Seen a few "Cyclists need to pay a road tax if they want bike lanes" in the comments. Please watch this video... Should We Tax Cyclists? -> ruclips.net/video/Wjv8WQu92c0/видео.htmlsi=OfRJRaX-Qub1LnZ1
Cyclists should pay for the road infrastructure they use, of course. Instead of what cyclists already contribute, let’s tax them based on contribution to space needed and wear of the road by usage. For starters, by weight ratio? That would be 1-3% of the weight of any SUV or pickup truck. Or by size, that would be about 10-20% of the size of any regular car. I’m all for it!
1 Just let people play city skylines. You can experiment and see the results for your self. 2 the netherlands is just like newyork. But allot of aspacts / standards could be implemented to day. To make New roads ecual as good. 3 Olso we use 30kmh districts, were there are no bike lanes, but cars can past easy and save.
I always roll my eyes when people go "but but but why don't cyclists pay for bike roads?!!?!". Yeah, entitled people on bikes saving society lots of money while reducing congestion and auto accidents and not even paying for the privilegue. Let's put a tax on people who don't smoke, too. It's so unfair that smokers have to pay a tobacco fee while people woh don't smoke get to do it for free.
A point not mentioned is: what about the people who are not allowed, or cannot afford to drive a car? The disabled, the elderly, the young, and the poor also have a right to safe infrastructure and freedom to move. In the Netherlands the road manager is required by law to provide a safe traffic infrastructure to EVERYBODY! To "prove" in court of laws that the road manager complied to this law, the road designs from the CROW manuals are used by the road manager in 99% of the cases (which also explains why the "look and feel" of the traffic infrastruture is very consistent throughout the country). The designs from the CROW manuals are based on scientific research and the "Sustainable Safety" philosophy, and are still evolving based on new research and insights.
Exactly! So much more people are self-sufficient when it comes to mobility in places with extensive bike infrastructure. The classical complaint of the older generations: "this young generation is just sitting at home..." Well, can they (safely) get out and do something on their own?
Being someone that frequently uses the CROW manuals, I'd also like to add that they are very accessible! It's full of easy-to-understand diagrams, and isn't just an endless flood of useless text.
I really can't stand the collective bullying of cycling. Seriously, understand that you who drive are not stuck in traffic, you ARE the traffic, and we who cycles don't do it for exercise, we're doing it as transport and often to bypass the congestions.
Yeah it's a bit of a strange mentality. I suppose it comes with a lifetime of car dependency and normalcy, with no viable alternative. Also, the image of cyclists as lycra-wearing middle aged men doesn't help lol.
That's kind of a double edged sword of a statement to make. Many of us cycle for both recreation/exercise AND transpiration. i am passionate about all aspects of cycling. Also most people who bike for commuting reasons ALSO own vehicles. All that being said, yes it's a very sad situation. I bike to work and work and work with people who are happy when a cyclist getting killed makes the local news. Imagine having to work with and interact with people like that.
I bike mostly for getting around, but I find it fun! I own a car and only use it when I leave my city. Which is maybe once a month or for vacations. I'm lucky to live in a city with bike lanes and public transit. And our bike network is getting better every year! Chicago is where I'm speaking of
Democracy is an awful way to build a society. It turns the most important decisions in our lives into a popularity contest like voting for prom king...
It's quite sad you need to make this case. In the US you have two transport modes: Drive or fly. In Europe we have five: Walk, bike, drive/public transport and fly. Each mode is suitable for a particular range of distances. In the US the shorter range modes have been taken over by the car. There are many factors that caused this, but a major one of them is probably the low prices for cars and fuel. Driving is heavily subsidized and promoted in the US whereas it is somewhat penalized in Europe, especially for shorter distances.
I have been living on both continents. Let’s not exaggerate. In big cities in N.A you can still walk bike maybe to the exception of Houston for example but most downtown cities are perfectly walkable or public transportation friendly. The issue is the suburbs where a lack of city planning and real public transportation is a problem. Distance is also a non négligeable variable.
@@Fabs821 The suburbs are where the vast majority of a city's population is. The comment would ring true for the majority of Americans and Europeans, I would say. And downtowns are often not as walkable/bikable as they could/should be.
Europe is a long way from being homogenous in its approach to cycling. You can’t compare cycling in London, Berlin or Paris to Amsterdam or Copenhagen. Smaller cities are significantly different to the capitals too.
@@AndrewJOliverYou’re right that European cities are on very different levels of human friendliness versus industrial car terrorism. That has many different reasons. Most important one is: No matter where you are in the world, there will be some idiots. The job of the population is to get those away from positions of influence. After many decades of car idiocy, it takes time to wake up from the numbness. I see positive developments many places. I’m a Norwegian living in Amsterdam. Places where removal of idiots has already gotten significant success, but the idiots are plentiful and won’t give up easily, so no matter where, we must pay attention.
I’m glad you mentioned autonomy for children. I moved to Montreal a few years ago and it’s remarkable how common it is to see children on bikes on the protected bike routes and on quiet streets and ruelles.
Yer, they are so safe! I love to bike that so often. And easily to stop by cafe or local shops as car had to find parking first. Bike rack are already there.
Actually this is a very sad comment. It should be unremarkable. Kids should be able to autonoom, to learn to explore. It should not be remarkable but the norm.
Actually this is a very sad comment. It should be unremarkable. Kids should be able to autonoom, to learn to explore. It should not be remarkable but the norm.
"One more lane will fix it!" "Only in America!" To those commenters, come visit the Netherlands, see how it works, you will forever be cured of your stupid ideas and embrace the bicycle path! Besides, it be against the law for politicians to suggest it, and would create a public outcry and anger that would likely see that party and politician get shot or worse. In the end, roads are meant to transport people. In some city's in the Netherlands there are bicycle paths that carry upwards of 60.000 people a day every day of the week. You cannot get that kind of throughput traffic in the middle of a city if you're using cars. And it's doing so without accidents, without pollution, without noise. And kids of all ages are among them. Ever seen a 3 or 4 year old cycling in Downtown Toronto? Come to the middle of Utrecht, happens every day all day.
Er is wel een verschil denk ik. In Manchester (Engeland) leggen ze gewoon fietsstroken naast enorme wegen. In NL bestaat dat niet bij autowegen, en hier is het ook niet lekker fietsen. Scholen, huizen en kantoren blijven ook amper bereikbaar omdat zijstraatjes zijn overgegeven aan parkeerruimte. Zomaar ergens fietsstroken aanleggen helpt dan niks. Ik denk dat dit in Canada en de VS ook zo wordt gedaan.
Well...currently there are plans to widen highway A27 to the east of Utrecht, because 'they' think 'just one more lane' will solve the traffic-congestion on the A27...
@@borchen0 sometimes car lanes aren't that bad. Cars make sense in a lot of cases and no country can function without cars and highways.. The important thing is having valid alternative options to driving. That makes driving better as well for people that need to or really want to drive for some reason. Every person in a train, walking or on a bike is 1 less car on the road. And solving traffic is most effectivly done by having less cars on the road.
Haha so true. Just recently some American dude told me: "we need all the guns to protect innocent people". Hilarious. Sad how people fall for all that propaganda nonsense. But that's not limited to the US.
How hard is it to remember that streets are older than cars? And "Share the Road" is a car centric policy! To get more freedom from cycling- practice equity over equality.
The part about induced demand that I think people get wrong is that people are "attracted" to drive. I would argue that people are *forced* to drive. All those people who would have used micromobility in protected lanes are now forced to own and drive a car. That's where the extra demand comes from.
I love to drive, but I also wish where I live in Toronto would have great bike infrastructure so that I could use my bike to get around locally in my community without having to drive. So many short to medium distance trips that I have no choice but to use my car to get to, I wish I had safe bike lanes to ride on instead.
My favorite leap of logic from my city is people complaining that on roads with one wide lane in each direction, if you paint bike lane on the side, it will make congestion worse. Like, you get virtually the same space for cars before and after but some of the drivers can opt to ride a bike. And this makes traffic congestion worse?
I'm always amazed by the number of people who say roads are meant for motor vehicles even though roads pre-date motor vehicles by at least 3000 years that we have evidence. Bicycles also pre-date motor vehicles.
This was such a well-thought-out breakdown, Nic! I like the way you connected bike lanes to everything from traffic to public health and local businesses. It’s amazing (and frustrating) how short-sighted car-centric policies can be.
Unfortunately such shortsightedness isn't limited to urban infrastructure. It is something that pervades a lot of North America on many issues, like spending cuts on a wide variety of things without regard for why the money is being spent in the first place. It is a world of vested interests and corporate lobbying that have eroded the interests of the common citizen to an insane degree, regardless of the country.
The 'reduction in car lanes increased my time' always cracks me up. It's proven this is not true by default, this requires bad choices by people, not the existence of a bike lane. People sure love their 700 dollar monthly bill on their car don't they?
Thank you for that bike stress graph. That will help me articulate to level 2 riders why bike infrastructure is good. I am a veteran of Boston streets in the late 80s Where I was and still am a level 4 rider. I learned how to ride from a 80s cycliing movie. Hopping curbs weaving in and out of cars. Absolutely insane that I have never been hit or crashed. I have learned how loud my voice can be here in Cleveland advocating for change in infrastructure for other methods besides cars. Hell I am even a transit advocate. Great wook on this video I loved it.
Why kids don't go out anymore? Because if their parents can't go with them, than they will be sued for letting their kids go alone to anywhere. (I don't remember what was the charge)
In Florida they just passed a law, charging parents for the crimes of there kids, for not properly educating them in social norms. Both child and parents are charged.
@@justcommenting4981 For some reason kids are not hit in every corner by traffic here in Europe, so you can allow your kids to go to their friends, to school or shopping alone. Anyway, the kid in the case I tried to refer to were like 11-12 years old, they should be able to watch out for traffic. Of course that does not help if you live in a car centric place.
this is not really a thing... only if they are too young/immature to realistically be out doing anything (like 6-9 yr olds) vs older kids like 10-12 yr olds which can have some self-sufficiency. A parent will not be charged if they let a 12 yr old go to the store and some driver hits them out of negligence... or lets them go play at the park on their own unless there are explicit reasons for why it would be unsafe for that specific 12 yr old to do so.. like a learning disability.
Bike Lanes actually *MAKE ROOM* for cars: a bike takes up less than 10% of the space that a car uses, and every biker is one less car on the road. Result: *MORE SPACE FOR CARS* . And another thing: Bike infrastructure is only a fraction of the cost of the (ridiculously expensive) infrastructure for the car, so bike infrastructure *SAVES THE TAX PAYER MONEY* So you would be crazy to remove bikelanes. .
I'm proud to say I've never owned a car my whole life in the US. By riding a bike in my city, that's one less car on my block that needs to be stored on the street 24/7. When I go somewhere, that's one less car taking up parking for someone else who needs it. Whenever I pass cars on streets with no bike lanes, it's not the bikes holding them up, it's other cars.
@@Wildcard71 Sorry, The numbers that I am referring to are from actual data here in the Netherlands. Of course a bike can hold only one person. But the *average* number of people in a car in the US is only 1.5... So if a bike takes up only 10% of the space that is still an average saving of more than 65%. And actually it is even worse for the car, because not only is the bike much smaller in seize, weight and surface area, but because the bike moves much slower and is less dangerous, bikes also need much less space in front and behind of them (space that cars need for braking distance). So in reality the savings by bike use are even bigger.
