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dijit | on: Guerrilla bike lanes: San Francisco makes illicit infrastructure permanent (2016)
The bike lane space has to come from somewhere, parking space for bikes has to come from somewhere, intersections have to be set up to disadvantage one for the other.

Street space really is zero-sum, though more people in bikes and out of cars free’s up so much infrastructure that it can make less space work even better for cars- I’m sure urban designers are aware of this.

The major issue I presume that is faced in urban design is how to handle people coming from far away, the regional hub/spoke design (with train stations around a radial that have good parking allowing train access into the city) is not something actively pursued by advanced economies for some (presumably good) reason.

jandrese | parent | next
The bit you are missing is the space efficiency. Cars take up the most space by a large margin and getting people into more dense forms of transit (anything else) frees up space to be more efficiently used. Space is the most precious commodity in a city as many people are competing for every square meter.

This is also why suburbs and rural areas are a better fit for cars. Space is much more available and you can afford to be wasteful with it.

mitthrowaway2 | parent
> The bike lane space has to come from somewhere

> though more people in bikes and out of cars free’s up so much infrastructure that it can make less space work even better for cars

Yes, you've reiterated my point...