Yesterday, social media was filled with crazy pictures of Colorado’s hail storm, which arrived just a few hours after a Denver Post missive asking whether bike lanes on major thoroughfares will cause strife. It’s not just that the bike lane has swallowed a lane of traffic, but that it’s entirely impractical.
Colorado may have 300-plus days of sunshine per year; however, we also have approximately 150 potential days of snow, if you just count November through March. Of course, yesterday was May, so there may be even more days of possible snow hail. What are bike riders supposed to do on days like yesterday? A day, which by the way, rendered an entire lane of traffic unusable to anyone – cars can’t use it and bikes won’t use it. If Colorado was warm nearly all year round like California, eating an entire lane of traffic might make sense.
Even worse, according to the article, nobody uses the bike lane:
“In September and October, the pilot’s first two months, city counts showed that five or six dozen cyclists a day used the six-block bikeway in either direction.”
So, we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for 60 people to ride their bike to work? Unreal. And, September and October are largely lovely months for weather. It’s tough to imagine the same 60 to 70 riders continuing through December. Then, there’s this ridiculous statement from an academic:
“Schroeppel also noted that large numbers of the poor, the elderly, young people and those with impairments don’t drive. They could use better, more reliable alternatives to get around.”
Call us crazy, but if someone is too old or too impaired to drive, surely they are not riding a bicycle.
While encouraging riding a bike to work may sound like a feel-good project, it isn’t practical for the lack of density in the Denver metro area nor the unpredictable weather we experience here.
According to that math, there are 450 days a year? Not to mention, 9News ran an story about people being upset that bike lanes were clear when roads continued to have issues during past snowstorms. If anything, a conservative approach would appreciate bike lanes over transit as a cheap investment in public health that still requires buy-in (people still have to buy bikes) and they are far easier and less expensive to maintain than traditional roadways. As for the lack of density, blame government interference in the market, namely parking minimums and zoning restrictions that distort the market and drive up housing costs. But bikes are literally the most efficient and economic form of transportation.
As for the bike lane on Broadway, it’s more practical than you think, as Broadways counterpart Lincoln had one fewer lane, and adding a bike lane could theoretically increase capacity of commuters while reducing the number of SOVs and traffic. Not to mention the bike lane only added 9 seconds to a rush hour trip. Bike lanes are good investments, and the ROI is incredible. What’s impractical are the faulty arguments in favor of car subsidies that fail to address anything other than common (and easily refuted) misconceptions. The picture above, even with mountains of hail, shows passable bike lanes. If you do craft a better argument, though, I’d look forward to hearing it.