On Fri, 4 Jan 2019 23:38:12 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 1/4/2019 2:11 PM, wrote:
On Friday, January 4, 2019 at 6:18:04 PM UTC+1, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/4/2019 8:01 AM, wrote:
On Thursday, January 3, 2019 at 12:14:16 AM UTC+1, Frank Krygowski wrote:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ms/2319972002/

- Frank Krygowski

What is your point Frank? You want a pat on your shoulder? The main purpose of our bikepaths is to make cycling safer not increasing it.

Lou, for the last 15 years (at least) in America the bike facility
propaganda has been that building bike infra will increase cycling. "If
you build it, they will come!" was taken from the movie "Field of
Dreams" but in this context it means "If we just spend lots of money
building bike lanes... no, make that parking protected bike lanes... or
maybe bicycle freeways... then LOTS of people will stop driving cars and
ride bikes everywhere."

And in the last 10 years, when bicycling became trendy, every time a
city's bike mode share rose from 0.5% to 0.6%, those pushing facilities
have trumpeted this headline: "BIKE MODE SHARE INCREASES BY 20% IN ONE
YEAR!!" followed by "We MUST build more bike lanes everywhere!"

They've resolutely ignored those cases where (as in San Francisco) bike
mode share rose without any new bike facilities - that is, rose only due
to fashion. They've also resolutely ignored all those places where new
bike facilities caused no improvement, as well as those places where
bike mode share dropped.

My point? Let's look honestly at the whole picture, and at all the data.


And then what? Do bike facilities bother you so much that you point us to obscure articles that agree with you again and again. What do you expect from us? The same yes no discussion?

My expectation would be that people who find the article interesting
would discuss it. People who do not find the article interesting would
go do something else. Maybe disassemble and reassemble all the links of
their chain? Whatever you like, Lou.

But _bad_ bike facilities do bother me, and there are many, many of
those being promoted in the U.S. (I haven't put up links to the latest
fatalities caused by door zone bike lanes. Want to see those?)

I have seen bad bike facilities excused on the theory that even if some
riders are injured (they never mention killed) it will be worth it,
because facilities will attract more cyclists and get more people
exercising. Some have claimed that despite increased injuries there will
be net gains in public health. In other words, they're willing to
recruit victims by false promises of safety. To me this is immoral.

For those and other reasons, when people (like Joerg, for instance)
claim that putting in bike facilities will cause miraculous changes in
American transportation, I'm willing to show contrary data.

If you don't like it, I suggest you don't read it.

Frankly I doubt that improved bicycle facilities will result in more
then a minimal increase in the number of cyclists assuming that the
numbers are calculated in a per capita basis.

Looking at the Transportation Energy Data Book edition 36, the total
percentage of workers who traveled to work on a bicycle were 1980
Census - 0.5%, 1990 - 0.4%, 2000 - 0.4% and 2016 - 0.6%. The numbers
were 468,000 workers riding bicycles in 1980, 467,000 in 1990, 488,000
in 2000 and 487,000 in 2016 while total workers (in thousands) were
96,616, 115,069, 126,279 and 145,861.

While these numbers represent only those that rode a bicycle to work I
suggest that the numbers of recreational riders are likely to be in
proportion to the above numbers.

cheers,

John B.