It’s not primarily about people who cycle now; they already cycle, but they are few. This is about enabling the large percentage of people who who would like to cycle but are too afraid of sharing roads with aggressive and careless drivers of motor vehicles. It will also allow people who cycle occasionally to use cycles more to get around.
The Sustrans Bike Life survey 2019 showed that 77% of Greater Manchester residents think that more cycle tracks along roads physically separated from traffic and pedestrians would be useful to help them cycle more.
It would actually be rather selfish for those of us who are fit and fast to say to young, old and novice cycle riders: “I’m alright jack, …”.
Ah, sad to see you pushing the classic divide-and-rule tactic. A post entirely free of any argument on the danger of segregation just an opinion poll with ad-homenim attack on the minority view. Even at its simplest level it doesn’t bust the myth you claim it to to since the population polled is “Residents of Greater Manchester” – the vast majority of whom are NOT cyclists. I’m sure had they conducteted a similar poll of the residents of Alabama in the 1950s they could have claimed to busted the myth that black folk didn’t want to be sent to the back of bus.
We know that motorists want us off the road and out of their way – they shout at us often enough through the car windows to use the cycle path (using more colourful laguage). so it is hardly surprising that they express the same opinion when asked by polsters.
Sorry, but that is all nonsense. You only have to go to places where decent infrastructure has been provided to see that it works, and you only have to spend time here to see that not providing decent infrastructure hasn’t worked for decades.
For at least 90% of the population here, there is no way they will ever share the roads with cars, buses and trucks on a bicycle (or a tricycle, or a cargo cycle, or a hand cycle, the list goes on). I sense in your comment a big dose of of that “I’m alright jack” attitude that I talked about above.
Also, this is not intended to be an academic paper on the subject; it’s a short, sharp statement to be used to counter the nonsense that’s spewed out by the ignorant anti-cycling community.