You’ll have to let us know when the housewarming party is!

I’m glad you’re finding that London is starting to get tolerable. With forward-thinking people like you two around, hopefully it’ll someday rise from tolerable to pretty-okay.

I am also happy that you’ve been able to tolerate London enough to stick around in some capacity.

Congrats!

BTW: It seems to me like it’s more of a cultural shift than a infrastructure problem. In Northern Europe (Denmark and Holland in particular) there are bicycle lanes that are distinct from sidewalks and roads. Pedestrians know to avoid these, and drivers know to look for cyclists. We need to shift the culture to look for cyclists as a part of the system, not as a rarity. Perhaps an education campaign akin to drunk driving to make people aware that they’re responsible for anything they hit when they’re in their car?

-iF

I’d rather be out in the lane, where motorists can see me, than on a sidewalk or adjacent/arterial path that routinely pops me blindly into traffic at every intersection. When I deliberately choose to avoid the path and take the lane, I inevitably get honked or yelled at by passing motorists. Which sucks, of course, but I have a photographic memory for license plates and vehicle descriptions, and a BlackBerry in my bike bag that I’m only too happy to use to call 911 if I feel especially threatened.

A tiny piece of irony: years ago, while riding on the Rachel Street path in Montreal’s East End, I was t-boned by a motorist too busy arguing with his wife to notice me on my banana yellow mountain bike in the middle of the intersection. He blew the stop sign and accelerated right into me. I haven’t used on-street paths since.

And the next time I see a cyclist on the sidewalk, I’ll seriously let my dog chase him

Thanks for saying it like it needed to be said. Sure wish more motorists would read and appreciate.