.

I like shared lane markings most.In london its pretty hard to use the on street bike lanes as the genral public arent that savy, the seprated lanes are a good idea but there to short so it feels kind of pointless.

>>1003491
Yes.

Bike trails are nice for covering distance without getting to work all strung out.

Bike lanes are nice on busier streets, as long as they're well designed.

Sharrows are useful as a way of steering cyclists towards low-traffic parallel routes. On busy streets, they're completely pointless.

>>1003593
>segregated lanes is what makes most people FEEL safe on a bike
Only when going straight.
Imagine having this sort of ""cager culture"" with separated lanes and needing to cross a fucking street, mate.

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>>1003354
Im with this guy.

Im my country its reaching unbearable levels of annoyance.

These guys are the cancer of the road and its reaching metastasis levels. Slowing down every fucking road for a hobby, crying for muh rites but ignoring every single traffic light, going side by side with the other tumours friends when its forbidden because it makes it harder and more dangerous to overtake you but hey you need to chit chat and the only law you care about is "MUH METER AND A HALF when overtaking me".

I work in a funeral home, the happiest days of my life are when I have to go pick up whats left of a cyclist hit by a car.

Good day to all of you.