Bike Lanes: Massive Fail

Progressives love bicycles because they are outmoded and inefficient, just like windmills, and because they are the primary means of transportation in communist hellholes like Cuba. Consequently, their heavy-handed urban planning often inflicts bike lanes at the expense of normal traffic. As with all liberal coercion, the result has been unforeseen (but not unforeseeable) consequences that make the problems supposedly being solved even worse.

In London, home of a so-called “cycling revolution”:

While bikes have the luxury of zipping through traffic using dedicated lanes that are vastly underused most of the day … cars have been squeezed into narrowed spaces that slow traffic to a crawl. …

As a consequence of the idling traffic, pollution levels have risen, contributing to what is now deemed a toxic stew. Ironically, cyclists are especially harmed, and not just because the bike lanes they speed upon are adjacent to tailpipes. According to a study by the London School of Medicine, cyclists have 2.3 times more inhaled soot than walkers because “cyclists breathe more deeply and at a quicker rate than pedestrians while in closer proximity to exhaust fumes.”

Even without considering the toxic fumes, fatalities for cyclists per distance traveled are eight times as high as for people who drive.

Neighbourhoods endure extra pollution, too, with frustrated autos cutting through residential districts to avoid bike-bred congestion.

The bike lane craze hits taxpayers hard. Paris is spending €150 million to become the “cycling capital of the world.” Melbourne is spending $100 million to become more cycling-friendly, Amsterdam €120 million.

Other economic costs are less direct:

[C]ycling lanes typically displace lanes that formerly accommodated street parking, especially outside rush-hour periods. Businesses that rely on street parking for their customers are often bitter at seeing their sales gutted. Cities not only lose revenue from street parking, they also lose revenue from public transit because — anecdotally, at least — people are switching to bikes more from public transit than from cars.

Everyone sacrifices on behalf of cyclists. In return:

Almost everywhere [cyclists are] seen as discourteous, and as threats to the safety of pedestrians.

But moonbats see bicycles as moonbatty. Therefore, social engineers will continue to redesign society around them.

On a tip from J.