I worry about what this legislation could mean for medium-sized cities like where I live that are only now starting to put in bike infrastructure. It is underutilized at this point, but that’s because it is still incomplete.
You have, for example, a wonderful off-road trail that is 90% complete connecting the suburbs to downtown, but there is one section where you have to cross a bridge with no bike lanes or anything. Until that part gets done, few people will use the rest of it. But if they decide to take a lane away from cars on the bridge, the province could argue that no one uses the trail in the first place and shoot it down. Uuugh!
I was recently in Montreal and omg it’s cycling heaven! Bikes outnumber cars in many places and vehicle congestion seems less in spite of this. Also, drivers seem more cautious in general in the downtown core, even on roads where there are no cycle tracks. It’s a bit like the college campus effect I guess? When you have a high density of non-automotive road usage, the cars tend to slow down and be more patient. They’re moving slower but there is still a steady flow of traffic. Not a lot of gridlock.
Ontario says bike lanes cause gridlock.
Oh, yeah? Explain the gridlock on the 401, DVP, and Gardiner.
In places where cyclists aren’t even allowed, you have the worst traffic congestion.
Eat a bag of dicks, Doug!
Cars cause gridlock. Taking a bike takes a vehicle off the road. Give the biker a bit of space and respect. It’s best for the community.
RAM 1500s and F150s cause even more gridlock. Perhaps Doug would consider tolls based on vehicle size, engine size or tonnage?
Perhaps Doug would consider tolls based on vehicle size, engine size or tonnage?
It would be really interesting if tolls were calculated based on the number of occupants per square ft. of vehicle. This would encourage smaller vehicles, which would require less parking area and make roads safer.
Single occupancy F150s would be considerably more expensive to drive compared to a small sedan with four passengers, as an example.
An extra tax could also be charged for excessively heavy or powerful vehicles, because nobody needs 500 horsepower truck to take their kid to school a block away. 😒
They both technically contribute to grid lock. Albeit it’s like 4 bikes to cause the same gridlock as 1 car or so
???
Gridlock is caused by vehicle stopping in the middle of intersection, which blocking another intersection from moving which in return blocking the current intersection from moving. It’s a chain of event that’s possible if the city is made in a grid style and without proper traffic and intersection design.
Bicycle cannot cause grid lock because there isn’t much obstacle that can realistically stop them from moving in the middle of intersection, unless they’re riding a cargo bike filled with 250kg of gravel that they can’t lift and reposition their bike.
The ontario government argue bike lane that replace car lane are the cause of gridlock, because car have one less lane (or two, one lane each way) to use thus not able to move as much car like before. It’s true and bullshit at the same time. Yes, one less lane mean heavier traffic, but gridlock is essentially caused by bad city, road, and intersection design. And also impatient drivers.
You can achieve grid lock without a vehicle in the intersection. It’s about volume and red light patterns in a grid. All you need is a choke point. For vehicles, you can achieve this via badly timed traffic lights a freeway entrance, an improperly sized roundabout, or (as you said) an obstruction in the intersection.
My estimation of bicycles to cars is very roughly based on the width of an average car. If everyone obeys traffic lights and there is a choke point somewhere, it is plausible to create grid lock with enough volume. With the current car lane sizes you have to throw out my 4 bikes/car estimation if you want more precision because the stopped space is way more dense. Probably like 8-10 bikes per vehicle. And also, you need an undersized bike path (say across a river during rush hour) that everyone’s trying to get through. It’s hard to imagine because with just bicycles, even if everyone and their mother had a bicycle, we wouldn’t even be close to the volume required on our current sized roads.
Sorry, I enjoy playing games that improve traffic patterns and people maybe misunderstood my post. Bikes can cause gridlock - with an absurdly stupid amount of bikes.
And the government is wrong here. Unless you can create an arbitrarily large amount of lanes, you aren’t going to solve traffic with more lanes. People will realize that traffic is lighter, take that road, and become more traffic until it’s slowed down again.
Sure, downsizing a main thoroughfare might cause longer wait times. But people will find alternatives (underground, walking, biking, etc). The Ontario government is making that statement because they are prioritizing cars and not transportation.
Taking lanes away from cars is stupid if you don’t supply an alternative. And bike lanes (I don’t bike so I would prefer a subway but it’s fine) IS an alternative. So the Ontario government just doesn’t understand traffic.
I love driving but I don’t want to daily commute in my car. It’s just such a waste of space, time, and money.
TLDR: bikes can cause and do contribute to gridlock, but not substantially. The government needs to encourage alternatives to car commuting. Biking is one of them.
Edit: I realized I wrote a story just to defend that bikes can cause and do contribute to gridlock even thought we need a lot more bikes to make a meaningful contribution to gridlock
