Over the past 12-24 months bike lanes have been popping up in cities across North America, in some cases displacing a lane for cars. In other cases, it’s just lines on the road, but ones that suggest motor vehicle drivers now must share the space with the bikes. And both before and after the added bike lanes, increasing numbers of people are taking to cycling on roads built for cars and buses.
Some prominent drivers have decided to push back, and the rhetoric has reached hyperbolic levels. New Toronto Mayor Rob Ford ran in part on a platform to “end the war on the car.“ War?
A driving lover in New York even referred to bike lanes as causing more destruction than the terrorist attacks of 9-11. Facilitating cycling is the same as mass murder? Get a grip.
Here are some thoughts on what’s driving this conflict and extreme reaction from some drivers.
First, there has been an urban shift over the past few years. (See my previous post on this topic.) Enough people have shifted their lifestyles and embraced living closer to work that it is increasing non-automotive commute methods, including cycling.
These newer urban dwelling cyclists, I suspect, are more often home owners than people who lived in these neighbourhoods in the past (at least in Toronto and Vancouver I’m fairly certain this is the case). Paying that ever-increasing property tax bill, they expect the city to provide some infrastructure to suit them and their needs and not just those of auto-commuters, often from the suburbs who don’t pay taxes in their jurisdiction. There is also some evidence that bike-friendliness helps cities attract and retain talent (and therefore employers of that talent).
Second, most metro areas are getting bigger, with more new housing in suburban locations than close-in communities. This is resulting in more drivers and therefore more congestion. To a long-time automotive commuter, this ever-slowing commute would get frustrating.
Third, to further grate at the long-time automotive commuter, gas prices are rising. They feel like they’re paying more for the commute, and may be blaming taxes, but the reality is that tens of thousands of new drivers start up their cars around the world every day. Supply of petroleum cannot keep up with demand.
Items two and three are not a conspiracy or “war on drivers” they are the reality of too many drivers and not enough supply of roads and fuel. If there hadn’t been the urban shift–allowing thousands to commute by pedal, foot and transit–the situation would be far worse. And I suspect the new bike lanes will help it get better.
Four, there hasn’t been enough time for all urban dwellers to adjust to the bike lanes. Some automotive commuters who live close in, will switch to cycling once they see dedicated bike lanes and they have a secure place to park their bike and then shower and change when they get to work. The combination of more bike lanes and a push to facilitate lower-carbon living is pushing office building owners to add these facilities.
Others, facing congestion, will switch when the can to walking and/or transit or a combination. All of these behavioral changes will get some drivers off the roads, making room for those who want or must drive.
In conclusion, bike lanes are part of a needed structural shift in how we live. Everyone cannot live in low-density suburbs. If tens of thousands are choosing urban neighbourhoods, the infrastructure originally built for suburban commuters has to work for them too. The good news for suburban commuter-drivers is that over time more urban dwellers will get out of the car lanes for their commute, leaving more room for them.
(full disclosure: I’m not a bike commuter, but might give it a try now there there is a dedicated lane and route connecting my house to the office building–and where new showers and change facilities are opening next month).
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I’d add the simple psychology of deferred road rage to your list of causes. Being behind the wheel is incredibly stressful, which causes motorists to react with anger if anything comes across as threatening. Cyclists are the one road-user that most drivers do not share an identity with. If another car cuts you off, you’ll swear and bang the wheel, but then you’ll remember the time that you did the same thing and forget about it. When a cyclist cuts you off, the anger is captured in your characterization of that person (and eventually all cyclists). They are the enemy, and anything that makes life safer or easier for “them” is reflexively something that “we” are against. Hence opposition to bike lanes. I don’t think its entirely rational.
It’s interesting to compare this reorientation of shared space with what happened in the early 20th century when public space was shifted from pedestrian use to car use. Peter Norton tells this fascinating story in the book Fighting Traffic. Given that many, many children, who had been used to playing outside, were killed during this transformation, the title of “war” would probably have been more appropriate during this era than it is now.
Agree with Daniel on the roadrage projection…
Here’s a notation from a work in progress of urban cycling experiences…
Turning Left
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As I pull up to a busy downtown intersection with my bicycle, I suddenly realize I’ve lost all sense of how to make a left turn.
The conventional approach is that I’m in the road like a car, therefore I should act like a car; go into the middle lane, arm signal for left, and wait for the appropriate moment to make the turn. But this is downtown Toronto, and a left turn is anything but conventional. Place yourself in the middle of a busy intersection with traffic whipping by in all directions, and you quickly realize you are nothing like a car. Add to that street car tracks waiting to bite your wheel into a wipeout along with pedestrians trying to navigate a crossing and you feel your life expectancy dwindling away. So the decision to be made in the next few seconds is…
A) Face the challenge head on, live life, and make the left turn from the middle lane
B) Concede defeat, get off the bicycle and act as a pedestrian crossing the intersection, and on the other side get back on and continue the journey
C) Compromise by not getting off the bicycle, but riding it through to the other side and stopping and turning toward the other direction to the irritation of cyclists following you… waiting for the signal to change and continueing on
Option A puts life in parel, Option B takes forever, and Option C annoys everyone and takes forever.
@Wendy give bike commuting a try even just once a month when it’s warm to start. It really helps make for great start to the day.
[...] le thème vous intéresse, je vous conseille cet article de « All About Cities » sur le retour du vélo comme protagoniste de l’espace public, et cette collection de photo [...]
Much of the anger here in Boston surfaces in the complaint that cyclists don’t obey the rules. People have no patience and feel a cyclist in the road is slowing them down; then, when the cyclist goes through a red light or stop sign, it just pushes them over the top. I think their frustration and anger from difficult driving conditions gets transferred to the cyclist who dares to break the rules. And, of course, we always remember the exceptions, so you can be blind to 10 bikes that obey the rules and then remember the one kid chatting on his cell phone, with ipod earbuds and no helmet as he cruises through a red light. But, so what, really? A lot of people like to be mad at perceived unfairness and “injustice” but it is ludicrous at this level of triviality when there are plenty of bigger things in life to worry about.