Every time another cyclist dies, being crushed by a truck, door-ed and falling into the path of a car, or otherwise a victim of the unequal weight and momentum between the fragile two-wheeler and the motorized tribe, I want to advocate more separation between those two streams of traffic. Well, and also separate the wheeled traffic from the on-foot traffic. Cyclists tend to fall between the two concepts. Probably because although seated and on wheels, they are using their leg power to move, many cyclists apparently classify themselves as pedestrians — and thus feel free to use the sidewalks. And due to their not using any warning of their approach, cyclists crash into people on foot, causing injuries to both. So, for everyones safety, lets re-think urban transportation on several levels. I was imagining a kind of upper-floor covered sidewalk accessible via ramps every couple of blocks, so that cyclists could move at speed without endangering anyone else. But as soon as they leave their system, those bikes would be locked onto bike-parking pods and would not be allowed on sidewalks at all. So if pedestrians own the sidewalks, cars dominate the roads, and cyclists zip about in their own above-the-road network, we arent likely to see the number of tragedies due to this mismatch of weight and power. So I was happy to come across this design which goes well beyond what I imagined.
Posted on: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 00:32:31 +0000
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