I have ridden my bike work for 20 years in Boston, and I enjoy it. I think the recent pandemic bike lanes go way too far. Every road should not be bikable, it would be safer for everyone to segregate traffic and leave major roads for cars. The recent bike lanes in Boston are on roads that few ever rode their bikes on. A new bike lane near my house used to be safer without the bike lane (I was one of the few that would occasionally ride on it). It had a wide shoulder, and if you did not mind cars going fast, it was one of the safe roads in Boston to bike on (Boston has lots of narrow streets). Now they have removed a lane for cars, it is crowded, drivers are frustrated, and caught in unnecessary traffic. As a city cyclist, one of the worse things to encounter is a frustrated driver - they are unpredictable. Sure enough on this road, random drivers will get frustrated enough to pull into the bike lane and fly up the road - someone will be killed. The bike lanes are not about encouraging riding anymore, they are used to discourage driving - and cyclists will pay.
> The bike lanes are not about encouraging riding anymore, they are used to discourage driving
I think it would be valuable to systematically describe and measure the scope of this sort of behavior. Not just within cycling, but across the socio-political landscape. It seems to me as if a major reason for political conflict is the widespread understanding that every potential issue is likely to be weaponized. I can't be for something anodyne like a bike lane because my expression of support will be used to make my daily commute via car a frustrating disaster. Sure, some of this has always existed, but like any kafkasesque situation, the extent of it is unclear and the language to describe it doesn't even exist. Compromise is impossible because there's no mechanism for enforcing good faith behavior.
Until we have a handle on it, I think the sort of local control Arnold describes is probably just as he says it, a matter of luck.
This isn't new, and it is very common. Biden's banning of new oil permits and canceling pipelines was done to raise oil prices and discourage the use of fossil fuels. A straight forward way to do this would be a carbon tax or raise the existing gas taxes. No one wants to pay the political price for that (democrats could do both with simple majority in the senate as a legitimate part of a budget bill). Boston wants to limit driving and reduce traffic, rather than a straight forward toll, they are using bike lanes and cyclists aa speed bumps. If you want less traffic in the downtown, you are probably happy with this, as a speed bump - I am not happy.
There are problems, the bike lanes do not prevent people from coming in on interstates, once in the city they use apps to avoid congestion and as a result smaller roads get more traffic. So is there a net decrease with bike lanes? overall probably a little, in certain areas probably a lot, most traffic is just re-routed. The same may happen with tolls, but Boston is somewhat unique with this. A large portion of city boundary is water (over 50% - Charles River (not just the Cambridge border), Neponset river, Boston harbor) making it much easier to control entry roads - so a toll would likely be very effective. A toll would also raise revenue, rather than cost money. The fearless political leaders do not want to pay the political price for tolls.
There are many examples, there is even a saying - politics is the art of the possible. Another reason not to trust political solutions.
It's only performance freak out - they knew, and wanted, gas prices would go up. They think blaming the rich(!) oil companies will deflect media ignored blame by the Stupid Party on Dems.
There are more Reps with some honest "blame the Dems for results of Dem policies" than in the past. Maybe enough.
I appreciate bike lanes in theory, especially where I live, which has congested high speed traffic with narrow shoulders between me and all practical destinations. But whoever decided I wanted to bike with the traffic, ride in a bike lane for a half mile, then merge into the traffic again. Like passenger trains, to get the point of bike lanes you need to travel abroad.
Bike lanes are great in German cities that were reduced to rubble during the war. Munich is has lots of wide streets with good bike lanes and generous nature stripes. There's no way to magic up such magnificent Boulevards in most cites.
Being from Holland, bike-lanes and bike-infrastructure more generally are of interest to me.
I imagine most people know bike-infrastructure is great in Holland- in big cities as well as in rural areas. But you can't just like that export this to the US (or anywhere else): the infrastructure is embedded in a culture.
Two things are important in this regard: obviously Holland has a bike-culture, meaning the bicycle is embedded in the fabric of everyday life: most people ride a bike regularly and most bicycle-rides are for getting from A to B, not for recreation. Apparently Holland has more bicycles than inhabitants (personally I own three of them). The other component is a culture of government on all levels designing public spaces and trying to improve them continuously. This together makes for a great infrastructure and a great bike-riding experience (and a hefty tax-burden as well, unfortunately).
