“The vast majority of the people in the community did not want these bike lanes and do not want the bike lanes,” he said. “They were just put up there against our will.”
Fray said that the lost parking spaces on one side of Oceania Street had a ripple effect. Residents who can no longer park there now compete for the spaces elsewhere in the neighborhood. “Everyone here drives,” he said.
Dumbasses and their wild assumption that everyone is just like them. name a more iconic duo
If the community didn’t want them, how did the article manage to find people who use them? Did they drive in from another part of town just to use the bike lane?
Do you mean the two residents who were in their healthy prime? Article made it sound like every house on the block was not a fan of this. Likely (given the people they did interview) it is because these are all older folks with no other means to travel.
Fuck old people though right?
Maybe those old people could still use the cycle lane if they had decades of exercising their muscles and joints on a bike instead of sitting in traffic in a car.
The lane also provides mobility for people too young to drive, unable to afford to drive, or those who prefer not to drive.
Fuck teenagers who want to get around without their parents though right? Fuck the kids who can safely bike to school though right? The old people can still drive, they didn’t rip out the car lane.
@FireRetardant @Zoot In fact, narrowing roads and reducing speeding makes it easier for seniors to keep driving as their vision and reaction time decline. Older drivers tend not to feel very comfortable driving on 5 or 6 lane wide stroads.
It’s worth noting that adding transit here is definitely the best option, as elderly can start to be less safe drivers too for a whole variety of reasons and most states have fairly poor practices for catching that before someone gets hurt. There seems to be an opinion that when you can no longer bike or walk you can always drive which is not the order that often does or should go in.
There are plenty of options for old people to use bike lanes, from regular bikes to electric recumbent trikes.
So you’re saying that the infrastructure for a senior person is all there? An easily lockable spot for their bike at the bank, market, and anywhere else, an easily attached cart that doesn’t need to be lifted for groceries, and bike lanes the entire route?
Again. How about we start with the solution that fits all categories of life: Public transportation. Do that FIRST. Then attack cars for all I care.
Its even stated in the article, and I’ve said it how many times now: they live in a public transportation desert, and this is hardly even a bandaid fix.
There is no way to get to a place with all those things all at once. Public transit is great. So is biking infrastructure.
A bike lane is not an attack on cars.
Then you’re still missing my point. They removed something deemed as a necessity by this community, and in place, added something that only a minority can enjoy. Do both. Start with the one that helps the majority.
Old people shouldn’t be on the road in the first place. But many can still ride a bike, just like many people with disabilities can’t drive but can ride.
Old people drive better than16-29yo when using objective safety benchmarks. Check the iihs.org website https://www.iihs.org/topics/older-drivers#age-and-driving-ability I often advocate for raising the driving age to 25. There’s no secret young drivers contribute a disproportionate share of car related damage to society. As a bonus, raising the driving age will make autonomous vehicles safer since we moved the goalposts into a safer direction. It’s easy to make an AV safer than the average driver when the stats are skewed by young drivers
The summaries in that link don’t seem to indicate that older drivers are safer, but sure, young men in particular have been shown to take more risks in their driving which is unsurprising.
But why not both? Minimum of 25, maximum of 80. Or failing that, additional testing on both ends of the spectrum.
We would need massive changes to our transportation systems before raising the minimum age to 25. Most people have a full time job by that age and are much less dependant on their parents to get around. I also think raising the age isn’t the best solution overall, you’d have to wait until 25 or older to start a career with driving including trades, bus drivers, truck drivers, emergency services personnel, and many other jobs. We can’t expect the fire department to take a tram to the fire.
Sure, there could be exceptions and I’m operating under the assumption that viable alternatives to driving already exist so people can get to work. Most of those driving based careers require specialised licences already I would assume (I’m not from the US), so that could be worked into the hypothetical legislation.
Higher license requirements would help, but could be hard to enforce depending on the implementation. Beyond that, we are back to road design issues which may well be a better way to solve all this. Make roads and cars so safe that even a drunk person won’t kill themselves or others (including pedestrians and cyclists), and then you’ve got a well designed system.
Honestly tho fuck old people, ive heard about 10 million going towards a small extension to a retirement home near me - while homeless tents burn to the ground.
If its them or us, fuck old people
Ya know, one day you too will be old. I hope the youth of your time don’t have the same reaction as you do.
Very unlikely that the seniors had a choice of where to build said retirement home, and id also be quite surprised if it was purely the old people who caused the homelessness.
It’s more likely poor city council planning, poor infrastructure all around, and our collapsing government, but sure… Lets just blame the old people.
