Basically, for those of you here who ride a bicycle, what do you have in the way of bike infrastructure, and how pleasant/painful is it to cycle where you live? In my area, there’s a small handful of mixed-use sidewalks (basically they made the sidewalk a bit wider, made it asphalt, and painted a yellow line down the middle) which are certainly better than nothing (especially better than painted bike gutters) but not really a connected bike network, it pains me to see how much could be done but isn’t, it’s not like there isn’t the space or anything either
There’s one of those paths nearby that’s very useful to me for getting to a few shops, and getting there doesn’t require cycling in the road very much, but going any farther requires me to cycle in traffic which sucks, thankfully the main street I’d be going down is still pretty residential so it’s not too busy and isn’t too fast (the sign’s 50km/h, though tbf people do always go at least a bit over the limit), still feels dangerous though to have to rely on cars safely passing, especially when Canada absolutely has loads of large pickups and SUVs just like the US
The amount of hills in my area is also pretty troublesome, I had to get an e-bike just to be able to handle them at all, it’s the only reason I’m even able to venture outside the neighborhood on this thing
In Indian cities, you are only expected to use a bicycle if you are too poor to afford a car or a motorcycle. Roads are crafted using only cars and other heavy vehicles (trucks, etc.) in mind. The result is that there is no separation between car space and bike/pedestrian space, and if you walking or using a bike, you stick to the edges of the roads and hope that some careless driver does not turn you into roadkill.
I am very uncomfortable when I walk for this reason. I am not too afraid or paranoid but having to watch for cars or even motorcycles at all times is really exhausting especially considering that people drive in the wrong lane very often here. I don’t bike because if the distance I have to travel warrants a bicycle I will just take the car instead.
Over the last five years or so there has been an emergence in hobbyist biking. I saw think in one of the bigger cities during a visit. By hobbyist, I mean relatively well-off people (mostly men) buying expensive bikes, biking attire and biking for the sake of it, often as an exercise. But they still have to contend with cars for road space so I don’t know why they do it. Sounds unfun. I would rather go to a nice park and jog instead but even clean green public spaces are a rarity. But that’s just how things are when infrastructure is designed for capital rather than human .