Sometimes amazing stuff is created: for example the 12.500 place bike parking station at Utrecht Central Station, or the bike roundabout above an intersection in Eindhoven (see picture). A great monument to the bicycle but very expensive so this will remain a one-off most likely.
I’ve used a fair share of usable and well-designed bike lanes but much of the stuff getting installed today causes more problems than they solve- especially the so-called “protected” bike lanes. They also send a message that bicycling doesn’t being on roads without them. In most places, people are legally allowed to travel via bicycle on all surface streets and with a few techniques it’s possible to do safely. Programs like Cycling Savvy and the “biker’s ed” courses put on by the League of American Bicyclists teach these skills.
On top of the high cost per mile and the reduction of parking spots and/or general use travel lanes, their designs often cause more crashes. The blind spots of left-wing planners are real- they tend to believe that people will ditch their cars and switch to cycling if more and more of these facilities are built. While it’s bordering on cliche to say, it’s akin to a religion- the usual “unconstrained vision” that drives much of left-wing and progressive ideology. “Safetyism” had proliferated the movement as well.
protected bike lanes are the worst. Drivers that are turning can not see cyclists that are riding in the lane. It is absolute stupidity at its finest. First rule of riding in the city - be visible
Oh for sure! At very slow speeds and provided the cyclist themselves understand the crash risks they might be safe but the target market, often called “all ages and abilities” by advocates don’t always have those skills. Also adding e-bikes and mobility scooters to the mix is sure to cause problems.
I live in NYC and NYS has a strict environmental review law (SEQRA) that calls for extensive public involvement. Where I live, on the UWS, bike lanes faced lots of opposition both from local businesses and the public but this opposition was ignored by the Bloomberg administration. The loophole they used is called a negative declaration where the project sponsors declare that the project will have de minimus negative consequences and therefore is exempt from environmental review.
Bloomberg did a lot of good things, but he was also arrogant, high handed, and certain he was right about everything.
In a particular spot in Baltimore the installation of a bike lane meant cutting the number of lanes in the street down by one. This caused a massive increase in congestion traffic.
The bike lane near my house caused drivers to suffer in unnecessary traffic and it increased traffic through my neighborhood. Those drivers travel faster, and generally do not know where they are going (following Apple maps or something to avoid traffic). Because they are paying attention to the phone directions, they are not as aware of the road (simple fact). In a neighborhood with many children, that is a bad and dangerous combination.
Good, so it seems that bike lanes can be planned and implemented in better or worse ways--like any traffic policy-- and are more appropriate for some areas than others (also like other traffic policies). Kling seemed to suggest something more inherent about bike lanes as such in the way he casually generalized beyond his town.
No, Kling is right. Because even the better and more appropriate implementations are still really bad in American practice, in ways that are highly unlikely to change in America.
It's an interesting philosophical question I suppose whether that's 'inherent' or not, but pragmatically if one accepts that 'be like Holland' is not an answer within American realistic political constraints, it might as well be.
The fundamental problem is that the whole mindset of the American officials who decide to do such things is not aligned to optimizing practical realities and confronting deeply entrenched infrastructure patterns and transportation practices, but instead toward virtue signaling, using state power to allocate scarce public infrastructure resources to politically favored groups and below market rates, and an indulgence in a kind of childish, feel-good magical thinking impervious to rational critique and that really isn't above the level of bicycles good and green, cars bad.
If that is the incentive structure driving these kinds of decisions, then it's just not realistic to expect these things to be implemented in a sane and practical way, and thus we get the typical messes with which we now have long experience.
There are better or worse ways to get shot, but it's no good way. Personally, I benefit from bike lanes and like them and use them daily, but they probably harm more people than they help. In my city they've mostly just turned into double-parking lanes anyway.
Consider a typical north/south avenue in Manhattan. There will be six lanes but two are parking so four are for traffic. If you replace one traffic lane with a bike lane that’s a 25% reduction in traffic capacity. But it’s actually worse because in Manhattan there is no way for trucks to unload with double parking. So, during business hours the available lanes will be reduced to two, often several times on the same block. Now you’ve reduced the traffic capacity to two lanes or a 50% reduction. This leads to increased congestion, accidents and pollution.
