Why do some car lovers oppose bike infrastructure, when more bikes would mean fewer cars on the road? Just struck me as really weird.
[deleted]
Why do some car lovers oppose bike infrastructure, when more bikes would mean fewer cars on the road?
Submitted 2 weeks ago by zen@lemmy.zip to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
Comments
Ziggurat@jlai.lu 2 weeks ago
timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Simply put, it’s not as easy to build transit or pedestrian infrastructure as roads. That’s it, at least in the USA. There’s an endless money machine for road maintenance and widening and anything car related and there isn’t at all the same for anything else.
So the public transport barely exists anyway and even if you give them a park and ride they won’t use it because public transit sucks and is far less enticing even if bike lanes nuke car lanes.
bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Imo, it should start with getting the MASSIVE cars and trucks off the roads. You wont convince us to get rid of our cars (i have many) because for a lot of us, we actually need them.
However, we DONT need Karen in an F350 that she takes to work and back by herself getting 5mpg and causing huge hazards due to massive blind spots. If only we could ban these vehicles or require better licenses that would at least help. I myself hate large cars, and only have a pickup (single cab, 40 years old, long box,) for hauling lumber or other house construction materials. All my other cars are under 3200 lbs. Even next to a new crossover they look TINY. And this further makes people who drive those monstrosities drive and act like assholes.
This will never change though. Redneck outrage would be too big a pushback and you cant change what car mfgs are doing.
If I had it my way, the only car youd be allowed to have is a miata, and a ute for work. If you have more than 2 kids you can get a wagon.
Horsecook@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
[deleted]bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Yeah but now they make what vehicles sell, and big shit sells now that the fat americans are used to it. They wont go back to small hatchback.
mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
I might not be able to change what manufacturers are doing, but I do try.
I write them to let them know about their dangerous LED headlights. I write them to let them know exactly why I will not buy one of their vehicles, even used, because it has a giant touchscreen interface for core controls that is useless when the sun is shining on it.
I treat owners who are making the streets more dangerous for me like shit, and I’ll tell them why if they bother to ask. most will probably just say fuck off and not change their mind, but some might actually think about how their actions affect people.
bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Good for you ! I fucking hate those headlights and they should be illegal. Feel like smashing every damn Cadillac headlight in a parking lot sometimes…hmm
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Prep the downvotes.
I live in a larger Canadian city. I used to commute via transit. Sometimes the bus driver would stop abruptly. Every time the driver needed to stop the bus hard - twice a month - it was a bicyclist driving erratically, like cutting off a transit bus or, in one case, brake-checking the bus.
I’ve almost been hit twice - same intersection, different days - by a cyclist running the red, shooting through the crosswalk I was on, and cursing me out for it.
I have an idea as to why drivers worry about more bikes on the roadways.
I’ve been abroad. I’ve seen segregated bikeways where there’s a ribbon of green space between bicyclists and cars. This works really well. What they’re doing here Does Not .
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Cyclists being stupid is why i want them segregated from me. And pedestrians, too.
Like. No. If we never cross paths, they can’t be idiots and bolt out of a blind corner and get turned into a red smear, and send me to jail.
zen@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
When car drivers are stupid they get in a small prang and have to pay the excess on someone else’s insurance.
When cyclist are stupid, they end up in a hospital or the morgue.
EndOfLine@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
In short, it’s selfish myopothy. “I don’t see how this will immediately and directly benefit me so I oppose it and, now that I have made my uninformed knee-jerk decision, I refuse to listen to opposing arguments that might cause me to admit that I was ever wrong about anything.”
You might recognize this behavior in other aspects of society. It is not isolated to transportation infrastructure.
andrewta@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Look at the comments from others in this thread and it will give you a good idea that this isn’t just a knee jerk reaction
porcoesphino@mander.xyz 2 weeks ago
That’s evidence for some people having more than a knee jerk response, it’s far from statistically saying it’s the most common rationale. Smart people are also amazing at having a knee jerk reaction and then making it sound well reasoned with clever arguments.