@@Wildcard71 has anyone told the Dutch that a bike can only carry one person? if we're talking about kids. you can have a seat on the back and one at the steering wheel, so one mother can carry 2 children with her on her bike. and adults can sit on the back of most bikes, or on the beam that cracks men's parts. so one normal bike can carry either one adult + 2 children, or two adults. without any problems. and then we have the bakfiets or the daycare bikes that have a big area in the front where you can put 6 > 8 kids.
1 person 1 car 1 slot parking lot imagine all people owns a car will you park your car ? Do you think all house holds or work place offers parking space beconsiderate you will know the answer wild 😂😂
Here in the U.S. I hear the argument all the time that we as cyclists should have to pay taxes and get registration if we want to be on the road with cars. Im a car owner and cyclist yet they still tell me to grow up and get a car. They all think that only car owners pay for the roadways. Unfortunately you cant fix stupidity.
not to mention that cars take up the most space and do the most damage to roads. if car owners pay a road maintenance tax its for that reason (but as you said, everyone including people without cars pay those taxes)
In the Netherlands we ARE removing some bike lanes where it's deemed safe to combine cars and bikes. Mostly for less busyt streets, lower speed limits of only 30km/h or 18mph. From my experience it's still great to use those types of roads.
Unfortunately the neighborhood side streets in Canada still have a speed limit of 50km/h unless otherwise posted. Some cities have reduced this to 40km/h. Even school zones or community safety zones only reduce the speed limit to 40km/h.
Of the course, the context is different. In the Netherlands, there is a positive attitude toward cyclists. In Ontario, it's the opposite, a situation made worse by cynical and hateful politicians.
@@hollylockhart9423 They may have reduced the speed limits, but that doesn't mean the vehicles drivers have slowed down at all. I live in a 40km/h neighbourhood in Ontario, Canada. Cars/Trucks still race by my house and blow throw the 4-way stop signs without slowing down.
its easy for them to do because the drivers are trapped in gridlock while they see the cyclists filter past. so automatically they tunnel vision in on the cyclists. too stupid to think that maybe the source of their problems is actually the endless field of metal boxes infront of them
@@chickenpoodleit's like trying to get an animal to recognize themselves in the mirror. They're too mentally deteriorated to realize that THEY are the traffic. Entitled, lazy, impatient and overweight drivers
@@chickenpoodle Yeah, so easy to blame the people who aren't blocking the road rather than the ones who are. The city version of not seeing the forest for all the trees.
Thank you for this quality content. As a bike commuter in the Philippines, I really pray for our government officials to prioritize bike infrastructure projects such as protected bike lanes. New subscriber here. Thank you.
Bikes are great for cities - they don’t pollute, they empower people who can’t afford cars, they give teens more independence which helps the parents, and more! We should expand bicycle paths, and make them safer. In my town they do it by reusing old train tracks. Go bikes!
The funny part is they could point to dutch cities and say 'see they are removing bikelanes' since that is happening to make them all 30km/h, red and cars are guests... A missed PR moment for them 'follow the dutch remove bikelanes!' hehe.
Yes, we are in fact removing bikelanes. In the Netherlands. However, you have to realize that 60 years ago those were car lanes. Then we added bicycle lanes, and now that we have properly trained the public for the past 60 years, we're removing the cycling lanes because the streets are designed in ways that car traffic is virtually non existent in those places. Through traffic is no longer possible, all car traffic on such roads is destination based traffic. Furthermore, there are speed bumps everywhere, the street is painted red, the street is actively discouraging high speed traffic due to the vibration and noise the road produces inside the car and the cyclists don't give a f*** about the car drivers. It also helps that the law presumes the car owner is guilty if a accident were to happen. Without the possibility of defense whilst 100% of the costs are put on the car owner.
The Dutch are not removing bike lanes, they’re converting car lanes/roads to shared roads with preference to bikes, I.e. cars are guests with 30km speed limit. In most of these examples there weren’t bike lanes but one direction roads with bike lanes on the sides
@@grumpybear6331 it was states as a semi joke but there are roads in utrecht where they removed paths and turned it into a shared road because the amount of bikes was just too much. It is true that these are exceptions and its mostly converting since if there are already separated paths taking them away doesn't make too much sense.
@@MarijnRoorda yup its only possible in some areas because all people on the road accept and have been trained in the new design from color, bumps, speed, middle rumble and other tricks. I life in Utrecht and bike about 50km/day in the city. My remark was semi serious since its always funny to say 'we are taking some away again' before explaining how/why. Having lived and driven/biked in Utrecht from the 1970's on its been a interesting transformation.
You'll love Amsterdam and their public transit and great bike lanes to ride. People exercising more and less pollution. We've done many tandem bike trips through the countries of Europe. More chances to shop locally and socialize with the folks in the area. Enjoy! 😊
Great video! Two things: 1) road lanes don't cause congestion, it's the intersections. Removing bike lanes on roads won't do anything. 2) Our citied inner population is going up roughly 2.5% compounded. Doesn't sound like much, but as real/large infrastructure improvements take decades, we should be planning for a 50% population increase, and keeping the current car-focused environment won't work.
Carmel indiana got rid of all the traffic light intersection and i mean all 150 and replaced them with roundabouts that have a much higher. They were able to reduce the number of travel lane from 3 to 2 or 2 to 1 ln most major streets. More then double the population too.
That American Fietser guy's video of his ride around Carmel wasn't really selling it for cyclists or pedestrians though, their idea of a bike lane was just the sidewalk.
@@finnblackburn9583 While I haven’t seen that particular video, I’ll take a widened sidewalk/multi-use path separated from the road over an unprotected glorified shoulder “bike lane” any day.
@@kellir.747 It wasn't a MUP, it was your standard American issue narrow sidewalk that wasn't designed for bike traffic that their council just told cyclists to ride on. Besides the roundabouts it looked like your standard issue anti bike city with terrible bike infrastructure except for one fancy MUP
@@finnblackburn9583 Seriously I think most suburbs should turn their sidewalks into multi-use paths because in many cases its so much easier to widen sidewalks that are rarely used and pave it with asphalt and you have new separated bike infrastructure built that doesn't take away space from cars. Win win for both drivers and cyclists. I live in Toronto and doing this would make use of literally thousands of kilometers of barely used sidewalks because almost no one walks in the suburbs. It would do so much to transform the city and yet no one has the vision and balls to do it. Instead we do dumb shit like spending 13 BILLION dollars and counting on a 19km, 23 stop LRT that AFTER 13 YEARS STILL HAS NO DATE for when it will officially open because they still have to fix a bunch of issues. For that amount of time and money, Toronto/GTA could've built a Cadillac of a citywide bike network that wouldn't have taken 13 years to complete and it would've been at a fraction of the cost of this blackhole of a LRT route.
Not only livable cities, but lovable cities! I came to the Netherlands four years ago, and I love it here. I can cycle safely and the cities are quiet and friendly, and polluted by traffic fumes and noise.
Canada is going through a lousy period of political leadership, and the Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, is probably the dumbest and least educated of the lot. To make things worse, he's proud of his ignorance.
Yeah, as a Dutchman I’m often surprised by how congested car traffic can be elsewhere. Gridlock is almost unheard of here, and most traffic jams seem to be caused by construction work on the road. And because cars and bicycles are often separated, it makes it more comfortable for drivers. Seeing footage of New York, with endless traffic jams, cyclists zooming between cars, it just seems miserable for everyone. A good bicycle network can make it so much better for all parties.
But please restrict blue license scooters on the CYCLE paths. They go too fast and could be on the road. They make biking on the cycle path feel dangerous.
No, our cycling city Davis in California is superior. We have places for cyclists to move with no refugees. It's better than Europe if you have job skills. If you are a fool Europe has better welfare that's it.
@@philrobson7976 The interesting thing is that in many newer cities in China, on main roads they often have a full lane for both scooters and cyclists to share that is separated from cars. While the scooters go faster than cyclists of course, it doesn't really look all that dangerous and everyone is able to share the lane without too much trouble.
@7:40, on the right, there is a small shop (with the horizontal white sign). That location has been vacant for at least 15 years, but since the bike lane, it is being finally rented out...
I'm currently a food delivery driver. However, when I'm not working, I don't want to drive if I don't have to. The grocery store is less than 2km away, and the distance between shopping areas on either end of town is only 5km. It's very hilly, about 300ft in elevation change, but it is bikeable. Why would I waste money on gas, take up road space, potentially get in an accident, when I can just ride my bike? People who need to drive should be thanking everyone who chooses not to drive. Car brain is terrible.
Surprisingly good commentary. Here in Hollywood, there's a lot of anger at a new bike path that "stole" a car lane, causing increased congestion. Cyclists are not using it so far since it's new.
Oh God. Here in Portland, I forgot about the white bicycle memorials because I haven't had to see a new one in ages (one appears around 5:30). Maybe due to improvements in past decades. I hope for the best for Canadian bicyclists in the near future 🙏.
This was a really well put together video, thank you! - I love Calgary's bike lane and pathway infrastructure, even if it has some quarks in some places. not sure the city would be the same without it.
If bike lanes are the cause of traffic woes, then please get them to India. There’s no bike lanes, and complete traffic chaos. Ride a bike there for an hour and you’ll thank your stars for being sane and not injured at the end of the hour. These people are talking nonsense. If there are no bike lanes, people won’t ride bikes because it’s way too dangerous. That means more cars on the roads. Imagine the area taken up by just 1 car versus 1 bicycle lanes. The Toronto authorities are going retrograde in their thinking.
In my town the city took two lanes on very busy streets and made it into one and added a bike lane that no one uses and now the traffic backs up for hours every day and all the bikes still use the side streets
Most people in the USA and Canada born after about 1965 or maybe 1975 grew up never having ridden a bike or being physically active or having unsupervised outdoors childhood adventures. Even what in schools used to be called physical training (PT), later called physical education (Phys Ed), has been pared way back or eliminated entirely. "Normal" is how things were when they were growing up. Naturally, as adults, they cannot even begin to imagine participating in active transportation.
5:56 In my country, if a car crashes into a house or building, it reaches national news. It's that rare. And that's talking about the country with _densest road network in the world_ Which country is that? The Netherlands. That being said, despite having the _safest infrastructure in the world,_ because people increasingly disobey the traffic rules en masse, deaths are on the rise. Infrastructure only gets you so far. 8:45: not to mention that a parent can get arrested if their child is seen commuting to school alone. Some additions: - More asphalt means less greenery and thus hotter and more depressing cities - Redefine your zoning laws! Put small shopping centers close to or in the middle of residential areas so that people can actually take a walk or bike to get there quickly! Mixed use exists, apply it. - Worsening traffic for _everyone_ makes it seem like US citizens _want_ their children to get killed. Did you check your country's birthrates recently?
All of this is empirically provable and undeniably true, but won't make any impression of the average Trumpy American suburbanite. The entire idea that there's other ways to organize urban areas than the car-dependent suburb is just not on their radar, and they don't have time or energy to absorb contrary info because they are too busy with their long commutes and second jobs that they need in order to pay for vehicle expenses (at least two per household), medical debt, student loans, and health insurance premiums (assuming they are lucky enough to have health insurance).