I would support a bike lane on the street so live, depending on what had to be traded off for it. I would rather they did not take my own nature strip, but even that would be acceptable.
I think you are falling behind the FITs with this post. 'Left wing planners' - is their politics relevant? Do they ask feedback differently for bike lanes than any number of other 'improvements'? Is this different from NIMBY on anything else? Locals oppose lots of things that are in the wider public interest, and misunderstand cause and effect. Extra capacity for cars is popular because people think it cuts congestion (it just increases capacity); does that mean they are really for or against? Drivers think wide straight roads are safer, but they're more dangerous (they just drive faster). I vote Charles Marohn for FIT - this book doesn't say much about bike lanes, but much else of relevance to this debate: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Confessions-Recovering-Civil-Engineer-Transportation/dp/1119699290
Arnold, in your community can you explain why they were proposed and what the alternatives to them would be if not present?
I live downtown Toronto Canada where many of our busiest thoroughfares have had a bike lane installed on the right most lane (often in conjunction with or taking away what used to be street side parking spots). Toronto has been trying to disincentivize cars downtown and I would suspect the addition of bike lanes (also adding public bike services) has had a positive impact on downtown traffic. I cannot speak to whether injuries have reduced or increased as a result of these bike lanes but my personal experience would be that they're a benefit.
We as a city are lucky in a geographic sense with the city bordering Lake Ontario as we have a really good walking/bike path along the water with bike paths branching off up the main streets into the city from there. Many people have converted to bike commuting as a result.
In a more suburban/rural or inland town I can understand why a bike path's validity could be questioned. I guess the better question to ask a developer is "What is the idea behind the proposed bike lane?" Is it a solution to a problem or a novelty?
I have ridden my bike work for 20 years in Boston, and I enjoy it. I think the recent pandemic bike lanes go way too far. Every road should not be bikable, it would be safer for everyone to segregate traffic and leave major roads for cars. The recent bike lanes in Boston are on roads that few ever rode their bikes on. A new bike lane near my house used to be safer without the bike lane (I was one of the few that would occasionally ride on it). It had a wide shoulder, and if you did not mind cars going fast, it was one of the safe roads in Boston to bike on (Boston has lots of narrow streets). Now they have removed a lane for cars, it is crowded, drivers are frustrated, and caught in unnecessary traffic. As a city cyclist, one of the worse things to encounter is a frustrated driver - they are unpredictable. Sure enough on this road, random drivers will get frustrated enough to pull into the bike lane and fly up the road - someone will be killed. The bike lanes are not about encouraging riding anymore, they are used to discourage driving - and cyclists will pay.
> The bike lanes are not about encouraging riding anymore, they are used to discourage driving
I think it would be valuable to systematically describe and measure the scope of this sort of behavior. Not just within cycling, but across the socio-political landscape. It seems to me as if a major reason for political conflict is the widespread understanding that every potential issue is likely to be weaponized. I can't be for something anodyne like a bike lane because my expression of support will be used to make my daily commute via car a frustrating disaster. Sure, some of this has always existed, but like any kafkasesque situation, the extent of it is unclear and the language to describe it doesn't even exist. Compromise is impossible because there's no mechanism for enforcing good faith behavior.
Until we have a handle on it, I think the sort of local control Arnold describes is probably just as he says it, a matter of luck.
This isn't new, and it is very common. Biden's banning of new oil permits and canceling pipelines was done to raise oil prices and discourage the use of fossil fuels. A straight forward way to do this would be a carbon tax or raise the existing gas taxes. No one wants to pay the political price for that (democrats could do both with simple majority in the senate as a legitimate part of a budget bill). Boston wants to limit driving and reduce traffic, rather than a straight forward toll, they are using bike lanes and cyclists aa speed bumps. If you want less traffic in the downtown, you are probably happy with this, as a speed bump - I am not happy.
