I don't think these examples are equivalent though. The bike lane law bans building all (road replacing) bike lanes, while the highway rule is about one specific highway, not a highway ban. I'm hugely pro bike lanes in general, but even I think there's some places we shouldn't have them. I similarly think we shouldn't have a ban on new highways but specific new highways can be bad.
(And, due to the meta level of status quo bias, it's a lot more likely a new proposed highway is bad than a bike lane - and it's a much bigger mistake when it is, since highways are expensive and hard to remove - so my prior on a new controversial highway is actually bad is much higher)
Events have overtaken this one, as the government in question has now clarified that they will rip out existing bike lanes they happen not to like and replace them with car lanes. I wrote this dialogue to try and give each side its due but even "Anne" can't defend this version of the proposal.
Tonight, I sat in a restaurant by a window overlooking Bloor Street at Markham that afforded a view of about six car lengths of traffic passing through the light at Bathurst and Bloor. For about 15 minutes, I kept a mental count – presumably unreliable, of course – of the passenger cars and the bicycles passing through that section of roadway. In my short mental count, I noticed two things. First, the count of motor vehicles was not more than the number of bicycles, although the average motor vehicle would have held more than one passenger. Second was that I observed the average motor vehicle was standing still half of the time (because of waiting for a light change), while no bicycle was standing still (because my viewport did not include the intersection where bikes might be standing still).
What struck me is that the square footage of asphalt that is used for those two bike lanes, which is, by standard, 36% of the square footage of asphalt that is used for the two motor vehicle lanes, would have – during those 15 minutes – supported more passenger kilometre miles on bike than supported in a motor vehicle. IF there were the same number of bikes as cars, then each car would need to carry 2.8 passengers for spatial equity – about twice the current average for a motor vehicle.
It seems to me that we should weigh the value of passengers per asphalt unit if we compare cars and bikes. As far as I know, this has not been done (please tell me if I'm wrong), and it needs a far longer and more thorough examination than my 15 minutes. I observed this on Wednesday evening, October 16, in fair weather, and about 10°C. If the same observation were made at 9 AM on February 16, the result would likely be very different.
Still, I suspect we not only do not understand the value of a square foot of asphalt under a bike versus under a passenger vehicle on a city street (by season), nor do most politicians understand the value of cycling to the retail community along those streets (many studies say that cycling is good for many kinds of urban retail (not big box stores or Holt Renfrew of course)), most see only the immediate problem of sharing what has been the domain of the automobile for 125 years with cyclists. The argument that what we have now is just a step to a far-distant future of diminished reliance on the private family car has no hope of addressing the immediate need to get votes for the coming election.
Could the solution to biking on Bloor be to build a tunnel under the street (below the subway, of course) for these beleaguered motor cars? They would not have to stop at so many lights and could surely get home quicker to spend more time with their families as Mr Ford would have.
I think what both of your YIMBYs are missing is a measure of value—such as a price signal.
I wonder what your take would be on pricing road usage—whether for car traffic, or parking spaces or even bike lanes. I love to bike and it was delightful to be in Germany these last few weeks and see all the biking that happens there because streets have been changed to make multi-modal traffic work. This changes was clearly a government-driven effort. But I wonder whether a market urbanism type approach would lead to more or less bike lanes with price signals?
Road pricing is a good idea, but difficult to implement for bikes, since a bike can travel in an auto lane, or a bike lane, or a sidewalk (never mind whether it SHOULD be in each of those places for now). You'd need a very robust system of collecting the road price to make it work!
I don't think these examples are equivalent though. The bike lane law bans building all (road replacing) bike lanes, while the highway rule is about one specific highway, not a highway ban. I'm hugely pro bike lanes in general, but even I think there's some places we shouldn't have them. I similarly think we shouldn't have a ban on new highways but specific new highways can be bad.
(And, due to the meta level of status quo bias, it's a lot more likely a new proposed highway is bad than a bike lane - and it's a much bigger mistake when it is, since highways are expensive and hard to remove - so my prior on a new controversial highway is actually bad is much higher)
Events have overtaken this one, as the government in question has now clarified that they will rip out existing bike lanes they happen not to like and replace them with car lanes. I wrote this dialogue to try and give each side its due but even "Anne" can't defend this version of the proposal.
https://globalnews.ca/news/10825146/toronto-bike-lane-removal-plan-doug-ford/
Tonight, I sat in a restaurant by a window overlooking Bloor Street at Markham that afforded a view of about six car lengths of traffic passing through the light at Bathurst and Bloor. For about 15 minutes, I kept a mental count – presumably unreliable, of course – of the passenger cars and the bicycles passing through that section of roadway. In my short mental count, I noticed two things. First, the count of motor vehicles was not more than the number of bicycles, although the average motor vehicle would have held more than one passenger. Second was that I observed the average motor vehicle was standing still half of the time (because of waiting for a light change), while no bicycle was standing still (because my viewport did not include the intersection where bikes might be standing still).
What struck me is that the square footage of asphalt that is used for those two bike lanes, which is, by standard, 36% of the square footage of asphalt that is used for the two motor vehicle lanes, would have – during those 15 minutes – supported more passenger kilometre miles on bike than supported in a motor vehicle. IF there were the same number of bikes as cars, then each car would need to carry 2.8 passengers for spatial equity – about twice the current average for a motor vehicle.
It seems to me that we should weigh the value of passengers per asphalt unit if we compare cars and bikes. As far as I know, this has not been done (please tell me if I'm wrong), and it needs a far longer and more thorough examination than my 15 minutes. I observed this on Wednesday evening, October 16, in fair weather, and about 10°C. If the same observation were made at 9 AM on February 16, the result would likely be very different.
Still, I suspect we not only do not understand the value of a square foot of asphalt under a bike versus under a passenger vehicle on a city street (by season), nor do most politicians understand the value of cycling to the retail community along those streets (many studies say that cycling is good for many kinds of urban retail (not big box stores or Holt Renfrew of course)), most see only the immediate problem of sharing what has been the domain of the automobile for 125 years with cyclists. The argument that what we have now is just a step to a far-distant future of diminished reliance on the private family car has no hope of addressing the immediate need to get votes for the coming election.
Could the solution to biking on Bloor be to build a tunnel under the street (below the subway, of course) for these beleaguered motor cars? They would not have to stop at so many lights and could surely get home quicker to spend more time with their families as Mr Ford would have.
I think what both of your YIMBYs are missing is a measure of value—such as a price signal.
I wonder what your take would be on pricing road usage—whether for car traffic, or parking spaces or even bike lanes. I love to bike and it was delightful to be in Germany these last few weeks and see all the biking that happens there because streets have been changed to make multi-modal traffic work. This changes was clearly a government-driven effort. But I wonder whether a market urbanism type approach would lead to more or less bike lanes with price signals?
Thanks for writing, Heike.
Road pricing is a good idea, but difficult to implement for bikes, since a bike can travel in an auto lane, or a bike lane, or a sidewalk (never mind whether it SHOULD be in each of those places for now). You'd need a very robust system of collecting the road price to make it work!