Why do some car lovers oppose bike infrastructure, when more bikes would mean fewer cars on the road?
Like you sit in traffic for an hour each day to work. Wouldn’t you want to halve that by having more other people use bicycles instead?
Why do some car lovers oppose bike infrastructure, when more bikes would mean fewer cars on the road?
Like you sit in traffic for an hour each day to work. Wouldn’t you want to halve that by having more other people use bicycles instead?
They think of it as a zero-sum game. There is either a bike lane or two car lanes. The number of cyclists is fixed and the number of drivers is fixed. If there is one less lane to drive in, there is more traffic. If you spend limited tax dollars on bike infrastructure, driving infrastructure will not receive necessary maintenance.
But it’s not.
The reason you need more lanes is because of a growing population using a fixed set of roadways. As you add protected bike lanes, more and more people opt for using a bicycle. This means fewer people on the road, negating the need for the extra roadway.
I’m not sure what you personally believe, but this is not true at all.
My personal belief is that American cities should have about 100x fewer cars.