There are problems, the bike lanes do not prevent people from coming in on interstates, once in the city they use apps to avoid congestion and as a result smaller roads get more traffic. So is there a net decrease with bike lanes? overall probably a little, in certain areas probably a lot, most traffic is just re-routed. The same may happen with tolls, but Boston is somewhat unique with this. A large portion of city boundary is water (over 50% - Charles River (not just the Cambridge border), Neponset river, Boston harbor) making it much easier to control entry roads - so a toll would likely be very effective. A toll would also raise revenue, rather than cost money. The fearless political leaders do not want to pay the political price for tolls.
There are many examples, there is even a saying - politics is the art of the possible. Another reason not to trust political solutions.
"Biden's banning of new oil permits and canceling pipelines was done to raise oil prices and discourage the use of fossil fuels."
The incomprehensible thing is that they then freak out when gasoline prices go up!
just part of the show, the mayor in Boston wants to reduce traffic congestion...
It's only performance freak out - they knew, and wanted, gas prices would go up. They think blaming the rich(!) oil companies will deflect media ignored blame by the Stupid Party on Dems.
There are more Reps with some honest "blame the Dems for results of Dem policies" than in the past. Maybe enough.
I appreciate bike lanes in theory, especially where I live, which has congested high speed traffic with narrow shoulders between me and all practical destinations. But whoever decided I wanted to bike with the traffic, ride in a bike lane for a half mile, then merge into the traffic again. Like passenger trains, to get the point of bike lanes you need to travel abroad.
Bike lanes are great in German cities that were reduced to rubble during the war. Munich is has lots of wide streets with good bike lanes and generous nature stripes. There's no way to magic up such magnificent Boulevards in most cites.
Being from Holland, bike-lanes and bike-infrastructure more generally are of interest to me.
I imagine most people know bike-infrastructure is great in Holland- in big cities as well as in rural areas. But you can't just like that export this to the US (or anywhere else): the infrastructure is embedded in a culture.
Two things are important in this regard: obviously Holland has a bike-culture, meaning the bicycle is embedded in the fabric of everyday life: most people ride a bike regularly and most bicycle-rides are for getting from A to B, not for recreation. Apparently Holland has more bicycles than inhabitants (personally I own three of them). The other component is a culture of government on all levels designing public spaces and trying to improve them continuously. This together makes for a great infrastructure and a great bike-riding experience (and a hefty tax-burden as well, unfortunately).
Sometimes amazing stuff is created: for example the 12.500 place bike parking station at Utrecht Central Station, or the bike roundabout above an intersection in Eindhoven (see picture). A great monument to the bicycle but very expensive so this will remain a one-off most likely.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LwyV9o5ILF0/maxresdefault.jpg
I’ve used a fair share of usable and well-designed bike lanes but much of the stuff getting installed today causes more problems than they solve- especially the so-called “protected” bike lanes. They also send a message that bicycling doesn’t being on roads without them. In most places, people are legally allowed to travel via bicycle on all surface streets and with a few techniques it’s possible to do safely. Programs like Cycling Savvy and the “biker’s ed” courses put on by the League of American Bicyclists teach these skills.
On top of the high cost per mile and the reduction of parking spots and/or general use travel lanes, their designs often cause more crashes. The blind spots of left-wing planners are real- they tend to believe that people will ditch their cars and switch to cycling if more and more of these facilities are built. While it’s bordering on cliche to say, it’s akin to a religion- the usual “unconstrained vision” that drives much of left-wing and progressive ideology. “Safetyism” had proliferated the movement as well.
protected bike lanes are the worst. Drivers that are turning can not see cyclists that are riding in the lane. It is absolute stupidity at its finest. First rule of riding in the city - be visible
Oh for sure! At very slow speeds and provided the cyclist themselves understand the crash risks they might be safe but the target market, often called “all ages and abilities” by advocates don’t always have those skills. Also adding e-bikes and mobility scooters to the mix is sure to cause problems.
I live in NYC and NYS has a strict environmental review law (SEQRA) that calls for extensive public involvement. Where I live, on the UWS, bike lanes faced lots of opposition both from local businesses and the public but this opposition was ignored by the Bloomberg administration. The loophole they used is called a negative declaration where the project sponsors declare that the project will have de minimus negative consequences and therefore is exempt from environmental review.
