I think I mostly disagree. But this probably depends on the definition of cyclist. If these path users are lycra-clad individuals trying to go as fast as they can and desperately trying not to lose momentum, the experience will be poor. Similarly if you have e-bike users who are basically taking silent mopeds down a trail and swerving between people things won’t go well. But if it’s someone who is not obsessed with speed just trying to go from one place to the next on a wide path it’s probably fine. E-bikes are an advantage here because they remove the incentive to avoid slowing down to preserve momentum.
Ultimately it depends on the cycling culture in a place and a lot of that depends on whom cycling is available to. If it is more accessible you will probably find people acting more sensibly and more like pedestrians.
A mixed use trail can provide refuge from busy roads. This is much more important if roads are awful for cyclists and I this can often be the case in some parts of the world. If roads are good for cyclists then the obnoxious people who would otherwise endanger those on the trail will be happier going faster and straighter along the roads. But they will only get better if cycling is more popular which will only happen if it is more accessible.
I think mixed use paths are not particularly bad and are also necessary on the way to better infrastructure.
Mixed use paths as seen in parks are for dogs, pedestrians, children cyclists and beginners. They are not and should not be for commuting except maybe as a last mile connection, because commuters are moving at about 15-20km/h if they want to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time. As soon as they get busy there are so many conflict points that accidents are inevitable.
Calling them bike infrastructure is like calling a school zone with zebra crossings and speed bumps a highway.
They are what should be built first though, because you don't get new cyclists without low speed, safe, fully separated bike infrastructure. They should always be paired with a nearby road with a cycle lane and somr plan for separated infrastructure though.
I don't think this is true. The mixed use paths are pretty good start. People use them for commute. The special bike lane is more expensive and ideal step, but not necessary.
As soon as any significant fraction of people use them they become congested, slow, and dangerous to pedestrians. Slowing to 5km/h repeatedly whilst waiting for an opening for a large portion of your journey makes commuting far less pleasant and severely limits viable range, and being overtaken constantly is unpleasant and dangerous for pedestrians.
The separated bike lane *and* the mixed use path is the end goal, but if the immediate goal is to save the city money and make people healthier rather than create conflict and negative sentiment towards cycling, then you need a separate route for ebikes and more experienced commuters. Sharrows or magic paint suffice for this (at least temporarily) with adequate traffic calming or if the main car flow has an alternate route.
The separated lane is just too expensive while there are just a few bikers. If people start using bikes on mixed purpose roads too much, building them after makes sense. But while you are just in the process of promoting the whole cycle thing and there are not that many people, building dedicated tracks does not make much sense. This was the case in our city for quite long time. There was no massive negative sentiment towards cycling. More like, cyclists complained and when there were enough of them infrastructure started to build.
Imo, American negative sentiment and aggression toward bicycles is way more about politics and assumed demographics then anything else. It does not matter how well behaved average cyclist is. It does not matter how intrusive or safe it is. The people who are aggressive will focus on that one minor infraction that happened once to validate their anger.
> The separated lane is just too expensive while there are just a few bikers
I think we overall agree, but there are many things that can be done to reduce conflit points.
Firstly I agreed that the mixed lane with a shared car/bicycle alternate route should come first (as this covers both short/slow speed trips and high speed/high confidence trips), but secondly the shared lane has an absurdly small cost. Under 5% of the space and an even smaller fraction of the money spent on roads will give you a world leading bicycle network, and if you build it, it will be used -- cycling on good infrastructure is simply so much cheaper and more convenient than car ownership and cycle lanes have so much more capacity than roads that it becomes a no brainer.
I agree that bootstrapping it to get the political will needed for that pittance is extremely hard, which is why we need to think very carefully about encouraging long distance commuters who must average over 15km/h to make reasonable time and people taking the pram for a walk to mix. Ebikes are a big potential issue because they are both fast and favoured by new riders. It will only take one ebike with the speed limiter removed accidentally injuring a kid and hitting the news to set back bike infrastructure in an entire country by years.
Step 1 is mixed paths connecting local destinations (schools, shops, church, etc) and start reserving your space for the separated bikeway
Step 2 is a fully connected network where all the mixed paths have an alternate route with magic green paint or sharrows for high speed trips and to handle congestion.
Step 3 is build the separated paths.
You can't skip step 2 or avoid thinking about step 3 until it is too late.
Additionally throughout this process you need to fix all the cyclist and pedestrian hostile signals (waiting for a full 5 minhte cycle at a one way street full of stopped cars because the button wasn't pressed is absurd) and provide some alternative to stop signs (carefully designed roundabouts, yield signs, or cyclists-yield laws with public outreach work okay).
It's not really expensive, since you're mainly re-drawing lines on the road, removing a lane for cars (or reducing parking area) and adding a lane for e-bikes. The bonus is that it encourages more e-bike use and reduces vehicle pressure.
So, you cannot afford enough space to store your stuff (your car, which besides having an impractically huge size is a major ecological burden) and you want that your city allocates premium street space just for you. Then you say cyclists ask too much. This over the top attitude would even be cute if it wasn't sadly so common.
You complain that bike lanes are not used "enough", but a single parked car forces a whole lane to have a throughput of 0 commuters per hour. A bike lane that gets a single cyclist per hour is infinitely more efficient!
Ultimately it depends on the cycling culture in a place and a lot of that depends on whom cycling is available to. If it is more accessible you will probably find people acting more sensibly and more like pedestrians.
A mixed use trail can provide refuge from busy roads. This is much more important if roads are awful for cyclists and I this can often be the case in some parts of the world. If roads are good for cyclists then the obnoxious people who would otherwise endanger those on the trail will be happier going faster and straighter along the roads. But they will only get better if cycling is more popular which will only happen if it is more accessible.
I think mixed use paths are not particularly bad and are also necessary on the way to better infrastructure.