On May 10, 2012, at 2:51 PM, Michael Smith wrote:
> This is my attitude as well. I hate nearly all bike lanes;
> they're almost always poorly thought-out and badly engineered,
> and make the street less safe rather than more. There are
> exceptions, but they are few.
I quoted your comments to Charlie Komanoff (who says hi! and had many nice things to say about you, but didn't know you were the the critic I was quoting until after he wrote this), who responds:
>> was just denouncing bike lanes as more dangerous than no bike lanes,
>
> S/he may have been ignorantly riffing off a reed-thin
> 1970s meme that had more crashing [but far less serious-
> injury crashing -- they never bring that up] on separated
> bike paths, i.e., recreational paths that sent cyclists
> tumbling over tree roots, that kind of thing. It's
> totally obsolete.
>
>> and designed less for safety than to allow cars to go faster.
>
> But cars go slower on streets/avenues that put in
> separated bike lanes.
>
> Your pal probably is unaware of safety-in-numbers:
> the more cyclists there are in a domain, the fewer
> crashes (w/ cars) suffered per cyclist. If bike
> lanes engender more cycling ... and they do ...
> then s-i-n alone would make it safer.