On Wed, 20 Sep 2017 21:47:25 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:
Build it and they will come? Sorry, no.

Here's a new article dispelling the myth that segregated facilities
generate tremendous bike mode share.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2...ped-stevenage?

Unless motoring is actively dissuaded, almost all people who have
cars will drive cars.

I remember seeing period BBC footage about this, describing the
innovations in place at the time. Now, maybe it's what you're used to;
I grew up in a very bikeable suburb of Chicago and all us kids just got
around on bikes. So I looked at infrastructure like this and was
puzzled as to why.

Apparently I wasn't alone.

In the Minneapolis-St Paul area we have been building out both
on-street and separated bike facilities. While I find much of the
design of the on-street facilities to be objectionable and even
downright stupid, there has been a noticeable increase in bike riding.
Most of them are young uns and are not wearing the pseudo-pro clown
suits (I'm still wearing mine, although I've reached an age and a body
composition where that's probably ill-advised). The separated
facilities- which are pretty extensive- get a whole lot of use; the
on-street facilities seem to get a lot of use too although not quite as
much.

But this doesn't seem to work everywhere. Denmark made it work by
taxing cars at an astonishing rate- owning a car is an economic
hardship for many if not most Danes due to the tax structure- and
pairing that with extensive on-street bike facilities. There would be
no way to accomplish something like that in the US, where owning a car
and having cheap fuel is effectively part of the Bill of Rights.