One of the ways cars – and driving – are being attacked is via reducing roads. If there’s no place to drive, then you can’t drive.
The latest, most brazen manifestation of this “road dieting,” as it is styled, can be seen in San Diego, where what had been two lanes – one in each direction – is now just one. For traffic going both directions. The lane formerly devoted to traffic coming (adjacent to traffic going) has been “repurposed” into more lanes for . . . bicycles.
Which now have lanes going either way.
This was done by fiat – by the way. No notice, no public hearings. The public simply woke one day to discover that what had been two lanes – for cars – had been reduced to one. As part of what is styled an “experiment” with “Climate Change Initiatives.”
Meanwhile, cars coming and going on this road – singular – now face each other, head-on. It’s funny, but not a joke. For the drivers or the bicyclists, who can expect to be swerved into by cars swerving to avoid each other.
This is the Climate Change Clown World we’re living in now. The cars coming are supposed to defer to the cars going – or the reverse – and – somehow – “safely” drive around each other.
Without, of course, hitting a bicycle in the process.
Which will, of course, inevitably become the justification for eliminating the remaining car lane altogether.
“This is not safe for anybody,” local resident Tommy Hough says, stating the obvious. Equally obvious is the intention behind this, which is to first make driving so enervating that a growing number of people choose to stop driving altogether. Then, to literally force the “clingers” off the roads, by making them for bicycle and foot traffic only.
This example is by no means an aberration. It is merely the latest. In practically every city and town in the country, lanes for cars are being winnowed from four to two and – soon – from two to one.
With none being the ultimate goal for those behind all of this. 
“Those” being a consortium of – as they often style themselves – “stakeholders” – encompassing urban technocrats who want to replace the private car with the public bus, rent-seeking private corporations who use the “public sector” to make lots of private profit and – of course – the small but belligerently vocal cohort of Militant Spandexers who have always hated cars and are determined to make the roads theirs.
Within cities, new buildings are being erected without parking lots. You cannot drive to these buildings and – even if you could – there would be no place to leave your car. In cities where it’s still possible to drive, the parking spots have also been put on a diet of sorts. A time diet. The meters – which in many cases no longer accept cash – limit how long you can park to 15-30 minutes, so as to nudge you to leave, sooner. The parking lots that let you leave your car all day charge so much many people can’t afford to park there.
The message is clear: Cars not wanted here.
Which is interesting – telling – given the simultaneous pushing of electric cars, which make the most sense (if they make any sense) for people who live in – and drive in – cities.
Consider the juxtapositioning.
On the one hand, enormous sums of taxpayer money are being spent to build the “infrastructure” that EVs have to have in order to be more than intermittently useful as practical transportation. No place to plug in means it’s no place to go. So the money is being spent to build places to plug in, mostly in cities and their peripheries. But the cities are being rebuilt to make getting a car – including an electric car – into the city ever-more-difficult if not outright impossible.
Incentives – and disincentives – both of them artificial and operating at cross-purposes. Unless, of course, the purpose is to turn driving and owning a private car, including electric ones, more or less what owning and flying a private airplane already is.
That being something that’s too much hassle – and too expensive – for all but a handful of people.
Bet you can guess who those people are, too.
. . .
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Sounds like after a public outcry, these lane marking have been removed.
The battle will continue of course.
Bicycles are great. No license plate, no registration, no insurance, no safety nannies, no tracking, cheap, can be rebuilt with hand tools for very little money. Burns minimal fuel. Keeps you fit. Can go anywhere, cutting through the alleyways and singletrack.
It is actually a perfect weapon against the state.
Hi Tim,
Yes, except… as Brent and some of the regulars here have observed in the past, the minute after they get the cars off the roads, they will come for the bikes. There are already proposals percolating to require tags and insurance, you bet. To understand what is going on, one must understand that it is not about cars – or bicycles. It is about freedom of movement. About controlling and restricting it. Once one understands this, one understand it all.
If I recollect correctly, in The City I used to live in, a mostly Blue city, they had a requirement that bicycles be registered & have license plates.
I don’t think it was “really enforced” but the city code was there.