Bloomberg did a lot of good things, but he was also arrogant, high handed, and certain he was right about everything.
What problems or "suffering" do bike lanes cause?
In a particular spot in Baltimore the installation of a bike lane meant cutting the number of lanes in the street down by one. This caused a massive increase in congestion traffic.
The bike lane near my house caused drivers to suffer in unnecessary traffic and it increased traffic through my neighborhood. Those drivers travel faster, and generally do not know where they are going (following Apple maps or something to avoid traffic). Because they are paying attention to the phone directions, they are not as aware of the road (simple fact). In a neighborhood with many children, that is a bad and dangerous combination.
Good, so it seems that bike lanes can be planned and implemented in better or worse ways--like any traffic policy-- and are more appropriate for some areas than others (also like other traffic policies). Kling seemed to suggest something more inherent about bike lanes as such in the way he casually generalized beyond his town.
No, Kling is right. Because even the better and more appropriate implementations are still really bad in American practice, in ways that are highly unlikely to change in America.
It's an interesting philosophical question I suppose whether that's 'inherent' or not, but pragmatically if one accepts that 'be like Holland' is not an answer within American realistic political constraints, it might as well be.
The fundamental problem is that the whole mindset of the American officials who decide to do such things is not aligned to optimizing practical realities and confronting deeply entrenched infrastructure patterns and transportation practices, but instead toward virtue signaling, using state power to allocate scarce public infrastructure resources to politically favored groups and below market rates, and an indulgence in a kind of childish, feel-good magical thinking impervious to rational critique and that really isn't above the level of bicycles good and green, cars bad.
If that is the incentive structure driving these kinds of decisions, then it's just not realistic to expect these things to be implemented in a sane and practical way, and thus we get the typical messes with which we now have long experience.
There are better or worse ways to get shot, but it's no good way. Personally, I benefit from bike lanes and like them and use them daily, but they probably harm more people than they help. In my city they've mostly just turned into double-parking lanes anyway.
Consider a typical north/south avenue in Manhattan. There will be six lanes but two are parking so four are for traffic. If you replace one traffic lane with a bike lane that’s a 25% reduction in traffic capacity. But it’s actually worse because in Manhattan there is no way for trucks to unload with double parking. So, during business hours the available lanes will be reduced to two, often several times on the same block. Now you’ve reduced the traffic capacity to two lanes or a 50% reduction. This leads to increased congestion, accidents and pollution.
I would support a bike lane on the street so live, depending on what had to be traded off for it. I would rather they did not take my own nature strip, but even that would be acceptable.
I think you are falling behind the FITs with this post. 'Left wing planners' - is their politics relevant? Do they ask feedback differently for bike lanes than any number of other 'improvements'? Is this different from NIMBY on anything else? Locals oppose lots of things that are in the wider public interest, and misunderstand cause and effect. Extra capacity for cars is popular because people think it cuts congestion (it just increases capacity); does that mean they are really for or against? Drivers think wide straight roads are safer, but they're more dangerous (they just drive faster). I vote Charles Marohn for FIT - this book doesn't say much about bike lanes, but much else of relevance to this debate: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Confessions-Recovering-Civil-Engineer-Transportation/dp/1119699290
Arnold, in your community can you explain why they were proposed and what the alternatives to them would be if not present?
I live downtown Toronto Canada where many of our busiest thoroughfares have had a bike lane installed on the right most lane (often in conjunction with or taking away what used to be street side parking spots). Toronto has been trying to disincentivize cars downtown and I would suspect the addition of bike lanes (also adding public bike services) has had a positive impact on downtown traffic. I cannot speak to whether injuries have reduced or increased as a result of these bike lanes but my personal experience would be that they're a benefit.
We as a city are lucky in a geographic sense with the city bordering Lake Ontario as we have a really good walking/bike path along the water with bike paths branching off up the main streets into the city from there. Many people have converted to bike commuting as a result.
In a more suburban/rural or inland town I can understand why a bike path's validity could be questioned. I guess the better question to ask a developer is "What is the idea behind the proposed bike lane?" Is it a solution to a problem or a novelty?