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While I support the infrastructure, I don't entirely agree with the analysis: On city roads, a lane is very valuable real estate. As a simple example, taking a

While I support the infrastructure, I don't entirely agree with the analysis: On city roads, a lane is very valuable real estate. As a simple example, taking a lane out of a busy NYC street can have a big effect on car traffic. > the biggest impediment to cycling infrastructure is a social perception that cycling is elitist, and that spending money on it is a waste. IME it is elitist, unfortunately. I see mostly delivery people and 'elites' cycling in the city, and the cycling clubs advocate for a lot of infrastructure but they don't make much effort to bring people into cycling. The infastructure is highly underutilized - it looks like those cycling clubs insisted on building that infrastructure just for their small membership. It's a real risk to the infrastructure: Eventually other people are going to notice and say, 'why are we bothering with it' and 'let's use the mostly unused space for this other project'.

wbl 3y ago
So valuable we let people park on it for free. As for utilization it's far more space efficient: we have a path in my town that handles a few thousand people while a street that did the same would be unpleasantly busy.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  > So valuable we let people park on it for free. Most cities have a large infrastructure to manage availability of parking, including laws, signs, meters, and meter enforcement. And in many of them, parking space utilization is very high.
  - ehnto 3y ago
    It is still a tradeoff. It could be utilized for people doing their business in the city, instead an empty car takes prime real estate. Utilization is high because it's such an inefficient way to transit people that in most cities it's always at capacity.
ehnto 3y ago
If cycling were safer and a more realistic option in regards to city layout, every walk of life would be cycling. It's a chicken and egg problem, lack of infra means cycling sucks for normal people, so no cyclists except roadies. No cyclists means no push for infra, no advocates.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  I'm sure that's true in some places, but my original point (somewhere upthread) was that I've been in cities with plenty of cycling infra but where utilization was very low and mostly two walks of life, wealthy white people and delivery people. So the a first step has been taken there, building the infrastructure. But they need to actively take the second step and spread cycling. 'Build it and they will come' doesn't seem to work.

wbl 3y ago

So valuable we let people park on it for free. As for utilization it's far more space efficient: we have a path in my town that handles a few thousand people while a street that did the same would be unpleasantly busy.

wolverine876 3y ago
> So valuable we let people park on it for free. Most cities have a large infrastructure to manage availability of parking, including laws, signs, meters, and meter enforcement. And in many of them, parking space utilization is very high.
- ehnto 3y ago
  It is still a tradeoff. It could be utilized for people doing their business in the city, instead an empty car takes prime real estate. Utilization is high because it's such an inefficient way to transit people that in most cities it's always at capacity.

ehnto 3y ago

If cycling were safer and a more realistic option in regards to city layout, every walk of life would be cycling. It's a chicken and egg problem, lack of infra means cycling sucks for normal people, so no cyclists except roadies. No cyclists means no push for infra, no advocates.

wolverine876 3y ago
I'm sure that's true in some places, but my original point (somewhere upthread) was that I've been in cities with plenty of cycling infra but where utilization was very low and mostly two walks of life, wealthy white people and delivery people. So the a first step has been taken there, building the infrastructure. But they need to actively take the second step and spread cycling. 'Build it and they will come' doesn't seem to work.