Thursday, October 24, 2024

Anecdata, vibes, and envy

So, the stupid gridlock law is in the legislature now, and the one thing that gives me a flicker of hope is that there are a lot of people out there pointing out all the reasons it is a dumb law that won't fix gridlock. The CBC posted an article summarizing studies from around the world that show safe biking infrastructure does not impact traffic negatively, improves business on main streets, and improves emissions levels. Toronto Today just posted an article quoting the Bloor Street BIA (Bloor being one of the places Doug Ford definitely wants to rip bike lanes out of) as saying that removing the lanes would be "disastrous" for business.

There have been rallies in Toronto and Ottawa so far, the latter organized by my favorite Ottawa councillor Jeff Leiper. Here's CTV News Ottawa on that:


But that's not what I came to talk to you about. 

Came to talk to you about the anecdata.

I am glad, I guess, though it makes my blood boil, that they included streeters in that video with people who are against bike lanes, just because, just vibes, just - agin' em. They give Dave Roberton (vice president of Bike Ottawa) and Jeff a lot more time to talk, and they show the two anti-bike people saying, eloquently: "I think it's great, rip them all out so there's more room for us," and "I just hate bike lanes and they shouldn't be in the downtown, which is where they are." 

Razor sharp reasoning and logic there, kids. 

So in the interest of catharsis, here's some stupid shit I've heard anti-bike-lane people say in the last week or so and my simplest answers. 

"I am a tradesperson and I need my car to get around town." 

Okay. No one is stopping you. 

"What about diabled people and the elderly?"

Leaving aside the fact that plenty of disabled and elderly people can and do ride bikes or otherwise use bike lanes (like, with wheelchairs and scooters and trikes and whatever), no one said everyone has to ride a bike just because there is a bike lane. We're not going to build a bike lane and then outlaw driving. And not for nothing, but just about everyone I hear make that argument is able-bodied.

"We want drivers to be able to get around our cities."

Okay - do you also want me to be able to get around my city? And if not, why not? I work. I shop. I go out. I participate in our economy. So, shouldn't I also be able to get around? 

"What if the bike lane runs in front of a church, and there is a funeral, and they need to bring the coffin out of the church and into the hearse, which is parked in the bike lane?" (I am not kidding, I heard this one.) 

Look, if I'm riding along in a bike lane and there is a funeral cortege lined up along the curb, I will stop. send up a thought for the departed and their family and friends, and if they are actively loading the coffin I'll probably wait till they're done? Maybe walk on the sidewalk? Weird fringe reason to object to the lane just generally being there though. 

"But that bike lane is taking up a lane that could be used for us!"

That bike lane has a whole bunch of people on bikes in it who would be in the traffic lane with you if it wasn't there, and I know you wouldn't be sanguine about that. Also, this isn't "my simplest answer" but if you would like, read up on induced demand

"We just have too many people moving into the city and we need to build more roads."

Maybe you're trying to pretend your problem isn't with immigration. But okay, fair. If we've got a booming population we don't need to build more roads, we need to build denser housing that people can afford closer to the middle of the city. Kills two expensive birds with one stone: we already need the housing, why also build the roads? Also, see above about induced demand.

"Bike lanes cause pollution because cars are backed up!" 

No, cars cause pollution because they burn fossil fuels. And a whole lot of people IN those cars chose to be there. Sure, some people actually can't walk or bike or take transit. But the vast majority of people stuck in that traffic jam had the choice to be there. I have watched friends choose not to. A good friend just got an e-conversion for his bike because his mental health demanded he not sit in that traffic jam or wait for that delayed or cancelled O-Train. 

"Bike lanes shouldn't be downtown."

Why not? That's where the people and the shops and the jobs are. 

"I just hate bike lanes." 

