Cugel wrote:..... all cyclist are not equal therefore we should cater, with cycling infrastructure, to the lowest common demoninator (inexperienced children, the physically weak, the inept, et al) to encourage them to cycle. But if cycling infrastructure is all designed specifically to cater to a physically weak and inept 12 year old, it won't suit the other 99% of cyclists, of all types and abilities.
Not necessarily. The design can include the 12 year old without excluding the other 99%. It's like how we can design streets so that articulated delivery lorries can turn without excluding cars with smaller turning circles or buses with rigid bodies. Until recently, most UK cycle route designs managed to exclude both the 12 year old who wouldn't "take the lane" through difficult junctions and the fast cyclist wanting to cruise on straight sections at 20mph, as well as the average cyclist who just didn't want to spend the entire time getting seasick bumping over driveway accesses and slowing for twistier blinder junctions than the roads had to deal with - such good-for-no-one designs could almost be seen as a perverse achievement! Thankfully some recent stuff is bolder and actually works for most.
Cugel wrote:What would suit all cyclists? Well, the existing roads, since they are tried and tested ... as long as the more obvious dangers are reduced by the perfectly reasonable application of already extant laws to the hunderds of thousands of motorists who routinely break them and get away with it - even if they maim or kill someone, in some cases.
Tried, tested and failed - we must design for the people who we want to get cycling, not only for all cyclists willing to tolerate the current awful designs, else we will remain a car-sick country facing a public health crisis.