Quote:
Originally Posted by PIGL
I've been watching this whole debate with interest as I do bike in to downtown during the late Spring, Summer and early Fall months from the West (basically Aspen). I don't and won't ride in during the winter months, not because it's too cold but just not worth the wipeout risk. A few years ago I started to bike and then when the West CTrain was finished, I gave up my downtown parking all together and either bike or CTrain to work every day. It's good for me. Cheaper, healthier and the exercise makes me more productive at work. Good for my carbon footprint, I guess too. But that's just me - I wouldn't insist on anyone else doing what I do.
Even being someone who does bike to work though, I cannot for the life of me understand why the City would be spending 10s of millions of dollars on these cycle tracks. I use the one on 7th street only because it's there, but if it wasn't there, I'd still bike in. Before it was there, I didn't find it difficult at all to get from the bike path to Bankers Hall. Drivers are courteous and careful and I never felt even remotely in danger. I think this is a TOTAL and COMPLETE waste of money, especially when most people won't likely bike year round. Funds would be better spent trying to find parking solutions at the CTrain stations. Many, many more people would leave their cars and take the CTrain if they could only have access to predictable parking at the train stations.
Just my view as someone who might be assumed to want to see more cycle tracks.
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Not everything is about you.
The majority of people do not feel as safe or as confident mixed with traffic as you (including me). It may be a waste for you, but you're not necessarily who this is for. In every city these kinds of facilities are put in, they attract a new demographic of people to cycle that didn't previously - numbers of female riders in particular rise dramatically (today it's heavily skewed male and middle-aged).
http://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/08/1...ng-gender-gap/