Poorly implemented bike lanes do create a lot of congestion though.
My city just half assed bike lanes so one street has them and others do not, with bikes having to constantly enter and leave vehicle lanes as bike lanes appear and then disappear.
This just leads to less people using bikes and then the bike lanes that are installed go unused while taking up space from the road.
Either go all in on bike lanes or don’t, stop half assing it city planners.
Just because you made a bike lane doesn’t mean you are a green city, the lanes actually have to be used!
That’s wrong. A bad bike lane is better than nothing. Because the first step is appropriation of the space, once people get use to have a smaller space for cars, the painting can be more easily transformed into proper infrastructure.
The problem there is enforcing said smaller space. Painted bike lanes do absolutely nothing to ensure people get used to having the smaller space because drivers still have all that space. A painted line doesn’t stop them from swerving into the bike lane whenever they please.
At the very least you put flexi-posts on there to enforce it if you can’t build a full curb to protect the bike lane. That tends to discourage drivers if not stop them entirely
There’s a ten mile stretch of road that I live in a community off of. It’s a really busy road. Grocery store, gas stations, fast food restaurants, one of the elementary schools, one of the middle schools, and the high school. So while it’s normally busy it’s insane during school start and release times. There is a five mile section in the middle of that ten mile stretch where the sidewalk is on the opposite side of the main road for some reason. They decided to make bike lanes by painting lines and bike symbols on the road on the sidewalk side for the entire stretch of road. While they have crosswalks with lights at all the regular intersections, at each end of that five mile ‘bike lane’ they painted a dashed yellow line path across traffic to transfer the bike path to the other side and put blinky amber lights on each side of the road.
I’m fairly certain you would need to be suicidal to knowingly traverse that bike path from start to finish. It’s bad enough you’re kissing mirrors the entire ride but then you would need to cross a busy street, twice, with no actual assurance anyone will actually stop for you. The cherry on top is there’s also an increased number of student drivers on the road regularly from the high school.
Poorly implemented bike lanes do create a lot of congestion though.
My city just half assed bike lanes so one street has them and others do not, with bikes having to constantly enter and leave vehicle lanes as bike lanes appear and then disappear.
This just leads to less people using bikes and then the bike lanes that are installed go unused while taking up space from the road.
Either go all in on bike lanes or don’t, stop half assing it city planners.
Just because you made a bike lane doesn’t mean you are a green city, the lanes actually have to be used!
That’s wrong. A bad bike lane is better than nothing. Because the first step is appropriation of the space, once people get use to have a smaller space for cars, the painting can be more easily transformed into proper infrastructure.
The problem there is enforcing said smaller space. Painted bike lanes do absolutely nothing to ensure people get used to having the smaller space because drivers still have all that space. A painted line doesn’t stop them from swerving into the bike lane whenever they please.
At the very least you put flexi-posts on there to enforce it if you can’t build a full curb to protect the bike lane. That tends to discourage drivers if not stop them entirely
Cars are only thing that creates congestion.
There’s a ten mile stretch of road that I live in a community off of. It’s a really busy road. Grocery store, gas stations, fast food restaurants, one of the elementary schools, one of the middle schools, and the high school. So while it’s normally busy it’s insane during school start and release times. There is a five mile section in the middle of that ten mile stretch where the sidewalk is on the opposite side of the main road for some reason. They decided to make bike lanes by painting lines and bike symbols on the road on the sidewalk side for the entire stretch of road. While they have crosswalks with lights at all the regular intersections, at each end of that five mile ‘bike lane’ they painted a dashed yellow line path across traffic to transfer the bike path to the other side and put blinky amber lights on each side of the road.
I’m fairly certain you would need to be suicidal to knowingly traverse that bike path from start to finish. It’s bad enough you’re kissing mirrors the entire ride but then you would need to cross a busy street, twice, with no actual assurance anyone will actually stop for you. The cherry on top is there’s also an increased number of student drivers on the road regularly from the high school.