BICYCLE LANES 🤦‍♂️

[Uptight 534]

@Different Here we go. A much better and respectful response to the OP:

Rereading this over a few times, I thought at first you were talking about cycling lanes in general, which include properly separated bike lanes that are protected from the road (Master Raiden's example picture and Magniloquent's example of Amsterdam). It looks like you are in agreement that those should be built and not the "painted only" lanes that is typical in American cities (my favorite are the ones in my city that have sewer grates, glass, and other collected debris). I definitely agree with that because it offers more protection for both the cyclist and motorist. It allows cycling to be an effective mode of transportation, without the risk of sharing the road with motorists. It looks like you want to get rid of the painted ones and build separated ones, which I agree with, so I will not argue that.

I disagree on (paraphrasing and let me know if I misconstrued you words), "Cyclists should just move to the sidewalk if there are no protected cycling lanes." (answering @Master Raiden, as well) First, you bring up motorists not paying attention and hitting the cyclist on the road. Distracted drivers (compounded by speeding) can easily drive onto the sidewalk (barring any Armco, concrete, or any other barrier). Just take a look at this "law-abiding" citizen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL3wDgTwND0. 

Large cities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles or other cities/towns with densely populated areas (downtowns, as you say), have a bunch of pedestrians where riding on the sidewalk produces a risk of hitting them. Bikes (and motorcycles) are gyroscopic where going faster makes them more stable. Riding a bike (especially a road bike) very slow would have the cyclist weeble-wobble all over the place, while also avoiding pedestrians, trees, storefront doors, driveways, garage entrances, etc. 

Also cyclists travel way faster than pedestrians in relative speed (i.e., "bike vs pedestrian speed" is greater than "car vs bike" speed. Using the high end of the average walking speed of 4 MPH (6 KMH) and the low end of the average cycling speed of 12 MPH (19 KMH), we see that cycling is 3 times faster than walking. Let's take an average speed limit in a residential area of 35 mph (56 KMH) (chose this because from the table and personal experience, this seems to be the "average") and compare it to 12 MPH (19 KMH). The motorist is only 2.9 times faster than the cyclist, which is less than "Cyclist vs Pedestrian."

• Admittedly, these numbers are kind of cherry-picked. If I said 40 MPH (64 KMH) for the car speed than the bike speed, than there would have been a 3.3 times difference. Also, you can probably pick sources with different average speeds for bikes and walking.
  
•           This is why I chose the lowest end of bike speed and highest end of walking speed to try an not skew it.
  
• FWIW, a 45 MPH (72 KMH) and 15 MPH (24 KMH) difference is 3 times and 15 MPH (24 KMH) vs 3 MPH (5 KMH) is 5 times. Bringing that walking speed down by one value really shows cycling on the sidewalk is more dangerous due to the "relative speed" difference (i.e., less time for people to react).
  
• Yes, I know... motorists drive above speed limits all the time (myself included).
  

It also looks like you are dismissing alternative modes of transport (bikes and trains in this case) because of safety reason. That is fairly odd considering driving far and away leads in fatalities by transportation fatalities in the United States. On the topic of riding a bike in a city being super dangerous, select the "Highway Graph" tab and look at the amount of deaths via "Passenger car occupants" and "Pedalcyclists." Again, this is for the United States where protected bike lanes are relatively uncommon. Yes, this is for total deaths and there are more cars than bikes, so no wonder cars are so high (flaw in my point here). This next graph does not have bikes, but goes along with not even bringing up the amount of fatalities by vehicles by normalizing the data, specifically, "On the other hand, it's tragic to hear the numerous deaths caused by trains." Link.

I find it weird you want more safety, but also advocating for removing painted bike lanes and making roads wider in downtowns for vehicles. Shouldn't we be keeping roads narrow to deter speeding, which will increase reaction time and decrease the severity of incidents? I am way more afraid of cycling (as well as walking) on stroads, instead of downtowns because vehicle speeds are way faster. The downtown photo is of Atlanta, which is arguably one of the most car-friendly cities in the United States

"What exactly is your definition of a healthier, safer plan, anyways?" Sorry, going into more urban design. Mass transit a much more effective way to transport people than personal vehicles because it carries more people at once and decongests the roads. Benefits are also there is less wasted space on parking lots and garages. Ecologically, there will be less pollutants and possible more greenspace (taken away via concrete parking lots). The reason why mass transit seems ineffective for you is because you live in the United States where mass transit has been neglected in many cities (to be consistent, I drive to work too (looking to change that soon). Personal experience here is I missed a bus from work once and had to wait 30 minutes for the next one for a commute that should take 10-15 minutes (not including waiting). For the safety aspect, see the US DOT's statistics above. Take a look at these two photos and see how ineffective personal vehicles are (trains are not included on the left graphic, but they carry more people than all three):

     

Sorry I am starting to get long-winded here. "Do you realize how dangerous it is to have your back turned from oncoming traffic?" Here is a link to an article to answer this. To summarize, I poorly mentioned some of it in the first post: easier to be seen, larger reaction times, and decreasing the severity of the accident (Cycling 15 MPH (24 KMH) against 35 MPH (56 KMH) has more net force than both speeds going with each other; i.e., head-on collisions are worse). Same reason why airplanes land with traffic during engine-out emergency landings.

"Do you even drive?? How the hell are you not bothered by a dumbass cyclist refusing to use the bike lane or sidewalk, and riding in front of you?" Yes, I drive. I am not bothered by cyclists because, A) I am a cyclists and know what it is like to be on my city's roads that have almost no protected lanes and B) I drive a ~3,000 lb (6614 kg) death trap that can easily kill them, so I remain patient and realize it is only about ten seconds of my life (sorry if this reply sounds condescending, but these are my honest opinions on this). It takes longer to sit at most stoplights in my city than it is to wait to pass a cyclist. About the point of us thinking we are invincible, I cannot speak for others, but I am on a higher alert cycling than driving due to knowing I am more vulnerable (reading forum posts, comment sections on videos related to this, other cyclists share the same thoughts).

I think that finishes everything that I have. Sorry this is long and a little all over the place. I wanted to make a quality post that refuted your points and not attack you personally (apologies for minor sarcasm in this. That is just how I usually speak). Please let me know what else you want to discuss here. Again, it looks like we agree on the overall solution for bike lanes, but you have some misconceptions about cycling and car-centric city design that I want to dispel. I am not trying to get rid of cars entirely because there are uses (e.g., way better at packing a week of groceries from the supermarket). I am 100% open to any rebuttals from you or anyone else.

Also with the "Your Generation" thing, I am pretty sure we are the same generation, lol. I know this is a reply to me being a jerk, so your response is totally justified.