Bicycle statistics

On Sunday, June 2, 2019 at 8:45:31 AM UTC-4, Duane wrote:
Andy wrote:
I see young kids riding. Teens too. Plenty of bikes at schools as
well.The percentage is lower than when I was growing up.


Same here. But when I was growing up there were not so many soccer moms.
The typical scenario was a 1 car family with the husband taking the car to
work and the wife taking care of the house and kids. It was certainly
like that for my family and most of our friends. So you had the choice to
walk or ride a bike.

I’m not saying the old days were better. They were not. Just different.
Now it takes more incentive to get kids on bikes. Once they put in some
bike paths from our neighbourhood to the elementary school the kids stated
riding to school. They still do. I past some of the path on my ride to
work. I don’t take it, partially because it’s crowded with kids.
“Advocates� can complain that it instills a sense of danger around cycling
but the fact is that most parents aren’t sending their 8 year olds into
traffic.

--
duane

Especially into traffic with distracted or texting drivers. Traffic is much heavier now than when we were kids.

When we were kids how did we learn to ride in traffic?

I'm not totally against bicycle paths but I am against ones that are poorly designed, ie door zone lanes, or ones that suddenly dump bicyclists into traffic.

I remember one bike lane they installed on Bay Street in Toronto Canada. You could stand on the corner of Bay and Queen Streets and look south towards Front Street and see nary a bicyclist in the bike lane. IIRC, they eventually moved that lane to Jarvis Street another north-south main street and in turn moved it to Sherbourne Street yet another north-south street because there was so little bicycle use on it. From Bay Street to Sherbourne Street is a fair distance.

Cheers