Hi from the Netherlands. Over here the bike Lane infrastructure is efficient and tax are high thus why bicycles are the enemy? Commercial benefits,walkable cities, health improvement etc... cars and bicycles can coexist very easy.
I guess you're already familiar with the channel Not Just Bikes ... He also does a great job of explaining how traffic works in general and specifically in The Netherlands. Not only educational but also highly entertaining, even for me as a Dutchie
once again car brainlets dont understand that less people driving = less traffic for the drivers. if you love cars SOOOOOOOOOOOOO much, implement bike lanes and congestion pricing and exhaust taxes to reduce the amount of excess and wasteful driving, it helps you out if you want no traffic!
From a country that there is no bike lanes , we don’t have the culture of cycling and most of our commuting based on cars we live in a spaghetti plate at rush hours
Yeah, dozens of people out of the tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, maybe millions. But if the bike "lane" was a path elevated from the street (aka: Making the "Side Walk" multi-functional), you'd see that sentiment change to "Locally thousands of people use the path". Ever wonder why so many people walk in cities like NYC but not in places like Dallas or Orlando? It's because they're given larger allocations for that, away from the street. Now think for a moment: Why would putting it "in the street" make any sense? It doesn't lol.
I wonder if those studies incorporated "how does listening to music at certain volumes increase, or decrease, stress". The answer there would be "it's inconclusive". Because a problem with those studies would be simply that they were, in fact, inconclusive. You can make noise pollution from a road stressful to people that are afraid to drive on the road. For typical people, you know the ones that aren't afraid of driving on the road, it's not stressful. Just like noise levels in music. If you were to take 2 test subjects, one that doesn't go to concerts often, and one that does; the one that doesn't would say provide the answer "Loud music is stressful", while the one that does will provide the answer "Loud music isn't stressful". Now, the noise study on roads go the same way. Someone experienced within driving has no increased stress from that noise level, while those not experienced would. Alternatively, this is like interviewing someone saying "is going on a roller coaster stressful", and there would be half the audience with it as, and half where it's not. It's inconclusive, and based on experience and preference. Cycling, in general, is a health benefit. But cycling on a road is a health risk lol, regardless of a 4 inch line separating you. Instead of advocating for the highly conservative idea of "bike lane", why not advocate for a more progressive, and free-thinking idea of a "bike path", or rather: Converting the "sidewalk" into a multi-functional pathway? Then cycling wouldn't be a health risk. But your inconclusive belief of "noise levels" would still play affect for those who are inexperienced with whatever loud noise they are next to...despite a typical road not having loud noise. (Most busy roads have slower traffic, thus wouldn't have a lot of noise. Noisy roads would explicitly be Interstates, or long stretches of road that lead across the State; To which if you want a "bike lane" on that, you should be advocating for death by bike because that's effectively asking for a guy going 15mph to ride (on previous shoulder, now 'bike lane'), their bicycle, with no protection, next to a 3,000 pound+ vehicle going at 55mph. That by itself should be enough to give someone anxiety, let alone be a health risk.
@itsJoshW this study was about the abient noise level is cities. And how EV's make about the same amount of noise as regular cars, because if a car drives over 30 km/h (20 mph) it produces more noise from the tires than the engine.
@@Jurjen_Warrel_OttenhoffDefer to my comment and realize it's a redundant study that would define itself as inconclusive. That's like studying the effect on a clock ticking verses a digital clock in a room.
And remember, Germany, homeland of the invention named "car" is currently trying to put in more bikelanes, the issue is that most city planers are still "oldschool", some ancient and in cityplanning things take about 15 years until change is felt at the minimum.
Given the choice of crawling along behind bikes in general lanes or sailing past while the bikes are safely in their own lane not holding up cars.... why would anyone choose the former?
Bicycle is classified as a vehical in Canada, therefore it is allowed to ride on the road. So lets all ride in the car lane and see how much that slows down traffic. I know that is simple to say but it is bloody scary to do I know because I rode bikes on the road long before bike lanes. Even though it is HIGHLY ILLEAGAL for cars to run you off the road some just don't care. I have been run off the road, I have had stuff thrown at me and of course drivers will sit on thier horn until you move. When bike lanes came along the stress level went down by 80%. It is not the bike lanes that need to change it is the drivers mentality that needs to change always has been and always will be with or without bike lanes. How many pedestrians have been hit by drivers in a hurry?
Honestly I feel like driving in Denver has only improved as we have expanded bike lanes. I live outside of the city and drive in, but driving and parking in downtown has only improved as more people have moved to bikes and scooters within the city.
As someone who rarely gets on a bike I want more bike lanes. More dedicated lanes for bikes the less there are in lanes for cars. And more people on bikes the less cars there will be.
As one of those 1% level 4 stress cyclists I have at times been ignorant with regards to infrastructure as I have literally found myself cycling on 70mph dual carriageways. I live in quite a bikeable city that often blames the bike lanes and LTNs but when I started running this winter you really see how much space is sacrificed and it's not like I can hop onto the road like I can with a bicycle.
The biggest people against bike lanes are physically, actually, the biggest people. We have an obesity crisis and the majority of people in Canada want to keep a life style that keeps them fat and unhealthy.
It seems to me that this politician would benefit the most of creating more bike lanes and taking his car away. He would lose quite some weight, become healthier and may develop some more healthy ideas. Just a thought for the next elections.
I'm somewhere around a level 3 to 4 rider. if all of the bike lanes were removed, honestly I'd probably be fine, as my route is on a shared path. but I'd never ever venture further than my commute, no way a trip to the city other than uni, and if the shared paths were gone, no way to cycling.
People just don't get induced demand; in 1982 they built a bridge across the River Orwell in Ipswich - immediately led to a reduction in traffic through the town. Now, any time the bridge is shut (extreme winds, maintenance, accidents) the town is completely grid-locked. Why is this, when it was never grid-locked _before_ the bridge was built? Busy, yes; grid-locked, no. It's because the bridge increased vehicle use so now there are way more cars going through town than before. Mooted solution? Let's build another bridge LOL. Needless to say, virtually no pedestrians or cyclists use the bridge - there is a footway, but nobody wants to walk alongside what is little short of a motorway. I can't remember the last time I saw anyone cycle across it; legal? Yes; Pleasant? No way.
Every time I pass cars on streets with no bike lanes, it's because they're held up by other cars, and yet I still get people yelling at me to get off the road.
Even without induced demand, traffic is unlikely to improve. Why do people forget that the people on bikes, traveling somewhere would probably have no choice but to drive a car if their bike infrastructure disappears?
What "doubles your car time" are changes in the traffic pattern like parked cars for two blocks and then no parked cars for a block where traffic spreads out and then has to recombine when the street narrows again combined with anyone using this on-street parking disrupting the flow even more. Vehicles are hopefully never merging out of and back into separated bike lanes so the conversation between drivers and traffic engineers should never be travel lane VS bike lane, the conversation, if you are a driver, should always be about banning on-street parking and converting that space to a bus lane or a bike lane to clear obstructions in traffic flow. It's faster to drive at a continuous flowing pace than to speed ahead then stop dead, then speed ahead, then stop to let someone merge in front of you, etc. etc.
There was a B-movie called Americathon where Americans got so poor they lived in their cars and walked and biked to their jobs. It'll probably take something like that before North America comes to it's senses.
I saw some comments that stated they saw so few riders on the bike lanes and that was a reason to remove them. What if there were lots of sidewalks where I saw so few people walking? Should that be the reason to tear them up to make wider car lanes? I doubt those that want bike lanes gone would love to give up their sidewalks.
wouldn't bother them none. all they want is large multi level parkades attached directly to their stores and malls. they don't need their sidewalks. sidewalks means you need to walk! and who wants to walk?
Nic, thanks for discussing Bill 212. It looks like the government is doubling down on this legislation with an amendment that reinforces bike lane removal. Have you heard of an Accusations Audit? It helps us understand the other side’s position a lot more clearly. An especially important part is list what they don’t like about us and the worse they hate, the better to include in the audit. We understand them better and when we tell it to them, it calms them down.
@@nicthedoor Some people in the Kyiv city government claimed that cycling in the bus lane is less dangerous than cycling in the ordinary lane. So they didn't build any bike infrasctructure from 2015 to 2018 when the new road designing standards made obligatory to add infrastructure for cyclists. Despite having alike average speed on the surface, overtaking the stopped buses is dangerous and slowing down buses to the bike speed makes buses slower but it's compensated by the fact that only a few people are willing to cycle in the bus lane. Personally, I don't count the bus lanes as a bike infrastructure. Nowadays, the 2-way bike (2 m+ wide) and the multi-use paths (2.5 m+ wide) are typically built alongside that types of road in Kyiv. The overall length ob bike infrastructure (including sharrows [30 km/h bike streets], bike lanes [1.5 m wide], bike and multi-use paths) is more than 200 km (the population is 3 mln people) but the connectivity is pretty much bad now. Recently, the carbrains were outraged that the square near the main train station has become more pedestrianised and has got much more order and lost some of the road parking spaces to the protected bike lane and the bus lane. Before, it was a car-infested place with no place for cyclists. The sidewalk was used by merchants. These people claimed that who in the right mind would cycle (with the luggage) to the main train station of the country? I contested them and said that there are restaurants where the delivery cycles to and some of the passengers take bikes onto the suburban and regional trains as the last-mile transport.
Unfortunately, humans are more easily persuaded by emotional arguments than rational ones. Coming up with a strategy to combat the emotional arguments around cars and driving seems to be the biggest challenge to the goal of providing viable alternatives to driving for people.
Dear drivers, you are not STUCK IN TRAFFIC, you ARE TRAFFIC!!! Cyclists have every right to occupy a road lane. Owning and operating a car is a privilege, not a right. The inconvenience to drivers is the whole point of 'Share the road' initiatives. People need to understand that single occupant vehicles are the problem, NOT the cyclists.
Meanwhile, real world cyclists: "My good sir, why are you acting like we want to be surrounded by death traps road raging in the bike lane when we need to get to work safely? Unlike you, we aren't wealthy and we can't just do nothing. We need to work. Please get rid of the bike lane and put a bike path in a safer spot" Crazy how people don't realize how stupid they sound until they realize that the bike "lane" was created to propagandize the concept of public transport and alternative transport originally when discussing this about a decade ago. It's designed to make you forget that people advocated for the bike "path", and advocated for "public transportation" (for those incapable of expensive private transport). Advocating to keep a bandaid solution is just plain idiotic. But I get it. "I'd rather have nothing than something", but advocating for it as if it's "the solution" is the reason why the US is actually undergoing, effectively, anarcho-capitalist principles. It's actually absurd that people are so self-interested to not realize that most people who cycle hate the 'bike lane' because it's unsafe...yet you just have dumb people that want it because they think its the solution, when it was created as bandaid measure to stop the movement of "we need public transport and multi-functional pathways".
I am glad to live in Germany. In most cities here, we have well-developed bike paths or bike lanes on the streets. And between villages and cities, there are so-called country roads, which always have bike paths that are easy to use. But we have the same problem with some car people that think the road ist their property.
