[URSpider94]

Would you agree that we should choose which forms of transit to accommodate based on their needs and their utility? Cycling is a well-established form of transit that many people participate in, and which can serve a large portion of the transit needs of a city in relatively little space and with zero carbon footprint.

Getting more people out of cars (and off of buses) and onto bikes requires making them feel safe and unstressed. The best way to do that is to create dedicated bikeways. The Dutch have been doing this for 70 years or so, it works amazingly well, so much so that people don't even wear bike helmets!

Also, nobody is saying that Segways, skateboards, inline skates, unicycles, etc. wouldn't be welcome in the bike lane, if they can stay in their lane and move predictably at a speed compatible with cycling.

[jomamaxx]

"Cycling is a well-established form of transit that many people participate in,"

Many do, but it's very small about 2%. In SF it's 4$, NY it's 1%. And overall in America - it's negligible (outside of cities it's impractical).

So - bikes are a distant 4th after cars, public transit and walking. It's not going to change.

[vertex-four]

In the UK, apparently, 3% of adults cycle every day, and 9% at least once a week. The reason for the difference would likely be that we have many roads on which it is reasonable to cycle, and lots of infrastructure for cyclists - you can cycle to a train station, hop on the train with your bike, and cycle to work on the other end, for example.

[manarth]

> you can cycle to a train station, hop on the train with your bike, and cycle to work on the other end

Sadly, since May 2016, you now need a reservation - at least 2 hours in advance - for a number of First Great Western routes [1]. And you can't reserve online, it's either by phone or at a station's ticket office.

Although folding bikes don't count…maybe FGW has bought stock in Brompton Bikes?

[1] http://road.cc/content/news/183443-train-cycle-reservation-s...

[vertex-four]

Apparently phone reservations are required on certain ScotRail services as well, although they're trying to get the people running their website to build them a cycle reservation tool. That sucks.

[DanBC]

> The Dutch have been doing this for 70 years or so

The other thing the Dutch do is give priority to all bikes on shared roads where there aren't cycle lanes.

[phicoh]

Not true. On shared roads, bikes and cars are equal. For a long time they were not, bikes had to yield to cars even when the bike was coming from the right. But that was fixed.

Bike paths create a whole host of new problems. On big streets with multiple lanes of cars traffic, bike paths are generally a good idea. On smaller streets, bike paths tend to be too narrow, and trucks turning right have a good chance of driving over a bike. And people designing intersections seem be often clueless about where to put cycle paths and traffic lights for bikes, creating a big mess.