How can you stand the lopsided car infrastructure?

[hanselthecaretaker2]

That’s probably because many orders of magnitudes more people drive than cycle - more’s the pity.

Cyclists unfortunately occupy this almost vestigial space in terms of transport where they’re dangers to the general user base of footpaths and roads.



This may not be uniform, but when I was taught to drive I was told both pedestrians and cyclists had the right of way in all road interactions outside of blatantly incorrect if not illegal actions. Maybe that is more common than I thought.

This is where it gets messy (possibly in more ways than one), because if a cyclist has the right of way on a bike lane, shoulder, etc. and debris on the road cause them to spill into the path of a car, the driver will be at fault if they make contact with the cyclist. This then causes drivers to be extra cautious whenever approaching cyclists, which can affect the flow of auto traffic if heavy. Additionally, normal practice out of courtesy here in MI and I’m guessing many other places is to swerve away from a cyclist to give them more room, which again can cause interference with oncoming traffic if that motorist crosses the center line.

There really *ideally* should be a bike lane adjacent to sidewalks, still with ample spacing from roadways. But infrastructure is already a nightmare in many places with increased traffic on freeway systems built when a fraction of the current population existed. Not gonna hold my breath.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Okay, not sweat as much.

Yeah, having to catch the one bus or train for that wide segment of time (or the service not operating on the weekends/Sundays or late is night) is one of the reasons few people here take public transit. It should be more frequent, even if that costs the city more. It's a public service; it doesn't have to make a profit. You make that sacrifice because having a system that's frequent in more areas attracts riders and benefits everyone by getting more cars off the road. Then when you no longer have so many cars you can rebuild parts of the city that have to be repaired/updated to a more human scale. Another reason few people here take public transit is because it still has to travel through jammed car traffic and traffic lights in most areas and gets no priority (despite often carrying more commuters). I used to try to catch the light rail on my way home from work, but stopped when I realized that with all the traffic lights it barely saved me any time. Once I even outran the light rail, was ahead by almost half a mile when I finally had to make my turn, and I wasn't going that fast.

Again, I have nothing against adding more and proper bike infrastructure as I've seen other countries with more biking and Louis Rossmann did videos riding his bike through NYC and some of the biking areas were pretty separate from the road and it looked like a decent way to get around. I personally think it would be great have trolleys going down main arteries in communities and that requires things to be zoned off (which you hate). So you can have a couple trolleys just going back and forth from the residential area to the business area so you can hop on to go to the grocery store/big box store or bar or restaurant or dentist or movie theater in your town. I don't think that system would be useful going to other towns/cities but would eliminate traffic for doing general errands. I would personally take the trolley to do such close errands because that is easily the most annoying driving is just doing the small errands around town.

 

[Ag3ma]

Many people don't cycle because the current infrastructure and city planning makes it inconvenient and dangerous. If that is changed and cycling becomes both safe and convenient, people will do. As seen in many European cities that took appropriate measures.

This reminds of the time I sat bemused when some rando ranted to me about how they needed to get rid of the buses because they held him up when he was driving. I didn't even bother pointing out that each bus trip was probably preventing another 20-50 cars on the road which would probably hold him up a lot more.

 

[Ezekiel]

Watched some political pundits talk about some school districts cancelling Halloween celebrations because some kids can't afford costumes. Towards the end, one of the pundits mentions the unfounded fear of poisoned candy every year and concludes by saying that the one way in which Halloween is dangerous to kids is in terms of car accidents. Implying (but of course not saying it) that kids are never outside because of the clownish car infrastructure. Lol. Yeah, that coupled with the wide distances is why so many Americans now do trunk-or-treating, such cope.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Watched some political pundits talk about some school districts cancelling Halloween celebrations because some kids can't afford costumes. Towards the end, one of the pundits mentions the unfounded fear of poisoned candy every year and concludes by saying that the one way in which Halloween is dangerous to kids is in terms of car accidents. Implying (but of course not saying it) that kids are never outside because of the clownish car infrastructure. Lol. Yeah, that coupled with the wide distances is why so many Americans now do trunk-or-treating, such cope.

How can anybody not afford a costume? You just make it yourself. I remember in highschool that one person dressed up as a bag of gumballs, which consisted of them wearing a clear garbage bag full of balloons. Everybody thought it was a fantastic costume and it probably cost less than a dollar.

 

[Ezekiel]

How can anybody not afford a costume? You just make it yourself. I remember in highschool that one person dressed up as a bag of gumballs, which consisted of them wearing a clear garbage bag full of balloons. Everybody thought it was a fantastic costume and it probably cost less than a dollar.

Don't wanna get into it, probably should have skipped to the last part, but it's one of those things where two people complain and then they remove it for everyone.