Are Bike Lanes Actually Ruining Our Cities?

I'll invite you to look at the still being installed new bike lane set up in Barrow-in-Furness. There's an end of cycle lane markings and sign in the middle of a pavement – nowhere to go except to get off and walk across the pavement, to get on the road where there is no drop kerb or anything. There's a road junction where cyclists and cars had equal priority on one route – that now involves three crank your head give ways for cyclists (in my experience cyclists of all kinds are ignoring it). A personal use example. I've ridden ridden round one roundabout hundred times on the road and never felt threatened. But taking the new bike lane route last week, for the first time nearly got taken out by a car because, well, a motorist only need to stop at a (dual use) zebra crossing if they feel like it (probably because think the Highway Code is wrong and should be rewritten).

One small issue with the way you present the situation in Paris: the suburbs that are promoting bike infrastructure are actually the poor suburbs, the rich suburbs are car-brained towns with very little proper bike infrastructure. And would you beleive it? The poor neighboughroods with good cycling infrastructure are also the places (outside Paris) with the highest bycicle share…
And in PAris proper, the cycling infrastructure is much more comprehensive, and much more used, in the poorest parts of the city: if you look at the Paris cycling infrastructure map, you'll see that the east of Paris is much better served than the western part of Paris. And once again, this means the richer the constutency is the less the cycling infrastructure is developed, which does not support the "rich cylists" theory…

I think this video may have missed a couple of points for bike lanes.
I live in the Netherlands and both drive a car and cycle for leasure and errands. As a driver, I am the first person to vote for a new bike lane! The more people are on the bike, the less drivers are on the roads, which ultimately makes my drive faster and more pleasant.
Another nice thing of cycling infrastructure is parking. Parking space for 5 thousand bikes is a relatively small underground parking below the square next to train station. Parking for 5 thousand cars is a completely different story.
One more missing point in this video is how much cheaper the cycling infrastructure construction and maintenance compared to the automotive roads. Since bicycles are so much lighter and speeds are generally lower, once built, cycling path can last years with a minimum maintenance if any. The same time, leave a car road for a couple of years, and it will become impossible to drive due to pot holes. So, get more people on the bikes, save tons of tax payers' money and invest them in education, health care or something else instead of wasting them on a road maintenance.
I am happy to see all the new cycling infrastructure projects and hope other countries will also reach the level of convenience that we have here.

If cycle lanes reduce the number of cars using a road then journey time may be quicker.

It would help if the cleaned them.

Most blue collar workers aren’t even bringing anything to work with them they can’t carry in a backpack. Unless you think blue collar just means “the trades”. I work in a factory of sorts and everything I use for my work is stuff I keep at work. I don’t bring any of it home with me.,

Simon, I loved this video. I live in a VA city not far from Richmond and though I don’t know the Richmond City guy, I do know David Cook who is the Statewide Bicycle and Pedestrian coordinator for our state in our Department of Transportation and who lives in Richmond. David is doing a lot to promote improved cycling (and pedestrian) infrastructure across our Commonwealth. I’m trying to encourage folks in our city to mimic some of the low cost things Richmond has done to make “painted” bike lanes safer such as putting bike lane at the curb and using parked cars at the side of the bike lane to buffer it from moving traffic.

Given the choice between death and a 1-minute longer car commute, many Americans seem to prefer death.

You know very little about Paris. The richest districts voted against the continuation of the current policies, the poorest voted for it. The discrepancy was astonishing.

I ride 17km for work, only two of them in a bicycle lane. I it do because I love riding I reckon that is super dangerous to ride in my city

Si, you really got to give Jason Slaughter from Not Just Bikes a call. I ride my bike 25 to 35 miles to work and back home each day. Most people I talk to say they would like to ride their bike to work but do not feel safe.

1:29 you had me at “comes at the expense of car driving” ❤

In the USA, conservatives expect everyone to live the way they want to. Having options is “socialism.”

Great video, but you're preaching to the already converted.

These are the videos we want from GCN, leave the podcast but put all the other videos on the other channels. Like the motor doping video, upload it to GCN Tech

Yes.

They are only “controversial” because of oil company propagandists pretending to be grass-roots.

I moved to a small city of about 100,000 and I wasn't sure how long it would take to get used to bike lanes. But it didn't take long at all. I am really in favor of them. Even where there aren't bike lanes, the roads are mostly pretty rideable. It's great – and it rarely takes more than 2 minutes to get anywhere by car.