I agree its not just a knee jerk reaction, and I know I don’t have a good basis for how many are knee jerk vs rationalised but I do know I’ve been around plenty of people that seem to have a knee jerk reaction and plenty that demonise the culture, hell half the world is being bullied not to have windmills and some of that is blanket anything green is dumb
fodor@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
If you ride in a town or city a lot, you know one big piece of the answer: jealousy.
If there are more cyclists, you’ll see them more often riding by you at red lights and lines of cars at stop signs. Drivers hate this; it reminds them that sometimes cars are slow, and they love their cars, so they get angry.
If there are more cyclists, drivers will have to be careful not to hit them, and being careful is annoying. Right now, depending where you live, the driver can say “almost no cyclists are out here, so I wasn’t expecting them, they need to be more careful”. And the drivers believe it, and their friends do, too. But more cyclists around would make those excuses look like the BS they actually are.
And related to the second point is that, if cyclists increase in number, they will demand (and get) more bike lanes and protected areas to ride and park. This will absolutely come at drivers’ expenses. Drivers know this. So even though fewer cars would decrease congestion, drivers know that they would be inconvenienced in other ways, and that would again remind them that they aren’t as important as they want to be.
Finally, in the US specifically, large SUVs and trucks are causing massive increases in dead pedestrians, children, and cyclists. The increased death rate over the last ten years is appallingly high. If cycling is normalized even more, clearly political opinion will shift, and those giant vehicles will be heavily restricted or taxed, or their insurance rates will skyrocket, or drivers will be charged more frequently with manslaughter for the death that they cause every day. People are reasonably afraid that their unreasonably large vehicles will be taken away from them.
SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
#suckstobethem
mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
because, overwhelmingly, they’re dumb and selfish and ignorant, and they choose to be that way.
some aren’t. some are willing to be educated. but not most.
porcoesphino@mander.xyz 2 weeks ago
I think some of why is related to how most people in a traffic jam go “damn this traffic” not “damn, I’m making this worse”
T156@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Or “if only the city would open a new lane, it won’t be as congested”. Sometimes followed by “why dId the city shut the road, that’s just going to make traffic worse” when the council shuts the road for expansion works.
CombatWombatEsq@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
[deleted]zen@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
They think of it as a zero-sum game
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.
If you spend limited tax dollars on bike infrastructure, driving infrastructure will not receive necessary maintenance.
I’m not sure what you personally believe, but this is not true at all.
adespoton@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Cities generally have a fixed budget for infrastructure and maintenance.
This means that resources put towards bike infrastructure are taken out of car infrastructure resources, but because cities tend to have elected people setting policies on alternative infrastructure, it is rare that you get a properly implemented city plan that benefits drivers, cyclists and pedestrians.
Take my area; to use a bicycle to get groceries, I have to leave my place and go onto a single lane road with parking and pedestrian only sidewalks on both sides.
This goes around a blind corner to a busier two lane street with parking on both sides and a shared pedestrian/bike path… that is on the far side of the road with no crosswalk, that runs for 500 meters, dumping you at an unlit intersection that has a road going away from the shops that has a pedestrian only sidewalk on the opposite side of a two lane road, and a gravel shoulder used for parking on the near side.
The route you need to take is a right turn onto an unlit two lane road with no shoulder, down a steep hill.
This road has traffic calming at the far end with those white traffic sticks to prevent people from parking on the side… forcing cyclists out into the center of the road right before they need to turn right…
…onto a wonderfully engineered road with lights, plenty of driving space, parking, and a set-back shared bike and pedestrian way…
…that then loses that a km further on, directing foot and bike traffic onto what is now a narrow two lane road.
Then through another intersection, on the far side of which, there’s sidewalks, then a bike lane, then parking, then a two lane road.
On this stretch, the only like it in the city, cars open their doors into car traffic onto one side and bike traffic on the other. Many larger vehicles park into the bike lane. At intersections, the bike lane is invisible to turning vehicles.
But all that’s OK, because this road dumps cyclists onto a four lane highway with no bike lane and a sidewalk that has obstacles that make it impossible to push a stroller down it, let alone ride a bike on it.
