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drnick1 | on: Guerrilla bike lanes: San Francisco makes illicit infrastructure permanent (2016)
> eliminate a lane of traffic and/or parking spots

It's out of the question in most places, it slows car traffic down and makes it harder for people to park in places where parking is already scarce. Then residents and customers of local businesses have nowhere to park.

BobaFloutist | parent | next
>It's out of the question in most places, it slows car traffic down

If you actually make a sufficiently high-quality bike network to convince people to bike that would otherwise drive, I would expect this to speed car traffic up by taking a lot of cars off the road.

esikich | root | parent | next
Not everywhere is San Francisco. Where I live, it's below freezing almost half the year. No one wants to add bike lanes that will only get lightly used 3 months a year.
astral_drama | root | parent | next
I bike 9 to 10 months out of the year in southern Wisconsin. It would do people well to get outside and spend less time on their screens in the Winter.
deadbunny | root | parent | next
Scandinavia, The Netherlands, London, Paris. Great for cycling, shit weather.

Buy a coat and some gloves.

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prmoustache | root | parent | next
Have you ever heard of Oulu, Finland?
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keiferski | root | parent
Denmark has excellent bike infrastructure and terrible weather.
drnick1 | root | parent | next
NO

I like the comfort of my car too much to freeze my ass on a bike. Cities were built around the vision of economic prosperity and a car for everyone, and they should stay that way.

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asdff | root | parent | next
Then don’t? How come every bike lane thread has these annoying people assuming a bike lane means a gun goes to the head and forces you on a bike. Keep driving if you want. Doesn’t matter. But why fight a bike lane when it doesn’t affect your life at all, I will never understand.
prmoustache | root | parent | next
> I like the comfort of my car too much to freeze my ass on a bike.

you usually don't get cold when cycling. If anything you are warming up.

> Cities were built around the vision of economic prosperity and a car for everyone,

That is a false statement. Most cities predate the existence of cars for a start.

Also economic prosperity is unrelated to cars. If anything cars are a financial burden for most people and people buy them because they feel they are forced to need them, not because they want them. This is the antithesis of prosperity.

convolvatron | root | parent | next
for me prosperity implies not spending a big chunk of my day trapped in a metal box with no way to get out. are you really saying that everyone except a couple freaks like me would rather fight traffic and sit on your ass than take nice walk? to the degree that we shouldn't even be allowed to have little pockets where driving isn't the only modality?

the US is huge, and its all car all the time. you have thousands of options of where to live like that - I have like 5. and you think I shouldn't even have that.

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AlexandrB | root | parent | next
This is very geography/climate dependent though. There are conditions where most people would not bike regardless of how high quality the bike network is.
esposm03 | root | parent | next
The effect is a lot less pronounced that you might expect. See, for example, this video talking about Oulu, Finland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU
BobaFloutist | root | parent | next
Are these conditions that typically can't be found in the Netherlands?

I guess heavy snow isn't too common there, maybe if we plowed the bike paths? Ok, now I'm getting distracted imagining a bike-path-plow, it would presumably be mounted on a powered bike of some sort, or maybe on those little parking enforcement trikes.

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asdff | root | parent | next
So what? On nice days you get a safer way to bike. Why are people in favor of more risk of death to others?
deadbunny | root | parent
Buy a coat and a pair of gloves. You're not made of sugar.
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kube-system | parent | next
It's a self-fulfilling situation. It's that way only because those places have designed their infrastructure to be car dependent.

The opposite is also true: If you take a place where people primarily walk and bike, and take out the sidewalks and bike lanes to widen the road, people will also be pissed.

All you're pointing out is that humans are resistant to change. We already know that is true. The question is not whether people don't like change, the question is: which is better urban planning? What is a better environment to live in?

hocusPokeUs | parent | next
There should be more friction added to car travel. More walkable neighborhoods with local business around the corner would pop up right where people are if the norm wasn't "everyone make endless individual trips to Walmart."

So stupid all the suburbanites blocking my driveway to come eat at nice restaurants because all they have out there is fast food; such a huge waste of resources

keiferski | parent | next
Eliminating parking on a single street is hardly a death sentence for nearby businesses.

And the whole idea is to encourage biking, ergo less parking is a good thing.

jandrese | parent | next
It's absolutely impossible everywhere except where it has been tried and works great. Car centric design is a poor match for dense urban development and reverting the city to be more transit and pedestrian focused almost always improves the situation, bringing more people to shops and restaurants and revitalizing previously moribund downtown districts.
platevoltage | parent
Cool. Leave your car somewhere else.