This post is inspired by me seeing an ambulance in the bike lane by the apartment building opposite of mine.
By this point, I’m sure we’ve all had just about enough of anti-urbanists and NIMBYs claiming in bad faith that bike lanes and bus lanes will be obstructive for emergency vehicles, and as such cannot be built.
You’re probably well aware that exactly the opposite is the case - cars are the principal obstruction for emergency vehicles, and emergency vehicles can actually make very efficient use of bike and bus lanes to shorten response times.
I propose that we flip the argument on its head by rebranding bike and bus lanes as Emergency Vehicle-lanes, which just so happen to afford permission to buses and bikes when not in active use by emergency vehicles (which is of course already the case, everyone is required to yield any space to emergency vehicles, at least where I live).
This way, we kill this particular argument against bike and bus lanes in its crib, and expose the opposition as being actually against emergency vehicle mobility, in favour of having more lanes to drive their cars on.
Let me know what you think!
Sounds like a great way to get the functionality of bike lanes destroyed piecemeal as they’re adapted first and foremost to the use of oversized North American emergency vehicles. In the end you get pulled over by an asshole cop on your bike for riding in “the ambulance lane” and you’ve gotta pay the fine as you can’t miss work to dispute it.
No. Stand your ground here. Keep pushing back against the use of nonsensically oversized, outrageously expensive emergency vehicles. Cut down their argument at the ankles by bringing North American emergency response vehicles in line with the standards used by the rest of the world.
Your first mistake is assuming NIMBYs are arguing in good faith. They will simply keep arguing the point, or find another one. They don’t even have to argue on a basis of truth, as long as they keep screeching loud enough for everyone to go “FINE, baby. Have it your way” because they don’t wanna deal with it anymore.
Do not appeal to or argue with NIMBYs, instead present your case to politicians and participate in your local politics.
“We can’t have dedicated emergency lanes, that would imply our neighborhood is unsafe”
Won’t someone think of the property values?!?
Op specifically said the nimbys argue in bad faith so it’s weird you’re Johnny on the spot to correct them on that one
Well, this is kind of a bad faith rebranding from my side, isn’t it? Seeing as I’m primarily interested in having safe and efficient space for bikes and buses, with emergency vehicle mobility being a mere side effect.
I don’t think we should be afraid to “stoop to their level” - they play dirty, we should play just as dirty.
You can argue with them until the cows come home. It’s not about playing dirty or keeping your hands clean, it’s about not wasting your time with rotting lead-brained boomers. You can do that if you think it’s fun, but it’s not gonna achieve anything.
I don’t know that I agree. When the other side speaks, they aren’t trying to convince us, really - they speak to the people on the sidelines who may be swayed either way. As is the case when we speak - we already know that these people are arguing in bad faith, and they’re not going to be won over by what we say.
If you do that, the cagers will whine “Look at all the cyclists driving their bikes in the lanes set aside for emergency vehicles!”
Keep it codified that bikes and buses are allowed to use the space, and that specifically only private cars and commercial transport vehicles are prohibited.
I’ve had drivers scream at me and threaten my life over using the street when it was painted with a bicycle icons indicating it’s legal there. People unfortunately go by what they think should be legal until it affects them personally
I’ve had people try to run me off the street as well. Stay strong, friend. One day, their day of reckoning will hopefully come.
I’ve never understood why bike lanes aren’t protected as a form of accessibility that people with mobility devices benefit from.
Where I live, there are a LOT of people in mobility devices using bike lanes, and it pains me to see them forced onto the roadway because of some asshole parking in the bike lane.
Accessibility tends to be an easy win, because only the biggest shills would be against accessibility infrastructure.
Like getting mad at curb cuts, handicapped parking, wheelchair ramps would be insane.
Make it so bike lanes are protected under the same umbrella, because they should be.
At least around here, people with mobility aids are expected to be with pedestrians, on the sidewalk. Looking at relative speeds and agility: cars are different from bicycles are different from pedestrians. Mobility aids are similar to pedestrians and pedestrians have equal access regardless of whether they need a mobility aid
Unless you mean golf carts. And yes, I’d like to see a whole set of roads for those. Or maybe they’re similar in speed to bicycles so we just need bigger bike lanes
To clarify, when I say “mobility device” in this context, I’m referring to an electric scooter like this:
And yeah, that was a photo taken from the dash cam on my bike… seeing old or disabled people having to navigate around cars just angers me.
I have no problem with someone like that using the bike lane:
At least around here, people with mobility aids are expected to be with pedestrians, on the sidewalk.
That would be nice, except the areas around here often don’t have clear sidewalks (i.e. cars parked on them, snow not cleared, poor surface quality, , too narrow, etc.).
I went for a walk yesterday, and I can say with 100% certainty that someone in with a mobility device would not be able to use the sidewalk to get to the local grocery store because of snow and snow banks leading into intersections, despite the roads being 100% clear.
