Must there be a bike lane anywhere?



ZekeLee

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Feb 9, 2018
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Cycling is a good way to promote and support a healthy environment. However we must admit that cycling is not that safe specially when we are sharing road with big and heavy vehicles. I think having a bike lane anywhere would be a good idea for us and for the environement. Unfortunately that is not the case in most countries.
 
Nice suggestion for having a bike lane everywhere because motorists are very aggressive nowadays. Accidents are all over the place because of lack of discipline on the road. But having a bike lane will help reduces those kind of tragedy. Pretty much good idea and government should take action on this.
 
The bike lane is our advocacy here in the metro because we really think that the bike lane is the primary solution to avoid unnecessary accidents on the road. However, some main roads here with bike lanes are funny because the marking is not an exclusive lane for the bikes. The outermost lane has a marking that half of it belongs to the bike. So what happens to the other half? It is crazy, really, so impractical and out of logic.
 
agreed with that. It's really dangerous to use the two wheels vehicle like bike without the specific lane in public highway. The government should prioritize the bike lane for those environmentalist and advocates of green and healthy environment. In our country, if they will just prioritize the bike lane or motorcycle lane the traffic is not a problem anymore.
 
That's not the case in my country as well and it's really sad to hear. I mean that one can really understand that cyclists are humans as well and need that special lane where we can ride in order to be safe from the careless drivers that ply the major roads on a daily basis. I have witnessed the death of some cyclists on major roads and it's sad our government are not doing anything to protect us .
 
I know I'm going to be the big bad wolf on this but in some areas, especially those areas that most cyclists stay home and off the road when it gets cold, bike lanes and paths are very expensive taxpayers money pits! I live in Fort Wayne Indiana, even in the summer during an average work day I may see only 2 or 3 dozen riders in a 20 mile stretch of the bike path, and I bet less than 2% of the people that live in my city use the expensive paths. What's the purpose? Look, the motor laws say that a bike has all the rights of the road that motorist have, if we kept our rights to the road and rode in a manner that was legal and courteous to others we wouldn't be afraid of getting hurt on the road. I've been riding for over 40 years, long before paths and lanes became the thing, and I rarely had an accident. While of course today there is the added distraction of morons texting while driving but even so I still ride the streets today and I don't worry about that, the only thing I do different now when riding streets vs 40 years ago is that I now use a bright rear flasher, and I wear a neon green jacket or vest.

And how expensive are these bike lanes and paths? Depends on where they're located but they start at $5,000 and can go as high as $535,000 per MILE! With the average cost being $130,000 per mile! So in Fort Wayne we have about a 30 mile system that means it cost about 3.9 million dollars to build and it's still not finished. For paying almost 4 million dollars for something that less than 2% of the population uses seems like a huge waste of taxpayers money.

I would be ok with spending that kind of money on paths and lanes if the government established either an extra tax for new bicycles to help pay for that stuff, or a one time registration fee, or a combination of both. I can hear some of you screaming now, but why should gasoline taxes be used to build bike paths and lanes while our roads crumble for cars to use? The gasoline tax should only be used for construction of new roads and repairs to current roads, and that's it. Indiana had to raise our gasoline tax by 10 cents a gallon because some of the money was being syphoned away to pay for bike paths and lanes and not enough was going into road maintenance, plus they increased car registration fees. I hate to break the news but 98% of car owners in colder climate areas of the country never ride a bike yet they have to pay for those that do, just doesn't seem fair to me...and I'm a cyclist, but I'm also a car owner!
 
I pretty much agree with Froze. Wider lanes are probably as or more effective than bike lanes with several questions on drivers tests so that they KNOW that cyclists have the same rights on the roads as cars. And active enforcement so that cars cutting bikes off or taking close passes at them are ticketed. Too many roads simply cannot support bicycle lanes. Out in the country on narrow roads you have pretty much the same problems - cars without the slightest respect for cyclists.

On the other hand, other than train travel cycling is the safest form of transportation.
 
I kind of agree with you, Froze. I really enjoy cycling on the Rails-To-Trails paths. They are partially privately funded and most of it come right out of the taxpayers hip pockets.

Worse, when the land was taken (many times by eminent domain) for use as a rail corridor the rightful land owner doesn't get his land back and is not compensated for having a bunch of people riding, hiking, skiing and sometimes riding snowmobiles through his back yard. That, I find more disgusting than the tax dollars.

Our trails do get used a lot, but it's the same 2% or whatever percentage that ride them, walk them or ski on them.

As far as the rail-trails go, the land should have reverted to the property owners when the obviously for-profit railroads abandoned the rights of way and took up their rails (for scrap value) and left the land to turn back into forest.
 
Here's another shocker for you. In the beginning of all this bike paths, trails, and lanes, it was a democrat thing to push this stuff, why? because gaining 2% of the vote over to their side was worth the billions of taxpayers dollars...in other words the democrats found another way to buy votes! Ok, this one will result in rock throwing so I'm going into my bunker. Now many years later Republicans saw that the democrat stunt was working so in order to get some of those votes back they too started supporting the bike causes. https://usa.streetsblog.org/2011/03/17/why-a-republican-congress-is-good-for-bike-advocates/

By the way, the costs that I mentioned that it takes to build an average mile of bike path doesn't include maintenance over the many years the path will be around, I can't even find that projected cost. I know in Fort Wayne where the weather is extreme the paths get cracked pretty bad, there are some areas that are worse than streets! Eventually those will have to be repaired meaning more costs. And since a lot of our paths wind through wooded areas someone has to clear the branches and brush away from the paths, another cost for taxpayers. Also large sections of our paths get flooded in the spring bringing tons of mud covering those areas, this means someone has to clear the mud away, more expense.

