I live in Amsterdam, 15km/h is a "slow" bike. Most fit adults cruise at around 20km/h and e-bikes are often blasting along at 25km/h+

The problem with bikes is that most don't have a speedo so they have no clue how fast they are travelling.

I see your point, but Amsterdam generally has separate lanes for cars, bikes and foot traffic.

The point I was making is that it is safe to use a bike in foot traffic areas if you slow down to match the expected speeds of your surrounding traffic; such as using a bike in the historical city center of e.g. Amersfoort or Utrecht, where there is usually a lot of foot traffic and little car traffic, and no separate bike lanes.

It is rather the cars that should slow down to 30kph in cities.

A colision at 100km/h, even 60 for sure, the pedestrian or cyclist has a near zero chance of surviving it. Especially if we talk of vehicles with more than 1000Kg of mass.

And why would cyclists go 15 km/h? By that matter, cars aren't too fast for the sidewalk either.

Because the cyclist is considered a guest in foot traffic areas, it should slow down to match safe speeds in those situations.

The cyclist has all the reason to be there as a driver would, none at all. Go driving on the sidewalk, at a speed presumably appropriate for "guests" (15 km/h? would that really be appropriate?) and look how welcome you are.

The existence of a sidewalk implies the existance of a road that is used for all traffic except foot traffic, such as bikes. Why are you forcing the situation onto the sidewalk?

I was talking about a pedestrian road, considering the 'historical' setting of the GP post.

I'm not. I'm trying to illustrate how wrong it is to expect cyclists to retreat to the sidewalk, sorry if that wasn't clear. Actually I have trouble tolerating cyclists retreating to the sidewalk (mostly because they give drivers the illusion that this could be the norm), outside of certain exceptions (small children and those accompanying them). Limited access roads tend to not have sidewalks anyways.

Do you really need it explained to you how a bike is more dangerous to pedestrians than a runner? A bike has way more inertia, is harder to stop than someone running, and is a tangle of metal that can seriously injure someone, and more difficult to safely maneuver around short of standing the side and stopping to let them pass. Takes half a second of thought to realize all this but you chose to play incredulous instead.

This is how people rationalize, but there is one problem with it. When it no longer convenient to see bikes as dangerous then people instantly stop doing it, as accident data actually show extremely few cases of bikes causing injury to pedestrians outside of intersections.

This is shown directly by city planners. When construction closes down bike lines or walkways, which ever remains get temporarily converted to be both bike and walkway. Since that doesn't carry any increase in risk, it is safe to do so.

Similar, parents with strollers often use bike lanes. During winter when the road conditions is at its worst you often see strollers on bike lines. No one acts as if this puts the baby at mortal danger. Statistics also support this since bikes crashing into a stroller is unheard of.

However lanes that share bikes and pedestrians make people feel unease. The low speed and short breaking distance of bikes allow them to avoid causing accidents, but it doesn't remove the fear completely. Thus Swedish city planners don't generally combine pedestrians and bikes unless there is a good reason, like construction.

Your point is backed up by the custom in Japan. Most cyclists stick to the sidewalk and there are of course some accidents, but it's nothing to be particularly concerned about and it works fine even with incredibly high cycling rates.

> Do you really need it explained to you how a bike is more dangerous to pedestrians than a runner?

No, I do understand that there is (some) more danger to a bike. But a bike also provides an elevated viewpoint to the cyclist, allowing for a better overview of the traffic situation, allowing the cyclist to better participate in traffic.

> more difficult to safely maneuver around short of standing the side and stopping to let them pass.

Most of the time roads are wider than the turning radius of a bike, especially at low speeds (approx 1.5m). Why would you need to stand aside to let someone pass if you have such wide roads?