Comment by VariousPrograms
10 hours ago
I have friends who despise cyclists but oppose bike lanes. Bike lanes would take cyclists out of your lane and into their own lane. Plus if more people start cycling because there's infrastructure, that's less car traffic in the way of your truck! It just seems like a win-win for everybody. I've given up hope on transportation in the USA. It certainly won't be fixed within my lifetime.
Yep, I'm perfectly content to use the full lane if there's not another option. And that doesn't mean squeezing into the shoulder. No, that means riding left of center to prevent assholes from passing unsafely on my left.
The funniest thing is that tactical use of bike lanes, neighborhood greenways, etc, actually serves to funnel cyclists into specific protected routes such that the majority of other roads have fewer cyclists utilizing them. From my home in Seattle, I can ride several miles to work on roads that were already low traffic volume, but which are faster because cyclists get priority, and cars get diverted away. Before this existed, I just used the main roads that cars did, because it was faster.
Like, if you hate bicycles, you should love bicycle infrastructure. It's better for everyone.
You are assuming that with or without bike infrastructure, there is a fixed number of cyclists.
Many drivers either believe there are no cyclists; or that the number of cyclists should be reduced to zero, and they should drive instead, like normal people.
Also, everything is zero-sum, so any money spent on bike infrastructure is less money spent to widen the freeways or subsidize parking.
I think disliking cyclists is the core position for these people. They don’t want cyclists in the road and they don’t want to pay for infrastructure for cyclists, like bike lanes.
But as much as those people despise cyclists, bike lanes continue to proliferate in urban areas.
Just because there is not unanimous support for good policies, doesn’t mean they can’t be implemented.
Also a big win for local policy making, which used to be a preference of the right.
Some people despise drug users on their streets but oppose safe injection (a.k.a. overdose prevention) sites, which would move the drug users indoors.
It's often an act of power, like a mob. It's the corruption of power made viceral.
> I've given up hope on transportation in the USA. It certainly won't be fixed within my lifetime.
Exactly the response your enemies planned. Act aggressive enough and the other side will give in. You're their best friend when you do it and every time you post it.
I don't know if you noticed that, but when they make bike lanes they don't cut them off the sidewalk, they cut them into the car lanes, either taking a lane out or making the existing lane very narrow. Unlike a cyclist, which you see once in a blue moon, the reduced lanes are there forever, you drive through them all the time. Does this explain the paradox to you?
I, for one, cycle and still oppose bike lanes - they don't make cycling much safer (a car can easily jump a curb and most of these don't even have a curb, just some paint and plastic bollards in the best case) but impede traffic for everyone. If you want to increase cycling adoption you will piss off much fewer people and be 1000% more efficient by reigning in bike theft instead of building these lanes.