I once bought a new bicycle at a fancy bike shop in that city, they offered me the chance to sign up & get the bike registered, I was glad I could decline the offer. Their offer, & even the idea of doing so, kinda creeped me out.
I agree. By putting more miles on the bike, my car lasts much longer, only needing to pull highway duty, which is easiest it. I stay fit and save money, which denies the state their blood money.
I hate bike infrastructure as much as you do Eric.
Slightly OT but people are pigs, disgusting pigs. Drove a different way to the office this morning, pulled up to the red light off the exit ramp. The grassy area to my left was filled with litter – fast food wrappers, cups, water bottles, bags, paper, and junk. All of it could fill half a dump truck. I’ve never seen this much trash outside of a dump. WTF is wrong with people and is this the next iteration of our degenerating society? Say what you will about cyclists, but they aren’t carrying around a McDonald’s cup or bag of Fritos to toss out the window at the first opportunity. Vile, disgusting turds with no concern for anything. Maybe excessive litter is driving the need to reduce car usage.
I suspect this works in both directions, no pun intended. That the reduction in people driving will require fewer roads and less maintenance, so those highway funds can be spent for some other “expense”.
And don’t even get me started on the helmets. A bike helmet to me makes sense IF you are an adult meaning heavier and higher up on the bike AND you are riding long distances at high speeds. Cause if you crash your bike doing 35 mph it makes sense to mitigate the risk that you might hit your head and hurt yourself. But kids riding around the neighborhood. Please and they have to wear them to bike to school in our neighborhood. I do not recall kids getting brain damaged from riding bikes when young and of course we rode them all over the freaking place. I suspect adult bike accidents mostly damage knees and break arms and legs not cause head injuries but I could be wrong.
I understand the need for bike lanes. Heck I even own one, if a a bicycle could identify as a rat rod that would be mine. But what I don’t understand is why they take away car lanes to turn into bike lanes when all the idiots on bicycle insist riding 4 abreast in the car lanes and scream obscenities at you when you drive in your own lane? As for obeying stop lights and stop signs apparently that doesn’t work for them either. Funny the AGW’s don’t have a problem pulling us over but a halfwit on a bicycle can do whatever they want. Sad….
What’s even more hilarious is kids don’t even ride bikes anymore…they’re inside playing video games or doing TikToks.
Hi I hate EVs –
You bring up an interesting point in re most of the cycling being done today is being done by adults, the reverse was true as recently (well, as long ago) as the ’80s. When I was a kid in the ’70s and early ’80s, kids rode bikes until they were old enough to drive – and then they gave up bikes. Something changed between then and now. Many kids are indifferent to driving today – and large numbers of adults are really into bicycles. This accounts for the number of bicycles on major travel roads vs. neighborhood roads, where the kids used to ride.
Are today’s bicyclists those who never experienced the joy of a bicycle in their childhood?
Of course, those of us who did never even heard of a helmet. (Nor did my kids, btw). Granted, we didn’t ride on the highways but still shared the roads with cars in the neighborhood/country roads.
I think so, Anon –
I have many happy memories of riding my bike as a kid; it was freeing, a kind of prequel to cars in that it was a way to go wherever you wanted, or at least as far as you could ride. No helmets, of course. In the ’70s and ’80s, only retards wore them.
Today, everyone is forced to look retarded.
Hey Eric,
As you know I am an avid cyclist. But, for the most part, I dislike the cycling community, especially the so called “activists”, who, as Brent often observes, are not bicycle advocates, but anti car zealots and enviro lunatics.
I don’t need, or want, bicycle “advocates” using my cherished activity as an excuse to limit auto use, create intentional congestion and impose their warped vision of “sustainable” communities on the world. Almost everything they do harms me as a cyclist because it understandably angers and frustrates many drivers. I ride on streets everyday, both for fun and exercise, and to run errands. I follow two self imposed rules: never ride in a way that impedes auto traffic, and recognize that I am 100% responsible for my safety while riding.
It is true that some cyclists are assholes, but it is also true that some drivers are just pissed off that a cyclist is on the road at all. To them, it makes no difference that I don’t actually impede them in any way, they still honk, scream and occasionally throw stuff.