I can't believe that people would support not only stopping the building of more bike lanes but actually wasting money to get rid of the ones that already exist. That part I think is crazy.
Alternative: Bike lanes in areas where the speed limits are like 20-25mph cause more harm then good. They're more dangerous than safe for the cyclists. They're breaking expected traffic flows by riding alongside traffic, not within traffic and cars having to turn through them. There are some instances where bike lanes are in between pedestrian walkways and parking spots for cars, where pedestrians won't check the bike lane while getting to their walkway. Removing them isn't necessarily a bad thing in some areas.
Good thinking, lets cross reference that with everywhere else with good bike infrastructure in the world… oh wait, that isnt a problem… Real talk, the majority of places should be within the 20-30mph range. This is also a reason why public transit would go really well with bike infrastructure.
I live in Ocala, Florida. In front of our development is Highway 200. Which has a bike lane. You can wait for days to see a bike on it. If you do beware the rider has a death wish. You would not have to be crazy to ride a bike there, but it would help.
Is it an idea to have the politicians who made those bicycle lanes, actually use them? Let them bike on it for a month, twice a day during rush hour, and let them then comment on how good the infra is.
Intersections suck. throughput on roads comes to a halt when they hit really bad intersections. The Netherlands has great bike infrastructure, but it requires commitment.
My suburban side street has very little traffic so does the "under-used" argument mean the Premier of Ontario is going to rip it up? I understand he was a football coach, so maybe 100m of my street could be used for that.
Make bike lines on parallel routes and make the parallel route cars only for local traffic (stop it being a through fare for cars). So get them out of each others crosshairs.
It boggles my mind that people don't realize bikes and bike lanes save them (drivers) time. For every less car on the road, it's better. In most cases car lanes aren't removed for cyclists anyways. They just add a sharrow (which aren't great for cyclists) or add a bike lane, which take up at most, 1 car lane for 2 lanes of bikes. So 1 less car lane, isn't going to work, because you need 2, one in each direction for it to make any sense. There are also plenty of medians and grassy areas that could be turned into bike lanes, thus again, not effecting traffic in a negative way, only positive (less cars on the road).
Well supported POV Nic! I have some associates that need to see this vid. As for Doug Ford...don't get me started!!! On a side note, put the mic on a stand or, better yet, loose it and use a lav. You don't need an SM7 for us to hear you.
Yes. On existing arterial roads where car lanes are removed. On new arterial roads sure. We should get more bike paths. Bike paths along sides of roads and on some secondary roads, sure!
I'm not against bike lanes at all, but I find your explanation of induced demand to be puzzling. If induced demand works for cars, why are the bike lanes underutilized?
Which bike lanes are we talking about? Toronto? I'd argue they are not underutilized, a large part of that is bikes simply do not get stuck in traffic until they reach a critical mass. Which is far and beyond the numbers needed for cars to end up in the same place. That being said, Toronto doesn't even crack the top 10 for North American cities when it comes to a proper network. You won't really see that big shift until you complete that network. We're criticizing a bridge not carrying enough cargo across when only the foundation has been built. Montreal is the leader in NA, they are experiencing that shift in modal share and still they couldn't hold a candle to world leading cities...yet.
That hit on LA at the end was historically accurate, but it is no longer the case IMO. They are investing in public transit and bike lanes to the tune of something like 40B over the next 10yrs and they recently passed a ballot measure to force the City to implement their Bike Master plan for a few years ago as part of any road improvement project. I believe they are in the process of actually updating their minimum standards for reflect this requirement and so over time their RoWs will improve drastically as they are redone at the end of life (10-15yrs) How many major metro areas that aren't called Toronto is doing that right now? And when Doug Ford passes that bill, we can see TO take a beating on that comparison pretty good.
In the end, focussing on forcefully building bike infrastructure isn't going to magicly solve things. There needs to be a real shift in thinking about mobility and the courage to start limiting cars in a meaningful way as well.
@@rogerk6180 possibly, but i feel you have to create the alternatives first - otherwise it's just tax on unavoidable usage. After all, the people who can avoid the usage taxes will do so by shifting how, where, and when they work, but the people serving out and food, picking up trash, fixing and building homes, treating us when we are sick, teaching us when we are young, etc cannot change when and where they work. Basically, we need the carrot and stick but the carrot coming first helps for when the stick starts swinging... Which is why the congestion pricing in NYC is popular with the residents of the City itself - they have the carrot of usable transit infrastructure (and bikeways they have recently built out) to entice a shift in behavior with that stick...the ones doing all the complaining are the ones who don't want to use the carrot...so now they fear the stick..but having said carrot makes their arguments less valid IMO
@@nicthedoor I am not saying it's great yet... currently it is still miles behind places like NYC or TO but I am confident it will get there in my life time for sure just off the back of the current and planned future investments...
Torontonian here. I disagree with you on some points. I'm not sure that there would be an immediate improvement in congestion. While level 4's may represent 1% of riders, they and the food couriers likely account for a disproportionate share of ridership in terms of distances covered. These hardy few, myself included, will disrupt a full car lane, rather than the partial space associated to a bike lane. Cars are legally required to provide a 1 metre clearance to riders. There isn't a car small enough to pass a bike legally and still stay within the lane. As a result, the cars will have to more into the next lane, disrupting that lane as well, and potentially increasing the risk of vehicular collisions. This will create a greater headache for drivers. Furthermore, there's this false idea that 4 lanes is faster than 3 lanes. With 3 lanes, you can have two smoothly flowing lanes with a dedicated left turn lane plus bike lanes. With the traditional 4 lanes, the inner two lanes will be disrupted by left turning cars, which are held back by the heavy opposing traffic on the other side. Add to that, the level 4 riders disrupting the curb side lane, the car drivers have no smooth flowing lanes with 4 lanes versus 3 car lanes + 2 bike lanes. The bike lane haters claim 'common sense' but it's their math skills that are lacking.
I think bike lanes are cheap political wins. If you want people out of cars, nothing will replace public transit. The hard, expensive work of making a transit system so good that it is more convenient than driving - that is tantamount. Bike lanes put the cart before the horse - people are still in their cars and you've also removed a lane.
a big thing however is, if the infrastructure and planning is done correctly, public transport and active transport and a lot of the times share the same space. you see many places with high speed trains raised up above ground and provisions made for alternative transportation below. or off to the side. problem is many of these projects will take a long period of time, and politicians are all fussing over short term goals so they can pad out their list during their short time in office.
… how much cars can go on a highway per second? About 1 a second on 2 lanes so about 2… if you would fill both lanes with bikes how much? about 5 lanes and also about 1 per second… pedestrians 20 per second?.. when you make bike lanes and walks normal size i guess they are still about 2 per second it could handle So there should be a strong incentive to keep them because more pass through per space used… The problem is.. when the structure is flailing so that the bike lanes do interfere with other ways of transportation.. that also reduces the people that want to ride the bike.. who wants a bike lane where every 100m they need to cross an intersection…
The big thing that I'll mention: The best way to make space for cars on the road is by incentivizing people to take cars off the road. I live in the US, the lack of safe and reliable infrastructure is embarrassing. Bike lanes are only the starting point to help alleviate traffic for the people who specifically want to drive. You need busses/trams, trains, sidewalks...and all of them to be safe, reliable, and reasonable. Not every area can have all of them. Housing in cities should be more reasonable as well, so the suburbs aren't as necessary. If my small city had more than sidewalks and a single bike path that's out of the way, I'd be looking at getting a mountain bike (due to hills) instead of trying to save up the same money to use on a down payment for a car. If there was a tram, I'd take that. If the single bus wasn't some wacky convoluted system that's a pain to even figure out, I'd be using that. I need to cross a 5-lane road to get to my work, and the sidewalk on that side of the road ends well before my workplace. The closest crosswalk is at the neighboring Walmart....which is up a fairly steep hill.
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Seen a few "Cyclists need to pay a road tax if they want bike lanes" in the comments. Please watch this video... Should We Tax Cyclists? -> ruclips.net/video/Wjv8WQu92c0/видео.htmlsi=OfRJRaX-Qub1LnZ1
lol, we pay taxes. And taxes and taxes.
I ride by choice. I also have a motor vehicle and license. I've paid. I am paying. And I'm risking my life doing it. Thank you very much.
Cyclists should pay for the road infrastructure they use, of course. Instead of what cyclists already contribute, let’s tax them based on contribution to space needed and wear of the road by usage. For starters, by weight ratio? That would be 1-3% of the weight of any SUV or pickup truck. Or by size, that would be about 10-20% of the size of any regular car. I’m all for it!
1 Just let people play city skylines. You can experiment and see the results for your self.
2 the netherlands is just like newyork. But allot of aspacts / standards could be implemented to day. To make New roads ecual as good.
3 Olso we use 30kmh districts, were there are no bike lanes, but cars can past easy and save.
I always roll my eyes when people go "but but but why don't cyclists pay for bike roads?!!?!". Yeah, entitled people on bikes saving society lots of money while reducing congestion and auto accidents and not even paying for the privilegue.
Let's put a tax on people who don't smoke, too. It's so unfair that smokers have to pay a tobacco fee while people woh don't smoke get to do it for free.
A point not mentioned is: what about the people who are not allowed, or cannot afford to drive a car? The disabled, the elderly, the young, and the poor also have a right to safe infrastructure and freedom to move. In the Netherlands the road manager is required by law to provide a safe traffic infrastructure to EVERYBODY! To "prove" in court of laws that the road manager complied to this law, the road designs from the CROW manuals are used by the road manager in 99% of the cases (which also explains why the "look and feel" of the traffic infrastruture is very consistent throughout the country). The designs from the CROW manuals are based on scientific research and the "Sustainable Safety" philosophy, and are still evolving based on new research and insights.
It shouldn't be this dangerous
Exactly! So much more people are self-sufficient when it comes to mobility in places with extensive bike infrastructure.
The classical complaint of the older generations: "this young generation is just sitting at home..."
Well, can they (safely) get out and do something on their own?
In general, in America, if you don't have enough money to buy a car, you don't have enough money to lobby and your opinions don't matter.
Being someone that frequently uses the CROW manuals, I'd also like to add that they are very accessible! It's full of easy-to-understand diagrams, and isn't just an endless flood of useless text.
" But what about the elderly and disabled ?" Is actually used as a pearl clutching straw man *against* installing bike lanes in the US. 🤬
"You get the traffic you built for." Great summation of pretty much every transportation infrastructure question.
I really can't stand the collective bullying of cycling. Seriously, understand that you who drive are not stuck in traffic, you ARE the traffic, and we who cycles don't do it for exercise, we're doing it as transport and often to bypass the congestions.
Yeah it's a bit of a strange mentality. I suppose it comes with a lifetime of car dependency and normalcy, with no viable alternative. Also, the image of cyclists as lycra-wearing middle aged men doesn't help lol.
but im also doing it for exercise
That's kind of a double edged sword of a statement to make. Many of us cycle for both recreation/exercise AND transpiration. i am passionate about all aspects of cycling. Also most people who bike for commuting reasons ALSO own vehicles. All that being said, yes it's a very sad situation. I bike to work and work and work with people who are happy when a cyclist getting killed makes the local news. Imagine having to work with and interact with people like that.
