Fast Pedestrians or Slow Cars?

In a nice interview with British psychologist Ian Walker, John Sutton of the Psychologist asks some good questions about how cyclists are treated in Britain and how the infrastructure leaves them the odd group out:

Should town planners treat cyclists as fast pedestrians and accommodate them that way (e.g. put them on pavements, expect them to yield priority at every side road) or should they treat cyclists as slower vehicles and accommodate them that way (e.g. create cycle lanes at the sides of roads)? All these solutions have problems, but most critically, there’s no way that one solution will fit everybody as people cycle for different reasons. Some of the work we’ve done at Bath lately, most notably by my PhD student Gregory Thomas, shows that some people really value fresh air and exercise such that, if they were unable to cycle, they would walk. Others are cycling for speed and, if for some reason had to change mode, would drive. Because people are doing the same behaviour with different motivations, you can’t expect them all to accept the same infrastructure provision – the person who just wants exercise might tolerate stopping at every sidestreet but the person who wants to get to work quickly will not.

One interesting point is how drivers can look at cyclists right before they turn in front of them, but still not "see" them. I've definitely noticed this behavior for cars approaching an intersection where I have the right of way, and I have to adjust my line so as not to get poked when they jut out past the stop line to look around, and also to put myself in the same place a car would actually cross their line of sight. Most cyclists are drivers, but not all drivers are cyclists, so some awareness on cyclists' perspective of road conditions would definitely help drivers' attention to, and some patience for cyclists on the side of the road.

Here in Pasadena, cyclists are getting stuck in that fast pedestrian mode when they now have many stop lights at intersections which are controlled by induction loops. Unless some amount of metal can close that circuit, the light will never change. For us on carbon bikes, we have to hit the crosswalk button, wait for a car to stop, or break the law and cross on the red. That third is not really an option, though, because I have not seen any of these induction loop controlled intersections without a crosswalk button.

Finally, a fun point: in the interview, Ian Walker talks about his work at Bath University showing how close cars get to cyclists wearing helmets or not, and how much space they give women versus men. I wrote about this study six years ago here. I wore long hair for many years, but I don't know how visible my ponytail was to passing cars. Now that my hair is short again, I'll make a mental note to check how close cars are getting to me.