Their ire would be better directed at the faux activists who exploit cycling as a means of imposing their green plans on all of us than at cyclists like me. The most powerful tool of tyrants is to convince “us” to fight with each other rather than with our common enemy.
Cheers,
Jeremy
“Today, everyone is forced to look retarded.” Lol, so true.
Maybe it’s because bikes today are sorta kinda exciting in that you can feel the rush of the wind and it’s fun to go down hills, compared to cars which are just ovular, bland, fuel efficient! and gay. Plus if you go “too fast” you’re worried about a $285 speeding ticket.
The Machine (the AI in control of planet Earth now) is now just gleefully gaslighting the Earthling monkeys to death. It’s time to accept this patent reality.
The few monkeys who survive this experiment/bottleneck of unnatural selection will be so passive and gormless that they will beg to be mind-wiped and converted to robotized meat-puppets. They will be the designer-engineered ideal citizens of the mechanized global State.
Chicago is always at the forefront of any libtard idea and the same with bike lanes. This in a city frozen 5 months of the year. They started ruining wide four lane city streets with parallel parking and bike lanes fifteen years ago. Very navigable streets like Hubbard, Elston, and Clybourn ruined by these useless things solely for the use of Google employees and the like. They’re the enraged soy sippers every stereotype makes them out to be. Theyre in Phoenix but not a soul uses them. I like biking on trails. I’m not stupid enough to do it in frigging traffic.
Hi Mark,
I occasionally am forced to run on roads – as when my trail in the woods is snowed in. It’s awful, having to be constantly vigilant about cars and hopping off onto the shoulder to avoid being run over. I would never ride a bicycle on these roads unless I had no other choice. I don’t dispute that runners – and cyclists – have the same right to use the public right-of-way. But the practical question is whether it’s sensible to, if it can be avoided.
In the Minneapolis/Saint Paul metro area these type of roads are everywhere. I alway drive in the bike lane, since it has a dotted line that means I’m going to drive in it. I’m not going to have head collision with any idiot clover who won’t move over to drive in bike lane. Clown world.
Two then one then none, No Way! Government doesn’t let that happen.
The libertarian in me says “share the road”, who cares how one moves about so long as they are free to do so. But that is not how government thinks.
Governments make more profit off of tobacco than tobacco companies make. .Gov could ban tobacco tomorrow like it was a Covid crisis but they aren’t letting go of their cash crop that kills Americans and others less efficiently than their vaccines.
Once everyone is forced to bike, bikes will require tags (front and back), lighting with directional signalling, and possibly airbag body suits that are as breathable as a M95 diaper.
Those center lanes will become bike lanes and the former bike lanes will be electric scooter lanes for the zombies’ self driving scoots.
OT: One of the OR state senators said in a recent email that hospitals in OR get $220,000 for every person that dies of you-know-what (“The Stupid”). I didn’t even read the whole email yet, but just wanted to share that. That’s ALOT of money!!! What is their reason for getting paid for people dying? It doesn’t cost much to dispose of their body, so why all this money??? There doesn’t seem to be any logical reason for that, except of course incentive to murder people.
“There doesn’t seem to be any logical reason for that, except of course incentive to murder people.”
Exactly. And it keeps the scam going.
I want to see the Presidential Limo converted to electric. Heck, it’s heavy as it is, let alone putting batteries in it.
“..a heavily armored stretch limousine that, despite looking like a stretched CT6 or XTS sedan, is actually built on a heavy-duty GMC TopKick truck platform and supposedly weighs upward of 15,000 pounds…”
Some would rather see it converted to gas- Zyklon B, specifically…..
I never ride my bike. And the only reason I even have a bike, and spent $125 to get it cleaned and ‘updated’ in 2020, was because I knew gas would be outrageous and we wouldn’t be driving much anymore.
I hate this world. Long live the Free Markets. Death to tyrants.
The only bright side to the story is that no decent person lives in Mira Mesa. I mean, maybe one or two accidentally wandered in but that’s not a likely scenario.