I bike mostly for getting around, but I find it fun! I own a car and only use it when I leave my city. Which is maybe once a month or for vacations. I'm lucky to live in a city with bike lanes and public transit. And our bike network is getting better every year! Chicago is where I'm speaking of
People have been programmed to viciously attack anything and anyone that is potentially a threat to auto supremacy.
I hate that politicians are allowed to be as uneducated as the population
Especially the US POTUS elect.
Democracy is an awful way to build a society. It turns the most important decisions in our lives into a popularity contest like voting for prom king...
That's a funny, but true statement
Then people who are "educated" need to run for office instead, like the world scholar we have for a V.P.
Oh...
The politicians are very educated. They just hate poor people.
It's quite sad you need to make this case. In the US you have two transport modes: Drive or fly. In Europe we have five: Walk, bike, drive/public transport and fly. Each mode is suitable for a particular range of distances. In the US the shorter range modes have been taken over by the car. There are many factors that caused this, but a major one of them is probably the low prices for cars and fuel. Driving is heavily subsidized and promoted in the US whereas it is somewhat penalized in Europe, especially for shorter distances.
Arguably flying is also public transport ;)
I have been living on both continents. Let’s not exaggerate. In big cities in N.A you can still walk bike maybe to the exception of Houston for example but most downtown cities are perfectly walkable or public transportation friendly. The issue is the suburbs where a lack of city planning and real public transportation is a problem. Distance is also a non négligeable variable.
@@Fabs821 The suburbs are where the vast majority of a city's population is. The comment would ring true for the majority of Americans and Europeans, I would say. And downtowns are often not as walkable/bikable as they could/should be.
Europe is a long way from being homogenous in its approach to cycling. You can’t compare cycling in London, Berlin or Paris to Amsterdam or Copenhagen. Smaller cities are significantly different to the capitals too.
@@AndrewJOliverYou’re right that European cities are on very different levels of human friendliness versus industrial car terrorism. That has many different reasons. Most important one is: No matter where you are in the world, there will be some idiots. The job of the population is to get those away from positions of influence. After many decades of car idiocy, it takes time to wake up from the numbness. I see positive developments many places. I’m a Norwegian living in Amsterdam. Places where removal of idiots has already gotten significant success, but the idiots are plentiful and won’t give up easily, so no matter where, we must pay attention.
I’m glad you mentioned autonomy for children. I moved to Montreal a few years ago and it’s remarkable how common it is to see children on bikes on the protected bike routes and on quiet streets and ruelles.
Yer, they are so safe! I love to bike that so often. And easily to stop by cafe or local shops as car had to find parking first. Bike rack are already there.
Wow, you guys are letting your kids go outside. Impressive. People in the states could learn something from that.
@@Thezuule1 In the wintertime too... :)
Actually this is a very sad comment. It should be unremarkable.
Kids should be able to autonoom, to learn to explore.
It should not be remarkable but the norm.
Actually this is a very sad comment. It should be unremarkable.
Kids should be able to autonoom, to learn to explore.
It should not be remarkable but the norm.
One hilarious thing about the street view time travel at 2:18 is how clearly it illustrates "2x car lanes = 2x the car traffic"
Two lanes wouldn't even give twice the capacity. It's only about 40 to 60% more. Because of lane changes and intersections.
@@paxundpeace9970 With dense grids even fewer.
"One more lane will fix it!" "Only in America!" To those commenters, come visit the Netherlands, see how it works, you will forever be cured of your stupid ideas and embrace the bicycle path! Besides, it be against the law for politicians to suggest it, and would create a public outcry and anger that would likely see that party and politician get shot or worse. In the end, roads are meant to transport people. In some city's in the Netherlands there are bicycle paths that carry upwards of 60.000 people a day every day of the week. You cannot get that kind of throughput traffic in the middle of a city if you're using cars. And it's doing so without accidents, without pollution, without noise. And kids of all ages are among them. Ever seen a 3 or 4 year old cycling in Downtown Toronto? Come to the middle of Utrecht, happens every day all day.
Zo is het maar net. Ze moeten nog veel leren daar.
Er is wel een verschil denk ik. In Manchester (Engeland) leggen ze gewoon fietsstroken naast enorme wegen. In NL bestaat dat niet bij autowegen, en hier is het ook niet lekker fietsen. Scholen, huizen en kantoren blijven ook amper bereikbaar omdat zijstraatjes zijn overgegeven aan parkeerruimte. Zomaar ergens fietsstroken aanleggen helpt dan niks. Ik denk dat dit in Canada en de VS ook zo wordt gedaan.
Well...currently there are plans to widen highway A27 to the east of Utrecht, because 'they' think 'just one more lane' will solve the traffic-congestion on the A27...
@@borchen0 sometimes car lanes aren't that bad. Cars make sense in a lot of cases and no country can function without cars and highways..
The important thing is having valid alternative options to driving. That makes driving better as well for people that need to or really want to drive for some reason.
Every person in a train, walking or on a bike is 1 less car on the road. And solving traffic is most effectivly done by having less cars on the road.
@@rogerk6180 Tiny ones can.
I'm thankful every day to be born in Europe and not in North America. Common sense seems to have left that continent.
Yeah
Hit the nail on the head on that one.
Haha so true. Just recently some American dude told me: "we need all the guns to protect innocent people". Hilarious.
Sad how people fall for all that propaganda nonsense. But that's not limited to the US.
Davis in California has better cycling infrastructure than Holland and no refugees stinking everything up. America has better cycling overall
That and exercise. Americans are fat and lazy so the idea of having to pedal a bike seems like torture.
How hard is it to remember that streets are older than cars?
And "Share the Road" is a car centric policy!
To get more freedom from cycling- practice equity over equality.
"Share the road" is OK for speeds below 20 mph.
Not only that, but well before cars, early bicyclists advocated for paved roads.
The part about induced demand that I think people get wrong is that people are "attracted" to drive. I would argue that people are *forced* to drive.
All those people who would have used micromobility in protected lanes are now forced to own and drive a car. That's where the extra demand comes from.
you will live in a pod
you will eat the grease
you will drive the car
and you will like it mentality
I love to drive, but I also wish where I live in Toronto would have great bike infrastructure so that I could use my bike to get around locally in my community without having to drive. So many short to medium distance trips that I have no choice but to use my car to get to, I wish I had safe bike lanes to ride on instead.
I got a car just to get me through those long periods of constant, heavy British rainfall.
My favorite leap of logic from my city is people complaining that on roads with one wide lane in each direction, if you paint bike lane on the side, it will make congestion worse.
Like, you get virtually the same space for cars before and after but some of the drivers can opt to ride a bike. And this makes traffic congestion worse?
I'm always amazed by the number of people who say roads are meant for motor vehicles even though roads pre-date motor vehicles by at least 3000 years that we have evidence. Bicycles also pre-date motor vehicles.
This was such a well-thought-out breakdown, Nic! I like the way you connected bike lanes to everything from traffic to public health and local businesses. It’s amazing (and frustrating) how short-sighted car-centric policies can be.
Unfortunately such shortsightedness isn't limited to urban infrastructure. It is something that pervades a lot of North America on many issues, like spending cuts on a wide variety of things without regard for why the money is being spent in the first place. It is a world of vested interests and corporate lobbying that have eroded the interests of the common citizen to an insane degree, regardless of the country.
The 'reduction in car lanes increased my time' always cracks me up. It's proven this is not true by default, this requires bad choices by people, not the existence of a bike lane.
People sure love their 700 dollar monthly bill on their car don't they?
Nope sold mine 2 yrs ago ride most days share moms car if needed
more lanes equals easier to go around the people driving too slow
Thank you for that bike stress graph. That will help me articulate to level 2 riders why bike infrastructure is good. I am a veteran of Boston streets in the late 80s Where I was and still am a level 4 rider. I learned how to ride from a 80s cycliing movie. Hopping curbs weaving in and out of cars. Absolutely insane that I have never been hit or crashed. I have learned how loud my voice can be here in Cleveland advocating for change in infrastructure for other methods besides cars. Hell I am even a transit advocate. Great wook on this video I loved it.
Thanks 🙏
Big fan of traffic stress theory. Used to be a L4, firmly L3 as i have gotten older for sure. Keep up the advocacy!
As a Dutch person who lives in an actual society all I can do is laugh.
Same
what is an actual society? and what are you laughing at?
100%
@tomreingold4024 one not based on living in the movie Cars.
Can't wait to visit again next summer 🇳🇱
As a Montrealer if they tried this here I would absolutely lose it. My thoughts are with the Toronto bike community
Why kids don't go out anymore? Because if their parents can't go with them, than they will be sued for letting their kids go alone to anywhere. (I don't remember what was the charge)
In Florida they just passed a law, charging parents for the crimes of there kids, for not properly educating them in social norms. Both child and parents are charged.
Kids get hit by traffic out alone.
@@justcommenting4981 For some reason kids are not hit in every corner by traffic here in Europe, so you can allow your kids to go to their friends, to school or shopping alone.
Anyway, the kid in the case I tried to refer to were like 11-12 years old, they should be able to watch out for traffic. Of course that does not help if you live in a car centric place.
this is not really a thing... only if they are too young/immature to realistically be out doing anything (like 6-9 yr olds) vs older kids like 10-12 yr olds which can have some self-sufficiency. A parent will not be charged if they let a 12 yr old go to the store and some driver hits them out of negligence... or lets them go play at the park on their own unless there are explicit reasons for why it would be unsafe for that specific 12 yr old to do so.. like a learning disability.
Helicopter parenting has destroyed an entire generation.
Bike Lanes actually *MAKE ROOM* for cars: a bike takes up less than 10% of the space that a car uses, and every biker is one less car on the road. Result: *MORE SPACE FOR CARS* . And another thing: Bike infrastructure is only a fraction of the cost of the (ridiculously expensive) infrastructure for the car, so bike infrastructure *SAVES THE TAX PAYER MONEY* So you would be crazy to remove bikelanes. .
I'm proud to say I've never owned a car my whole life in the US. By riding a bike in my city, that's one less car on my block that needs to be stored on the street 24/7. When I go somewhere, that's one less car taking up parking for someone else who needs it.
Whenever I pass cars on streets with no bike lanes, it's not the bikes holding them up, it's other cars.
You miss that every passenger needs an extra bike. So the formula doesn't really work.
Well, this isn't the point here.
@@Wildcard71 Sorry, The numbers that I am referring to are from actual data here in the Netherlands. Of course a bike can hold only one person. But the *average* number of people in a car in the US is only 1.5... So if a bike takes up only 10% of the space that is still an average saving of more than 65%. And actually it is even worse for the car, because not only is the bike much smaller in seize, weight and surface area, but because the bike moves much slower and is less dangerous, bikes also need much less space in front and behind of them (space that cars need for braking distance). So in reality the savings by bike use are even bigger.
@@Wildcard71 has anyone told the Dutch that a bike can only carry one person?
if we're talking about kids. you can have a seat on the back and one at the steering wheel, so one mother can carry 2 children with her on her bike.
and adults can sit on the back of most bikes, or on the beam that cracks men's parts.
so one normal bike can carry either one adult + 2 children, or two adults. without any problems.
and then we have the bakfiets or the daycare bikes that have a big area in the front where you can put 6 > 8 kids.
