From David Fiedler,
Your Guide to Bicycling.
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What is your opinion of bikeways? Aren’t bikeways safer places to ride than the streets?

Bikeways were invented, designed, promoted, and are still paid for, by the motoring establishment. That is historical fact. Bikeways are the physical embodiment of the cyclist-inferiority view that the motoring establishment had been advocating for decades through its cyclist-inferiority, bike-safety training.

The three claims that are made for bikeways are that bikeways greatly reduce the car-bike collision rate, that bikeways reduce the level of skill that is required for safe cycling, and that bikeways reduce motoring by a transportationally significant extent. In thirty years of trying, none of these claims has been demonstrated by a scientifically sound study. Analysis of the types and frequencies of car-bike collisions, together with analysis of traffic movements, show that not only might bikeways reduce only a minuscule portion of car-bike collisions, but that they are most likely to increase those types of car-bike collision which form the large majority. No bikeway advocate has ever attempted to demonstrate which traffic-cycling skills become unnecessary in a city with a bikeway system; it is clear that all are required. As for a reduction in motoring, motoring has been growing all the time.

For a proponent of vehicular cycling, what makes bikeways an unacceptable alternative to riding on the roads?

This question is really several questions, distinguished according to types of bikeway and distinguishing between mere practice and social policy.

Some bike paths are well away from all roads and provide recreational routes. These are fine for those who wish to use them.

Some bike paths are adjacent to urban streets, as sidewalks are. These sidepaths are the most dangerous bicycle facilities known, because at driveways and intersections they create patterns of conflict between motorist and cyclist that exceed the capability of humans to handle. These are safe only when used at the slow speed, and with the cautions, that are required of pedestrians.

There are a few locations in urban areas that would permit the building of a bike path that serves a transportation function while also having almost no crossing motor traffic. The most usual of such locations are along the edges of waterways. These can provide a useful transportational function, but their most common fault is that they attract so much non-cycling traffic in the form of pedestrians, baby carriages, dogs on and off leashes, and suchlike, all making chaotic movements, that safe cycling is reduced to little more than walking speed. Even so, their intersections with crossing motor traffic need to be carefully designed to account for all classes and directions of traffic that are present, which design generally produces significant delay because of the complications.

Bike lanes are bikeways on the roadways, so they are not an alternative to riding on the roadway. The vehicular cyclist just ignores the bike-lane stripe, riding properly without regard to the presence of the stripe. However, the presence of the stripe confuses both other cyclists and motorists, because the stripe says that motorists should be on its left and cyclists on its right. That contradicts the rules of the road, which prescribe lateral position according to relative speeds between intersections and according to destination positioning while approaching intersections. In this respect, bike-lane stripes impose a more difficult task upon even vehicular cyclists, because they have to work out when they should obey the stripe and when they should disobey it, and how to out-think the bike-lane designer at the difficult places that always exist in any city, and to be vigilant for the movements of motorists who are equally confused by the stripe.

As for the cyclists who are not confident of their vehicular-cycling skills, the bike-lane stripe just confuses them into more mistakes that could lead to a car-bike collision. The same width devoted to a wide outside through lane without the stripe provides all the operating advantages of easy overtaking by motorists and cleaning of the space by motor vehicle tires, with none of the operating or policy disadvantages that are created by the stripe.

What criticisms do you make of the current road designing system?

By and large, road planners and road designers start by considering the amount and types of motor traffic expected. If no motor traffic is predicted, they won’t build a road. However, the fact that the road is built to serve motor traffic does not prevent it from serving other road users, such as including sidewalks for pedestrians along roads which will also serve pedestrian traffic. Building urban roads that do not have sidewalks is unconscionable, because people do walk near their homes and near where they shop.

The fact that a road is built to serve motor traffic does not mean that it doesn’t serve bicycle traffic. After all, any road wide enough for motor traffic is sufficiently wide for bicycle traffic. About the only road items that prohibit bicycle traffic are steel bridge decks and large drain grates with slots parallel to traffic, slots that catch bicycle wheels.

By and large, the best way to accommodate mixed motor and bicycle traffic is for the outside through lane to be sufficiently wide for motorists to overtake bicyclists within it. That answers the problems of motorist delay and cyclist guilt without introducing the confusion of bike-lane stripes. (In any case, we need bicycle-safe drain grates and bicycle-responsive traffic signals and smooth surfaces, etc.)