One Neighborhood’s ‘Bizarre Culture War’ Over Bike Lanes
A kerfuffle erupts over sharing the street in Queens, New York, where new bike lanes have replaced some parking spaces in residential areas.
“The vast majority of the people in the community did not want these bike lanes and do not want the bike lanes,” he said. “They were just put up there against our will.”
Fray said that the lost parking spaces on one side of Oceania Street had a ripple effect. Residents who can no longer park there now compete for the spaces elsewhere in the neighborhood. “Everyone here drives,” he said.
Dumbasses and their wild assumption that everyone is just like them. name a more iconic duo
If the community didn't want them, how did the article manage to find people who use them? Did they drive in from another part of town just to use the bike lane?
The article does say the neighborhood is a transit desert. I guess the bike lanes are a partial fix but only for some people
Everybody here drives <-> no other transit options
Only one side of the street too.
There's an historic section of a nearby town which is popular for tourists. Thousands of people a day just walking around all over the place, going shop to shop and whatnot. The whole place has street parking on both sides, a centre turn lane, and 50km/h signage that gets ignored at every opportunity.
Used to be a tram line ran through the town that connected to the neighbouring cities, but oh no, must make room for the private automobile. Luckily some years ago they started charging for parking, and since Covid-19 a dozen spots were given to restaurants and the like for additional outdoor seating.
Such a shock when it turned out a few parking spaces could generate more revenue for businesses when you put people on them instead of cars.
So did you finish reading the article then or just black out right there? These are 70 year old residents who can't physically move all that great.
I'm all for adding more bike lanes, but let's not hurt a different group of people in the process. Maybe they should have implemented bus routes and other public transportation before ripping out the roads for cyclists.
"Dumbasses and assumptions" and all that goes both ways.
If I were a cyclist in that neighbourhood I would ride my bike through the no bike lanes signs. If you won't let me have a lane where else do you expect me to cycle?
Ride safely in these particular streets, follow every traffic law and take the lane. People might hate you, or realize a protected area will keep the traffic separated sO pEoPlE cAn gO fAsT.
I don't like irritating people I disagree with as a tactic, but sometimes a little friction helps to make a point.
Of course, the doofi may decide to try banning bicycles outright instead 🤦
The lanes already exist so in reality I would be using the lanes but my previous comment is the overall sentiment I have.
"Everyone drives here" is such a biased reason for no bike lanes and the fact it connects kids to schools should make this a non protestable issue. Are you able to protest a school bus stop because your neighbours have kids but you don't?
Every time I ride by id yell "no car lanes!"
Don't they already have a driveway and some grass that they could put some tiles on and create a parking? Why do they insist on parking on the street?
Because the garage is full floor-to-ceiling with trash and the household owns 3-4 cars. There are numerous houses on my street that do this and, at times, the street is so choked with cars on both sides that it makes it very unsafe to drive and cycle through. Especially if they park trailers or boats out on the street. Extremely limited visibility and like a hands-width of clearance on either side.
The entitlement of drivers knows no bounds.
My family of 5 owns 4 cars (I've moved out and ride a bike). I'm so sorry families like mine exist lol. They know my feelings on cars and even agree with a lot of what I say because it's pretty incontrovertible. But in the end they don't really care. They metaphorically pat me on the back for riding my bike and continue to live their privileged life style that makes life worse for the rest of us.
Rich people literally don't give a fuck about anyone else. They donate to charity and feel genuinely sad for unprivileged people but will fight tooth and nail against anything that remotely threatens their way of life.
Because they didn't have to pay for that land, the city plows and maintains it, the city repaves it, your partner doesn't complain when your project car leaves oil stains on the curb. So basically entitlement to public land is what they insist on.
That neighborhood needs a critical mass.
I live in a pretty liberal larger city and had a similar experience when the city was considering installing bike lanes on an arterial road. People love their parking. There is a sense of entitlement that someone should be able to drive door to door anywhere in the city. Honestly that was the way it used to be. The problem is partly having built a lifestyle that requires a large number of cars combined with not wanting anything to change. I've been a biker for a long time and recently bought an e-bike so I'm obviously biased but in a city, even one not designed for bikes, e-bikes are often a superior way to travel. Weather and needing one bike per person are the main problems. Can e-bikes reduce the number of cars in a given area and free up more parking so we can accommodate more bike infrastructure? Car share is another option I was a fan of and my city has seen those options come and go. A ubiquitous car share problem would help a lot. Not sure why those programs struggle so much.
Make those dumbass two way streets a one way street, and use the parked cars as barriers to separate bikes from moving cars (curb, bikelane, parking, driving, parking, bikelane, curb). There, no parking space lost. Not the absolute safest thing but it naturally puts the street on a diet, is damn well safer than nothing and it takes care of the parking argument.
I'm all for it, but these types will then complain about the lane reduction. They aren't acting in good faith and will just move the goalposts to the next argument.
I don't disagree, but I think there you can trip them up with saying that you are making the majority of streets more quiet and family friendly keeping those horrible people from that other neighbourhood from speeding through our streets etc etc. Push the right buttons and you can play nimbys like a fiddle.
@vividspecter maybe next house there is another one with "No road signs #stoptheroadsigns"
I think this is kind of a religious fight.
"No more car lanes #stopthecarlanes"
Maybe someone should do a bike rickshaw service for folks in this community. Might be cute and fun, and create good will
I was that guy.
A town near me had been gradually making things more and more walkable, bikable, dedicated bus lanes. Excellent transit. All good.
However we couldn’t use transit and it got down to just one street you could realistically cross west to east, until they took away two of the three lanes for bike and bus on that one remaining through street. wtf. That went too far.
I thought they were completely insane but losing their parking because of poor planning is a good reason to be mad.
The city planners created a town that wasn't walkable and then took away parking from a few people knowing that a minority of complainers can't fight back.
If the council wants to take away a few citizens' parking, how about they bulldoze the council members yards for parking lots. Even better is eminent domain the council members homes to turn it mixed use urban design to make the town walkable. Then they can have more bike lanes and everyone is happy.
It's not their parking, it's street parking on public land. If the public decides through a council that the safety of the citizens is more valuable then a couple peoples parking spaces they can choose to reallocate that land. These people still have private driveways and garages to park there car whereas bike lanes can only go in certain places.
The city planners who made the decision to make the neighborhood car dependent are long dead or retired. These council members are trying to make it less car dependent and you want to bulldoze there houses for trying?
If we want to move away from car dependence we'll never get anywhere if we have to stop and consider every minor inconvenience that motorists may suffer and conive someway to put that cost on the people trying to change things.
Yay, you just created 20 parking spots and "punished" some people. Happy now? You still have the same fucking problem...