The more I cycle, the more I realize that bikes should become a whole new category in legal and urban planning terms.

Right off the bat, most people would, at least presume, it’s unsafe to cycle on the same road as a car - at least without any good physical separation. This is, all things considered, a huge deterrent to cycling as both a mode of recreation or of transportation.

Now, legally, bikes are considered in the same league as motor vehicles. Thus why they are destined for the road and not the sidewalk.

It’s funny how some laws just become benign though. I could understand why, legally, in a city’s core you wouldn’t want bikes interacting with the people on the sidewalks and would rather them be in the same league as cars. However, the case is completely different in the suburbs. Out here, there’s either not enough population density, or attractions to gather in one specific area, that would require bikes to get off the sidewalks out of the safety of pedestrians.

Frankly, that’s the reason most people I see in the suburbs bike on the sidewalk! There’s nobody to run into! Unlike on the road where they are supposed to be…

Anyways, the problem you get in the city core is, although cars may be driving slower, the deterrent is still there. In this urban space, you essentially require three main infrastructure elements for a complete street - designated, separated space for cars and buses; designated, separated space for bikes; and designated, separated space for pedestrians. Of course, this becomes strenuous in terms of the ultimate amount of space available. However, if you take space away from the cars, and give it to bikes, you’ve created a market based situation and traffic will naturally redistribute.

With the suburbs, it’s a different story. Right now, in Surrey, they’ve adopted a policy of building “complete streets”, which basically amounts to: designated, separated space for trees and plants; designated, separated space for cars and buses; designated space for bikes; and designated, separated space for pedestrians. This means boulevards, car lanes, bike lanes, and sidewalks.

Now as I mentioned, it’s actually quite a waste of space to build sidewalks where pedestrians don’t walk. It’s even stupider to also designate space to bikes which bikes won’t use.

It’s actually a very easy solution. And there’s two steps about it.

  1. Allow bikes on all sidewalks that don’t have the pedestrian traffic to necessitate separation due to safety and collision concerns.
  2. Stop building sidewalks - start building multi-use pathways with separation from the cars’ road space.

Step 2 is a more long term plan and policy, but it’s an improvement - it gets bumpy after a while from cycling down sidewalks.

Here, instead of using street space for small sidewalks and small bike lanes that nobody uses, you combine the space and end up creating a wider path for both users. Furthermore, it attracts more cyclists due to the separation factor.

What say you? Time to change a little policy?

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