Originally Posted by
robertorolfo
When I ride on a path with my GF, she is riding a 1960's cruiser, so suffice to say we aren't going very fast. And yet I always check well behind us before pulling up next to her to talk, and constantly check for people approaching. It really isn't hard to do, and yet most people can't be bothered because they are selfish.
How is someone who is going a fairly
median speed for the path being selfish?
Seems "selifish" is more the person in a well above median speed bracket, who wants everyone else to run mirrors or a swivel head to anticipate their need, rather than have the courtesy to request accommodation.
Advocating for the most efficient use of a shared path is beneficial to everyone, no?
Efficient for the optimization of what variable? A bike highway would be a really interesting idea, but it's not, by the very definition, what a MUP is meant to be.
If you look at the enjoyment across the range of officially endorsed users, even limiting that to just bikes and walking, optimizing for
fast cycling isn't really defensible. I've seen MUPs with 10 mph speed limits; even I find that low, and suspect it was enacted out of frustration with those doing more than twice that in close proximity to people walking. Our greenway just gained a hilly and itself contentious mandatory bike detour around a busy riverside area that had long been a point of mode conflict; and not just a peak summer hours detour, an 11 pm in snowy December one.
Inefficient use implies that someone is operating in a way that puts their own needs ahead of those of the other users, no?
That's exactly the problem with those going faster than the usual expecting everyone else to proactively accommodate the mere possibility of their presence, rather than react to their courteous (and in places, legally required) requests for accommodation.
I get it; having to ask someone to move every couple of minutes must be annoying. But so would be looking behind you every 20 seconds while taking a casual walk with your friend or family. And there's no small irony, in that it's the exact some annoyance drivers have with cyclists taking the lane.
Jogging along oblivious in your own little headphone isolated world with dog leash across the full trail? Yes, that's selfish. Bombing through without giving others any time to react to your announcements? That too.