On 3/26/2014 12:03 AM, Joy Beeson wrote:



Since acquiring a "flatfoot" bicycle to treat a knee injury, I've
gained insight into the Friends of the Bicycle who want us to put our
bicycles into our cars and drive to special facilities to ride around
in circles.

This bike really is a pedestrian accelerator -- a great substitute for
a wheelchair, not good at all at filling in for other types of
vehicles. Riding on walkways doesn't feel nearly as inappropriate as
it does on more-efficient machines.



When I first heard of the Dutch bike paths, I wondered how they could
work. Every person has a different natural pace, that pace varies in
the same person (often during the same ride), and it's exhausting to
ride more slowly than your natural pace. That means that bike-path
design has to allow for overtaking, and if the path is to carry a
substantial volume of traffic, the riders must be able to overtake
without encroaching on the space reserved for traffic going the other
way. Allow for that, and the "path" is as wide as a road!

Then I learned that they do it by the simple expedient of restricting
everyone to the pace of the person wobbling along on his very first
ride. Ew, Gross! I'll *walk*, thank you. But *this* bike can't
possibly be ridden in a non-exhausting manner anyway, so there is no
penalty for slowing down to keep behind the butterfly*.

(*That's an obscure reference to having been trapped behind a
butterfly on the Corning Preserve bike path once. I didn't want to
crush the little fellow, and he zig-zagged too randomly to make it
safe to overtake.)

Others have noted that restricting everyone to super-slow riding speeds
can work in a super-dense city, where trip distances are very short
(average 3 km or less). Also, if the city is very compact, the
necessary total length & expense of "bike paths everywhere" is somewhat
less.

America features cities mostly built after the automobile existed, so
average trip distances are much greater. Required path length would
also be much greater. Slow speeds are much less practical.

If my workplace had been 3 km from my house, a 10 mph speed would still
have gotten me there in barely over 10 minutes. But it was actually 7
or 8 miles, and at my speed, it took me a bit less than half an hour. I
wouldn't have wanted to increase that time by 50%.

In these days of retirement, the time matters less; so when I make that
same trip, I usually return home by the much longer, scenic route
through the big metropolitan park. That helps make up for my lost
commuting miles.

--
- Frank Krygowski