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I don't really follow the OP. Having bike lanes is much better than having bikes in vehicle lanes (which is where bikes belong if there are no bike lanes).
Obviously, automobile traffic has no privilege on local roads (non-freeways) above any other vehicle, including a bicycle. Same with horse buggies in many states.
That really varies depending on where you are. In the Boston metro most of the rails to trails paths are commuter paths. Rural MN? Sure, most of those trails are for recreation.
For the OP, while you may bristle at how you perceive the bikers slowing you down, keep in mind that if they were all commuting solo in cars there would likely be even more congestion on the roadway.
While road design matters, and I've seen some bike lanes I personally feel were ill-planned, on the whole shifting people out of cars and onto bikes should actually make your commute smoother, whether or not you perceive it that way.
Ideally I favor off-street 'bike paths' as much as possible over on-street 'bike lanes' but in many areas that's simply not possible or practical.
Before I had a DL, I rode my bike everywhere. That was back in the 1970's, and we rode in the streets all the time. I rode from one end of Minneapolis to the other and back again, and only had to travel a major busy street for about two of the 43-mile trip. All the rest was done using residential side streets, and I actually made quite good time because I didn't have to deal with many stop lights!
The only two places where I had no choice but to ride on the busy roadway was when I crossed the Mississippi River, and the Interstate over the bridge.
I'm not against Bike Lanes, just Bike Lanes on busy major thoroughfares!
I am NOT skilled enough to reply to all your quotes this way and I RESENT you doing it this way because I am not able to address your answers adequately!
You mean, like this?
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1. Before there were bike lanes I was able to run bicyclists off the road without fear of getting a ticket!
You can't be serious.
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2. What has exceeding the speed limit got to do with bikes slowing you down? People see a bike and automatically put on their brakes, when the should step on the accelerator to pass faster!
Ass.
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3. You need to clarify how bikes on the road make traffic more predictable....?
Der...I dunno. People in clearly defined lanes?
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4. Maybe in YOUR city the roads have 5-feet of extra space, but in mine there's about 2-feet of space between parked cars and the traffic lanes.
Talk to your city planner then.
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5. Bicyclists should be kissing the cars hoods as they pass! Bikes don't pay any taxes for the roads, they don't use any gas, therefore no taxes are collected from them running on the roads.
Should they? But...wouldn't that slow you down even more??? Of course bikes don't pay taxes. They don't own homes, or even have jobs.
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6. You wouldn't feel very safe if you were slowing me down on the road!
No doubt. But that's simply because you sound like a complete asshat who should never be in control of anything more advanced than a hamster wheel.
The rest of your posts after the one I'm replying to are even dumber, which is incredible.
I think your numbers are a bit exaggerated. Seattle's ridership is estimated at 3.5%, and on a typical 4-lane road (or a 2 lane road with parallel parking) 2 bike lines would occupy something closer to 16% of space. Less in other road configurations.
In any case Seattle's major congestion problem is population growth in a space highly constrained by geography. The city itself has grown over 25% since 1990, and there's a limit to how many cars the roads could contain even if you did away with bikes altogether. Seattle needs to solve problems one way or another that Detroit simply doesn't have.
While I'm not an expert on Seattle politics, it isn't unheard of for cities to stop finding stop-gap congestion solutions in order to try and accelerate changes in behavior, since if you assume even continued moderate population growth and personal vehicle use, you hit a pretty hard ceiling sooner or later anyway. By some's reckoning you might as well make the choice and try and transition while it is still a choice.
I find it interesting how Seattle and Minneapolis/St. Paul have similar political views. I can't speak for Seattle, but here in the Twin Cities, in 1950, Minneapolis had a population of over 500,000 in the city alone. During the 1970's, it was about 430,000, it is now flirting with 400,000 which is up about 30,000 since 1990. Minneapolis' traffic congestion was virtually non-existent during the 1950-1970's, and started to creep up in the 1990's. Now it's oppressive!
There are two major differences in Minneapolis now from the 1970's compared with today:
1. 50% of the population can't speak English because they weren't born here. If they can't read or speak the language they certainly can't be expected to drive safely or efficiently.
2. Traffic lights are timed to "punish speeders" rather than "move traffic." This is the result of a law that says only the State of Minnesota can set Speed Limits leaving cities to use other methods to address all the little 'old lady's complaints that they cannot cross the street because their "too afraid of all the speeding cars..." issue!
You don't have to remove a car lane for a bike lane - you can widen the road and add the bike lane. Of course, in some locations, there's no room to expand, so you have to compromise. Lots of municipalities will narrow a lane for a quick fix, but they won't remove a lane unless they deem it acceptable. That said, if you don't support a dedicated lane for a vehicle that on average goes 10 mph, don't complain when you're stuck behind that vehicle in the general-purpose lane you have. Remember, bikes are entitled to the full lane and are road vehicles by law.
Regarding bikes and bike lanes, just because you don't use a feature, doesn't mean it should be removed. With that thinking, everyone in a car should clamor for the removal of buses too. They take the whole lane and come to frequent, complete stops, holding up everyone when they don't have a dedicated space.
