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this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2026
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Fuck Cars
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As a dutch person in a very bikeable city, this is not usually the case lol.
It's mostly people biking on the sidewalk because they were too lazy to walk their bike to the street before getting on, and then they look for a ramp off because just riding off the kerb while on it destroys your tyres if you do it too often.
When people say "biking on the sidewalk", I don't think most people are talking about the last 10 metres from the parking to the dedicated bike path. They usually mean riding hundreds of metres up into the kilometres along footpaths.
The necessary approach to fix the issue is different in both cases. In the case I think most people mean, the fix is...install proper dedicated bike paths.
In the case you describe, the answer is that kerb cuts should be fairly frequent to minimise the distance needed, and to mark the space around popular bike parking areas as a shared space, probably with some different colour tiling and tactile ground to make it clear to everyone (pedestrian and cyclist alike) that the space is shared and they should be careful.
I'm also not necessarily talking about people that do this for 10 metres, that would be fine. But there are a lot of people that will get on a sidewalk the first chance they get even if their destination is past another 5 ramps.
You also don't need a ramp that often for a bike, and afaik they're not even meant for them. You get off the bike on the road, and walk the bike up the kerb. Pretty much any road you're allowed to bike on you're also allowed to stop on. We don't have those ramps at regular intervals for bikes, they're pretty much only in places where pedestrians cross the street, where you'll see a ramp on both sides of the road.
These are both examples of systemic issues.
What's the systemic issue? The only issue is people feel they have to get on their bike as soon as they get on their way, where they could just walk off the sidewalk and step on there. Which is maybe an extra 2 metres.
You might not be happy with the answer: infrastructure that forces bike riders to choose between riding their bike with pedestrians, or walk the bike to join the bike infrastructure.
You don't see car drivers having to share their infrastructure with pedestrians or vice versa.
I think the systemic issue is just a lot of people being inconsiderate. Yes you have to choose. That should not be a problem for most people, as one of the choices is the obviously correct one, and the other is obviously illegal (even if it's practically unenforced, everyone knows you're not allowed to ride a bike on the sidewalk).
Well yea, because cars don't fit on the sidewalk. And where they would, you often see barriers explicitly blocking cars, which are often installed because car drivers were ignoring laws and driving there anyway.
The issue is that's not really possible for bikes, because when you make something that blocks bikes from entering, it's going to block pedestrians as well. They are practically the same width.
Correct. The systemic issue being that people are assholes and shouldn't be allowed to operate vehicles near other people.