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Cue the grumbling: City planning new bike lanes
Budget hearings yesterday revealed that the city is planning to install new north/south bike lanes through Center City.
Cue the grumbling: City planning new bike lanes
In a budget hearing yesterday, Deputy Mayor of Transportation Rina Cutler revealed that plans are in the works for two new major north/south bike lanes, to complement the east/west lanes installed on Pine and Spruce streets last year.
I'm going to go ahead and make a wild prediction: grumbling — whining, one might say — and lots of it, from the usual suspects who hate bike lanes, hate bicyclists, and really hate the fact that the city seems determined to push ahead with its plan to become a truly bike-friendly city.
The grumbling, according to my prophetic vision, will include:
1. Complaints about bicyclists running red lights and riding on sidewalks.
2. Complaints about space being given over to bicyclists that could (or is) being used for more cars!
3. Complaints that bicyclists pose some kind of crazy public safety threat (when I last checked, in December, 2009, the ratio of people killed by cars versus bikes in the city over five years was 174:3).
4. Complaints that bicyclists are a small minority of residents and therefore are being accommodated disproportionately.
5.Complaints by Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky (I look forward to being proved wrong on this one, Stu).
Another prediction: These complaints will be as valid and as flawed as they always are.
Do bicyclists break traffic laws? Yes — and they should do it less. But most of us who rely on bicycles for daily commutiing are more concerned with safety. A broken collar bone, cracked rib, broken wrist and innumerable near-doorings taught this reporter caution long ago. I'll advocate for bicyclists' being considerate and cafeful all you want. But the more the city provides safe and intuitive ways for people to get around town by bikes, the less I'll need to. There are plenty of studies showing this: More biking means safer biking, and more accomodations like bike lanes mean more biking.
The grumblers may grumble, and that's their right, but bicycles are becoming viable transportation alternatives to driving in cities like Philly — not for everyone, but for more people than are aware of it now — and a bicycle on the street is one less car in front of you in traffic.
And you know what? They're popular — not always with old-timers, but, I'll wager, with young newcomers. And we need more of those in Philly: Bike lanes are a cheap, easy way to attract the kind of urban energy this city needs to grow. (This reporter's being able to ditch his car after moving here, for example, has resulted in much revenue for local bars).
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