1 person 1 car 1 slot parking lot imagine all people owns a car will you park your car ? Do you think all house holds or work place offers parking space beconsiderate you will know the answer wild 😂😂
Here in the U.S. I hear the argument all the time that we as cyclists should have to pay taxes and get registration if we want to be on the road with cars. Im a car owner and cyclist yet they still tell me to grow up and get a car.
They all think that only car owners pay for the roadways.
Unfortunately you cant fix stupidity.
not to mention that cars take up the most space and do the most damage to roads. if car owners pay a road maintenance tax its for that reason (but as you said, everyone including people without cars pay those taxes)
In the Netherlands we ARE removing some bike lanes where it's deemed safe to combine cars and bikes. Mostly for less busyt streets, lower speed limits of only 30km/h or 18mph.
From my experience it's still great to use those types of roads.
Unfortunately the neighborhood side streets in Canada still have a speed limit of 50km/h unless otherwise posted. Some cities have reduced this to 40km/h. Even school zones or community safety zones only reduce the speed limit to 40km/h.
Of the course, the context is different. In the Netherlands, there is a positive attitude toward cyclists. In Ontario, it's the opposite, a situation made worse by cynical and hateful politicians.
@@hollylockhart9423 They may have reduced the speed limits, but that doesn't mean the vehicles drivers have slowed down at all. I live in a 40km/h neighbourhood in Ontario, Canada. Cars/Trucks still race by my house and blow throw the 4-way stop signs without slowing down.
Blaming congestion on bikes instead of cars truly is a 200 IQ take
its easy for them to do because the drivers are trapped in gridlock while they see the cyclists filter past. so automatically they tunnel vision in on the cyclists. too stupid to think that maybe the source of their problems is actually the endless field of metal boxes infront of them
@@chickenpoodleit's like trying to get an animal to recognize themselves in the mirror. They're too mentally deteriorated to realize that THEY are the traffic. Entitled, lazy, impatient and overweight drivers
@@chickenpoodle Yeah, so easy to blame the people who aren't blocking the road rather than the ones who are. The city version of not seeing the forest for all the trees.
Thank you for this quality content. As a bike commuter in the Philippines, I really pray for our government officials to prioritize bike infrastructure projects such as protected bike lanes. New subscriber here. Thank you.
Bikes are great for cities - they don’t pollute, they empower people who can’t afford cars, they give teens more independence which helps the parents, and more! We should expand bicycle paths, and make them safer. In my town they do it by reusing old train tracks. Go bikes!
Watching this video in a train, to Amsterdam, friday night 9:15 pm. Feels good.
The funny part is they could point to dutch cities and say 'see they are removing bikelanes' since that is happening to make them all 30km/h, red and cars are guests... A missed PR moment for them 'follow the dutch remove bikelanes!' hehe.
Yes, we are in fact removing bikelanes. In the Netherlands. However, you have to realize that 60 years ago those were car lanes. Then we added bicycle lanes, and now that we have properly trained the public for the past 60 years, we're removing the cycling lanes because the streets are designed in ways that car traffic is virtually non existent in those places. Through traffic is no longer possible, all car traffic on such roads is destination based traffic. Furthermore, there are speed bumps everywhere, the street is painted red, the street is actively discouraging high speed traffic due to the vibration and noise the road produces inside the car and the cyclists don't give a f*** about the car drivers. It also helps that the law presumes the car owner is guilty if a accident were to happen. Without the possibility of defense whilst 100% of the costs are put on the car owner.
The Dutch are not removing bike lanes, they’re converting car lanes/roads to shared roads with preference to bikes, I.e. cars are guests with 30km speed limit. In most of these examples there weren’t bike lanes but one direction roads with bike lanes on the sides
@@grumpybear6331 it was states as a semi joke but there are roads in utrecht where they removed paths and turned it into a shared road because the amount of bikes was just too much. It is true that these are exceptions and its mostly converting since if there are already separated paths taking them away doesn't make too much sense.
@@MarijnRoorda yup its only possible in some areas because all people on the road accept and have been trained in the new design from color, bumps, speed, middle rumble and other tricks. I life in Utrecht and bike about 50km/day in the city. My remark was semi serious since its always funny to say 'we are taking some away again' before explaining how/why. Having lived and driven/biked in Utrecht from the 1970's on its been a interesting transformation.
Nice analysis, thanks. I'm visiting Amsterdam for a month and not renting a car. Bike and transit only.
You'll love Amsterdam and their public transit and great bike lanes to ride. People exercising more and less pollution. We've done many tandem bike trips through the countries of Europe.
More chances to shop locally and socialize with the folks in the area. Enjoy! 😊
Great video! Two things: 1) road lanes don't cause congestion, it's the intersections. Removing bike lanes on roads won't do anything. 2) Our citied inner population is going up roughly 2.5% compounded. Doesn't sound like much, but as real/large infrastructure improvements take decades, we should be planning for a 50% population increase, and keeping the current car-focused environment won't work.
Carmel indiana got rid of all the traffic light intersection and i mean all 150 and replaced them with roundabouts that have a much higher. They were able to reduce the number of travel lane from 3 to 2 or 2 to 1 ln most major streets.
More then double the population too.
Road Guy Rob video!
That American Fietser guy's video of his ride around Carmel wasn't really selling it for cyclists or pedestrians though, their idea of a bike lane was just the sidewalk.
@@finnblackburn9583 While I haven’t seen that particular video, I’ll take a widened sidewalk/multi-use path separated from the road over an unprotected glorified shoulder “bike lane” any day.
@@kellir.747 It wasn't a MUP, it was your standard American issue narrow sidewalk that wasn't designed for bike traffic that their council just told cyclists to ride on. Besides the roundabouts it looked like your standard issue anti bike city with terrible bike infrastructure except for one fancy MUP
@@finnblackburn9583
Seriously I think most suburbs should turn their sidewalks into multi-use paths because in many cases its so much easier to widen sidewalks that are rarely used and pave it with asphalt and you have new separated bike infrastructure built that doesn't take away space from cars. Win win for both drivers and cyclists.
I live in Toronto and doing this would make use of literally thousands of kilometers of barely used sidewalks because almost no one walks in the suburbs. It would do so much to transform the city and yet no one has the vision and balls to do it. Instead we do dumb shit like spending 13 BILLION dollars and counting on a 19km, 23 stop LRT that AFTER 13 YEARS STILL HAS NO DATE for when it will officially open because they still have to fix a bunch of issues.
For that amount of time and money, Toronto/GTA could've built a Cadillac of a citywide bike network that wouldn't have taken 13 years to complete and it would've been at a fraction of the cost of this blackhole of a LRT route.
I’m from The Netherlands and I’ve never heard anyone saying that the bike lanes should be removed. Bike lanes are responsible for our livable cities.
Not only livable cities, but lovable cities!
I came to the Netherlands four years ago, and I love it here. I can cycle safely and the cities are quiet and friendly, and polluted by traffic fumes and noise.
Canada is going through a lousy period of political leadership, and the Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, is probably the dumbest and least educated of the lot. To make things worse, he's proud of his ignorance.
Same here in Germany but we are not yet as advanced as the Nethetlands concerning bike lanes.
Unfortunately in America this attitude is pervasive.
Come to the Netherlands to see how bike lanes are done and how it benefits all traffic participants and improves overall safety.
Yeah, as a Dutchman I’m often surprised by how congested car traffic can be elsewhere. Gridlock is almost unheard of here, and most traffic jams seem to be caused by construction work on the road. And because cars and bicycles are often separated, it makes it more comfortable for drivers. Seeing footage of New York, with endless traffic jams, cyclists zooming between cars, it just seems miserable for everyone. A good bicycle network can make it so much better for all parties.
But please restrict blue license scooters on the CYCLE paths. They go too fast and could be on the road. They make biking on the cycle path feel dangerous.
No, our cycling city Davis in California is superior. We have places for cyclists to move with no refugees. It's better than Europe if you have job skills. If you are a fool Europe has better welfare that's it.
@@philrobson7976
The interesting thing is that in many newer cities in China, on main roads they often have a full lane for both scooters and cyclists to share that is separated from cars. While the scooters go faster than cyclists of course, it doesn't really look all that dangerous and everyone is able to share the lane without too much trouble.
@7:40, on the right, there is a small shop (with the horizontal white sign). That location has been vacant for at least 15 years, but since the bike lane, it is being finally rented out...
Bike lanes appear empty because everyone on a bicycle has already gotten to their destination 😂😂
we had a local politician say that. "You dont see anybody in the bike lanes because they are so efficient"
I'm currently a food delivery driver. However, when I'm not working, I don't want to drive if I don't have to. The grocery store is less than 2km away, and the distance between shopping areas on either end of town is only 5km. It's very hilly, about 300ft in elevation change, but it is bikeable. Why would I waste money on gas, take up road space, potentially get in an accident, when I can just ride my bike? People who need to drive should be thanking everyone who chooses not to drive. Car brain is terrible.
Surprisingly good commentary. Here in Hollywood, there's a lot of anger at a new bike path that "stole" a car lane, causing increased congestion. Cyclists are not using it so far since it's new.
Oh God. Here in Portland, I forgot about the white bicycle memorials because I haven't had to see a new one in ages (one appears around 5:30). Maybe due to improvements in past decades.
I hope for the best for Canadian bicyclists in the near future 🙏.
This was a really well put together video, thank you! - I love Calgary's bike lane and pathway infrastructure, even if it has some quarks in some places. not sure the city would be the same without it.
If bike lanes are the cause of traffic woes, then please get them to India. There’s no bike lanes, and complete traffic chaos. Ride a bike there for an hour and you’ll thank your stars for being sane and not injured at the end of the hour. These people are talking nonsense. If there are no bike lanes, people won’t ride bikes because it’s way too dangerous. That means more cars on the roads. Imagine the area taken up by just 1 car versus 1 bicycle lanes. The Toronto authorities are going retrograde in their thinking.
In my town the city took two lanes on very busy streets and made it into one and added a bike lane that no one uses and now the traffic backs up for hours every day and all the bikes still use the side streets
Most people in the USA and Canada born after about 1965 or maybe 1975 grew up never having ridden a bike or being physically active or having unsupervised outdoors childhood adventures. Even what in schools used to be called physical training (PT), later called physical education (Phys Ed), has been pared way back or eliminated entirely. "Normal" is how things were when they were growing up. Naturally, as adults, they cannot even begin to imagine participating in active transportation.
5:56 In my country, if a car crashes into a house or building, it reaches national news. It's that rare. And that's talking about the country with _densest road network in the world_ Which country is that? The Netherlands. That being said, despite having the _safest infrastructure in the world,_ because people increasingly disobey the traffic rules en masse, deaths are on the rise. Infrastructure only gets you so far.
8:45: not to mention that a parent can get arrested if their child is seen commuting to school alone.
Some additions:
- More asphalt means less greenery and thus hotter and more depressing cities
- Redefine your zoning laws! Put small shopping centers close to or in the middle of residential areas so that people can actually take a walk or bike to get there quickly! Mixed use exists, apply it.
- Worsening traffic for _everyone_ makes it seem like US citizens _want_ their children to get killed. Did you check your country's birthrates recently?