I have no problem with private donations going forth to build paths, and trails. Most if not all of the rail property that was 'stolen" from private landowners really cannot go back to the owners because those owners have long ago sold their property to the railroads and are dead, so there is no one around to whom the property can go back to. But an unknown percentage of the land use by the railroads was public land to begin with and owned by the federal government and not by private citizens. To help offset the cost of constructing the rails land grants were given to the railroads from state and federal governments for about a dollar an acre, then after the rails were built the railroads sold the land to private investors, usually cattle and sheep ranchers, where the railroads almost tripled their investment. The other land that was acquired by the railroads were purchased from private landowners; very little land was "stolen" from landowners, more like pressured from landowners though some did voluntarly sold the land probably because they got a promise of a train stop which meant money from travelers etc, regardless they were all paid for it. So what happens to day is that Rails to Trails simply negotiates a section of no use rail from the government; see: https://www.railstotrails.org/build...olbox/outreach/negotiating-with-the-railroad/
 
The good thing right now in our country, our government prioritize the bike lane to encourages the people to use bike to avoid the heavy traffic. Our government developing the national highway and doing some road widening for bike lane, and it's gonna be exciting.
 
I think there must be a bike lane but only for the main roads and the wider roads available, so that it will be safer for everyone and also help with traffic, in the same way with motorcycle lanes.
 
I think there must be a bike lane but only for the main roads and the wider roads available, so that it will be safer for everyone and also help with traffic, in the same way with motorcycle lanes.

You can't have a special motorcycle lane because motos can keep up with the flow of traffic. If you were to have a separate lane for motos then next to that you would have to have bike lane, now the cars have to figure out which lane they're suppose to be in not alone the amount of space that would be required to put down all those lanes.
 
That's not the case in my country as well and it's really sad to hear. I mean that one can really understand that cyclists are humans as well and need that special lane where we can ride in order to be safe from the careless drivers that ply the major roads on a daily basis. I have witnessed the death of some cyclists on major roads and it's sad our government are not doing anything to protect us .

I agree with you, in our government also, and actually it's funny to think that one politician in our country suggested that the two wheels vehicles should not allowed to use the major roads, instead of developing our national highway and implement or give the bicycle the proper bike lane. he was suggested that nonsense thing.
 
A lane for bikers will be a good suggestion. Some places have a special lane for bikers but here in my country bikers share the same road with the vehicles which is very dangerous. The government should impose law that will provide lane for the bikers because they help conserved the environment. It will also provide safety for the bikers.
 
I can only hope for more bike lanes to be available. It's really hard for us cyclist's when there's not enough lanes. It helps us avoid troublesome cars and riders.
 
You can't have a special motorcycle lane because motos can keep up with the flow of traffic. If you were to have a separate lane for motos then next to that you would have to have bike lane, now the cars have to figure out which lane they're suppose to be in not alone the amount of space that would be required to put down all those lanes.

Oh, are motorcycle lanes not a thing? I just assumed it was the same case in other countries since our country enforces it in one of the biggest and longest roads here. Yeah, I guess for regular roads separate lanes for 2-wheel vehicles isn't really necessary.
 
I can only hope for more bike lanes to be available. It's really hard for us cyclist's when there's not enough lanes. It helps us avoid troublesome cars and riders.

You're right. It's really dangerous for us to use the public highway without the bike lane. We paying our taxes also, the government should prioritize the cyclist.
 
Here in my country, one of our government agency had already implemented a motorcycle lane policy. It was strictly enforced first last November 2017. This road rule was to enforce riders to go to their respected lane which was at the center of the road. The authority said that it was for the safety of the riders and they said that riders were more prone to crashes. But the policy received a lot of criticisms from the motorists. Some of the criticisms were how it will become safety for them [riders] for they were to be sandwiched between cars and they [authorities] couldn't legally impose it since everyone who has vehicle has a road user tax. At the end, this policy did not last long and wasn't practicing right now anymore.
 
I would have to agree that having bike lanes everywhere in the metro would be the best way for people to travel because it's healthy and won't add to the pollution that motorized vehicles gives off. This way one can enjoy cycling in the metro as well as off road cycling in the outskirts. Sadly though our government has no plans in creating a metro wide bike lane as of now.
 
Two things would be true if this were an ideal world: 1. There would be bike lanes everywhere, even spanning between cities, and 2. Traffic laws regarding bike lanes would be enforced.

I used to live in New York City where they started establishing bike lanes in most major neighborhoods. That was well and all, except no one paid any regard to the new rules of the road. Motorists were parking in bike lanes like they weren't even there, and some motorist actually drove in the lanes, putting the lives of bikers at risk. Perhaps they thought it was safe because the lanes were empty at the time, but it's still a very illegal and dangerous thing to do.

I wish the world would respect cyclists more.
 

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