3 days after Canada’s Ontario Premier Doug Ford removed this bike lane, drivers tell us if their commute has improved

Bike lanes are shite.

Look at the Netherlands where biking just works. There bike lanes are an exception for inner cities. The rest of the bike infrastructure is either purposely built or designed in a way that it safely diverts faster motorized traffic from slower (bike) traffic. Both parties are at a safe distance most of the time. And if they are not there is visibility of riders by design.

Additionally Dutch bike culture did not just come into existence. They needed to create public awareness and acceptance in an ongoing process. The culture was actively shaped by individuals who gained democratic support of broad parts the society.

You can’t just take a typical North American stroad (a traffic way that combines the drawbacks of both street and road without having most of their benefits) and dedicate parts of it as a bike lane. That only will create animosities between drivers and riders. And foremost it is inherently unsafe, because most deadly encounters happen at intersections where the bike lane solutions create unsafe conditions because of unawareness, speed difference, confusing circumstances and bad visibility.

The bike lane is still there though…