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> Americans in particular don't really have a mental category like "road for bikes". I see it all the time...if it's for bikes, then that means it's really for pedestrians too, right? For kids learning to bike? For prams? I'll cop to the claim being so broad that it includes the extremely, extremely low end of skill ("unable to reliably operate a bicycle"), which is a level where most people do not stay for long, especially in places where cycling is common for everyday tasks. I can't think of a pithy way to rephrase the original claim, so I will nuance it instead, that any cyclist who has mastered the basics of a bicycle should feel free to continue their learning in public places. After acquiring a basic ability to stay balanced, pedal, turn and brake, learning how to cycle and conquering the anxieties people have around negotiating their environments on a bicycle is trial-by-fire with (hopefully progressively) larger fires. This is even true for a lot of people learning to drive: many people in car-dependent suburbia figure out how to operate the steering wheel, pedals, and gears in a deserted parking lot somewhere, and then have to spend time on an actual road with cars to figure out how to interact intelligently with traffic. If learners weren't supposed to interact with traffic before they knew confidently how to interact with traffic, they'd be caught in a chicken-egg problem since it's fundamentally a trial and error process. Ultimately cycling is by its nature much more forgiving to people who are still figuring it out since the probability of an accident is much lower, as is its expected severity. It's much easier for competent cyclists to identify people who are clumsy or slow in a timely manner, and navigate around them. |