[alrs]

Bike lanes exist to get bicycles "out of the way," which is why we have a decades-long alliance between the car-insurance lobby and the sell-bicycles lobby to get bikes off the road and on to facilities.

This is a losing strategy for people who actually ride bikes, the correct one is to lower speed limits.

[choeger]

> This is a losing strategy for people who actually ride bikes, the correct one is to lower speed limits.

I do not think that this is going to cut it. On a good day I easily do 30kph on a good road (that's why I prefer the painted lanes, btw., they tend to give you access to paved roads). With wind, or exhaustion, or any number of reasons, that speed can drop downwards to 20kph. Now I am definitely not the most well-trained person on the streets, but I am among the faster cyclists. So there are many that can only go about 15kph or even slower.

So what speed limit would you actually pick? 20 would slow me down on my bike (I presume you do not belong to that minority that believes traffic rules do not apply to bikes), 30 would leave lots of slower cyclists behind.

In an ideal world, city roads with two lanes would be converted as follows: Speed limit of 60 on the broader left lane, with a minimum speed of 40 or a strict "no bikes" policy. A 2m cycle priority lane on the right, cars may use it but at most 30kph and have to leave it when overtaking. Lanes separated by engravings in the pavement that make noise. Maybe even by some kerbs. Parking on that right lane, in particular deliveries, should be a serious offence.

This way, in the case of serious congestion, cars can also take the right lane (I do not see any reason to demand a free road for any party in traffic), but will naturally use the left lane in better conditions.

This should be seconded by clear paths and traffic lights to turn left from that right lane and to turn right from that left lane.

[mrob]

30km/h (19mile/h) is a reasonable speed limit within cities. Less fit cyclists can use electrical assistance to keep up. The money spent on useless paint can be switched to e-bike subsidies.

[gnode]

> I presume you do not belong to that minority that believes traffic rules do not apply to bikes

Personally, I don't see much reason for speed limits to apply to bikes, or at least, for a speed limit intended for cars to apply to bikes. The two classes of vehicles have different concerns.

[reallydontask]

doesn't look like they applies to cars either.

[dsfyu404ed]

>So what speed limit would you actually pick?

No posted limit. What is safe and reasonable it is left to the road user's discretion. If you want people to slow then clog up the road with all sort of "traffic calming" measures.

[frabbit]

Speed limits apply to motorized vehicles. Not to bicycles.

[frabbit]

I do not understand why this idea is voted down. In contrast to the insistence in the Netherlands in the late '70s that urban planning must cease to create a hostile enviornment for self-mobile humans there has been a long-standing and well-funded push to develop bicycle lanes backed by both federal and state governments and lobbied for by organizations like the Thunderhead Alliance explicitly to remove bicycles from the road network which we all pay for.

The Netherlands is as good as it because they insisted on the fundamental right to security, safety and convenience of all the people to use public space.

Accepting a narrow, little painted lane where you cannot dawdle and chat two-abreast and have to stop at a novel intersection design every few hundred meters is not progress. It's a step away from a reasonable cycling environment.

Cycling organizations in the USA are dominated by well-organized lobbyists from the bicycle retail industry and their hangers-on.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

I'm in favor of reducing speed lines, but I don't think that is enough. I haven't seen a city with more bikes (or where cycling works better) than Copenhagen, and it's full of bike lanes (the vast majority of them proper, segregated bike lanes, not painted, of course).

[frabbit]

Which cities have you cycle in to compare them with Copenhagen? (Assuming you did actually cycle in Copenhagen).

[Al-Khwarizmi]

Madrid, Barcelona, London, Paris, Berlin, apart from other smaller cities in several countries. And yes, I also cycled in Copenhagen. Have to confess I haven't been to Amsterdam, which is also considered an extremely bike-friendly city, though.