Rochester city councilor calls for removal of bike lanes

If anyone else was confused, this is Rochester New Hampshire, a city of ~30K people and the 4th largest American Rochester.

I never use them, so why are they still there?!

There is a lot of traffic, and people are not paying attention. It would be better if we could find a way to eliminate them. Both my wife and I have almost been hit because of this.

Edit: “oh man these cars sure are dangerous and keep almost hitting me, this bike lane just has to go!”

He’s complaining about stopping at the side of a road that already has a speeding problem.

How the fuck does removing the bike lanes improve this situation?

If your stroad is too dangerous for people to be around…. Then reduce the fucking speed limit.

There are a litany of practices around improving street safety, which usually involve actually making streets narrower, adding speed bumps and sometimes even removing entire lanes. People drive slower down single file streets, and aren’t as comfortable speeding without the illusionary “safety margin” of extra lanes.

As a bonus, this frees up more space for pedestrians, cyclists and physical dividers, which then pick up and often surpass the lost transport capacity.

Instead this clown wants to widen a road that drivers are already too comfortable speeding on. He himself complains that they zone out and don’t pay attention. But that’s just an unsolvable problem we have to work around I guess.

The article goes on to explain that the speed limit is unclear. And this man wants to make it even easier to NOT slow down?!

Check his bank account

Tell him to get on a bike and then ask him how much of a hazard to drivers he feels like

The opponents say that every time. “No one ever uses them.”

I can’t speak to those specifically, but I see bike lanes in use all the time. Every time I’m in DC, cyclists in the bike lane, no matter the weather. Every time I ride a path that used to be a railroad, there are dozens of people also using it.

I’m in an abandoned rails group on Facebook, and some of them are very angry about abandoned railroad lines being converted to bike paths. The line will have been abandoned for decades and they still whine. “They should run trains on that!” To abandon a rail line, the company has to demonstrate that there’s not enough business in the line to make it viable. They can’t just toss it on a whim. Occasionally I’ve asked how much money they personally will contribute to reactivating the line, to which they inevitably say - apparently in earnest - the government should pay for it. Did I mention these guys are almost always right wingers?

It’s so bad, that I created this gif to use:

those drivers should wear helmets and a vest then.

Ugh

Maybe… And hear me out here… The solution is to improve bike infrastructure so people actually want to use the lanes?

I’m thinking he needs to be removed from office.

said the bike lanes along Main Street are seldom used

Fuckin’ liar (probably). Bike lanes have so much more capacity than lanes used by cars that they often look empty even when they’re carrying more vehicles per hour.

Not to mention, removing bike lanes forces more cars on the road! So removing a half car width lane gains you nothing!