[l1tany11]

Every little part of the infrastructure is dumbly serving the idea that a car briefly going 50mph is a good thing. The crossing buttons you mentioned, are often inaccessible from the bike lane. The bike lane doesn’t have a sensor (and such sensors do exist). You have to somehow go up the curb, push the button, and go back to the street. But what if you are turning left or going straight and there is more than 1 lane? What if there are cars in the way, say turning right? Being predictable is paramount to safety, how predictable is it to be in the right lane, hop up a curb to push a button, to go back across 2 lanes to make a left?

One thing I’ve realized is that there is a bias regarding speed. If people drive somewhere and there’s a nice fast road with a lot of traffic, then it’s a quick efficient journey. Regardless of the fact that they hit 4 stop lights and actually averaged less than 20mph. Factor in door to door times, and the numbers get crazy.

Look at the behavior of people in parking lots. It’s very common for people to spend more time parking, to avoid spending part of that time walking. So instead of going for the available spaces that are a 5-10 second walk from the “good spot” they battle to park as close to their destination as possible. To avoid walking 5 seconds. And now your average speed is 15mph in the suburbs. It’s great.