This takes you to the shops, where as a cyclist you have to ride the length of the parking lot to get to the limited bike racks by the loading bay, and THEN walk all the way back through the parking lot to get to the shops.
And I know this isn’t uncommon. It makes bikes visibly annoying to car drivers, creates unavoidable choke points, and statistics indicate regular use of this route will eventually end in injury.
XeroxCool@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Because every iteration of bike improvements has been fucked up. Isolated bike lanes that are painted where they can fit, but don’t properly connect anything. Bike lanes that are squeezed into part of a wider car lane. Designated shared bike/car lanes on 35mph roads that make cyclists a rolling obstruction to smooth traffic flow. Bike lanes squeezed between a travel lane and a parallel parking lane, causing exchange chaos, and double obstructions when city drivers double park in the bike lane. Widened shared pedestrian paths where cyclists are to pedestrians what cars are to bikes. Cyclists that think the bike lane isn’t for them. Cyclists going the wrong way. Cyclists taking their “right of way” sporadically, expecting drivers to read their minds. Bike lanes that barely overlap with my usual travel needs. Bike lanes in areas too sparse to be utilized for anything other than exercise.
I am a car lover. I am a motorcycle lover. I am a bicycle lover. I am a walking lover. I am a train lover. I am a bus lover. I use all modes of travels as they fit my needs and wants - how far, what logistics, what weather, what cargo, what fuel cost, what purpose.
zen@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I’m Australian, so maybe my experience with cyclists and cycling infrastructure is different. We usually extend our roads and have a green lane for cyclists, or even dedicated cycling ways alongside the footpath (sidewalk).
People here whinge that these protected cycle ways get built. And I’m just baffled.
XeroxCool@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Expand the bike lanes into what? I don’t have the Australian experience. The places where infrastructure is compact enough to benefit from bike lanes in the US have already been expanded to be, effectively, wall to wall car ways with sidewalks. It does become a sort of zero sum game from a surface area argument of car vs bike vs pedestrian vs building. So, from a tangible perspective, cars lose ground. It’s too much of a mental simulation to imagine how reducing car lanes becomes a benefit to those that must drive because of a reduction of traffic and potential improvement to overall flow.
Barrington@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
I would say I am more a car person than a bike person.
I’m not against bicycle infrastructure, but I am against bad bike infrastructure.
I use to live in Cambridge in the UK and bike lanes were often an after thought meaning adapting the existing area to accommodate everyone regardless of if space was available. Unfortunately, it was usually seemed that it was done for the lowest price so the local council could tick a box to say that it was done even if it was not fit for purpose.
The most common examples are where there is still parking or bus stops on the side of the street which blocks the bike lanes and forces cyclists onto the road again.
Another is the inconsistency of bike lanes being on the footpath or on the road. The cheep option seems to be to take which ever is widest (the path or road) and squeeze in a bike path. If the road and path were actually resized, and resurfaced properly, there would often be enough place for everyone.
phoenixz@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
That very thing you said at the end is usually already too much thinking for car brains
wiccan2@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I used to ride a bike every day for 15 years, I’m currently a car driver.
The big problem is when design desisions are made without considering all users.
For example where I used to live they divided the pavment into two, one side for pedestrians one for bikes. The only thing making this divide was a line of paint. This meant that you had to dodge pedestrians who didn’t like the bikes encroaching on their area whilst also having to deal with crossing junctions.
If you stuck to the road in the same area you could get a much higher speed as you didn’t have to deal with obsticals. The big problem was now in the eyes of the car drivers you weren’t supposed to be on the road as you had your own lane on the pavement.
Similarly, in a nearby area they decided to try and take a lane away from the cars to make a cycle lane. The issue being they ignored the fact that most people needed to take a turn that crossed the lanes, the only way to do that was to leave the cycle lane and join the cars, but again you have your own lane and the car drivers don’t think you’re allowed in theirs anymore and you’ve made their traffic worse.
This kind of infrastructure led to so many negative encounters for me that I gave up riding all together.
