I do not live in an Idaho stop state, but I do it regularly.
No sympathy for the environment, huh?
With drivers decelerating and stopping at lights, then revving up to move quickly when lights go green, peak particle concentration was found to be 29 times higher than that during free-flowing traffic conditions. (https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/02/why-traffic-lights-are-pollution-hotspots/)
In a city the size of Atlanta, 269,000 tons of CO2 emissions could be prevented, equivalent to the CO2 absorbed by a forest 3.3 times the size of Atlanta, according to Inrix. (https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1135482_poorly-timed-traffic-lights-add-to-greenhouse-gas-emissions-here-s-an-estimate-of-how-much)
That latter article is talking about how many tons of CO2 could be reduced just by better optimizing traffic in the city so that fewer cars hit red lights.
No argument, getting rid of cars would have the biggest positive impact, but failing that, optimizing lights for cars, while not helping cyclist safety, would be a much better investment if we want to reduce pollution. Idaho stops for cyclists from the OP post would actually be detrimental to the environment based on the conclusions from the study: that allowing it makes drivers more cautious, implying more full stops, more time idling, and more CO2 produced per car trip.
+100 on roundabouts. We have not nearly enough in the US, although theyβre becoming more popular. A little troublesome for cyclists, though, because cars never stop. Itβs a worst-case situation for bikes.
I live in Minneapolis, which is graced with 98 miles of bike lanes and 101 miles of off-street bikeways and trails. When industry turned from blue to more white collar last century, they tore out all of the old railway lines and converted it to paths. Itβs the most incredible bicycling in the US, bar none. βShare the roadβ isnβt an issue, because you can get nearly anywhere in the greater metropolitan Twin Cities in dedicated bike paths, often without ever having to share a street with cars, except to cross.
Iβm in a closed suburban neighborhood; within two miles are still farms and horses. Yet I can get on my bike, ride 5 blocks through the neighborhood (OK, with cars for that part), get on a Rail Line (theyβre still mostly named after the rail lines they used to be), ride to a park, through it, onto another line, and all the way up into the nearest town 5 miles away to an organic grocery store. I have to cross 1 road on that entire line, and along a road-ajacent bike path for a half mile. And I could ride all the way across the Cities to a suburb on the far side - 47 miles - on dedicated bike paths. Some of those are bike lanes, but still; Iβve lived here for 7 years now, and it still blows my mind. The network is truly incredible, and something to be proud of. Most of the native cyclists, from the online bitching I read, have no clue how good they have it.
Many cyclists here - the spandex & clip-shoe types, still ride on the road with the cars, even when thereβs a perfectly good, paved bike lane next to them; I chalk that up to basic Midwestern passive-aggressiveness, but Iβll grant that maybe thereβs a good reason for it.
Anyway, that kind of strayed off the topic of round-abouts, but if youβre a cyclist, Minneapolis is one of the best cities in the world in which to live.
As long as they are done correctly. Iβve seen many new roundabouts that are two lanes wide and allow people in the middle lane to turn out of the roundabout. Only the outer lane should turn out, otherwise thereβs essentially a stop sign because you never know what the other cars are going to do.
I was talking from the perspective of the effort involved in a full stop on a bike vs a car. You seem to be taking the position that cyclists doing an Idaho stop will never stop or look around, that it should all be on car drivers to avoid oblivious idiot cyclists who will ride out in front of them without warning. I guarantee you any of those states that have this law will still find the cyclist at fault if they run a red light and get clobbered.
If you want to change the topic and talk about whether I have βsympathy for the environmentβ, I also drive an EV. I replaced my gas furnace with a heat pump. I ride my bike instead of driving a car for most of my <10mile trips. Having the ability to roll a stop sign or proceed through a red light when itβs clear has nothing to do with any of those things.
OK, letβs look at only the effort, then.
βEffortβ is energy. Whether on a bike, in an EV, or in an ICE vehicle, it takes energy to stop and then accelerate. The arguments in favor of Idaho stops applies equally to all vehicles: if the study does prove it increases safety by making drivers more paranoid - and itβs not clear that it does, as others have pointed out - then it applies equally to all conveyances. Drivers being more careful at stops because anyone else could be legally rolling through a stop sign applies whether itβs a bicyclist or a semi truck. If the argument is about less energy use, then the argument is even stronger for cars because itβs far more energy expensive for them to come to a complete stop than it is for a bicycle.
Basically, if Idaho stops are good for bikes, theyβre even better for cars. If theyβre legal for bikes, they should be equally legal for cars. But the study is flawed, and before we legalize rolling stops or drive-through-red legal, weβd need far more, and better, studies.
As an aside, we now know that youβre going to burn about the same calories whether exercising or not. Calories not burnt in exercise get used by the body to produce fat and to overdrive expensive biological processes, contributing to disease. The difference in total energy consumed through reduced food intake by legalizing rolling stops is negligible; itβd have almost zero environmental impact.