The mobility scooters I see during the summer are large and go faster than walking speed, so I’m sure the user simply finds it better/safer to be using the bike lane. Hell, we have a lot of joggers who use our bike lanes rather than the sidewalks, and I don’t blame them - sidewalks are a hazard when you’ve got cars around. And that’s assuming you’ve got a sidewalk to begin with!
Or maybe they’re similar in speed to bicycles so we just need bigger bike lanes
We need bigger bike lanes, regardless of the speed of the users. Some places (i.e Montreal and Paris) have areas where the “bike lane” is as wide as a standard car lane, and it allows ANY non-car user to travel on it without conflicts. It’s glorious!
Some sidewalks in my area are so narrow that you can’t walk past another pedestrian unless one of you goes on the grass. I can’t imagine someone using a wheelchair, mobility device, or stroller on those same sidewalks.
And that assumes only ONE of the people are in a wheelchair or mobility device… if you have one going in each direction, it’s a stalemate.
When you’ve got cars parked onto those same sidewalks, even partially, it’s a nightmare.
It’s a good point that we all live in different places with different variations of issues
It’s rare here to see cars in the sidewalk but there was this one house that consistently did it for a while
It’s rare here to see cars in the sidewalk but there was this one house that consistently did it for a while
Part of the problem is that too many people have large trucks for personal use… these trucks were never designed to be parked in a residential area. So, they take up the sidewalk AND often back onto the bike lane… double-whammy!
This is the type of nonsense our cyclists have to deal with on a marked bike route:
FYI: not long ago a cyclist was hit and critically injured just down the street from where this photo was taken. These bike lanes aren’t safe when you have cars blocking them.
I think working the accessibility-angle is important as well, as it tends to be used in bad faith as arguments against unlimited mobility for cars.
Not aware of anyone actually in the accessibility realm who tries to promote more car use, but I have seen it used in bad faith.
This isn’t a request out of bad faith. Mobility device users benefit from bike lanes, and they should be protected.
I agree - I merely consider it to be in a similar realm to bike/bus lanes and emergency vehicles. Emergency vehicles enhance their mobility using this infrastructure, and so do users of mobility devices.
NIMBYs claiming in bad faith
[…]
I propose that we flip the argument
And there’s your mistake. You understand that NIMBYs are not arguing in good faith, yet still ponder how to make a better argument.
The arguments don’t work on either group on either end - they should instead be tailored to work for the people on the sidelines who can be convinced to align with either side.
In places like the Netherlands, dual-direction bike lanes allow the smaller-built emergency vehicles to move freely. But, the Netherlands also loves to employ only a single driving lane in each direction and has opened up the median lane for public transit like busses and trams. This results in no car traffic for the public transportation, and freedom of movement for emergency vehicles. As well as reducing car dependency, because if there is one guy going slow on the road, you are stuck behind him. We would need to flip the car-centered narrative in the US to allow something like this to be implemented. Cities like Portland actually have implemented dedicated transit lanes and even overpasses for busses only, but the designs swap right back to the American ones the second you leave the “urban” part of the city. People need to be educated to see the alternative view and how it can help them. We can show source after source to educate people that bike lanes are better for their lifestyle, local businesses, safety, noise, travel times, and kids but people need to have the willingness and openness to learn. I think videos like this one are better to spread around and convince people with because you wouldn’t even think this is rush hour! But then you imagine if every single person was in a car, and you can imagine how large of an intersection ths would be, and how loud.
normally emergency vehicle can? and do use any part of road or non road. over here at least they can easily jump on oncoming traffic lane just to cross a heavy traffic part of a road. See it happen so often its not an issue.
They can indeed. Bad faith actors like to claim that bike lanes are incompatible with emergency vehicular mobility - which is untrue and in fact opposite to what actually happens - and this style of rebranding would dismiss that argument without the need for further discussion.
Which would end with a renitent biker blocking an emergency vehicle from passing. Yes, that is a common thing in Asia, where people priorize their own movement over that of any others.
I can’t say that I’m particularly worried about that, given that the alternative is that cars block the emergency vehicles, and they are far greater of an issue in terms of blockage.
Bikes could pretty easily get out of the way, buses less so. If we’re talking about physical-barrier lanes. Painted-stripe lanes, sure.
As someone who drives a wheelchair-modified minivan, I have to note that the design of the physical-barrier bike lanes I’ve encountered has turned streets that were “park anywhere legal, don’t feed the meter” to “there’s only one blue space, it’s at the far end of the street, and someone else is already in it, the other six spaces don’t allow you to drop your ramp.” Oh, and the sidewalk is now narrowed, with signposts making passage difficult. So I think the whole design process needs to be rethought. But that’s a whole nother thing.
