> A bike lane is a street you don’t let cars drive on.
This is the reason why motorists lose their minds over bike lanes. It takes up space on THEIR roads and they hate when they can't use roads they personally paid for with THEIR taxes.
I personally find it hilarious they think their taxes cover the maintenance of even 1/10th of a km of a road let alone all of them they drive on all year.
Most motorists I know love bike lines because it means they won't have to deal with bikes behaving badly in the street. If the amount of space the bike lane takes up really does narrow the road enough to be a problem that road should be expanded, redesigned, or moved so that there's plenty of room for both. We do pay taxes so that we can have nice infrastructure and that makes us entitled to it. We should be upset when it's substandard. Cities just need to do their jobs and put our tax money to work for us.
I love My car. Glad I don’t have to wait in the boiling hot weather for a streetcar going to wherever the streetcar goes. Especially these days when many US cities are cesspools of crime, addiction, and homelessness.
> Especially these days when many US cities are cesspools of crime, addiction, and homelessness.
So are many rural areas, but since you don't have to get out of your car, you don't see it. Also, cities with mild climates (not boiling hot) where people are biking, walking, and taking public transit, are going to necessarily have larger homelessness problems than cities with crappy weather (I'll leave it to the reader to reason about why).
I love my car, to the point of it being a little weird, but driving it in stop and go traffic, for hours on end, every single day sucks. Or endless highways, like on the drive from Boston to San Francisco. I bet a couple of readers have a route immediately in their minds when I said that. Glad I don't have to do that and can ride a train/bus/subway/trolly/scooter/ebike/bike/onewheel, especially when many US highways are a cesspool of highways and mcmansions.
My family has a single car (paid for 2016 4Runner). When school is in my wife drives it to work since she’s a school teacher and I’m a wfh engineer. When she has the car I’m on foot or bike with plenty of coffee shops and lunch spots within walking distance. It’s ok until it’s not. Hot, cold, or wet weather screws up everything.
I love my car too, for all the same reasons. Plus, I can get 4 people and luggage very far pretty cheap. Two tanks of gas can put me in the desert, mountains, or beach from where I live. I enjoy a walkable neighborhood but I won’t be giving up a vehicle in my lifetime for sure.
America got conned into a car, suburbia, new construction scam that benefited a small number of rich people.
A bike lane is a street you don’t let cars drive on.