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Why do you assume people aren't behaving rationally? Even construction of roads takes years--public transit takes longer. Everybody present suffers the effect

by bsder 3y ago

Why do you assume people aren't behaving rationally? Even construction of roads takes years--public transit takes longer. Everybody present suffers the effects of the construction for benefits that may or may not materialize in a reasonable timeframe. As for bike infrastructure, the fundamental problem is that you cannot share car and bike infrastructure. Bikes are simply too vulnerable to cars. That means that bike infrastructure needs to be separated which, by definition, takes space away from cars. If you have a new development, you can do that since nobody has an expectation. However, if you take something away and make life more irritating for people, they're going to naturally complain. Loudly. Finally, public transit doesn't do any good until it hits a critical mass. Modern cities don't always help that--most US cities don't have a core that everybody works in--where people work is smeared out across a geographic area. You have to reverse that, but those same people are also the people that don't want to commute anyway and want to work from home so you lose a lot of possible users of your system.

dfxm12 3y ago
Why do you assume people aren't behaving rationally? Sorry, I thought this was clear from my comment: according the article, bike lanes are good for business. Rational business owners want business to be good.
- bluGill 3y ago
  Bike lanes in the areas studied. That doesn't mean all bike lanes are good for business... Where I live with have extensive bike lanes. They are good for every bar and ice cream shop along the way: people use those bike lanes on nice Saturdays for a ride to the bars and ice cream shops on the way, and you can see all the bike racks outside of those businesses along the route. However this is bad for businesses not on the bike route as they lose out. It is also neutral for all businesses along the route that are not about alcohol or ice cream - nobody goes to the furniture store on a bike.
  - UtopiaPunk 3y ago
    I drive by furniture stores in my car, and let me tell ya, nobody's going to furniture stores anymore. If you really want to spends thousands of dollars on a couch or kitchen table, just ask the store to deliver.
    - bluGill 3y ago
      The point is that people who buy furniture drive to the store. The store might deliver or they might take it themselves (if they have a truck they will save the delivery fee). It isn't just furniture - that is just an example. The bike lane is about alcohol and ice cream: nothing else! No clothing, groceries, restaurants, paint, golf simulation, gymnastics, dance, or dollar store gets customers from the bike lane. (I'm thinking of a specific strip mall in my town) Even the local bike store gets most customers by car!
      - UtopiaPunk 3y ago
        Oh weird, because I biked to my local coffee shop this afternoon to work on my computer. On the way, I stopped at a pharmacy to pick up a prescription, and then the local bakery to pick up a loaf of bread. After I'm done working, I plan to stop at the bike shop and the grocery store on my way home. There's no alcohol or ice cream on the errands list, but that's not a bad idea. And today is a Thursday even!
        bluGill 3y ago
        I do similiar things- however people like us are outliers.
trgn 3y ago
> if you take something away and make life more irritating for people Taking away a car lane in actual reality, doesn't necessarily make driving worse. A single lane can be better for drivers, cars chugging along calmly in single file, and can be more efficient than the reptile brained jostling for position that arises when you have two parallel driving lanes. Drivers have an adverse reaction to cyclists, specifically them. It is not rational, it is a weird freudian thing. The rational brain rarely comes into it.
- bsder 3y ago
  > A single lane can be better for drivers, cars chugging along calmly in single file, and can be more efficient than the reptile brained jostling for position that arises when you have two parallel driving lanes. The only way that happens is if people now refuse to use that road because the capacity has reduced. People who used to drive that road but now are not driving on the road are still pissed off about that bike lane. Bikes are in conflict with cars. Full stop. Quit trying to bamboozle people about this--they are not fooled, you come off as a liar, and you just piss them off. And you don't have to lie--car-centric culture is a huge problem. The fact the people need to keep driving long past an age when they should be is a problem. The fact that people need to drive simply to have access to certain goods and services is a problem. Solving these issues and making cars less necessary and less desirable also makes life better for bikes. When sufficient people can avoid a car such that your two lane road is now underutilized enough that shutting down a lane doesn't matter, no one will care that you put in that bike lane. That should be your goal if you don't want people to oppose you.
  - trgn 3y ago
    I really do disagree here. There's been plenty of road diets in my area where 4 lanes where reduced to 2, and this had no effect on travel time, capacity. Of course, reality, it's multifaceted etc etc.... but more lanes/more capacity is only true on paper, not in practice.
    - bsder 3y ago
      > There's been plenty of road diets in my area where 4 lanes where reduced to 2, and this had no effect on travel time, capacity. Sorry. I'm going to ask for a reference. I'm also going to challenge you because I have dealt with an old city with sections with mostly 2 lane roads and driving through it SUUUUUUCKS (see: Pittsburgh--particularly the areas Wilkinsburg, Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, Bloomfield, etc.). In all of the places that I have lived (all in the US), roads are expensive enough that they rarely get overbuilt past 2 lanes unless required by capacity (generally) or by law (rarer). A 4 lane road almost always indicates that the original 2 lane road hit 100% capacity at least some hours of the day and was painful enough that somebody, somewhere had enough political pressure to kick off the project to upgrade the number of lanes. I am trying to think of a 4 lane road anywhere I have lived that could be downgraded to 2 lanes and am really struggling. Maybe Western Pennsylvania, somewhere. Some of the towns where the mills and mines collapsed probably have some overbuilt roads. It's kind of interesting because I find that this discussion mirrors the people pushing roundabouts in the US without understanding traffic differences. UK traffic is medium speed and medium density for most of the day in most areas where roundabouts work best. The problem is that US traffic tends to be 100+% during a couple of hours in the day and much lower utilization at other times--roundabouts fail really hard in those conditions.

