To justify the cost of these additional bike lanes and infrastructure you'll first need people actually riding their bikes. A change of mentality is required here. As a cyclist you shouldn't feel so unsafe that you have to put on a helmet and war paint. The money spent on ridiculous bike laws and expensive special infrastructure should first be allocated to educating all drivers. There needs to be a shift in attitude towards cyclists so they can feel safe again. All these passive-aggressive comments against cyclist are very sad to read. I guess you have to be a little insane and have a certain negligence about rules to comfortably ride your bike and be able to ignore all the maniacs behind the wheel.

> To justify the cost of these additional bike lanes and infrastructure you'll first need people actually riding their bikes

Chicken-and-egg. On the other hand, to get people riding their bikes, you need to offer them an infrastructure that feels safe enough to get started.

Yeah. That was basically the entire point of the article. That the roads didn't always belong to motorists. That the idea of the roads being car-centric is a fairly recent development in human history. One of my favorite examples is Las Vegas and Moscow, Russia. In the case of Las Vegas they've built entire elevated sidewalks with escalators and elevators. Cars rule in a city where people could, in theory, walk between casinos, restaurants, etc. In Moscow there are many many large sections of the city where the only way to cross the street is to go through the subway. On the upside that city has a pretty great subway system, so it makes some sense.

Either way the point of the article (which a shocking number of people in the comments here and on the article missed) is that it's this chicken and the egg problem that needs to be addressed.

There's some fascinating data hinting that drivers behave more recklessly towards cyclists who wear a helmet, presumably thinking that a collision won't be so big a deal if the cyclist is "protected".

I think the presumption is wrong; if the phenomenon is true (somewhat doubtful yet) it may be more related to the driver thinking:

1) "that guy wears helmet; he seems to be a law-abiding cyclist who knows what he's doing and behaves in a predictable way"

2) "that cyclist doesn't seem to control his vehicle; I need to pass by a wider margin".

Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll pass a mandatory adult helmet law." Now they have two problems.