The Old Bike-Pedestrian-Car Cage Match

by Patrick Appel

Ryan Avent asks for pedestrians and bicyclists to unite against cars:

Pedestrians have sidewalks and cars have their lanes, and a cyclist must navigate his way between the two, which isn’t easy or comfortable. For a pedestrian to complain about cyclists is to misunderstand all the main sources of imbalance in the sharing of the road cars are the most dangerous and take up the bulk of the space, and it’s only because pedestrians and cyclists are jockeying for the small area of relative safety at the edge of the road that conflicts between them arise. Cyclists simply aren’t the problem. Undue deference to cars on city streets is the problem.

Yes, but the roads for bikes wouldn't exist without the cars.