I was riding with a buddy of mine in his hoped up diesel truck. we came upon a group of the spandex/granola crunchers hogging the road. He sent them a message with his truck when going around them; he coal-rolled the saviors of the earth. You should have seen their expressions after the smoke cleared. Now that was a Kodak moment!!
You know, some of us bike for exercise and enjoyment, and not to save the earth. Maybe the spandex made them deserve it :), but being coal rolled when breathing hard and exercising sucks – that was an rude move, man. You’d probably get the same expression if you stepped in front of them and farted loudly.
Not everyone who puts in spandex and rides those things is acting superior or trying to save the earth, or demanding taxpayer money. In my experience, that isn’t even most of them, just some. Most people just like to ride.
I get pretty irritated by the bikes blocking the roads around here as well, especially if I come up on one as I’m going over a hill and suddenly have to go from 55mph to 5mph.
However, I think I’d actually hate you and your friend.
Do you get that irritated when you come up on a tractor, which often takes up quite a bit more of the road and goes a comparable speed?
Sure, it’s irritating.
But I don’t think that would justify rolling coal from a truck either.
Eric: You mentioned electric cars in this article and how expensive they are. It appears that GM and Honda are going into a joint venture to produce electric vehicles to be sold for under $30,000 bucks. Evidently this is an attempt to market electric cars to the masses. Here is the article:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/05/gm-and-honda-to-partner-on-affordable-electric-vehicles.html
Big talk. I’ll believe it when I see it. Also, $30k will go far for a nice used ICE vehicle.
Hi Oskar,
Yup; I got the media releases. I will believe when I see it – sans subsidies!
Maybe they’ll build a $30k version of the Hongguan Mini.
The Tesla Model 3 was SUPPOSED to have sold for $35K too!
I spent less, MUCH less, for my 2020 Ford (con)Fusion, brand new. It’s comfortable…ENOUGH. It has enough “bells and whistles”. I will bet the proverbial “dollars to doughnuts” that whatever $30K EV this “consortium” comes up with, it’ll be smaller, less powerful, and less comfortable. No thanks.
Just because a road is designated as a highway doesn’t mean it is. For example, US-13 goes through Philly, which is city streets. Once you’re well outside of Philly, then yeah, it’s more of a highway; inside the city or its suburbs though, US-13 is a city street.
Two, bikes can share the road with cars; I know, because I did it for years. There’s a gentleman (Forrester, IIRC) who wrote a book entitled “Vehicular Cycling”. His thesis was that bikes can and should use the road just like cars do for the most part. For goodness sake, DON’T use the sidewalk! Sidewalks are for walking; it’s in the name. Don’t ride against traffic, either. Ride with the traffic, ride confidently, and use hand signals to communicate your intentions.
Ride the right hand third of the lane for most of your traveling. If there’s a wide shoulder, use it, but stay within a foot of the white line. This is to avoid tire puncturing debris found on the shoulder (assuming there is one, that is); this also keeps you visible to the cars with whom you’re sharing the road; it keeps you in their line of sight. If you have to make a turn, use hand signals. Use hand signals, period; use them a lot, so the drivers out there know what you’re doing.
Even making a left turn is feasible doing this. First is to start signaling well in advance of your turn, so the car drivers coming up from behind you know what you’re going to do. When a gap opens, move from the right 1/3 of the lane to the left 1/3. Keep up your speed as much as you can; time the gaps in the oncoming traffic; when a gap presents itself, peel off. While you’re setting up for and making the left turn, cars behind you can easily pass you to the right side.
Sometimes, busier streets or roads are easier to ride than a two lane country road. If the four lane has wide lanes, then it’s a lot easier to deal with than a two lane country road with narrow lanes and no shoulder. The latter is harder for both cyclists and car drivers to deal with. I much preferred riding down Chambers Bridge Rd. in Brick, NJ, which is four lanes (two lanes each way) in places, vs. riding down a narrow two laner near Griggstown, NJ. If a road has lanes that are sufficiently wide, then both bicycles and cars can easily share the road.
Would I go on bigger, faster highways? No. For example, there’s NO WAY IN HELL I’d even consider riding FL-54 outside of Tampa! But for secondary roads and arterials, I’d have no problem with those, especially if they had wide lanes (like 15′ or so); wide lanes give both bikes and cars enough room to use the road together. Wide lanes are the key, not bike lanes.