by bsder 3y ago

dfxm12 3y ago

Why do you assume people aren't behaving rationally? Sorry, I thought this was clear from my comment: according the article, bike lanes are good for business. Rational business owners want business to be good.

bluGill 3y ago
Bike lanes in the areas studied. That doesn't mean all bike lanes are good for business... Where I live with have extensive bike lanes. They are good for every bar and ice cream shop along the way: people use those bike lanes on nice Saturdays for a ride to the bars and ice cream shops on the way, and you can see all the bike racks outside of those businesses along the route. However this is bad for businesses not on the bike route as they lose out. It is also neutral for all businesses along the route that are not about alcohol or ice cream - nobody goes to the furniture store on a bike.
- UtopiaPunk 3y ago
  I drive by furniture stores in my car, and let me tell ya, nobody's going to furniture stores anymore. If you really want to spends thousands of dollars on a couch or kitchen table, just ask the store to deliver.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    The point is that people who buy furniture drive to the store. The store might deliver or they might take it themselves (if they have a truck they will save the delivery fee). It isn't just furniture - that is just an example. The bike lane is about alcohol and ice cream: nothing else! No clothing, groceries, restaurants, paint, golf simulation, gymnastics, dance, or dollar store gets customers from the bike lane. (I'm thinking of a specific strip mall in my town) Even the local bike store gets most customers by car!
    - UtopiaPunk 3y ago
      Oh weird, because I biked to my local coffee shop this afternoon to work on my computer. On the way, I stopped at a pharmacy to pick up a prescription, and then the local bakery to pick up a loaf of bread. After I'm done working, I plan to stop at the bike shop and the grocery store on my way home. There's no alcohol or ice cream on the errands list, but that's not a bad idea. And today is a Thursday even!
      - bluGill 3y ago
        I do similiar things- however people like us are outliers.

trgn 3y ago

> if you take something away and make life more irritating for people Taking away a car lane in actual reality, doesn't necessarily make driving worse. A single lane can be better for drivers, cars chugging along calmly in single file, and can be more efficient than the reptile brained jostling for position that arises when you have two parallel driving lanes. Drivers have an adverse reaction to cyclists, specifically them. It is not rational, it is a weird freudian thing. The rational brain rarely comes into it.

bsder 3y ago
> A single lane can be better for drivers, cars chugging along calmly in single file, and can be more efficient than the reptile brained jostling for position that arises when you have two parallel driving lanes. The only way that happens is if people now refuse to use that road because the capacity has reduced. People who used to drive that road but now are not driving on the road are still pissed off about that bike lane. Bikes are in conflict with cars. Full stop. Quit trying to bamboozle people about this--they are not fooled, you come off as a liar, and you just piss them off. And you don't have to lie--car-centric culture is a huge problem. The fact the people need to keep driving long past an age when they should be is a problem. The fact that people need to drive simply to have access to certain goods and services is a problem. Solving these issues and making cars less necessary and less desirable also makes life better for bikes. When sufficient people can avoid a car such that your two lane road is now underutilized enough that shutting down a lane doesn't matter, no one will care that you put in that bike lane. That should be your goal if you don't want people to oppose you.
- trgn 3y ago
  I really do disagree here. There's been plenty of road diets in my area where 4 lanes where reduced to 2, and this had no effect on travel time, capacity. Of course, reality, it's multifaceted etc etc.... but more lanes/more capacity is only true on paper, not in practice.
  - bsder 3y ago
    > There's been plenty of road diets in my area where 4 lanes where reduced to 2, and this had no effect on travel time, capacity. Sorry. I'm going to ask for a reference. I'm also going to challenge you because I have dealt with an old city with sections with mostly 2 lane roads and driving through it SUUUUUUCKS (see: Pittsburgh--particularly the areas Wilkinsburg, Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, Bloomfield, etc.). In all of the places that I have lived (all in the US), roads are expensive enough that they rarely get overbuilt past 2 lanes unless required by capacity (generally) or by law (rarer). A 4 lane road almost always indicates that the original 2 lane road hit 100% capacity at least some hours of the day and was painful enough that somebody, somewhere had enough political pressure to kick off the project to upgrade the number of lanes. I am trying to think of a 4 lane road anywhere I have lived that could be downgraded to 2 lanes and am really struggling. Maybe Western Pennsylvania, somewhere. Some of the towns where the mills and mines collapsed probably have some overbuilt roads. It's kind of interesting because I find that this discussion mirrors the people pushing roundabouts in the US without understanding traffic differences. UK traffic is medium speed and medium density for most of the day in most areas where roundabouts work best. The problem is that US traffic tends to be 100+% during a couple of hours in the day and much lower utilization at other times--roundabouts fail really hard in those conditions.