Sounds very European. I can’t speak for the “car lobby”. This is not Europe.. this is America. Every time I get behind an idiot riding a bicycle, it slows myself and everyone else down. It negates the eco friendly bicycle because I am stuck with a longer commute and use more fuel, so are the twenty cars behind me. So in fact, it is more harmful to the environment by slowing down twenty cars, burning more fuel for each one.
In the old days my grandpa used to open his door and tap any dog chasing us. It would discourage the dog from chasing cars and keep it safer. I always think of him when I see a bicycle rider.
Typical elitist think. The working class needs to drive to work.
Get off the roads!
In too many places, however, road builders lose sight of non-motorized travel and they build roads that become barriers. Forget about bicylists and think about pedestrians. Can kids get across the street safely? Can they walk to a school that is a half mile or a mile away? Can they visit friends on the other side of the road without the parents having to drive them? Can elderly people take a walk to the local park? Do joggers have anywhere to go when they leave their little cul de sac? If you take care of the kids, dog walkers, moms with strollers and joggers, cyclists can generally use the same infrastructure.
The issue that I regularly encounter when I get on a bike and start ranging will be areas where there used to be sidewalks or shoulders, but these were long ago sacrificed (along with front yards and tree plats) to make additional travel lanes for cars. Commuter sewers can destroy what used to be perfectly decent residential neighborhoods, and I have no hesitation at all in arguing that roadbuilders in such situations should pay the cost of reasonable remediation, such as bike paths, safe crossings, and appropriate landscaping. These are not expensive frills demanded by elitist snobs; they are minimal compensation for affected residents if you want to drive an ugly, dirty, noisy, dangerous road through someone else's neighborhood. Roads should not become barriers (i.e., there should be frequent crossings at intervals appropriate for non-motorized movement). Chokepoints should be opened (e.g., put sidewalks or bike lanes on bridges). Gaps should be filled. Study a map of bike paths sometime, and you will see many examples of good networks in many neighborhoods across a metro area, but they often don't link up. That forces cyclists onto inappropriate streets to transit the gap.
So: when you see a bicyclist on a heavily trafficked commuter road where he is obviously out of place, you are usually seeing bad design. The cyclist has been flushed from cover by a gap or a chokepoint. Most bike commuters ride most of their routes on safe street where you will never see them. If they get flushed out onto the main roads from time to time, it's because of poor road design that should be remediated.
The spandex warriors are not the issue here. There aren't many of them; they are mainly an indicator species. The typical bike commute is under five miles. Most bike commuters are people trying to get around their own neighborhoods. There is an implicit ownership issue here that should be acknowledged. Motorists tend to start with the assumption that "the roads are ours and we resent accommodations for cyclists and pedestrians." But people who actually live in a neighborhood tend to think, "the neighborhood is ours and the neighborhood streets are ours; our neighborhood should not be degraded for the convenience of suburban interlopers who want a speedway to their jobs." As a resident of one of those "in the way" neighborhoods that motorists would like to bulldoze and pave over, I side with the residents over the transients.
If your commute is too long, consider living closer to your job. I grant that my neighborhood is an outlier; a majority of people do not take a car to work; over ten percent bike; and even more walk. This is not possible everywhere, but in major cities in which jobs are increasingly dispersed across multiple regional, often suburban job centers (not everyone goes downtown), the transportation planners should not assume everyone is going to drive. If you have suburban office park and shopping centers surrounded by miles of residential development, create an attractive and safe infrastructure that lets people within a five mile radius bike to work. That's not radical bike freak thinking; it's making it possible for people to get around their own neighborhoods efficiently. And if you make sure that this neighborhood system links to similar systems in surrounding neighorhoods, you have a regional system that can be utilized by the spandex warriors who do longer commutes.
Of course EVERYONE knows that only ELITISTS ride bicycles.
Class warfare much ?
Why don't move on over to socialistrepublic.com
Your proletariat screed will be welcome over there.
Oh, please!
I haven't been on a bicycle in years. During the summer months here I pass quite a few riders on the mostly rural roads I drive. Sometimes I do even have to slow down for a few seconds before I can give them a wide pass. I never think of them as "idiots" except maybe when they ride two or three abreast, which isn't very often. Grow up.
ML/NJ
That is some of the stupidest dribble I’ve heard in a while.
How many dogs chased after your grandpa? : )
See how they stop bike thieves in London at about 1:15
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaRyH8utPQ8