catgita

So when a new car lane is added, people don't say "what a waste of money, nobody is using it"; eventually it fills up with cars and makes traffic that much worse.

When a bike lane is built, and it isn't packed with bikes 24-7, largely because it takes so many bikes to crowd the tiniest lane, we hear "what a waste of money, it is just slowing traffic".

The same was said about the new light rail lines, even when they exceeded expectations the first year, and exceeded capacity within 5 years, 20 years ahead of expectations.

Chris0516

Not only that. Not every person rides a bike at night.

genec

It all comes down to selfish thinking... being "Hey, if I can't drive on it, what good is it?"

Looigi

Where do you live? Around here, the cars are present long before the lanes are added trying to accommodate them.

catgita

So are the bikes and peds, but the support for accommodate them is sadly lacking. That makes no sense even from the perspective of optimizing the streets for movement of cars.

fietsbob

you are in LA, its a place nobody walks ..

HOV lanes where people get arrested for faking a car pool with inflatable sex toys, can work,

but, there has to be a Cop on the beat, ready to piss off the self centered rich people with friends in the Mayor's Office.

Too bad the Public transportation was engineered Physically and Politically to Suck Down There . (and nationwide)

hooCycles

Instead of coming out and straight calling them dumb and obese, we build bike lanes, hoping that the motorists perhaps look at the empty bike lane one day whilst they sit in traffic and think to themselves "Gee, there is an empty lane over there that I could use if I started riding a bike."

Instead of taking the hint, they instead think "Gee, there is an empty lane over there that I could fit 1/2 my car in!"

genec

Actually in San Diego, I have noticed countless times that motorists could fit their entire car into a BL. Not a giant SUV type vehicle, but the typical smaller passenger car fit into the lanes with just a touch of overhang. And since there is often a gap between the lane and other traffic, and a gutter pan, that tight fit still worked for the motorists... who would use the BL as another RTOL or to get to a RTOL.

Of course the end result was that the BL was then "clogged" by cars. Go figure.

hooCycles

Huh, we don't have those kind of bike lanes here. Most of our bike lanes have parked cars bordering the right side (often times hanging into the bike lane) and traffic immediately to the left. As the bike lane is 5ish feet wide, even narrow cars wouldn't be able to drive in them at anything more than the slowest crawl assuming that the left traffic moved to the leftmost position to accommodate their fellow motorists.

If I did come across motorists driving in the bike lane, I would just ride in the main lane and not move back over until well clear.

genec

Nice try, but the "main lane" is filled with cars trying to go straight ahead, thus you have no place to go.

This sort of thing was typical on 45 and 50 MPH arterial roads at traffic lights. So while the reality is that the main traffic lanes are not moving fast at those times, they are filled with cars. As a cyclist I was often overjoyed to pass stuck automotive traffic while I used the BL, even while riding only 8 MPH up very steep hills... but then I would reach the top and find that the cars had also filled the BL... and thus stopped my progress.

I regularly ran into this sort of thing on my commute up and down Genesee Ave in the San Diego area. South bound I would find this BL clogging at Genesee and Nobel and at Genesee and Govenor. North bound I ran into this while trying to get to the BL on I 5 at Genesee... I actually had a SDPD motorcycle cop pull into the BL and wave all the cars out right in front of me... so I could proceed. That was really pretty cool. But that help only happened once; BL clogging happened often.

I also ran into this sort of BL blocking traffic on northbound El Camino Real at highway 56.

hooCycles

Ah drat. Yeah, I forgot about that part.

genec

Yeah, I lived it... believe me, those folks with small cars can really get creative about using ALL the road...

RPK79

This.

And around here new road construction projects don't happen and much of the maintenance is also put off in favor of bike paths and rail. I can understand motorists' ire being raised for expensive transportation projects being funded when the roads are becoming riddled with potholes. Especially when creative legislation is used to funnel tax money specifically set aside for 'roads' to other projects.

Chris0516

Ditto

genec

I guess hitting motorists with the notion that such projects will reduce the traffic load on roads, which after eventually being repaired, will last longer, is just not going to cut it, eh?

hooCycles

Apparently, the motorists think the word "road" specifically means that cars should be able to drive on it. Even the word "highway" doesn't single out motor vehicles.

If a politician were to say "We've passed legislation to improve our roads", he could very well be talking about MUPs or other cycling infrastructure.

Albino Wino

As a dumb, obese man I find your comments confusing.

Anyway, listen...if bike lanes had better access to ride-through burrito and soft-drink service we'd be winning this war.

Wilfred Laurier

The problem in cities where I have lived is that bike lanes don't go anywhere... or they inexplicably disappear and dump you out into traffic. You can sometimes pick them up again further along, but you have to plan your route well. Ottawa, Ontario is very close to having a cycling route right across town (just opened a new ped/cyc. bridge across the Rideau River), so we'll see how things pick up in the spring.

scott967

What I see the problem, is if motorists were even just a little more considerate of cyclists there would be no need for segregated lanes. If as stated, no one uses the bike lane, then giving cyclists that consideration would be trivial for motorists. But as we know, motorists won't ever see it that way. That being said, when a traffic lane on a clogged road is taken away from motorists and turned over to cyclists but barely used it's going to upset people. Advocates need to "use it or lose it". Excuses for non-use, even if valid, won't take you far.

scott s.
.

hooCycles

Hey, I never said anything about the cyclists! Just kidding.

Could a dumb person realize they were dumb, or would the very act of correctly recognizing their dumbness preclude them from being dumb? Similar to a Catch 22?