I've been thinking about this since yesterday. >Though the goalposts shifted from "cannot build bike lanes without destroying thousands of homes and businesses

I've been thinking about this since yesterday. >Though the goalposts shifted from "cannot build bike lanes without destroying thousands of homes and businesses" to "there is no visible impediment for pedestrians," Not really, just having a wide ranging discussion. >Just like widening a road draws more traffic, creating pedestrian-friendly and cyclist-friendly spaces draw more pedestrians and cyclists, so a lack of perceived demand given current infrastructure doesn't mean much. Not necessarily. I've seen many bike paths and pedestrian streets that have little to no bike/pedestrian traffic. I was listening to a radio show once and they were talking about a light rail project on the east coast. It cost way more than originally planned - instead of $200 million it cost $1 billion. This is because design changes all the time. They started building it and then the bike brigade, along with other special interest groups, came along and wanted a bike path. Well, the guy they talked to said that for all that extra expense, nobody uses that bike path. Maybe the bike path cost $100 million, and so it comes out to $10 million per person who rides their bike on it. The whole segment was about why civil structure undertakings cost more than planned. I think there is a massive misunderstanding of the whole "build it and they will come" thing. That's not how it works. I do think all of these types of capital outlays for bike paths and pedestrian streets are for the Gucci crowd. Nobody is going to spend $50 million creating a pedestrian street in Compton or wherever the gangs are in Los Angeles, or in the Tenderloin of San Francisco or the south side of Chicago in the baddest part of town. Maybe spending that $100 million or whatever it costs would be better spent on getting more police in the bad parts of town, or something that can benefit the poorest of us all, instead of the bike riders who are riding $15,000 bikes. But I guess the $15,000 bike crowd has more clout than a bunch of riff raff gang members or working poor or homeless. And yes, it is a zero sum game. I don't have anything against what you're saying, I just think money could be spent better elsewhere. But, I guess it is good that people can shop at Gucci or Prada without worrying about stopping for stoplights - they can just walk where they want. And the people who can't afford the shops and buy $2,400 pair of shoes can sit at the coffee shops and buy a cup of coffee for $9.87 and pretend that they can, instead of going to their local greasy spoon diner and buying a cup of Folger's coffee for $1.25. I'm not trying to be a dick, it's just what I think about it all. It's all good.