Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay Random
Every road with bike lanes has a sharply reduced capacity for motor traffic. That doesn't benefit commuters in cars; it increases congestion and hurts commuters. (It also hurts commuters on buses, so don't try the transit angle either.)
In rush hour, those parts of the road that are now bike lanes were filled to capacity with vehicles. Now they're virtually empty. I spend a lot of time in the inner city, and I have yet to see heavy traffic in a bike lane.
They take a very small number of cars off the road, if you measure the actual bike traffic compared to the vehicular traffic that used to use the road.
But by all means, go on telling yourself that, because otherwise you wouldn't be able to justify narrowing the roads and worsening traffic jams as a form of virtue-signalling.
|
In many cases it is parking capacity, not through lanes that have been utilized. Parking losses have been managed by adding spaces nearby. Sometimes it is simply squeezing lane where there is excess width in the carriageway to have the same traffic capacity. Outside the core, there are roads sometimes reduced a lane, but the capacity of the road can easily handle volumes on the remaining lanes. There are really no examples of additional lanes that have caused any material delay for vehicles, especially after a short period of adjustment to new patterns. They are not a high proportion of trips, but they have utilized an entirely proportional amount of lane Kms (and cost) too. In planning routes, an incredible amount of time is spent focused on minimizing negative impact on vehicle movement.
A lot of people really value the safety and increased freedom they have gained. My wife doesn’t drive and now she is able to commute by bike to work safely on lanes, paths and cycle tracks the whole route. She is not alone and the stats show it. Her biggest complaint on the trip is the routes are too busy on morning commute and it can be a bit intimidating.