City of Vista, near San Diego is removing protected bike lanes after community pushback
City of Vista, near San Diego is removing protected bike lanes after community pushback
tl;dr...city spent $1.5 million to install, halted construction, is removing most of what's been installed, costing $500k to remove.
Even cyclists didn't like them, apparently...
Those types of protected bike lanes get built up with detritus and are often never street swept or cleaned out. Cities seemingly do not plan for ongoing maintenance.
I live in San Diego, and bike a lot. These bike lanes are all over San Diego. They have small street sweepers that fit in there to clean them.
The City of Vista is a community that is part of the urban San Diego landscape, and a couple of decades back it was somewhat rural, which was changed by the suburban sprawl. However, there are still a lot of rednecks that live there, and bike lanes are often viewed by these folks as "liberal bullshit", and blame them for displacing car lanes and parking.
While the video notes that some unspecified bike users don't like the lanes, I'm highly skeptical of that. I ride in similar lanes all over San Diego, and they are a godsend, as they do a good job of keeping cars separated from bikes. A more likely explanation is that the "bikers" complaining are typical conservative rednecks that hate bike lanes in general, and not the people that actually use bike lanes.
bike lanes are often viewed by these folks as “liberal bullshit”, and blame them for displacing car lanes and parking.
I don't understand how "traveling using your muscles" became less "manly" than "sitting on your ass".
Someone who rides up a big hill on a bike? Fit. Impressive. Admirable.
Someone who drives a car? Boring. Passé. Dull.
Most cities, suburbs, and small towns don't/won't buy anything special to clean them. It is a real problem.
Nah I know plenty of riders in the area that dislike them because they’d rather ride in the street than have a dumbass driver lose even more control getting popped into the air when they hit the little shitty barriers and crush them. Some of the as lanes in the county are alright but these are bad for everyone involved.
Just for clarity, the city is removing the bollards that were just installed, not the actual bike lane. When you watch the video, you can hear at least some of the feedback they were given.
One of them is from a cyclist, and I kind of understand their perspective. They claim that the bollards present an opportunity for cyclists to get injured, either catching their handlebars or hitting, but I'll be honest, it seems a hell of a lot safer than having those multi-lanes of high-speed traffic right beside you.
When plastic bollards act as a deterrent for motorists who think they can encroach into a bike lane, I think anything is better than nothing.
I think the worst part about this is that they're willing to basically not even give them a chance. They're tearing them down before they've even completed construction, which tells me that there could be a bit of "change is bad" mentality going on without even trying.
They're giving in to road-raging SUV-driving MAGAdiots, which are abundant in Vista and most of north SD County.
USAian cyclists man... you can't make this shit up.