What I’m saying is that everything doesn’t have to revolve around the almighty automobile. I’ll strke you a libertarian bargain. No use of federal gas tax funds for anything other than roadbuilding and repair. And no use of eminent domain to steal people’s property to accommodate commuters.
The laws of physics disagree with you. I go with the laws of physics. Inertia and gravity are pretty hard to argue with. You go on and try to force your will upon physics.
I personally don’t have a problem with sharing the roads with bicyclists, or pedestrians for that matter.
But there are rules, and these two groups blatantly refuse to follow them.
Sharing the roads whether cars vs cars, cars vs trucks, bicycles vs pedestrians, etc. is based on trust and right of way.
If no one trusted anyone else driving, than stoplights would be worthless because no one would venture into an intersection without stopping. Likewise crosswalks.
Bicyclists, especially, violate that trust by routinely and blatantly ignoring traffic rules and laws. When you compound that by the fact that they’re fragile, and tiny compared to most of the other vehicles on the road, its a dangerous situation for everyone. If a bicycle is such a difficult vehicle to operate that the rider can’t signal their intentions, stop at stop signs and stoplights (not to mention crosswalks), then perhaps they shouldn’t be sharing the roads.
That’s not to say motorists, or motorcyclists or trucks or any other vehicle is blameless as a group, but my observation is the percentage of other vehicles that run stop signs without even slowing down is around 5%, but with bicyclists it’s around 80%. Failing to signal with other vehicles is probably 40%, and bicyclists, it’s 99%.
Pedestrians, as a group, at least have the good sense not to dare cars to hit them, in most cases. I don’t know why bicyclists don’t seem to have that kind of sense.