John Forester on Traffic
Wed, 12 Jul 95 13:22:14 PDT
The controversy is largely political. Motorists argue that the roads are too
narrow for safe cycling. That is merely an argument for unlawful driving that is made under the smokescreen of bike safety. What they really mean is that they sometimes have to, shall we say are legally required to, slow down
before overtaking cyclists. Fine, if they want to increase their convenience, then we suggest wider curb lanes. 14 feet for those city streets with significant traffic and 16 feet for those rural highways with
significant traffic. How much traffic is significant? That's a matter of judgement, both for motor traffic and for bicycle traffic.
Let the public, which of course largely means a motoring public, decide on the level of convenience it wants to pay for. All cyclists need to say is that the right to use the roadways for travel by proper means, which includes bicycles, overrides the argument of small inconvenience for some users and cost of overcoming it. In other words, since we could not pay for, let alone are not willing to pay for, a road system on which no delays occur, then all legitimate users have to share the inconveniences that must exist, and this principle is superior to any system that denies the right of some legitimate users to use the roadways merely for the convenience of other users.
John Forester (forester@ccnet.com)
726 Madrone Ave
408-734-9426 Sunnyvale CA
94086 USA
ProBicycle Editor's Note: This is taken from a note sent by Mr. Forester to the facilities-n-planning mail list on the subject of "Curb Lane Width". Mr. Forester is a professional traffic planner and author of "Effective Cycling" as well as countless technical publications on bicycling.