My daily bicycle commute takes me right through the heart of my city's homeless district, and like with many cities things have gotten a lot worse since COVID.
Cars are far and away the biggest threat to my safety, and the source of all the harrassment I receive while out in public. I mean, every now and then some guttersnipe blurts out incoherencies at me, but that's not something to be afraid of.
I regard driving, in cities, to be an inherently anti-social activity. If you want a healthy community with safe and lively streets you got to be out in it, not sealed off in a protective cage.
Do you have a wife? Kids? Would you let them bicycle through the homeless district?
I don't get hassled either, but it's not about me. My job as a husband and father is to protect my family.
"wife I forbid you from traveling on that road"
Do you have a wife?
My wife is far more risk adverse than I am. We'd be moving if she had to bike through a Hooverville to buy milk.
If I see your wife and kids in trouble I'll intervene, don't worry.
Of course, motor vehicle crashes are the second biggest killer of kids after guns. I don't know where homeless people sit on the threat scale but it's a negligibly small amount.
That's a non-answer, so I assume that's a "no" on the wife, kids, and/or letting them pedal through tent city.
In any event, homeless people are low on the threat scale because people generally avoid riding a Schwinn through homeless encampments, which should be perfectly obvious but I guess not.
I don't have kids. The homeless district is easy to avoid, and there's a k-12 school right on the edge of it with many kids walking, cycling and taking the bus to school. I've never heard of a serious incident involving homeless people.
Here's a fun fact for you: statistically cyclists live longer than non-cyclists, and that's in spite of all the hazards they have to deal with while out riding.
I for once don't let mine out of the house without a full face cover so strangers on the street don't get any ideas, so I'm right there with you.
> Would you let them bicycle through the homeless district?
I have lived in and around more than one area known to have a high density of people experiencing homelessness. It seems a lot, lot scarier than it really is. Once you get used to just tuning them out it's fine. The vast, vast majority of the crime in that community happens amongst themselves. Are there exceptions to that? Of course. But the numbers are low, just like most crime.
Cyclists usually deserve it. You want to be on the road (outside of a bike line)? Act like you hold a drivers license then. Oh you don't? Get the hell off the road.
I watch Cyclists pull shit that's illegal on the road all day, and they refuse to simply USE THE SIDEWALK (infinitely safer for all involved). That way, when the cyclists inevitably do some dumbshit the only people at risk are pedestrians and the usual damage is at most a broken bone rather than roadkill.
Localities that ban cycling on sidewalks are spiritually and ontologically evil.
> deserve [to be harassed by people in cars] no, they don't.
> You want to be on the road (outside of a bike line)? Act like you hold a drivers license then. Oh you don't? Get the hell off the road. A driver's license is not required to use a road. It's required to operate a car. Cyclists explicitly have the right to use the road, including outside of bike lanes. When cyclists act unpredictably it is very, very frequently a response to motor vehicle traffic and pressure, because drivers are seemingly incapable of understanding that their tons of metal can hurt people.
Cyclists would love separated infrastructure, but the vast majority of transportation dollars go towards car infrastructure in the US.
> [the sidewalk is] infinitely safer for all involved
no, it isn't. This creates a lot more points of conflict with both drivers (who do not expect fast traffic on the sidewalk) and with pedestrians. Sidewalks are also often not appropriate for wheeled vehicles moving with any speed; terrain is uneven and turns are too sharp.
You're driving? Act like you have a driver's license, which requires you to respond safely to other road users including cyclists. Can't do that? Get the hell off the road.
Last time I tried riding on a sidewalk (which is legal where I live, but notably not everywhere) some random pedestrian who felt affronted pushed me off my bike, so ymmv.
>and they refuse to simply USE THE SIDEWALK
How do you get to a sidewalk on a different block without going on the road?
Drivers mostly hate other drivers but they do occasionally take some time to hate other road users as well.