> And yes, bicycle lanes increase traffic congestion for cars. A bicycle lane is one less lane that vehicles can use. Counterintuitively reducing lanes doesn’t

> And yes, bicycle lanes increase traffic congestion for cars. A bicycle lane is one less lane that vehicles can use. Counterintuitively reducing lanes doesn’t generally increase congestion, it normally lowers it. Equally adding lanes also doesn’t decrease congestion, instead it frequently increases. Of course there are situations where this doesn’t hold true, but for most cities today it does. Ultimately adding lanes just creates more capacity for traffic, it doesn’t increase flow rate, because the bottlenecks at junctions etc cause congestion long before the width of the road does. Making a road wider won’t change that. Add a cycle lane does improve things for drivers. By making it possible for people to cycle rather than drive (cyclist don’t spring from nowhere) you reduce the number of cars on the road. A cycle lane can move substantially more people than a single lane of traffic. In most cities building out good cycle infrastructure, the cycles lanes move substantially more people per hour at rush hour than the car lanes ever have. Every single one of those bikes being one less car in car lanes. The net effect of the above is that adding cycle lanes, and making cycling safe and attractive creates a net increase in available road space for those that must drive.