Also, not you specifically, but I do love that everyone’s first choice was “Fuck old people” and not “Lets make it better for everyone and add public transportation, before actively harming seniors”.
And I hope the youth of my time even exists.
Honestly if I get to retire I’ll consider myself having done well, but let’s let these vicious old people tell us off for their final years (ive worked on a couple homes personally)
The article does say the neighborhood is a transit desert. I guess the bike lanes are a partial fix but only for some people
Everybody here drives <-> no other transit options
Only one side of the street too.
There’s an historic section of a nearby town which is popular for tourists. Thousands of people a day just walking around all over the place, going shop to shop and whatnot. The whole place has street parking on both sides, a centre turn lane, and 50km/h signage that gets ignored at every opportunity.
Used to be a tram line ran through the town that connected to the neighbouring cities, but oh no, must make room for the private automobile. Luckily some years ago they started charging for parking, and since Covid-19 a dozen spots were given to restaurants and the like for additional outdoor seating.
Such a shock when it turned out a few parking spaces could generate more revenue for businesses when you put people on them instead of cars.
So did you finish reading the article then or just black out right there? These are 70 year old residents who can’t physically move all that great.
I’m all for adding more bike lanes, but let’s not hurt a different group of people in the process. Maybe they should have implemented bus routes and other public transportation before ripping out the roads for cyclists.
“Dumbasses and assumptions” and all that goes both ways.
70 year old residents who probably shouldnt even be behind the wheel to begin with.
Once you get a license its comically easy to keep it, regardless of how unable you are to actually drive.
What road/car lane got removed? All I read was parking was removed.
Yes, on street parking was removed. Effectively removing the shoulder for a Bike Lane. It doesn’t sound like they offered any solution for the old folks who can’t simply bike or walk to the grocery store.
They should have added more public transportation before ripping up the streets.
It even says in the article that they are in a public transportation desert, so this solution is hardly even a bandaid.
Why can’t those people park their car on the property they own in the neighborhood instead of the steet?
Free on street parking is not a car lane.
Yeah. The picture definitely shows driveways big enough for a car, where some housing doesn’t have that.
Given that I’m pro bike, and very anti-park-your-car-wherethefuckever-when-you-can-park-on-your-own property, I’m for the bike lanes.
If I were a cyclist in that neighbourhood I would ride my bike through the no bike lanes signs. If you won’t let me have a lane where else do you expect me to cycle?
Ride safely in these particular streets, follow every traffic law and take the lane. People might hate you, or realize a protected area will keep the traffic separated sO pEoPlE cAn gO fAsT.
I don’t like irritating people I disagree with as a tactic, but sometimes a little friction helps to make a point.
Of course, the doofi may decide to try banning bicycles outright instead 🤦
The lanes already exist so in reality I would be using the lanes but my previous comment is the overall sentiment I have.
“Everyone drives here” is such a biased reason for no bike lanes and the fact it connects kids to schools should make this a non protestable issue. Are you able to protest a school bus stop because your neighbours have kids but you don’t?
Are you able to protest a school bus stop because your neighbours have kids but you don’t?
People literally do that though.
Every time I ride by id yell “no car lanes!”
Don’t they already have a driveway and some grass that they could put some tiles on and create a parking? Why do they insist on parking on the street?
Because the garage is full floor-to-ceiling with trash and the household owns 3-4 cars. There are numerous houses on my street that do this and, at times, the street is so choked with cars on both sides that it makes it very unsafe to drive and cycle through. Especially if they park trailers or boats out on the street. Extremely limited visibility and like a hands-width of clearance on either side.
The entitlement of drivers knows no bounds.
My family of 5 owns 4 cars (I’ve moved out and ride a bike). I’m so sorry families like mine exist lol. They know my feelings on cars and even agree with a lot of what I say because it’s pretty incontrovertible. But in the end they don’t really care. They metaphorically pat me on the back for riding my bike and continue to live their privileged life style that makes life worse for the rest of us.
Rich people literally don’t give a fuck about anyone else. They donate to charity and feel genuinely sad for unprivileged people but will fight tooth and nail against anything that remotely threatens their way of life.
Biking has nothing to do with being poor, there are $5000+ bikes and many people who buy them. Go to any EU country, and people of all socioeconomic status bike. Rich, poor, old, young, pregnant etc.
Because they didn’t have to pay for that land, the city plows and maintains it, the city repaves it, your partner doesn’t complain when your project car leaves oil stains on the curb. So basically entitlement to public land is what they insist on.
That neighborhood needs a critical mass.