Nothing upset me more than to see a group of cyclists hogging the whole road! NJ law (and I suspect the law in most states) was that, on busy roads, a group of bicyclists were to ride single file; double file was permitted, but only in very light traffic. By hogging the whole lane, cyclists would piss off car drivers, and rightfully so. That upset me, because it not only gives all cyclists a bad name; it’s a lack of consideration for the other road users. That only breeds more anger and hatred that doesn’t need to be.
But yeah, existing infrastructure is just fine; wide lanes are all that’s needed, not bike lanes. Better education for both drivers and cyclists would do more good. It’s possible for both bikes and cars to share the roads; they just have to be smart about it. Showing consideration for one another helps a lot too. As long as I made myself visible and predictable, car drivers usually worked with me; likewise, I worked with them. We both had places to go, so why make it hard for each other? Consideration, being smart, and being considerate is all that’s needed for bikes and cars to share the roads together. Again, I read that book, “Vehicular Cycling”; I applied it; and it works! Bike lanes aren’t at all necessary. Those are my thoughts…
The object, of course, is to ban cars for everyone except our overlords and their cops, and to force the general public to ride bicycles — like Maoist China circa 1970.
^^^^ this ^^^^
One other thing I noticed recently while biking around that I also saw in the photo at the top:
The saaaaaaaaaaafety nannyists have struck again. Have a look at the bike-lane markings in the photo at the top. The biker’s head isn’t of uniform shape…because it has a helmet on.
I first noticed these a month or two ago locally. Bike lanes in unincorporated Clark County, NV, have had the original bike-lane markings scrubbed off and replaced by a new, helmet-wearing biker. These lanes aren’t that old, so it couldn’t be that the old markings were worn out. In addition to being a waste of money (and a source of make-work for county road crews), the nod to the saaaaaaaaaaafety cult is obvious.
I suppose it could be worse, though…they could’ve also put a face diaper on the biker. (Lots of those on people still, seemingly afraid of breathing fresh outside air.)
That’s a good point! Until recently, bike lanes were marked with a bike symbol.
Bravo to the people who made the “Assault Vehicle” poster. They are right. Americans don’t need 470 HP.
And bravo to Sergio for agreeing. Thanks to him, you can’t get a 470 HP Challenger anymore. Now 392 Challengers make 485 HP and Challengers can be had with 797 HP.
And don’t forget about the high capacity assault gas tanks.
You know, for the children and stuff.
Hi Horst:
Too bad Sergio passed away in 2018.
I can tell from being deep in the Stellantis woods that their new French masters are totally on board with “eliminating” ICE.
They are even coming up with an electric vehicle architecture that isn’t really a hybrid, but isn’t a full EV either. It motive force is applied 100% of the time by electric motors, but the batteries are charged by a very small (think Briggs and Stratton sized) gas engine when they get low. So it’s basically a BEV with an onboard gas powered battery charger.
Not sure how these qualify regarding “zero” (ahem – elsewhere) emissions vehicles, but I’m sure they will torture the math enough to somehow be considered ZEVs. Just as they did with electric.
No exhaust coming out of the car + much more exhaust coming out of the power plant = “zero emissions” in today’s political world.
Thank God I’m old enough to be retiring soon – before the “100% BEVs in 8-13 years” lunacy shows itself for what a perversion of “science” it actually is.
You would not believe how many engineers I meet who think that going to 100% BEVs truly is possible – even at the annual passenger vehicle miles travelled today. I thought engineers had to take quite a bit of math. I know I did back in the nineties.
Maybe that standard has been lowed and more “DEI” and “ESG” classes have replaced them.
This isn’t even calculus or differential equations. It’s basic algebra. High school level math will tell anyone how impossible it is. Now – that “impossible” becomes “very doable” as long as you shift the annual passenger vehicle miles by more than a decimal point to the left.
That’s the part they never seem to say out loud.
