this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
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Hey, that's my city! I'm sad to say that I'm not overly surprised. I don't know if it's an everywhere thing, but there's a vocal minority in Victoria that have a real stick up their ass about bike lanes.
What's their actual concern/problem? Bike lanes keep bikes out of car lanes and off sidewalks, and they make things safer for everyone while making roadways faster for motorists.
People refuse to understand any of the points that you've made.
Plus, bikes don't really create traffic jams the way that cars do, meaning that bike lanes look like they don't get as much use, so people just go, "look at that nearly empty lane I could be driving my car in all by myself." (They also fail to realize that that "empty" lane would sissy be filled with cars, so they'd just be sitting in traffic anyway.)
I could be wrong about this (it's the internet, I'm sure someone will correct me), but I think public perception of bike lanes in this city got kind of fucked because one of the previous city councils spent a ton of money without really explaining it properly and they were seemingly installing them on streets where they weren't connected/doing much (this has got a lot better now).
So now the whole thing is just one of those "let's blame this" kind of topics. Kind of like "we'd have better blahblah if they didn't waste all the money on bike lanes". Nimbyism is also really strong in this city.
Yeah idk why people are so in love with vehicles, especially in urban areas. Like I get needing a car in the interior or up north but like in the lower mainland and most of the south side of the island you can get anywhere with public transport and a bike, in Victoria and Vancouver it's actually faster than driving haha