If bikes (not cars) are making a city "hostile to vulnerable pedestrians", that seems like a very good problem to have compared to the average car-centric city.
If bikes (not cars) are making a city "hostile to vulnerable pedestrians", that seems like a very good problem to have compared to the average car-centric city.
Bikes and cars. But cars have their own space (the road) and rules (red lights, crosswalks...), whereas cyclists ride at full speed on the pedestrian's space (the sidewalk).
It’s false that cyclists routinely ride on the sidewalk in Paris, let alone at full speed. They ride on the road (car and bus lanes) and in bike lanes. It’s true, however, that on some very popular bike routes (rue de Rivoli, boulevard Saint-Michel/Sébastopol), there are enough cyclists that don’t stop at lights that pedestrians can’t easily safely cross. This is a solvable issue that’s independent from the modal share or infrastructure.
The argument that cyclists (implied: all cyclists) ride at full speed on pavement at all times is akin to arguing that cars (implied: all cars) go over the speed limit at all times. It’s daft at best, and utterly outlandish.
You should stop and have coffee in a street shared only by pedestrians and cyclists, and observe the behaviour of cyclists. I have observed it to be mostly slow, controlled, courteous and respectful of pedestrians.
I picked up my son today at the kindergarten, and we walked for 25 minutes back home. Here in Riga most cyclists go on the sidewalks, I'd say that 2/3 of them don't respect a minimum 1.5 meter safety distance, and about the same amount go as fast as they can. I stopped and scolded a food courrier (who is incentivized to go as fast as he can) who was slaloming between pedestrians as if it was a game.
No, I don't feel safe at all, and my son can't walk freely either. In Paris it's the same (my wife, who was pregnant then, got hit at a crosswalk by a cyclist who seemed to believe that red lights were for cars only). Even Le Monde published an piece about it!
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/our-times/article/2024/11/17/anti-...