The way cycling should be. (Read 112 times)

Not Maine but my kid just got back from France. My husband is a big cyclist while I am a big scaredy cat. If we had bike lanes like this I might be lured away from Zwift. 

We have so many winding roads with blind corners that it would be so much safer for everyone. It would never happen but one can dream.

I love this! The only downside I could see, here, is the proliferation of E-bikes doing 20mph and forcing me to jump off path. But maybe they'd at least stick to one side or the other (our paths are not marked). I rarely ride on our MUPs, but my runs are at least 80% MUP. Motor vehicles are verboten on the paths, so I suspect it will take a tragedy before my community tells E-bike operators (most who appear to be kinda noobs to riding, at all...poor handling skills and path etiquette) that they need to get on the road or keep their speeds <15mph.

I, too, am mostly on Zwift, nowadays. We've had so many car/bike tragedies in my area in the past 5 or so years. I used to log 3-4000mi/year, mostly on the roads. Now my outdoor miles are largely on gravel or my tri bike for brick workouts. But it's definitely not more than maybe 1/4 of my yearly miles, anymore.

A friend says he is going to Montreal, and he stated t's the best cycling city in North America! Well just looked on this list and it is top rated for North America and 16th worldwide. May like to take my bike for a ride there sometime! guide bike index

Interesting. They drive like maniacs but I will take a look.

 

I'm not a big biker, but we did bike in Copenhagen. It was a real culture shock in multiple ways. The infrastructure itself is very friendly towards bikes, with dedicated lines and signals (similar to the picture posted). But perhaps as importantly, there was a sense of order: pedestrians didn't step out in front of bikes, and all bicyclists waited patiently at red lights even if there were no cars or pedestrians around. It's not what I'm used to in the US. I totally understand why it's near the top of this list.

I’ve watched infrastructure videos and I am pretty sure it was Copenhagen that was so impressive. North American cities should be ashamed at the way they have expanded.  One city made it a priority to plow and have lighting for bike paths because the numbers did now dwindle during the winter months.

I've been to the Netherlands twice.

I couldn't imagine a national infrastructure that is more bike friendly than the Netherlands.  
The "bike highways" are everywhere.  Every car road has a supplemental bike road.

It exists everywhere I've been within the Netherlands.

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Separately, I live in Grand Rapids, MI, and there are more and more roads that have "bike roads" similar to the image within the original post. Ours has a yellow dotted line when it's a "safe to pass" zone along the whole route and a solid line when it's a "do not pass" zone.

Recently moved downtown (from the GR suburbs), and really enjoying the bike road system here.

Cheers,
Brian

Netherlands and Denmark had the best bike lanes, at least coming from my limited experience(2 trips to europe). Everywhere else it's either hit or miss, you might get lucky in one city and have rides of your lifetime and come to next and have pretty much no bike lanes at all