Supporters of such moves argue that bike lanes worsen traffic congestion, negatively impact local businesses and delay emergency vehicles from getting where they need to go.
They are wrong on all points, as proven time and time again. Why are we still listening to these liars?
The fact remains that the most traffic you’ll see on any road, just happen to be roads without cycling infrastructure.
If 18 lanes of highway still can’t solve congestion, then the Ontario government should look at how to remove cars from those roads, instead of inducing further demand.
As an e-scooter and bike user I don’t get the push to limit bike lanes. The problem is on car congestion so the solution should be car-based.
Yeah, I switched to bicycle for a guaranteed 30-35 min commute each day. Just flew passed traffic and the bikeways were heavily used the closer you got to the city and all the networks merge into major arteries. So fast, so healthy, got time back in my day too.
Some days I’d sit in my car for 90 mins, just to travel 13 km. Gd I was dumb… The fuel, the lost time, the wear on the car, just losing every way by choice lol
I’m in my disturbingly late 40s and I can still run more than 15k in 90 minutes. But I wouldn’t want to run back.
Wait, how do “bike lanes worsen traffic congestion”?
I think their claim is that bike lanes mean that you’re permanently blocking that parking lane off so you can’t have 2 lanes instead of 1, or forgetting that the second lane is normally parking spaces. I think my favorite bit of all of this is all the videos of bike lanes without stop and go bikes where drivers record and say “no one’s using them!”
There’s pretty solid research about these things from the past 30 years or so. At this point, ignoring literature is just rank anti-intellectualism.
Good luck, sounds like you’re going to need it.
A permanent, predictable bike lane doesn’t impact traffic nearly as much as random cars parked on the street (everyone in the lane has to move over), but these people never complain about too much street parking.
A few streets here re-introduced street parking explicitly as a traffic calming measure (in addition to a separate bike lane behind the parked cars).
I know it works. I can tell it works. But I still don’t really like it.
If it’s part of a system, I suppose that’s fine. A better alternative could be expanding the sidewalk and providing patio space for restaurants etc. But if the plan is “we paint white lines and put up parking meters and it will slow people down”, then f that. It’ll just cause accidents and reinforces the area as a driving destination.
They don’t