We have dedicated lanes all over the Metro Area for traffic traveling under 10 MPH. It's called a SIDE WALK! Let's split all the side walks and put the bikes on them instead.
Another thing to think about is that being able to afford a car might become a thing of the past. Certainly the middle class is dying is many parts of the country, and driving a car can cost thousands of dollars a year with gas and insurance and repairs.
Why not prepare now for our upcoming poverty by putting in bike lanes, so we can more softly transition as the economy turns to crap?
I've got a better idea. Let's abolish ALL Special Interest and use the trillions of saved dollars to bolster the economy!
I am NOT skilled enough to reply to all your quotes this way and I RESENT you doing it this way because I am not able to address your answers adequately!
1. Before there were bike lanes I was able to run bicyclists off the road without fear of getting a ticket!
This is against the law. Are you a criminal?
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Originally Posted by Doctor Z
2. What has exceeding the speed limit got to do with bikes slowing you down? People see a bike and automatically put on their brakes, when the should step on the accelerator to pass faster!
Actually, automobiles are not allowed to share the road side-by-side with bicycles unless it is in a separate lane. So you can't legally pass a bicyclist, which is fine.
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Originally Posted by Doctor Z
3. You need to clarify how bikes on the road make traffic more predictable....?
I'm not sure how they make traffic more predictable, but they don't really pose any real harm.
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Originally Posted by Doctor Z
4. Maybe in YOUR city the roads have 5-feet of extra space, but in mine there's about 2-feet of space between parked cars and the traffic lanes.
What does extra space have to do with anything? You drive behind a vehicle unless there is a safe passage to pass. In many roads with a single lane, there is no safe passage. That's fine. You drive normally.
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Originally Posted by Doctor Z
5. Bicyclists should be kissing the cars hoods as they pass! Bikes don't pay any taxes for the roads, they don't use any gas, therefore no taxes are collected from them running on the roads.
I don't know where you got this false information or if you're just making it up, but a little research would have allowed you to determine two things:
In all, but one state, a large portion of taxes to maintain roads are taken from taxes collected outside of gasoline tax, tolls, and vehicle registration fees. The vast majority of that is from taxes collected at the local and state level. On average, a motor vehicle driver automobile-related taxes amount to 2.2 cents per mile driven. But they do 6.2 cents per mile damage. That leaves 4 cents per mile that are coming out of state and local taxes. A bicyclist does less than .1 cent of damage per mile. However, they still contribute 4 cents per mile. (2013, Beinart, PhD, MIT, Dept of Urban Studies; S. Moore, PhD, UT Austin, Dept of Community and Regional Planning)
So, realistically, by your logic, bicyclists should be provided more of the road than they currently are. Bicycle lanes should be 2/3 the size of a automobile lane. To be consistent with your logic, you should lobby for this.
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Originally Posted by Doctor Z
6. You wouldn't feel very safe if you were slowing me down on the road!
Why not? Are you going to show aggression with a vehicle? That's a crime. Are you a criminal?
Yeah. You'll get to work a lot faster if those bicyclists don't have bike lanes, and instead are directly competing with you for position in the motor vehicle lanes...
We get it. You just don't like bicycles, and they're inconveniencing you by existing. But no more than you're inconveniencing them by existing. And it's not all about you, you know. Right? You do know that, yes?
There are NO bike lanes anywhere along my commute to work. I like bicycles just fine and own a quite nice one myself. However, I don't like being SLOWED DOWN by anything, be it slow drivers, or drivers of bikes.
When I do find myself on a road with bike lanes, I have no problem passing the bikes. The problems arise either when the bicyclist I just passed catches up to me at the red light and wants to challenge me to a fist-fight; or the driver ahead of me puts on his brakes and slows down because there's a bike in front of him, which results in Road Rage confrontation with me and possibly a car chase!
Wonder if the day will come when bicyclists are required like car drivers to have drivers licenses, registration tags be required to carry insurance and be required to follow rules of the road like stopping at red lights and stop signs..
My buddy once got a Parking Ticket on his bike back when we were in Jr. High. It was a $35 fine too!
I commuted year round when I lived in Edmonton Alberta which is real winter for too many months. I was in Toronto last month and there were many bikes being used on the roads even though it was -20C and snowing . Putting bikes on the side street is an idea by people who do not commute by bike. When they set up one in Edmonton I tried it, every block had a stop sign so you never got any speed up, it took forever to cross some of the streets and generally made for a much longer commute. Why don't the cars use the roads that require stopping for a stop sign every block, it is easier to get a car in motion than a bike? It might be because it is a bad idea.
It never ceases to amaze me how someone can analyze a situation and so completely miss the problem which is staring them right in the face?
"....every block had a stop sign........"
What is wrong with this picture? Just reading the words STOP SIGN ticks me off to the MAX! Don't you think that just maybe turning the STOP SIGNS to face a different direction might have made your bicycle commute a much more pleasurable and efficient experience?
This is nothing against you, but it is rather directed at your city's decision makers, and I just can't understand why there wasn't a protest against those STOP SIGNS by bikers on the city hall steps!
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