Bike lane FAQs
Bike lanes are empty. Why should we spend money to protect them?
The very reason that the bike lanes looks empty is that they are not safe from cars, and if the barrier can’t cause any damage to cars, then it’ll not make the bike lanes safe unfortunately. Bollards or barriers also make cars more careful and slower, which means safer streets with much less speeding.
Also, there’s a perception bias: 10 bikes in a bike lane make the lane look empty whereas 10 cars on a car lane is a traffic jam. A bike lane can carry about 4-5 times more people than a car lane with the same width. In other words, better bike lanes -> way less traffic & better driving experience.
A study from Portland showed that less than 8% of people will cycle unprotected while 60% of population are “interested in cycling but concerned about safety” and will only use bikes when there’s protected, safe bike paths. check out this NACTO report: https://nacto.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/1005-low-stress-bicycling-network-connectivity.pdf
This graphic based on a study shows a normal lane can carry 1500-2000 people while a bike lane can carry 12,000 people per hour.
Why do you spend so much money?
First of all, bike lanes are cheap. Bike lane is one of the most efficient and cheap transportation infrastructures because (1) bike lanes can carry several times more people than a car lane with the same width and (2) bikes are much lighter than cars and thus do not damage the road as much as cars do. The more bike lanes we have, we need to spend much less on road maintenance and the more space will become available for buildings, parks, and anything that enhances the quality of life.
Another important benefit is that bike usage improves the health of people. Bikes are slower than cars and that means they are much less deadly if well-protected, well-connected bike paths are available to everyone. Riding a bike (even an ebike) is also superb exercise and can make people much healthier. Because of this enormous health benefit, any construction of a bike path is estimated to have a big positive return. See Health benefits for more details.
Because of these reasons, building a bike path is estimated to have a huge positive return. (source)
Of course, this is only true when it gets used a lot. This is why building ‘good’ bike lanes and connecting them to a network is so important. If a bike lane does not look safe enough or convenient enough, people will not use it. If a bike lane is isolated and not connected to other bicycle infrastructure, it will again not be used.
Another interesting aspect is that the “traffic” in the bike lanes is deceptive. Because bike lanes are much more efficient, the bike lanes will look emptier when there are the same amount of people moving through, compared with cars on the road.
Will it make traffic worse, right?
As we discussed above, bike lanes are way more space-efficient. That means if it gets used, it will reduce the traffic. Let’s assume the case where we are converting one of two car lanes into a bike lane. If we denote the original capacity of each lane X, then the capacity of these two lanes becomes X + 4X = 5X from 2X, increased 2.5 times.
In other words, if we make good bike lanes, it will greatly reduce the traffic.
Cyclists are not paying the tax!
Tax from cars are not enough to cover infrastructure building & maintenance cost and driving is subsidized. Cost-benefit analysis tends to show that the society loses money whenever someone switches to driving while gains money (due to reduced health care cost because cycling is very healthy) whenever someone switches to cycling. For instance:
Road damage.
Federal subsidies: https://www.threads.net/@lakeshorerail/post/C4nk_RVOcSE/?xmt=AQGzfZYTRzB8uhz_oSX2zUMrn5yXn4vzp-2aX2nmAxqtrw
Don’t protective barriers cause more accidents?
How about people with disabilities?
safe bike lanes is also safe infrastructure for wheelchairs, mobility scooters, etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSGx3HSjKDo
Other references
See other FAQs: - How to overcome common objections to bike lanes
See also Infrastructure, Urban design