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| On the whole I find Zürich pretty good. But they do have a nasty habit here of marking out bike lanes where the road is wide and straight and it is pretty obvious where the bikes go. But as soon as you hit a busy, complicated intersection all the bike markings disappear and you are fighting it out with the traffic. | |
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This is true in Lausanne also - the only bike lanes are in the places that you least need them. Most accidents happen at intersections, and that is precisely where they decide to not put the bike lanes.
As for cycling on the sidewalk / pavement, I hate the idea except in very specific circumstances. I want every driver to see me, and the best way to do that is to be on the road - where they are looking for other vehicles, rather than on the sidewalk - where they generally ignore until the last second. Cyclists travel too fast to be on the sidewalk. Plus, as another poster mentioned, cyclists on the sidewalk have many more encounters with pedestrians than when they are on the road. Inexperienced cyclists "feel" safer on the sidewalk than on the road, but they are not (however, this is not true in places like the Netherlands where everyone - drivers and pedestrians - seemed to be aware of cyclists all the time, it certainly is a great place to ride).