4 ms·

> 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 sing

by 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.
- abeppu 3y ago
  > Bikes are in conflict with cars. Full stop. No, they aren't. In particular, if you're a driver going from one side of the city to the other (or whatever) if the portion of cars in front of you which are local, short trips without much cargo could instead be converted to (e)bikes alongside you, you'd face less traffic and arrive sooner. And for the last couple years, I've heard _so many_ people talk about how much they enjoyed riding their ebikes, I think we're really at the point where a bunch more of those shorter trips _can_ convert away from cars. The infrastructure that lets people feel safe without a car around them and _also_ gets them out of traffic (and prevents them from slowing down cars) can be a benefit for both drivers and cyclists in the right context.

by trgn 3y ago

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.
abeppu 3y ago
> Bikes are in conflict with cars. Full stop. No, they aren't. In particular, if you're a driver going from one side of the city to the other (or whatever) if the portion of cars in front of you which are local, short trips without much cargo could instead be converted to (e)bikes alongside you, you'd face less traffic and arrive sooner. And for the last couple years, I've heard _so many_ people talk about how much they enjoyed riding their ebikes, I think we're really at the point where a bunch more of those shorter trips _can_ convert away from cars. The infrastructure that lets people feel safe without a car around them and _also_ gets them out of traffic (and prevents them from slowing down cars) can be a benefit for both drivers and cyclists in the right context.