Bike lanes are not about bikes

 [[{“value”:”The city [WDC] has built about 20 miles of bike lanes in the past five years, but despite that, the portion of D.C. residents who bike to work peaked in 2017 and has decreased each year since, falling from 5 percent to 3 percent. So who are these lanes for? And: Across town, on South
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The city [WDC] has built about 20 miles of bike lanes in the past five years, but despite that, the portion of D.C. residents who bike to work peaked in 2017 and has decreased each year since, falling from 5 percent to 3 percent. So who are these lanes for?

And:

Across town, on South Dakota Avenue NE, the fight is ongoing, and, as The Post’s Rachel Weiner reported, this squabble reveals an essential truth about bike lanes as weapons of civic planning: They are often installed not to satisfy the barely measurable trickle of residents who pedal to work but mainly to make car traffic worse enough that people will be discouraged from driving.

Here is the full piece by Marc Fisher.  A rare sane take on an ultra-mood-affiliated topic.  You may recall my earlier and unfulfilled request for a good cost-benefit analysis on bike lanes for American cities.  Houston fortunately is moving away from this idea, and no “I love the Netherlands” is not an effective counter to the issues at stake here.

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