this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
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Fuck Cars
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Would it be less of a dick move if it was a faster cyclist or a motorcyclist needing to pass by? No, it might actually be worse.
The point is that we need to do our best to respect other road users, regardless of their method of transportation. Pedestrians, cyclist, motorcyclists, cars, lorries and even animals (perhaps especially animals)
Any side-by-side vehicles increases the amount of space taken on the road, which means it should be avoided when other travellers need to pass by. It's the same reason that lorries or cars travelling side-by-side at the same speed on the highway is often frowned upon.
I really don't get people who want to wage a constant social war over our shared infrastructure by being assholes to each other. Being decent and considerate is safer and more pleasant for everybody involved.
A car takes up at least the width of two bikes by default. Why do they have the right to do that while bikes don't?
Maybe we should focus more on overall efficiency and sustainability of our transport systems, and by that metric, cars shouldn't even exist. A four lane road takes up the same width as a two track rail corridor and mixed use pedesterian/bike paths on either side, but can transport far more people per hour than private cars while being both cheaper in the long run and more environmentally friendly.
The answer is simple really. The car is one unit, the bikes (in this scenario) are two units, they don't have to be considerate, but they have the option to do so.
I'll give an equivalent example. Where I live we have a class of vehicles referred to as "moped cars", same form factor as cars, but speed restricted to either 30 or 45 km/h. Usually they're used by teens to get arouns in rural areas with poor public transit options, so they'll often be trundling along on 70-90km/h roads at slow speed.
This can quickly lead to queues building up behind them during high traffic hours in areas with few passing opportunities. Quite often, when this happens, they'll pull off to the side for a few seconds at an opportune spot to let other, faster vehicles, pass by. They don't have to do this, but it is considerate.
As for the second half of your comment, each method of transportation has its niche and purpose. The best system is one that utilizes the strengths of each to complement the others. Attempting to apply a monolithic solution everywhere will generally lead to frustrations and inefficiencies.
Pedestrian - Trivial distances, any density.
Bike - Trivial -> Short distances, any density.
Cars - Short -> Long distances, low density.
Busses - Short -> Long distances, medium density.
Rail - Short -> Long distances, high density.
High Speed Rail - Medium -> Extreme distances, high density.
Air - Long -> Extreme distances, high density.
Because they can move fast enough to not be in the way for people behind them, since they are among the fastest vehicles on our roads. Bikes are considerably slower, which makes it more of a nuisance for those they're sharing the road with if they can't easily be passed.
Bike lanes are a good thing, and being courteous is a good thing- that goes both for passing when safe and being respectful of bike riders when you're driving a car, and also for allowing cars to pass where possible when you're moving significantly slower than the average traffic speed on a bicycle. It doesn't have to be adversarial.
Trains are even faster than cars despite being more efficient. Cars actually get in the way of trains, as level crossings are among the worst bottlenecks to both speed and frequency on a railroad, even if every single driver obeys the rules perfectly, the existence of an intersection between two fundamentally incompatible modes of transport introduces a conflict point which inevitably creates inefficiencies. In this way, cars are a "nuisance" to trains in the same way bikes are to cars, and being courteous won't solve that. So by your own logic, we should get rid of cars and build rail instead.
Tracked vehicles tend to have priority against all other methods of transport on land. They're just as incompatible with pedestrians and bikes as with busses, lorries and cars.
It's far easier, cheaper, faster, and more space efficient to build a pedestrian or bike over/underpass than one for cars. A pedestrian overbridge is usually a community project with city involvement, a car overbridge is at the very least a city/country project potentially with state or federal funding.
Being courteous does solve that...? First off, trains don't share the road, they follow tracks, so thats somewhat of a convoluted comparison. But more importantly, you stop at train crossings so the train can go first...? Is your argument that that's inefficient? Everything is inefficient. Any solution to a really complicated problem like how multiple forms of transportation co-exist is going to have inefficiencies
Also, no idea where you got the idea that I would be opposed to building more rail and less cars? Cars should increasingly be de-prioritzed in favor of bikes, ebikes, and public transit, but bike riders should be courteous of those who are driving and vice versa, and cars should continue to stop at train tracks to allow trains to go by. Where on earth did you get the idea that my logic of "be considerate of those who are using a different means of transportation" means cars should go away or that cars shouldn't go away? Also we definitely should be building rail, if we're gonna deprioritze cars we need public transportation to help fill that gap for people who aren't in a position to commute or travel by bike/ebike, but all of our infrastructure is currently built around cars, and even in a distant future there will be a need for cars in addition to bikes and trains, we just have way too many of them
I don't mean to come across as rude, but your response to my comment honestly does really confuse me.
Be respectful of those you share the road with. That means driving in a way that's safe for cyclists. That means letting cars go by (when safe to do so) when you're cycling since they travel much faster than you. And definitely stop at train tracks so that trains can go by.