I'm not enamored with this video on "Cycling in the US from a Dutch perspective". I think it shows a lack of real understanding of cycling in the United States. It's more like "Cycling in the US from a closed-minded Dutch tourist's perspective."
I don't know why the Dutch are obsessed with the fact that many cyclists here like to wear lycra or that Americans tend to wear helmets. Both have their advantages. And I don't agree with the narrator's deduction that this is some sort of sign of American failure. It might be that even when cycling numbers in US citieis get to be as high as in the world's great bicycling cities that there is still more lycra and more helmets in America. I don't see a problem with that. If the concern is that people don't bike as much or that mostly younger men bike or that people who do bike only do it for fun, then those are the facts that are relevant. What kinds of clothes people wear really is not.
But my real beef with the video is the claim that sharrows "are just useless paint." That's just categorically untrue. The FHWA did a study of sharrows that showed that sharrows increased the operating space for cyclists, both in the distance that they kept from parked cars and in the space passing motorists gave them. Sharrows reduced sidewalk cycling and they reduced wrong-way riding. They slowed drivers down. They even caused drivers to stay farther from parked cars when bikes weren't present. Those are changes that have real value, and the narrator is misleading people when he claims otherwise.
Are sharrows as good as a separated bike path? No, they are not. But, they're also not as expensive or as difficult to install.
If this filmmaker wants to pass himself off as some sort of expert on bicycling "infra" he should take the time to learn the facts about what he's talking about.
I don't believe that the Dutch perspective is that "the only right way to make bikable cities is the Dutch way," but that seems to be the one presented in the video.
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