Thursday, October 11, 2007

Who's afraid of a Beautiful Bike Lane?

Curitiba. Brazil (Left & Centre Photos)

Toronto (Right)

Photos from Curitiba via Luddista


Then again, you can just repaint the
Bike Lane as they did in Curitiba.
Photo by Elisando Dalcin

Nice work!!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am very afraid of bike lanes. Some of those photos don't seem to be the work of people that like bikes: why forcing cyclists to a ghetto on the most dangerous place of the road?

You are not freeing the bike you are enclosing it. Segregating the most vulnerable is naive, ugly and wrong.

http://www.cyclecraft.co.uk/digest/cfi_jaf.pdf

Tino said...

Well, sure give me roads dedicated for bikes. Sounds good and fair to me. Cheers!
Martino

In the meantime, decent separated bike lanes works for me and millions of others ...

Besides, it's more the symbolism that counts than a painted line and a stencil. That's my view. It's a reminder that cyclists are demanding their right to safe passage in urban centres.

Anonymous said...

Martino, is well researched that segregation of traffic is more dangerous, especially on crossings.

http://www.cyclecraft.co.uk/digest/research.html

If the motto is the positive "we are traffic" why insisting on the idea of excluding the bike from traffic. Historically is obvious that the segregation of bikes and pedestrians was encouraged to increase the speed of cars.

What we have to do is to reduce the number and speed of cars - first on certain roads then everywhere. Bike Boulevards and traffic calming could be the aim of a truly sustainable and attainable pro-bike campaign. At the right speeds roads don't need to be dedicated to one kind of user. Just give priority to the most vulnerable.

The obsession with bike lanes is to buy into the pro-car paradigm. That is my view.

I agree with the need to take a symbolic stand. Why not painting Sharrows instead?

Tino said...

OK, since you're right about everything.

Sharrows it is, just to make you happy.

;-\