I live in a pretty liberal larger city and had a similar experience when the city was considering installing bike lanes on an arterial road. People love their parking. There is a sense of entitlement that someone should be able to drive door to door anywhere in the city. Honestly that was the way it used to be. The problem is partly having built a lifestyle that requires a large number of cars combined with not wanting anything to change. I’ve been a biker for a long time and recently bought an e-bike so I’m obviously biased but in a city, even one not designed for bikes, e-bikes are often a superior way to travel. Weather and needing one bike per person are the main problems. Can e-bikes reduce the number of cars in a given area and free up more parking so we can accommodate more bike infrastructure? Car share is another option I was a fan of and my city has seen those options come and go. A ubiquitous car share problem would help a lot. Not sure why those programs struggle so much.
Make those dumbass two way streets a one way street, and use the parked cars as barriers to separate bikes from moving cars (curb, bikelane, parking, driving, parking, bikelane, curb). There, no parking space lost. Not the absolute safest thing but it naturally puts the street on a diet, is damn well safer than nothing and it takes care of the parking argument.
I’m all for it, but these types will then complain about the lane reduction. They aren’t acting in good faith and will just move the goalposts to the next argument.
I don’t disagree, but I think there you can trip them up with saying that you are making the majority of streets more quiet and family friendly keeping those horrible people from that other neighbourhood from speeding through our streets etc etc. Push the right buttons and you can play nimbys like a fiddle.
Yep, good point. And it helps that it’s actually true, with through streets, as the name suggests, being used by people passing through the community, and not actually living there.
@vividspecter maybe next house there is another one with “No road signs #stoptheroadsigns”
I think this is kind of a religious fight.“No more car lanes #stopthecarlanes”
Maybe someone should do a bike rickshaw service for folks in this community. Might be cute and fun, and create good will
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I was that guy.
A town near me had been gradually making things more and more walkable, bikable, dedicated bus lanes. Excellent transit. All good.
However we couldn’t use transit and it got down to just one street you could realistically cross west to east, until they took away two of the three lanes for bike and bus on that one remaining through street. wtf. That went too far.
I thought they were completely insane but losing their parking because of poor planning is a good reason to be mad.
The city planners created a town that wasn’t walkable and then took away parking from a few people knowing that a minority of complainers can’t fight back.
If the council wants to take away a few citizens’ parking, how about they bulldoze the council members yards for parking lots. Even better is eminent domain the council members homes to turn it mixed use urban design to make the town walkable. Then they can have more bike lanes and everyone is happy.
It’s not their parking, it’s street parking on public land. If the public decides through a council that the safety of the citizens is more valuable then a couple peoples parking spaces they can choose to reallocate that land. These people still have private driveways and garages to park there car whereas bike lanes can only go in certain places.
The city planners who made the decision to make the neighborhood car dependent are long dead or retired. These council members are trying to make it less car dependent and you want to bulldoze there houses for trying?
If we want to move away from car dependence we’ll never get anywhere if we have to stop and consider every minor inconvenience that motorists may suffer and conive someway to put that cost on the people trying to change things.
These council members are trying to make it less car dependent and you want to bulldoze there houses for trying?
It’s always someone else that must make the sacrifice, not those making the decisions.
Logistically yes, again there’s only a certain amount of places a bike lane can be and still be effective. If we put it only in front of council members houses it wouldn’t be a good bike lane. Same if we bulldozed their houses and put up a parking lot, the people who lost parking would probably not be close enough to even park in those lots.
We as a society recognize that to complete certain projects some people may loose out on previous privileges. If we don’t we descend into nimbyism and nothing ever gets done.
This is a bit of a reach but bike lanes are most effective when they connect directly. That means they are built on major roads, not cul-de-sacs that go nowhere.
Who buys roads in front of major roads: the poor. Because the expensive homes are in cul-de-sacs far from the heavy road noise.
So the law is equally just to rich and poor in the same way it is equally just to rich and poor by making sleeping under a bridge illegal.
Everyone benefits from the bike lanes, but only the poorer homeowners are inconvenienced.
Bike lanes can totally be helpful if you have a single street that serves as the entrance for several groups of houses. If you have bike lanes all the way from the houses to the street, you will significantly lower the amount of people who drive
Yay, you just created 20 parking spots and “punished” some people. Happy now? You still have the same fucking problem…
The reason they complained wasn’t specifically the bike lanes but the loss of parking which affects them and causes a ripple effect on their neighbors. Adding parking fixes the overcrowding that the bike lanes caused.
Your populist “solution” was to demolish councilor property. How many councillors are there? How many parking spots did you create? 20? 30? Wooptie doo. Venting is not public policy.