All of this is empirically provable and undeniably true, but won't make any impression of the average Trumpy American suburbanite. The entire idea that there's other ways to organize urban areas than the car-dependent suburb is just not on their radar, and they don't have time or energy to absorb contrary info because they are too busy with their long commutes and second jobs that they need in order to pay for vehicle expenses (at least two per household), medical debt, student loans, and health insurance premiums (assuming they are lucky enough to have health insurance).
In America and Canada they need more bike lanes. If you cycle to your work people would be way less obese.
forgetting about winter?
@ no you can still cycle on the snow. And it doesn’t take much up space any way
@@Mourik131 yet virtually nobody does
Hi from the Netherlands. Over here the bike Lane infrastructure is efficient and tax are high thus why bicycles are the enemy? Commercial benefits,walkable cities, health improvement etc... cars and bicycles can coexist very easy.
I guess you're already familiar with the channel Not Just Bikes ... He also does a great job of explaining how traffic works in general and specifically in The Netherlands. Not only educational but also highly entertaining, even for me as a Dutchie
My favourite part of this, how over politicized this debate is, as if riding a bike has to do anything with it.
Identity politics is destroying democracy 😤 A functioning society cannot come from politicizing positive change.
once again car brainlets dont understand that less people driving = less traffic for the drivers. if you love cars SOOOOOOOOOOOOO much, implement bike lanes and congestion pricing and exhaust taxes to reduce the amount of excess and wasteful driving, it helps you out if you want no traffic!
What if we get rid of big American cars? Oh then we have space for everything.
From a country that there is no bike lanes , we don’t have the culture of cycling and most of our commuting based on cars we live in a spaghetti plate at rush hours
locally dozens of people use the bike lanes
Yeah, dozens of people out of the tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, maybe millions.
But if the bike "lane" was a path elevated from the street (aka: Making the "Side Walk" multi-functional), you'd see that sentiment change to "Locally thousands of people use the path".
Ever wonder why so many people walk in cities like NYC but not in places like Dallas or Orlando? It's because they're given larger allocations for that, away from the street. Now think for a moment: Why would putting it "in the street" make any sense? It doesn't lol.
Studies have shown noise is a stress factor. So, less noise pollution isn't just a benefit, it's a health benefit.
I wonder if those studies incorporated "how does listening to music at certain volumes increase, or decrease, stress".
The answer there would be "it's inconclusive". Because a problem with those studies would be simply that they were, in fact, inconclusive.
You can make noise pollution from a road stressful to people that are afraid to drive on the road. For typical people, you know the ones that aren't afraid of driving on the road, it's not stressful.
Just like noise levels in music. If you were to take 2 test subjects, one that doesn't go to concerts often, and one that does; the one that doesn't would say provide the answer "Loud music is stressful", while the one that does will provide the answer "Loud music isn't stressful".
Now, the noise study on roads go the same way. Someone experienced within driving has no increased stress from that noise level, while those not experienced would.
Alternatively, this is like interviewing someone saying "is going on a roller coaster stressful", and there would be half the audience with it as, and half where it's not. It's inconclusive, and based on experience and preference.
Cycling, in general, is a health benefit. But cycling on a road is a health risk lol, regardless of a 4 inch line separating you. Instead of advocating for the highly conservative idea of "bike lane", why not advocate for a more progressive, and free-thinking idea of a "bike path", or rather: Converting the "sidewalk" into a multi-functional pathway?
Then cycling wouldn't be a health risk. But your inconclusive belief of "noise levels" would still play affect for those who are inexperienced with whatever loud noise they are next to...despite a typical road not having loud noise. (Most busy roads have slower traffic, thus wouldn't have a lot of noise. Noisy roads would explicitly be Interstates, or long stretches of road that lead across the State; To which if you want a "bike lane" on that, you should be advocating for death by bike because that's effectively asking for a guy going 15mph to ride (on previous shoulder, now 'bike lane'), their bicycle, with no protection, next to a 3,000 pound+ vehicle going at 55mph.
That by itself should be enough to give someone anxiety, let alone be a health risk.
@itsJoshW this study was about the abient noise level is cities. And how EV's make about the same amount of noise as regular cars, because if a car drives over 30 km/h (20 mph) it produces more noise from the tires than the engine.
@@Jurjen_Warrel_OttenhoffDefer to my comment and realize it's a redundant study that would define itself as inconclusive. That's like studying the effect on a clock ticking verses a digital clock in a room.
And remember, Germany, homeland of the invention named "car" is currently trying to put in more bikelanes, the issue is that most city planers are still "oldschool", some ancient and in cityplanning things take about 15 years until change is felt at the minimum.
Fear of getting hit is number 1 reason why I don’t bike commute yet in Houston. I’m scared of drivers while on a car myself.
Everything is uglier in Texas.
Given the choice of crawling along behind bikes in general lanes or sailing past while the bikes are safely in their own lane not holding up cars.... why would anyone choose the former?
not only you need more road but also more space once the car gets to its destination...
Bicycle is classified as a vehical in Canada, therefore it is allowed to ride on the road. So lets all ride in the car lane and see how much that slows down traffic. I know that is simple to say but it is bloody scary to do I know because I rode bikes on the road long before bike lanes. Even though it is HIGHLY ILLEAGAL for cars to run you off the road some just don't care. I have been run off the road, I have had stuff thrown at me and of course drivers will sit on thier horn until you move. When bike lanes came along the stress level went down by 80%. It is not the bike lanes that need to change it is the drivers mentality that needs to change always has been and always will be with or without bike lanes. How many pedestrians have been hit by drivers in a hurry?
Honestly I feel like driving in Denver has only improved as we have expanded bike lanes. I live outside of the city and drive in, but driving and parking in downtown has only improved as more people have moved to bikes and scooters within the city.
As someone who rarely gets on a bike I want more bike lanes. More dedicated lanes for bikes the less there are in lanes for cars. And more people on bikes the less cars there will be.
Go and live in the country if you don't like traffic! Dismantle those stupid bike lanes now! Motorists pay to use the roads, cyclists DO NOT!
"if you build it they will come" doesn't actually work here
As one of those 1% level 4 stress cyclists I have at times been ignorant with regards to infrastructure as I have literally found myself cycling on 70mph dual carriageways. I live in quite a bikeable city that often blames the bike lanes and LTNs but when I started running this winter you really see how much space is sacrificed and it's not like I can hop onto the road like I can with a bicycle.
The biggest people against bike lanes are ones with money in cars
There, a break-in might be worthwhile.
I'm proud to be a motorist!
The biggest people against bike lanes are physically, actually, the biggest people. We have an obesity crisis and the majority of people in Canada want to keep a life style that keeps them fat and unhealthy.
It seems to me that this politician would benefit the most of creating more bike lanes and taking his car away. He would lose quite some weight, become healthier and may develop some more healthy ideas. Just a thought for the next elections.
Cant go through the drive thru without a car so you already know hes not gonna switch
@@cooltwittertag most Coutry have a banned or a restriction on drive though.
And recently most GTA politicians that ran on an anti-bike lane platform LOST!!!
I'm somewhere around a level 3 to 4 rider. if all of the bike lanes were removed, honestly I'd probably be fine, as my route is on a shared path.
but I'd never ever venture further than my commute, no way a trip to the city other than uni, and if the shared paths were gone, no way to cycling.
People just don't get induced demand; in 1982 they built a bridge across the River Orwell in Ipswich - immediately led to a reduction in traffic through the town. Now, any time the bridge is shut (extreme winds, maintenance, accidents) the town is completely grid-locked. Why is this, when it was never grid-locked _before_ the bridge was built? Busy, yes; grid-locked, no. It's because the bridge increased vehicle use so now there are way more cars going through town than before. Mooted solution? Let's build another bridge LOL.
Needless to say, virtually no pedestrians or cyclists use the bridge - there is a footway, but nobody wants to walk alongside what is little short of a motorway. I can't remember the last time I saw anyone cycle across it; legal? Yes; Pleasant? No way.
Every time I pass cars on streets with no bike lanes, it's because they're held up by other cars, and yet I still get people yelling at me to get off the road.
@@AB-wf8ek because it hurts their ego... they wish they were driving as smooth as you, but alas... they are in fact driving, instead of biking.
1982 and now its 2024, thats your reason
Even without induced demand, traffic is unlikely to improve. Why do people forget that the people on bikes, traveling somewhere would probably have no choice but to drive a car if their bike infrastructure disappears?
What "doubles your car time" are changes in the traffic pattern like parked cars for two blocks and then no parked cars for a block where traffic spreads out and then has to recombine when the street narrows again combined with anyone using this on-street parking disrupting the flow even more. Vehicles are hopefully never merging out of and back into separated bike lanes so the conversation between drivers and traffic engineers should never be travel lane VS bike lane, the conversation, if you are a driver, should always be about banning on-street parking and converting that space to a bus lane or a bike lane to clear obstructions in traffic flow. It's faster to drive at a continuous flowing pace than to speed ahead then stop dead, then speed ahead, then stop to let someone merge in front of you, etc. etc.
There was a B-movie called Americathon where Americans got so poor they lived in their cars and walked and biked to their jobs.
It'll probably take something like that before North America comes to it's senses.
What if we banned calling 2 lines of paint on a road bike lanes and built real bike infrastructure instead, like they have in the Netherlands?
Bike lanes are by definition made of painted lines on the road. But yes they certainly are not always the most appropriate solution
I saw some comments that stated they saw so few riders on the bike lanes and that was a reason to remove them. What if there were lots of sidewalks where I saw so few people walking? Should that be the reason to tear them up to make wider car lanes? I doubt those that want bike lanes gone would love to give up their sidewalks.
wouldn't bother them none. all they want is large multi level parkades attached directly to their stores and malls. they don't need their sidewalks. sidewalks means you need to walk! and who wants to walk?
Nic, thanks for discussing Bill 212. It looks like the government is doubling down on this legislation with an amendment that reinforces bike lane removal.
Have you heard of an Accusations Audit? It helps us understand the other side’s position a lot more clearly. An especially important part is list what they don’t like about us and the worse they hate, the better to include in the audit. We understand them better and when we tell it to them, it calms them down.
what if we got rid of individual cars in cities?
2:45 This was filmed in Kyiv, Ukraine. The right lanes are the bus lanes where cycling was allowed as an experiment in 2015.
You are correct! Well spotted.
@@nicthedoor Some people in the Kyiv city government claimed that cycling in the bus lane is less dangerous than cycling in the ordinary lane. So they didn't build any bike infrasctructure from 2015 to 2018 when the new road designing standards made obligatory to add infrastructure for cyclists.
Despite having alike average speed on the surface, overtaking the stopped buses is dangerous and slowing down buses to the bike speed makes buses slower but it's compensated by the fact that only a few people are willing to cycle in the bus lane.
Personally, I don't count the bus lanes as a bike infrastructure.
Nowadays, the 2-way bike (2 m+ wide) and the multi-use paths (2.5 m+ wide) are typically built alongside that types of road in Kyiv. The overall length ob bike infrastructure (including sharrows [30 km/h bike streets], bike lanes [1.5 m wide], bike and multi-use paths) is more than 200 km (the population is 3 mln people) but the connectivity is pretty much bad now.
