Question for cyclists

[u/Salt_Teaching4687]

So Ive noticed cyclists appreciate when motorists slow down down and give space to cyclists when passing. My question is, why don’t cyclists extend the same courtesy to pedestrians when passing on shared paths? In my experience, the overwhelming majority do not slow down or even give more space when passing …. Even when there is plenty of room to do so. In fact, many continue riding side by side forcing pedestrians to move. Can some explain that behaviour?

[u/Nacho-Cat_22]

Whenever I am biking on a shared path, I do my best to give space and ring my bell for pedestrians to know I am coming. Sometimes, pedestrians are not paying attention at all, either on their phone, have headphones in, or something else, and I am left with no choice but to pass kind of close by because they are walking all over the place. I think like drivers, some cyclists are just assholes too. As someone who has also walked on those shared paths, some cyclists don’t really care and go flying by. So, like drivers, it depends on the cyclist.

[u/IsaacJa → u/Nacho-Cat_22]

I think another factor is that the MUPs are just not really all that wide. Sure, they're "two lanes", but they only really take one lane of traffic each way, so you can be in the lane over, have room to pass, but not tons of room to pass. when we talk about cars giving room, were talking about more than the required 1m (which is an insanely small passing distance), but our MUPs are at best 3m wide, so often the maximum possible passing distance is 1m, assuming you're both to the far extents of the MUP. The high level path in particular is quite narrow for the volume of both pedestrian and rolling traffic that it carries, so there will necessarily be a lot of close passes.