There's probably an equivalent Australian news article (archived somewhere) about the late 19th century in say, Melbourne or Sydney. No doubt there's problems highlighted in this article that the *new 21st century bicycle craze* could encounter as well. :o Now attempt to envisage a time when bikes were 75% of road traffic...
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Bicycling craze swept city in 19th century
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060522/NEWS0204/605220319/-1/COLUMNS
(May 22, 2006) — They had practiced all that winter of 1879-80, these Rochester Bicycle Club members, learning to ride their new contraptions. Late in April, "nine hardy men emerged and rode boldly through the streets," Rochester historian Blake McKelvey wrote.
It was a small beginning, to be sure. And yet by 1897 there would be an estimated 40,000 bicycles on the streets of Rochester. What happened in the intervening years was nothing short of extraordinary.
"It was a crazy time that swept across the nation with a fervor rarely matched in history," Edwin Sayers wrote in an August 1985 article for Upstate Magazine. "Like kids around a Christmas tree, America reveled in its new toy. For the first time ever a person could go a reasonably long distance under one's own power and still get home by nightfall without collapsing from exhaustion. It was transportation on the cheap, a highly personal way of conquering distances that seemed close to miraculous."
In 1881, for example, in its "Bicycle Briefs" column, the Democrat and Chronicle noted that in a single day W.H. Leonard and W.W. Reid "took in Henrietta, Scottsville, Caledonia, LeRoy, Bergen, Chili and Churchville ... on their wheels. The roads were good and when home again their cyclometer showed the distance gone over to be fifty-six miles."
Rubber handles had just been introduced, the column added, "and prevent the rider's hands from slipping, which is the case with horn or ivory handles."
A good thing, too. These early cyclists needed all the help they could get. Their "high wheelers" were cumbersome contraptions that could easily cause the rider to take a "header." In 1888, the introduction of the "safety" bike, with smaller wheels that kept the rider closer to the ground, provided a breakthrough in public interest. The following year, nearly 700 bicycles were sold in Rochester, nearly a fourth of them to women.
One result was a "surge of city folk into the countryside," McKelvey notes. "Thousands of young men, and a few women too, hastened to demonstrate their powers by peddling out to neighboring picnic groves." Many joined bicycle clubs, one of which sponsored construction of a cinder path to Charlotte in 1889.
When the city banned bicycles from city sidewalks, demand increased for bicycle "sidepaths" along the major roadways. Some indication of the immense popularity of cycling can be gleaned from what happened next. An association of cycle clubs sold bicycle tags in 1896, McKelvey noted, and "soon netted over $1,000 for the construction of cinder paths." By the end of the 1890s, more than 130 miles of sidepaths had been constructed in Monroe County, "thus bringing many outlying villages and hamlets within the range of venturesome city folk."
This was a particularly liberating experience for women, who "shed acres of crinoline, shortened their skirts and joined men in the new sport of cycling."
But it was a positive annoyance for police and city officials who had to scramble to cope with a rash of accidents. "The bicycle is a great institution. If any one doubts its power let him get in front of a 'safety' and allow himself to be knocked down," insisted an editorial in the Rochester Union and Advertiser on Sept. 11, 1893. "Many people of Rochester have involuntarily had that experience, and, moreover, have gained it while walking quietly on the sidewalk, a part of the street generally supposed to be intended for the special use of pedestrians."
Indeed, by the mid-1890s, "with nearly 20,000 wheels in the city ... accidents were being reported at the rate of 100 a day. ... Scarcely a day passed during summer months without at least one arrest, and of the many injuries to pedestrians or cyclists, at least a dozen proved fatal," McKelvey noted.
In addition to being banned from sidewalks, cyclists were limited to 10 miles per hour (8 in the central district). Bicycle police were sent out to catch the speeders. "Scorchers arrested," said one headline.
Especially revealing was a breakdown of traffic along major city streets between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m., prepared by the city engineer in October 1897.
The numbers for East Main Street were as follows: loaded wagons, 687; empty wagons, 1,584; carriages, 1,300; bicycles, 7,041.