The tables on the road were only there for the inauguration day, but bike lane is here to stay.
this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2025
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My hard line opinion is that roads are dead spaces. There is no opportunity for anything to grow or flourish; this includes things like community. More roads = more dead space.
If you want to activate a space, i.e. bring community back, reduce road space. And, of course, with reduced road space you need to counter balance with better infrastructure for other modes of transport to get people moving to and from.
Basic town planning! Looking at you... Local council...
Don't look up parking lot rules in america, dead space like it's going out of style just so crowds can shop on black Friday and Christmas.
Get off the bike path grandma
In my experience cycling in London, it wouldn't be a bike lane without some doofus walking on it 😅
That bitch just walkin' in the bike lane.
Bet there's some kind of psychological trick you can play on cyclists, distracting them with pictures of people walking in bicycle paths.
Everyone else in that scene could be raw-fucking mid-sized Gumby sex dolls and I'd still be like "Get out the damn bike lane!"
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(11 replies)
I can understand.
We have some new dedicated cycle lanes in our city (I mean, they are a few years old now. But fairly unique in our country).
I feel bad for the cyclists. They have a dedicated path, which pedestrians are super ignorant of (they are better marked than this picture).
My parents think they are a menace when they visit, because they are unaware of them and get menaced by cyclists.
Except, that's literally what roads are. They just grew up with roads and (even faster) cars.
So, I am understanding of the transition.
And everyone needs to call everyone out over it. It will make everyone safer
I got pretty heated after an event bicycling home. Pedestrians all ignorant walking on the bike lane. That was fine so long as they moved but someone yelled at me and I very angrily yelled back.
People criticize cyclists in the road, they'd criticize you riding on the sidewalk (rightly so), but when we have a dedicated bike lane they walk all over it and act like you're the asshole.
The after picture looks so much more welcoming, clean, and active. Like the place is suddenly more alive.
It just looks sweaty and smelly to me. Why all the tarmac when it’s been explicitly and expensively rebuilt for a new purpose?
Leave it like this (well replace the asphalt for nice tiles) and you'll actually get more people to come by and stay for a coffee, use the stores, etc..
They probably still need a serviceable road for deliveries. Probably no alley. Trucks can be heavy as for efficiency they load them up. Can’t use tile roads, they don’t hold up over time.
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(4 replies)
I like everything except the road-style bidirectional bike lane. They should split the directions of the bike lane. Head on collisions are very bad. Splitting the lanes makes those essentially impossible. It also makes it much easier for pedestrians to cross since they only need to deal with one direction of traffic at a time.
Just put that plant boulevard between the directions of the bike lane and create pedestrian islands to stand on.
Also make accessing the shop on the other side possible without riding on the road, this kind of layout mean you're forced to ride on the road for the whole stretch if you using a bakfiet.
But either way, it's a one step forward.
Oakland, California is redoing all the downtown roads. Going from four lanes to two lanes with physically separated bike lanes and tiny gardens. I welcome it.
All is bit of a stretch. Oakland’s budget is in rough shape right now. They’re doing a few roads here and there, and they usually start with some low cost experimentation in areas with plastic cones and paint to test first.
I both live and work in downtown Oakland. They appear to be working toward all downtown roads from my perspective. Two of the four sides of the building that I live in have been redone and they're doing sections of the street that I walk to work and others that I see when I'm out and about. Traffic is gnarly by the lake where they've closed lanes.
We do a pedestrian mall in our downtown district from June to September. I absolutely love it and it has been a huge driver of local business. I would love to see some of our streets become pedestrian only but that would also mean my town acknowledging that pedestrians deserve a path at all in the winter.
I can't honestly believe that some people would rather have the hellscape in the top photo, rather than the paradise in the lower one.
Communities, and society as a whole, need more of the "after", please!
Paradise is a stretch. Paradise to a non-cyclist like me would be a robust tram system with cheap monthly pass. This looks nicer I agree, but if you're not a cyclist you're still driving.
Complete idiot local business owners keep trying to remove the bike lanes in San Diego because “their customers need to parallel park there”. Up to and including a fucking bike repair shop. Even when people have this better way right in front of them they reject it
Yes, idiot business owners.
Why do they believe they are in competition with people? As if having more people in front of their shop (vs. parked cars) is somehow bad?
What they should be worried about is online businesses stealing their market share.
And what better way to offer something more than what online businesses do then by making your brick and mortar shop friendly to people!
In defense of business owners, when their customers are trained from birth to drive everywhere, their customers expect parking. When there is no parking, they lose business
Every major US city receives immense backlash from local businesses when roads/parking are unavailable due to added bike lanes, traffic calming projects that reduce parking, or much-needed major construction projects such as water main or sewer work. This is happening right now in downtown Burlington, VT, for example
https://m.sevendaysvt.com/news/main-street-construction-is-hurting-burlington-businesses-43270506
There's no easy answer in most cases
I'm unable to open the link due to being blocked, but do they have the data to prove sales went down?
Every study I've seen shows shops always sell more when they have more foot traffic from pedestrianization and protected bike lanes. Businesses tend to complain initially, but when the cash starts flowing in, they never want it removed afterwards
They're typically small businesses, what reason do they have to lie about business being down?
I'm sure they have the data, and I'm sure if a local government or journalist wanted to, they could look at tax records to see revenue impact
I don't think anyone would argue that such enhancements are a bad thing in the long run if 1) If the enhancements ultimately bring in more shoppers/customers, 2) there is still parking available in the area, and 3) the businesses can survive 6-12 months of reduced revenues
My response was really directed at comments implying that the businesses are essentially whining. There's a very real impact during construction, and certain businesses could be hurt by reduced parking, particularly in the states where the car is king
Lie? Nah, they're just ignorant. They don't check the numbers.
Look at all the foot traffic for the shops. I have no idea why shops complain about this.
A study in my hometown found that shopkeepers are mostly concerned about their own commute, not decrease of patrons.
That's interesting.
If I was a shopkeeper I would care more about my profits more than if I can park near my shop.
But I guess deliveries would also be more difficult... still I would care more about foot traffic.
I appreciate the info.
Hell, with a bike path in front of me, I'd bike myself to work. Why bother with a car if I have the infra right on my doorsteps
The curb in the middle is totally unfriendly to disabled people.
It looks like there is a cut over built into the curb that you can see in the picture right above the head of the person in the blue shirt
Voilà la vie vrai
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