• Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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    3 months ago

    Illinois State Trooper Jayme Bufford said. “There is no protection available to you as a pedestrian, a person riding a bike is in the same peril.”

    Yeah, except that people who walk or cycle die all the time in places where you would expect them to be. Hell, even people waiting at bus stops are in danger.

    It’s almost like… cars are the real problem, not a “lack of protection”.

    Also, if cyclists are choosing to use a goddamn highway, then that would be a symptom of a lack of safe and accessible cycling infrastructure!

    • bluGill@kbin.social
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      3 months ago

      There is protection here: he is in a place set aside for cars only. If you are in a car only place don’t cry when you are not protected from cars in that area.

      The real question is why isn’t there are place for bikes that goes the same places. (Note that I didn’t look at a map, I just assumed like most places there isn’t a reasonable alternative for bikes)

      • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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        3 months ago

        There is protection here: he is in a place set aside for cars only.

        Did you see the width of the shoulder he’s riding in? On regular high speed roads where cyclists are allowed, you’d be lucky to have that kind of buffer.

        And considering that intersections are the most dangerous places for crashes, he’s safer on the highway shoulder.

        Where I live, we have roads with sharrows and no shoulder or bike lanes. The posted speed limit are usually 50 or 60km/h, but I’ve clocked cars/suvs passing me at over 80km/h, often making dangerous or illegal passes in the process (i.e. into oncoming traffic).

        If you are in a car only place don’t cry when you are not protected from cars in that area.

        I will re-state what I wrote about: even in places designed for cyclists and pedestrians, car drivers still end up killing them.

        There is no safe place to be a pedestrian or cyclist when there are cars around, so “cars only” is just a form of discrimination. This is a North American issue, since other developed countries have been sorting this problem out.

        The real question is why isn’t there are place for bikes that goes the same places. (Note that I didn’t look at a map, I just assumed like most places there isn’t a reasonable alternative for bikes)

        Because that huge “cars only” interstate is taking up a massive amount of space. I don’t know specifically where this cyclist was, but there are large areas near the i-90 that doesn’t have cycling infrastructure.

      • HubertManne@kbin.social
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        3 months ago

        I loved this one idea where you have this high up structure that starts high downtown and goes down to station level at the end of the line for the el trains and the reverse of that. The idea is at every station you would have stairs to it and cyclists could bring their bike up and have an ever so slight downhill path to bike down. this highway has an el in the middle.