LETTERS: BIKE PATHS DON'T MAKE GOOD SENSE

To the editor:

Unfortunately, many generally well-meaning -- but naive and woefully misinformed -- individuals and organizations are clamoring for the construction of a network of separated-from-the-road bicycle paths and trails. In general, bicycle paths and trails are very expensive to design, construct and maintain. And, they are rarely, if ever, well-maintained.

So-called bicycle paths and trails are inherently hazardous. Relative narrowness of width, pedestrian congestion and conflicts, buildup of debris, overhanging branches, lack of maintenance, inferior surfacing and, with few exceptions, generally poor sight distances and sharp curves, along with extremely dangerous intersectional conflicts with side streets and driveways, pose a serious threat to the safety of those who use them either by choice or by legal mandate.

Such facilities are a tremendous financial liability to the taxpayers who must not only foot the bill for the considerable cost for the design, construction and maintenance of these separate facilities, but who also end up subsidizing the hidden costs through higher insurance rates of settling a multitude of resultant liability lawsuits from those who are injured while using such separate facilities. To cite just one example: Austin, Texas, ended up paying $4.5 million to settle a single bicycle-path liability lawsuit.

As can be substantiated by documented facts provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, nine out of 10 of all auto-bicycle collisions occur at intersections with the bicycle rider getting hit either from the side or head-on. It is precisely because of these hazardous intersectional side path-inherent conflicts that the well-known bicycle transportation engineer, John Forester, states in his highly regarded book, "Effective Cycling," that "bicycle paths are 2.6 times more dangerous than the average roadway." Quoting NHTSA information, John S. Allen, a noted bicycling transportation expert and author of "The Complete Book of Bicycle Commuting," states, "But astonishing to many people is the high rate of accidents on bikepaths -- until you reflect that many paths are narrow, with sharp curves, poor sightlines, pedestrian traffic and poor design of intersections with streets."Bicyclists, like everyone else, pay property taxes which provide maintenance funds for our roads. Therefore, bicyclists are not second-class citizens who must be relegated to typically vastly inferior separated-from-the-road facilities.

Bicycles are most definitely not toys. They most definitely should not be driven upon sidewalks and so-called side paths. Many ill-informed bicycle riders (both individuals and groups) seem to suffer from what John Forester terms the cyclist's inferiority complex. Unnecessarily afflicted, these people are merely reinforcing the general public misconception that regards the bicycle as something other than a valid means of transportation upon our roadways.

By the very nature and design of sidepaths, bicycle riders using such separate facilities are forced to ride through each and every intersecting side street and driveway rather than by them, as they would be if they were riding as they properly should be upon the adjacent or parallel street or road. By promoting the construction and use of separate bicycling facilities under the guise of doing something for bicyclists, bicycle path and trail advocates, in reality, are naively endangering not only bicyclists but also the general taxpaying public as well.

Additionally, wherever so-called separated bicycle paths and trails parallel an existing nearby or adjacent road, there is increased motorist harrassment, with or without a mandatory-use side path law, of on-road bicyclists who frequently get yelled at: Get off the road. Get on the bike path. This occurs despite the fact that, by law, bicyclists have the same rights and duties as operators of motor vehicles on the roads in all 50 states.

Bicycling has been around for a long time and is here to stay as an adult form of physical fitness, recreation and transportation. Its time to stop foolishly misdirecting our energies and limited funds in the promotion of inherently hazardous, separated-from-the-roadway so-called bicycle facilities.

BOB SOETEBIER

St. Louis