Fuck Cars
A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
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I don't even understand this argument - what is the reasoning? Why do car owners pay their way more than cyclists do?
Cars normally have a state level annual registration and various gas taxes that are slated to be used for road maintenance. So, that's actually somewhat true. That said, the cost of maintaining roads for cars far exceeds the amount of money generated by the current gas taxes.
What it also leaves out is that the primary cost of road maintenance is potholes and resurfacing. Protected bike lanes have barely any of those costs since what causes the damage is the weight of the cars.
It also leaves out that people who use their bikes for errands and work commuting generate commercial activity (and the taxes from it). Those taxes don't have to repave the bike lane over and over like a road, so it's much closer to pure profit for the city.
People in many communities around the world use bicycles for most of their daily errands. This includes grocery shopping, taking kids to activities, moving goods for work, and so on. They use trailers and Bakfiet style (https://bakfiets.nl/en-en) bikes, many of which are now electric assist so you can haul lots of material (or kids - I've seen 6 seaters for K-3 aged kids) at city scale distances.
Protected bike lanes also keep regular car traffic moving more smoothly. By reducing the lanes, which reduces the ability of the (left lane speeder), who tailgates everyone thinking that the red-light ahead of them would have been green if they were driving faster. Single lane roads with turn lanes, keep traffic moving at a regular speed pace, which in many cases is better than a two lane road with zig-zagging cars.
As a public transit user, and a small car driver, I appreciate the smooth 20 > 40mph single lane roads with protected bike lanes, makes sense to me.