. . . Um, okay I guess? Can you explain why? Because that's a really weird attitude when you think about it. And you might find yourself coming down to something kind of embarassing if you really sat with why you feel that way. Something like "I think people on bikes are a threat to my manhood" or "I don't want anyone else to have something that I don't use" or "People who aren't stuck in traffic like me make me jealous." And all of those kind of sound like a you problem, something you should maybe work on within yourself. 

Anyway, all that said, I'm off to write to my MP and try to say all this a bit less snarkily. And leave some pointed comments on the Environmental Registry of Ontario's website

Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Reducing Gridlock and Saving . . . WHO. . . Time?

Doug Ford hates bikes. Same as his brother did. It's apparently just an unreasoning, gut-based loathing. It's got the same vibes-based feel as the comment section of the Post whenever there's a story that involves cycling. Problem is, the people in the comment section aren't the premier of the country's most populous and urbanized province. 

Next week, the Ontario government is tabling the childishly named Reducing Gridlock and Saving You Time Act in the legislature. (Seriously, these people can't even name their laws as if they were grownups.) This staggeringly dumb law will require municipalities to seek the provincial government's approval to build new bike facilities if they might have "a negative impact on vehicle traffic." 

(don't mind me, just adding a screenshot from the ontario.ca website)

Based on gut feeling, they have decided (according to Minister of Transportation Prabmeet Sarkaria), that bike lanes installed during the pandemic, when "fewer vehicles were on the road and their impacts on traffic were unclear," are causing gridlock. Because of course they must be. Do they have data? Of course not. Would they listen to data? Continue dreaming. Sakaria's making this announcement in fucking Etobicoke. People in the godforsaken suburbs of Toronto will clap like seals for this. 

I keep having to stop while writing this to take a breath and calm down. It's not particularly helpful just to rage at stupidity. 

But the whole pausing-for-a-breath thing doesn't really work, if I'm being honest. Not when the next thing Sarkaria said was "This is why our government is bringing informed decision-making and oversight to bike lanes as well as taking steps to increase speed limits safely [you bet those italics are mine]."

Oh, and they're also requesting a review of every bike lane built in the last five years, to see if they can maybe strip those out as well. The "built during the pandemic when there were fewer cars" thing is window dressing. You know what dropped during the pandemic and never recovered? Public transit ridership. You know what had bounced back to 2016 levels by May of 2022? Car commuting. So unless we bolted off to design, approve, implement and construct thousands of kilometres of bike infrastructure between March of 2020 and about a year to a year and a half later, your argument is invalid. Your gridlock - inasmuch as it has increased since 2020 - is being caused by people not taking transit.

Source - Statistics Canada

Yet we're going to ban most new bike lanes, rip out some existing ones maybe, maintain road widths, and increase speed limits, all to save drivers time. And people are going to die. And no driver's time will actually be saved.

If you're reading this you probably don't need me re-litigating the data on induced demand, actual causes of gridlock, correlation of increased speed limits and pedestrian deaths, actual impact of bike lanes on traffic speeds, etc., etc. I just want us to sit for a moment with the sheer carbrained, knee-jerk hatefulness of this. 

You can't fix gridlock by making it easier to drive. The data are in on that. Every time you disincentivise transit and cycling (and scooters, and walking) you push another person into a single-occupancy car choking out fumes on a bumper-to-bumper commute to Barrie or Scarborough. All you can do with this bullshit law - and all they want to do, really - is get more votes from their SUV-driving suburban base, which is ironic, given the Conservatives are supposed to be all about small government and now every municipality in Ontario is going to have to come to Queen's Park with their proposals for bike lanes for approval. The paperwork will pile up. The bureaucracy will pile up. Projects will stall out. Car traffic will continue to clog the roads. And - again - people on bikes and on foot will die. 

But they said this law would Save You Time (where "You" is understood to mean "drivers/Conservative voters/suburban Torontonians," not, you know, all the rest of us). And to a whole lot of people that'll sound real truthy. And the facts do not matter as long as they're sticking it to those bike riding pinkos.