Remember Solzhenitsyn. The Communists went after the engineers first (and then wondered why nothing worked). Perhaps the engineers of today are looking out for their own hides. I can tell you, from personal experience, that the bosses hate being told “no,” especially when that is the correct answer. So instead, they get the stupid answer, and then hand it over to sales & marketing (S&M) because they excel at turd polishing. And all the KPIs are met, and everyone gets a bonus, and we all complete another lap around the drain.
I like bike trails built on former railroads, and I sometimes ride my bike on them. But its never transportation for me, only recreation and exercise. I am never actually going anywhere, start out at home and return there. My local public golf course has a nice bike trail built around it. That’s where bike trails should be. Away from most cars, and away from people needing to go somewhere in a reasonable amount of time in their cars.
That’s the only way they used to build bike “lanes” twenty years ago in my neck of the woods,
they were trails, not lanes. Back then they said “on road” bike lanes were dangerous and they didn’t do them then. Back then they recognized bike trails (not lanes) were recreational in nature NOT transportation. Built with recreational tax dollars not from road budgets.
Now almost all of them are on roads with cars. No thanks, if I ride on a road with cars, it’s a side street. Putting bike lanes on busy roads are insane. Someone from my former church was killed riding his bike. Where was he? On Highway 41. Yes, he was stupidly riding his bike on a HIGHWAY. They are encouraging people to ride bikes where bikes do not belong. Wouldn’t be as big of a deal if bike riders weren’t so stupid about where they are riding, but many are reckless.
What is next, a bike lane on an interstate?
“What is next, a bike lane on an interstate?”
Actually, there ARE some that run parallel to the interstates, especially on major waterway crossings (e.g. the new Tappan Zee Bridge in NY). Thankfully, they are separated from the travel lanes…for now.
Of course, it’s only a matter of time until some dildo starts advocating the “need” to bike across the country.
Anyone else’s gas stations rationing fuel yet. My local Southern States has.
I pulled up in my empty (fuel light on) SUV this morning. I always fill up, but I am lazy and like to make it worth my while (which means I stop once a week). I don’t have patience for five minutes at the pump. I can expect how little patience I would have for three hours at a battery charger.
Expecting a solid $65. It shut off at an even $50. Crap. No signs anywhere.
I feel sorry for the guys in work trucks. They have to stop twice a day…$50 won’t even get them back home.
An exact dollar amount as opposed to gallon count makes me suspect an issue with the debit card network.
I’ve noticed a *lot* of debit card weirdness in the last few weeks at places like the grocery store and Sam’s club. I don’t let the bank classify my ATM card as a “Visa debit” where the transaction can go through without the PIN below a certain dollar amount.
Hi Roscoe,
That makes sense, but I was using a company credit card at the pump…no debit card. I rarely ever use my debit card…company credit card or cash. My aunt mentioned that she was having tons of problems with her debit card lately. She is with Wells Fargo.
Can you just reset the pump, swipe again and the finish filling your tank as if you were a new customer?
Good point, ML. I didn’t think about it. I will test that next week.
Sounds like a processor issue as already mentioned. Was it it a credit, debit, or fleet fuel card? I’ve had absolutely no issues with a company issued fleet fuel card.
I’d lioke to see how “self-driving” vehicles would handle one of those Sandy Eggo single-lane two-way roads!
The videos of self driving cars I have seen, not very well. One of the videos it was confused by a cone. Yes a cone! It came to a stop in traffic and wouldn’t move.
Hahaha! Then again, that sounds like how many of these snowflakes also drive…… GIGO.
The absurdity and nihilism on display by the ruling class is startling. What they seek is the old Soviet system where only the party apparatchiks own cars (battery powered of course) that they have to wait years to receive after proving their worth and fealty to the “narrative” of whatever social engineering scheme is in vogue at the moment. Like the Soviet elites, they want their dachas on the river, stores only for the party chieftains and Zil limousines while the rest of us live in poorly-built tenements eating bugs and owning nothing and loving it. I’ll pass.
And once again the gap between “what the elites want” vs. “what people actually do” widens.
The wider that gap gets, the less “government is us” and the more unstable and arbitrary the system gets.
We are heading for a total collapse, folks, and while I can’t tell you the exact date it’s looking like pretty soon. And no one (much) will miss it when it’s gone.
