| > Most of your argument is about motorized vehicles, not bicycles They are the same thing. Bicycles have wheels, they should be on the streets. > Cities with lots of steps or staircases are only accessible for pedestrians, but no one else. And that's good! BTW, you can walk the bike. Just like you do when you have to jump on a train or take the subway. If you're talking about accessibility in general, that's a whole other problem. Bike lanes on sidewalks aren't accessible either, there are deaf pedestrian, blind pedestrians, handicapped pedestrians, that are put at risk by sharing the same space with bikes. > I guess it depends a lot on what you consider "bikers" [1] is very young
[2] is expert bikers, people that dresses for biking the percentage of the population that can bike regularly in a large city is quite small and Copenhagen is a very small city. The point is that you don't solve anything with bikes, just like you don't solve anything with skates, kick scooters and whatever you are thinking of You're over optimizing for a small percentage of the population. You solve a lot by removing cars from the streets (think about underground parking lots) and giving way more space to walking lanes, hardly separated from wheeled vehicles (cars, public transport, motorbikes, bycicles, whatever...) If you improve the walkability, you also improve the mobility: people can easily switch from bike, walking the bike for a bit on a sidewalk, take the public transport, get off, walk a bit more, jump on the bike again. If you cannot walk easily, safely and fast, you're packing pedestrian on very small areas, you're making their journey uncomfortable and leaving them at the mercy of wheeled vehicles, because they can be obviously faster and demand precedence. And those who use a vehicle are encouraged to leave it very close to where they are going, because walking, even a little bit, is painful. That's how we end up with cars parked in handicapped spots or on double lines or on the sidewalks or bikes chained to school gates or road signs or bus stops as you can see in cities like Milan [1] (where they use the bike a lot) Ironically the road sign in the picture says "bikes chained here will be removed" The majority of people in large cities walks, even if you don't notice it, even in cities terrible for walking like Rome, it's what people are good at. [1] https://i.imgur.com/iboqyTA.jpg |
But who is arguing that they shouldn't?
> [1] is very young
No it's not. Photo from 1926: http://www.rijwiel.net/fotos/foto001n.htm
> You're over optimizing for a small percentage of the population.
From the link [1] in my GP post: "Cycling accounts for 24 % of all commuter trips." That doesn't sound like a small percentage.
> You solve a lot by removing cars from the streets (think about underground parking lots) and giving way more space to walking lanes, hardly separated from wheeled vehicles (cars, public transport, motorbikes, bycicles, whatever...)
I'm unsure what you're arguing against. This is the bike-oriented city center of Den Haag: http://www.ditisdenhaag.nl/hofwegspui/
What would you change in that picture?