Login / RegisterUnderutilized bike lanes do not justify their removal
I’ve read criticisms of underutilized bike lanes [ Letters, June 14-21]. So what? Sidewalks are often underutilized, and nobody in their right mind would suggest removing them. Why? Because if you don’t even lay down the infrastructure for safe, human, scalable transportation, you’re guaranteed never to see it happen.
> Darren Stone / Vancouver
But I agree, the space on streets needs to be used for more than just one mode of travel otherwise you have problems.
From all the reports I've seen from the engineering dept. (who use actual counting devices and not "I drove past a segment of bike lane today and nobody was using it!") ridership has consistently been growing.
Sounds to me like things are working as intended.
The silly analogy makes NO sense from the obviously militant cyclist. EVERYONE WALKS. Unless you're in a wheelchair or otherwise have an unfortunate physical impairment, it is the natural state of non vehicular mobility for the human species so sidewalks (where you the arrogant cyclist SHOULD NEVER EVER BE as it's ILLEGAL and endangers innocent, law abiding pedestrians).
NOT EVERYONE CYCLES. Figures by the city say bike use has gone from approx 2.5 % to just under 4% (in good weather; much lower in the rain/cold) of the city's population. That's 96 percent of the city who DON'T bike and most/many are angry at how Mayor McTricycle arrogantly rammed the hugely expensive (almost $4million) bike lanes down our throats without any consultation (ask any resident or merchant along Hornby or Dunsmuir) or the chance for the vast majority to express it's opposition.
Put the bike lanes to a simple majority binding referendum and settle this contentious issue once and for all. If the militant cyclist's claim that cycling is "soaring" is factual, they should have no issue with allowing a vote and let the people show they are the pro cycling majority. That they so strongly oppose a referendum seems to indicate that they KNOW that the vast majority of the city DOES NOT WANT hugely expensive, traffic clogging (not exactly green when thousands of cars are idling, taking longer to arrive at their destination and spewing more greenhouse gasses on their commute) waste of taxpayer money bike lanes so a tiny arrogant lawbreaking (and they still dangerously, arrogantly break traffic laws even WITH the bike lanes) minority can have their way.
You do realize that we rather recently had a civic election in Vancouver, right?
There were two parties in the election, and on the topic of cycling, one for in favour of keeping / expanding our cycling infrastructure, and the other was in favour of removing (at the very least) the new separated downtown lanes.
The party in favor of keeping / expanding our infrastructure won with a strong majority. I would say it's pretty clear the citizens of Vancouver have given our civic government a pretty strong mandate to keep on going the way we have been going.
Without differentiating themselves from the shallow, arrogant but ubertelegentic Hippy incumbant, they lost the election with one meek declaration. Hippy Robertson didn't WIN on the bike lane issue, he won only because he looked less tired and worn out and "oldmoneyednetwork" than Susan Anton. He won on image not issues. He's nothing but noise, hot gas and an empty suit and has the habit of being a tin plated, no consultation ego driven wanna be dictator. See the high rise issues he rammed through in the DTES and West End and Mount Pleasant and how he DROPPED almost ANY mention of the homeless issue, which was a HUGE campaign plank for him, when the figures came out that the homeless numbers have DOUBLED since he took office (and he discovered that the homeless don't vote). All those issues are annoyances, the bike lane issue actually gets people HOPPING mad (especially because the nutter cyclists continue to break the laws and be dangerous hazards on teh roads and sidewalks even WITH the bike lanes). Had NPA said, 'a vote for us is a vote to tear down these bike lanes' they would have decimated NOVision. SO many people have said they didn't even bother to vote (no true choice) after NPA came out with it's parroting of the NoVision bike lane rhetoric. Anton's declaration is in the public record/immortalized in an NPA press release. It's historical fact.
Monsieur Robertson, you're soapboxing and it's childish. That being said, some of your points are well taken. I would suggest as an alternative to removing the bike lanes, doing what most European cities do, which is to remove motor vehicles from downtown (some do this only at peak hours I believe.) It's a relatively simple measure, and there are exceptions made for delivery vehicles. It works beautifully there. The amount of space saved by eliminating carparks and underground parking lots would be enormous, and the resulting space could be used as greenspace or as business space (or both.) As for cyclists, I'm not sure of the situation in those cities I've mentioned, but in general I remember seeing bikes on the inner city streets of Italian cities, and they weren't causing any harm. If you think this is too ambitious, then likely we need a better leader than either party can provide to make it happen.
As for the last comment by Bodacious, that's an interesting factoid, but the issue here is allowing cyclists to use the downtown area to promote cycling as a way of getting around, mainly so we don't all sit on our asses as privileged westerners polluting the environment and getting mainly third and second world labor to support the motor vehicle industry (the bicycle industry is bad enough.) It could be that the next step in city planning will change the look of downtown even further (obviously the viaduct reconstruction will affect it somewhat!) and then those routes will be better used I'd imagine.
Yes gas vehicles will go away eventually, but all electrics are on the horizon and will only get better. The FREEDOM of a personal motor vehicle will NOT die no matter what the arrogant militant moronic TINY cycling brigade think and no matter how many Tax Sucking Champagne Tastes Translink fantasy plans are put forward (you want the Best Transit In the WORLD? CHARGE $20 user fees...USERS PAY. Car owners pay and maintain their vehicles, so should transit users and the system needs to be financially SELF SUSTAINING, not continually penalizing drivers and homeowners with levies for something most of them don't use. USERS PAY). You want more bike friendly infrastructure? Lets LICENSE cyclists, make them take operator tests (so they won't drive illegally like idiots without helmets, on sidewalks, running stop sign and red lights), make them PAY INSURANCE and ticket them for breaking laws as ruthlessly as cars are ticketed (and charge them to "park/lock up" in public areas, just like cars). Make the cycling system "self sustaining" financially. Cyclists SHOULD NOT get "free rides" because you "think" you're
Green. YOU'RE NOT. Your empty bike lanes cause thousands of cars to idle longer, take longer to get to their destination and generally cause MORE greenhouse gasses. Our "green city wanna be" is the SECOND most congested city in North America after only Los Angeles. FACT despite your militant rhetoric an FACT a lot of that cogestion (downtown) is caused by this moronic bike lane policy. Portland is the most cycle friendly city in North America. Their downtown is much like Vancouver but also has ground level rail transit and yet they have NO NEED for expensive separated bike lanes. WHY? Because their cyclists obey the law and aren't militant sense of entitlement law breaking jerk cyclists. Cyclists are the cause of almost ALL the congestion problems in downtown because of the bike lanes and their arrogant "I don't need to obey the law" attitude.