What a clusterfuck!
Just another example of the de facto world government that now implementing it’s agenda everywhere. Just recently a new Highway Code was implemented in the UK, in which pedestrians, cyclists, horseback riders, and other “alternative road users” are all given preference over automobile traffic; Cars being now demoted to the bottom of the totem pole, where they must yield to everything else, and are pretty much given last thought when it comes to infrastructure design.
In NYC and other large cities here, the local speed limits have been reduced to 20-25MPH! That is INHUMAN! How is it possible to drive that slow? And why bother to drive, if one has to go the same speed as a bicycle or skateboarder? Streets are being downright cordoned off for pedestroan use only; Still-functional streets are being retrofitted with speed bumps and other “traffic calming” obstructions, which make driving slow, boring and tedious…..
They are implementing their NWO with all it’s agendas right before our eyes….and personally, I want OUT! I want to at least be able to live the remaining years of my life, -be they few or many- apart from this nonsense and the people who have so willing been complicit with every facet of it (Clot-shot, Comrade?)- Gimme just a few years in the wilderness, ’cause there’s literally nothing here for me (or any other sane person) anymore…and it is not going to get better- only worse.
Here in northern “Doitey-Joisey”, they are converting two-way stops into FOUR-ways. I hate them with a PASSION! In my opinion, they are NOT safer because they create unnecessary conflict. I swear, the elite really ARE trying to turn people away from driving.
“Studs Terkel of the Appalachias” comes to mind as one who who supports the “Guvment” effort to eliminate affordable, dependable transportation. Although, he seems to be currently fear-stricken about Covid-19 and hasn’t written anything on his own site since Fall of 2020, not a peep.
That BS has been going on here for awhile now; also the traffic lights timed so you have to at practically every one, which reveals the hypocrisy of the hysterical “climate change” cult. If they’re so concerned about “greenhouse gases” why should cars be sitting at a stoplight idling at zero mpg while “emitting” CO2? It reveals the true agenda of getting all of us serfs out of our cars and off the roads so our overlords can whiz on by in their armored limos.
Amen, Mike!
When I go to the bigger town in the next county to go shopping and run errands, I’ll often use the small two-lane back streets to get across town, ’cause it takes SO much longer using the four-lane “bypass” and getting caught at every light where you have to sit for 5 minutes at every one. And this, in a town of only 12K people! What’s funny, is that more people haven’t figured this out yet- so there is no traffic on the back streets…and so even though ya can’t go as fast as on the 4-lane, you still breeze through much quicker, because there are fewer lights…and those lights are much shorter. I hope others never catch on…or else I’m sure they’ll end up installing “traffic calming” obstructions…..
There must be a Federal incentive program to add “bike lane” miles to a city, but I have my doubts as to whether the design featured in the video is anywhere near safe for the Militant Spandexers, especially in that neighborhood which, while visibly middle class, doesn’t strike me as the demographic prone to appreciating the necessity of spending $10,000 on bicycle cranks or a carbon fiber frame.
It’s probably like most “on road” bike lanes. You rarely see someone on a bike. Most people find them unsafe and ride elsewhere with less car traffic. So you end up with a few militant bikers who ride unsafely on purpose and that is it.
If they did a traffic count of what is actually using that road, the bikes would probably not even get one lane let alone two. That is never a consideration anymore as bikes wouldn’t get anything due to low usage. The road shown here is probably one of the few times car parking wasn’t removed in mass, but only because it helps keep the travel lane to one. Had the road been two feet narrower, parking on one side would have been taken too.
I live next to a bike trail, and to be honest more people walk their dogs on it than ride bikes. If usage was considered, few would get built because they don’t get much use.
None of it makes sense because the goal is not to accommodate bikes. It’s simply used a pretext to reduce travel and freedom, and to better control the populace.
I suspect a personal injury lawyer will get that fixed in the next year or so at great cost after somebody is seriously injured or killed.
Is the lane in the middle for horse and buggies?
RG,
It’s the passing lane. Or would have been, at one time.
This seems like a problem that could be solved by massive noncompliance.