Recently, the carbrains were outraged that the square near the main train station has become more pedestrianised and has got much more order and lost some of the road parking spaces to the protected bike lane and the bus lane.
Before, it was a car-infested place with no place for cyclists. The sidewalk was used by merchants.
These people claimed that who in the right mind would cycle (with the luggage) to the main train station of the country? I contested them and said that there are restaurants where the delivery cycles to and some of the passengers take bikes onto the suburban and regional trains as the last-mile transport.
Unfortunately, humans are more easily persuaded by emotional arguments than rational ones. Coming up with a strategy to combat the emotional arguments around cars and driving seems to be the biggest challenge to the goal of providing viable alternatives to driving for people.
Dear drivers, you are not STUCK IN TRAFFIC, you ARE TRAFFIC!!! Cyclists have every right to occupy a road lane. Owning and operating a car is a privilege, not a right. The inconvenience to drivers is the whole point of 'Share the road' initiatives. People need to understand that single occupant vehicles are the problem, NOT the cyclists.
Meanwhile, real world cyclists: "My good sir, why are you acting like we want to be surrounded by death traps road raging in the bike lane when we need to get to work safely? Unlike you, we aren't wealthy and we can't just do nothing. We need to work. Please get rid of the bike lane and put a bike path in a safer spot"
Crazy how people don't realize how stupid they sound until they realize that the bike "lane" was created to propagandize the concept of public transport and alternative transport originally when discussing this about a decade ago. It's designed to make you forget that people advocated for the bike "path", and advocated for "public transportation" (for those incapable of expensive private transport).
Advocating to keep a bandaid solution is just plain idiotic. But I get it. "I'd rather have nothing than something", but advocating for it as if it's "the solution" is the reason why the US is actually undergoing, effectively, anarcho-capitalist principles. It's actually absurd that people are so self-interested to not realize that most people who cycle hate the 'bike lane' because it's unsafe...yet you just have dumb people that want it because they think its the solution, when it was created as bandaid measure to stop the movement of "we need public transport and multi-functional pathways".
I am glad to live in Germany. In most cities here, we have well-developed bike paths or bike lanes on the streets. And between villages and cities, there are so-called country roads, which always have bike paths that are easy to use. But we have the same problem with some car people that think the road ist their property.
If bike lanes caused congestion, the 401 would be the best flowing road in the country
very very strong points raised all around
I can't believe that people would support not only stopping the building of more bike lanes but actually wasting money to get rid of the ones that already exist. That part I think is crazy.
That's the Ford family's way of doing things.
That kid riding at 8:26 - so cute
Alternative: Bike lanes in areas where the speed limits are like 20-25mph cause more harm then good. They're more dangerous than safe for the cyclists. They're breaking expected traffic flows by riding alongside traffic, not within traffic and cars having to turn through them. There are some instances where bike lanes are in between pedestrian walkways and parking spots for cars, where pedestrians won't check the bike lane while getting to their walkway. Removing them isn't necessarily a bad thing in some areas.
Good thinking, lets cross reference that with everywhere else with good bike infrastructure in the world… oh wait, that isnt a problem…
Real talk, the majority of places should be within the 20-30mph range. This is also a reason why public transit would go really well with bike infrastructure.
I live in Ocala, Florida. In front of our development is Highway 200. Which has a bike lane. You can wait for days to see a bike on it. If you do beware the rider has a death wish. You would not have to be crazy to ride a bike there, but it would help.
Is it an idea to have the politicians who made those bicycle lanes, actually use them? Let them bike on it for a month, twice a day during rush hour, and let them then comment on how good the infra is.
Intersections suck. throughput on roads comes to a halt when they hit really bad intersections. The Netherlands has great bike infrastructure, but it requires commitment.
My suburban side street has very little traffic so does the "under-used" argument mean the Premier of Ontario is going to rip it up? I understand he was a football coach, so maybe 100m of my street could be used for that.
NYC did this experiment backwards; and then; built a tremendous amount of bike infrastructure after the data was analyzed. 🚴
And that infrastructure isn't on the road, because those city planners aren't far-right activists.
Make bike lines on parallel routes and make the parallel route cars only for local traffic (stop it being a through fare for cars). So get them out of each others crosshairs.
This is kinda how we do it(NL?), but their cities can exist with just oneway roads apart from highways around the city.
It boggles my mind that people don't realize bikes and bike lanes save them (drivers) time. For every less car on the road, it's better. In most cases car lanes aren't removed for cyclists anyways. They just add a sharrow (which aren't great for cyclists) or add a bike lane, which take up at most, 1 car lane for 2 lanes of bikes. So 1 less car lane, isn't going to work, because you need 2, one in each direction for it to make any sense. There are also plenty of medians and grassy areas that could be turned into bike lanes, thus again, not effecting traffic in a negative way, only positive (less cars on the road).
Well supported POV Nic! I have some associates that need to see this vid. As for Doug Ford...don't get me started!!!
On a side note, put the mic on a stand or, better yet, loose it and use a lav. You don't need an SM7 for us to hear you.
He doesn’t look like he can ride a bike.
3:25 Those bike riders who stop riding will likely switch to driving causing more congestion.
Your part about Dutch highways is a bit misleading since the Netherlands has some of the worst congestion in Europe, mostly due to its high density.
By that reason, the “bike lanes cause traffic” so does intersections, buildings, sidewalks, pedestrians, those can also cause traffic
Yes. On existing arterial roads where car lanes are removed. On new arterial roads sure. We should get more bike paths. Bike paths along sides of roads and on some secondary roads, sure!
I'm not against bike lanes at all, but I find your explanation of induced demand to be puzzling. If induced demand works for cars, why are the bike lanes underutilized?
Which bike lanes are we talking about? Toronto? I'd argue they are not underutilized, a large part of that is bikes simply do not get stuck in traffic until they reach a critical mass. Which is far and beyond the numbers needed for cars to end up in the same place. That being said, Toronto doesn't even crack the top 10 for North American cities when it comes to a proper network. You won't really see that big shift until you complete that network. We're criticizing a bridge not carrying enough cargo across when only the foundation has been built. Montreal is the leader in NA, they are experiencing that shift in modal share and still they couldn't hold a candle to world leading cities...yet.
you think they're underutilized because they're too efficient to have congestion
That hit on LA at the end was historically accurate, but it is no longer the case IMO. They are investing in public transit and bike lanes to the tune of something like 40B over the next 10yrs and they recently passed a ballot measure to force the City to implement their Bike Master plan for a few years ago as part of any road improvement project. I believe they are in the process of actually updating their minimum standards for reflect this requirement and so over time their RoWs will improve drastically as they are redone at the end of life (10-15yrs)
How many major metro areas that aren't called Toronto is doing that right now? And when Doug Ford passes that bill, we can see TO take a beating on that comparison pretty good.
That is fair. LA has been taking huge strides. Especially with the safe streets measures. I plan on visiting next year to check it out.
In the end, focussing on forcefully building bike infrastructure isn't going to magicly solve things. There needs to be a real shift in thinking about mobility and the courage to start limiting cars in a meaningful way as well.
@@rogerk6180 possibly, but i feel you have to create the alternatives first - otherwise it's just tax on unavoidable usage. After all, the people who can avoid the usage taxes will do so by shifting how, where, and when they work, but the people serving out and food, picking up trash, fixing and building homes, treating us when we are sick, teaching us when we are young, etc cannot change when and where they work. Basically, we need the carrot and stick but the carrot coming first helps for when the stick starts swinging...
Which is why the congestion pricing in NYC is popular with the residents of the City itself - they have the carrot of usable transit infrastructure (and bikeways they have recently built out) to entice a shift in behavior with that stick...the ones doing all the complaining are the ones who don't want to use the carrot...so now they fear the stick..but having said carrot makes their arguments less valid IMO
@@nicthedoor I am not saying it's great yet... currently it is still miles behind places like NYC or TO but I am confident it will get there in my life time for sure just off the back of the current and planned future investments...
In LA it’s not the infras I am worried about, it’s the vagabonds on the infrastructure. In Texas it’s definitely the infrastructure.
Nic, you are a smart man.
Torontonian here. I disagree with you on some points. I'm not sure that there would be an immediate improvement in congestion. While level 4's may represent 1% of riders, they and the food couriers likely account for a disproportionate share of ridership in terms of distances covered. These hardy few, myself included, will disrupt a full car lane, rather than the partial space associated to a bike lane. Cars are legally required to provide a 1 metre clearance to riders. There isn't a car small enough to pass a bike legally and still stay within the lane. As a result, the cars will have to more into the next lane, disrupting that lane as well, and potentially increasing the risk of vehicular collisions. This will create a greater headache for drivers.
Furthermore, there's this false idea that 4 lanes is faster than 3 lanes. With 3 lanes, you can have two smoothly flowing lanes with a dedicated left turn lane plus bike lanes. With the traditional 4 lanes, the inner two lanes will be disrupted by left turning cars, which are held back by the heavy opposing traffic on the other side. Add to that, the level 4 riders disrupting the curb side lane, the car drivers have no smooth flowing lanes with 4 lanes versus 3 car lanes + 2 bike lanes.
The bike lane haters claim 'common sense' but it's their math skills that are lacking.
I think bike lanes are cheap political wins. If you want people out of cars, nothing will replace public transit. The hard, expensive work of making a transit system so good that it is more convenient than driving - that is tantamount.
Bike lanes put the cart before the horse - people are still in their cars and you've also removed a lane.
a big thing however is, if the infrastructure and planning is done correctly, public transport and active transport and a lot of the times share the same space. you see many places with high speed trains raised up above ground and provisions made for alternative transportation below. or off to the side. problem is many of these projects will take a long period of time, and politicians are all fussing over short term goals so they can pad out their list during their short time in office.
… how much cars can go on a highway per second? About 1 a second on 2 lanes so about 2… if you would fill both lanes with bikes how much? about 5 lanes and also about 1 per second… pedestrians 20 per second?.. when you make bike lanes and walks normal size i guess they are still about 2 per second it could handle
So there should be a strong incentive to keep them because more pass through per space used…
The problem is.. when the structure is flailing so that the bike lanes do interfere with other ways of transportation.. that also reduces the people that want to ride the bike.. who wants a bike lane where every 100m they need to cross an intersection…
Whenever you hear a bill name and are unsure of what it largely entails, think the opposite. It's true most of the time.
The big thing that I'll mention: The best way to make space for cars on the road is by incentivizing people to take cars off the road. I live in the US, the lack of safe and reliable infrastructure is embarrassing. Bike lanes are only the starting point to help alleviate traffic for the people who specifically want to drive. You need busses/trams, trains, sidewalks...and all of them to be safe, reliable, and reasonable. Not every area can have all of them. Housing in cities should be more reasonable as well, so the suburbs aren't as necessary.
If my small city had more than sidewalks and a single bike path that's out of the way, I'd be looking at getting a mountain bike (due to hills) instead of trying to save up the same money to use on a down payment for a car. If there was a tram, I'd take that. If the single bus wasn't some wacky convoluted system that's a pain to even figure out, I'd be using that. I need to cross a 5-lane road to get to my work, and the sidewalk on that side of the road ends well before my workplace. The closest crosswalk is at the neighboring Walmart....which is up a fairly steep hill.