The problem tends to be that these kinds of infrastructure changes are only done as token gestures and are rarely well thought out. When these kinds of changes are done well it can be fantastic but those occurrences are rare so everyone defaults to the defeatist stance of the changes will cause more problems than they solve.
It’s a catch 22, you need to build new infrastructure that is good and works, to stop people being against it but it can’t be built because people only know the bad examples that have been built in the past.
Alexstarfire@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
🤷 People often do or say things that make no sense.
Firoaren@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Having been a dumb kid growing up in bumrucksville, I’ll add this too: Congnitive load.
You have to learn to cope with something new. Driving sucks, other drivers suck, you’re telling me I have to drive in a two lane which could become one lane at any moment? I have to watch for faster pedestrians? “Isn’t the sidewalk for bikes, why do they need the road??”, then not realizing sidewalks aren’t properly flat enoigh and mixing bikes with walkers on a 3ft wide space is as stupid as the rest of stroad design to mix pedestrians and cars.
Nah, sounds like too much work, bikers can drive like the rest of us, “keeps everyone safer” or whatever you wanna tell yourself without thinking further. Too much work to re-evaluate.
Tuuktuuk@anarchist.nexus 2 weeks ago
Many good answers have been given already. One more is that many people understand it would be better for the environment and their own health if they biked instead of driving a car. Yet getting a car was one of the symbols of having the means for a good life. If you are able to let go of your car, it shows that you have held pointless things as important parts of your identity. You don’t want to have been a moron, do you?
So, you suppress the idea that you could be doing something else than what you are doing. And other people bicycling is kind of in-your-face. They show that you could have an alternative, and that causes a feeling of guilt in you. And that feeling of guilt is uncomfortable, and the people riding their bicycles are what have triggered that feeling. In other words: They have ruined your day by making you feel guilt. A completely self-created guilt, but an annoying feeling all the same. And then you hate everything that is connected to those people that keep ruining your days by the virtue of visibly existing.
This is not necessarily the reason for all of the people opposing bike infrastructure, but it is one of the important reasons for many.
glibg@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Vehicle users should pay for the cost of transit and cycling infrastructure via a tax on gasoline. This could allow transit to be free of charge. Don’t want to pay the gas tax? Take the bus for free. Everyone wins.
WatDabney@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
I think it’s mostly pavlovian.
It’s not that they follow some chain of reasoning to arrive at opposition to bike infrastructure, but that the mere idea triggers anger, and the position follows the mindless emotional response
See also: pretty much everything that they consider “woke.”
disregardable@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
obviously they don’t know that, but also it’s an individualist society. people aren’t taught to think about how an entire community works together. they’re taught that they’re the only person that matters and everyone else should inconvenience them as little as possible.
WoodScientist@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Because conservatives ultimately do not believe in anything beyond helping the in ground and hurting the out group. That is it. Everything else is just window dressing.
Nemo@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
It would also mean more bikes on the road, and drivers don’t like sharing the road with anything.
SomeAmateur@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
They don’t ride bikes and they don’t see many people riding them for practical uses (work, shopping etc) so for them it’s hard to sell the idea of bike infrastructure (that they think is for mainly recreational riders) making their commute slower and not the best use of tax money.
I get how this is flawed thinking and I want more pedestirian and bike friendly areas, but that is their perspective.
XeroxCool@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Surely, this question is targeted at USA/North Americans. The average commute is beyond biking distance. The average suburb is sprawled beyond biking convenience. So, exactly to your point, people reliant upon cars largely don’t see the benefit potential of bike lanes. You can point to tight older cities like NYC or Chicago, but, surprise, the cars in the city traffic aren’t fromthe city. They drove in form the surrounding neighborhoods to their jobs.
I biked for 2 years when I happened to get a career job in the town I lived. It made sense because I could cut through a park and skip the traffic light bottleneck. The 2nd closest career job I’ve ever had was 17 miles. The furthest was 65 miles.
zen@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I’m Aussie, so unfortunately it’s targeted at Australians driving huge American pickup trucks. :(