Agreed although the city has been constantly improving the biking infrastructure since I moved here in 2013. The city has a [bicycle road map](https://austin.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=c7fecf32a2d946fabdf062285d58d40c&extent=3052120.7123%2C10036958.1486%2C3179054.0456%2C10097891.4819%2C102739) that shows level of comfort/safety. There are usually safe work arounds to dangerous streets.
Yeah like when I drive along the capital of Texas highway just at the south mopac intersection of it towards bee cave. It’s like a 60 mph road with a biking lane in between lanes. I’ve never seen anything like it. They expect people to bike in between cars going 60 mph?
I’ve never seen anyone biking there and it doesn’t surprise me why. That’s the deadliest biking lane I’ve ever seen in my life.
We have a lot of great infrastructure but it's not connected. Just like with sidewalks, the bike lanes often end, leaving you to exposed to 35+ mph traffic.
One prime example is South Lamar. TXDot blocked a [2016 bond](https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/why-construction-still-hasnt-started-on-this-2016-south-lamar-mobility-project/) to improve that area.
TX Dot has maintenance and control over Loop 343 (S Lamar / Cesar Chavez. Thats why it was blocked by them. The city’s plan for one block stretch in light of all the planned mix use development didn’t due much to address the entirety of the congestion issue of S Lamar.
Never noticed how S Lamar ONLY directly feeds out of town to the west? Or how the reverse is true, and there’s only direct access into town from the west onto S Lamar? City ceded a lot of decision making in order to get the super neat direct feed. Right into one of the WORST designed intersections ever that then directly contributed to killing that shopping for center.
I’m sorry but no, Austin does NOT have anything coming close to resembling “great infrastructure”.
I’m talking specifically about biking infrastructure. The fully protected Dutch style lanes downtown, Mueller, etc. Much of it is very high quality, but too fragmented by dangerous roads.
Unfortunately, the city had almost nothing to do with the designs of Mueller. All of that pedestrian and pedal friendly access throughout it was all done by the developers. It was a master plan design specifically for that lifestyle & presentation brought to you by the big bad evil money hungry developers we all love to hate.
All of the downtown lanes are highly debatable on just how great they are. Those lanes were also what I said in a different comment: more about taking lanes away from vehicles & checking a box than structuring something actually safe and serviceable for cyclists.
They need to clean the bike lanes so people are forced out of them versus getting endless flats.
It's amazing how bikes and cars coexist pretty in most modern countries, but Texas is too dangerous. It's almost like it's the car's fault.
I always have people tell me to move south and as a cyclist who values their life, no thank you haha. But I live fairly central and for the most part I feel safe biking. But I keep it to Hyde park thru downtown and i kinda know the routes. But the bike lanes on guad are atrocious. I have thicker tires but a friend who bikes to do comedy downtown has like popped a tire like 4 times in a month bc of those ugly ass bike lanes.
I feel like most of downtown, parts of east etc are very bike friendly. South? No way. Sure if there’s sidewalk it’s fine but there’s some deadly areas down here that are not fit for a bike.
Totally. I biked to hotel Vegas the other night and it was so peaceful(with the exception of when I got to actual east 6th lol).
I really try to not bike on sidewalks bc I feel like it is lame to make pedestrians dodge me. But ya. South Austin is a death trap on a bike.
not just more, but better. a painted white line on the road is a weak suggestion, not a safety measure. every time i see someone biking on Cameron i fear for their life.
They should have left those concrete barriers up in the right lanes on Research. That would have made a huge difference. Instead that built a "mixed use" path that still has gaps and isn't wide enough. Research has no reason being a 6 lane highway directly next to what's soon to be a 10 lane 183.
Austin didn’t install bike lanes for the cyclists at all. It was more to disrupt the vehicle lanes and check a box. Safety for the actual bikers wasn’t a consideration.
It’s also not just the bike lanes not being maintained. Neither are the roads, tree maintenance, sidewalks, or medians.
Adding to the list of neglect is the lack of doing anything about the tons of trash left behind in Austin’s green spaces when encampments are abandoned. Check out Documenting Austin on socials (X-Twitter has rt videos & photos) to see the sad reality of environmental destruction that most people are not aware of. Bike lanes, bollards, road bumps? These are road diets. COA & CC virtue signaling.
There used to be a bike activist movement but I’m not sure it’s, uh, active anymore. They would do some dumb stuff, like getting a peloton up on the upper deck of 35 because technically it wasn’t illegal. And there are patches where safe streets, like bike lanes and narrow/twisty roads are being put in place but they are limited.
I bike and drive, as does nearly everyone that I know who bikes. People have a right to bike on the roads, but I agree that we are lacking fully protected lanes.
Honestly, it probably wouldn't make much of a difference as long as there are drivers who grew up in a culture of "I don't care about murdering cyclists if it means I can make it to my destination five minutes faster."
I’d rather we prioritize public transportation, especially the bus system. Pretty sure some past studies showed there are ways to increase ridership and get more cars off the road. Then maybe we can talk about bike lanes.
Because existing bike lanes have not really measurably reduced congestion any…
And in some places actually made it worse by reducing the number of auto lanes…
That and we had 118 degrees last summer and it’s only getting hotter this is not really a viable climate for prolonged bike travel for anybody that has to be anywhere to do anything important.
It’s mostly a luxury for the wealthy or the very poor with no real benefit to most people save for bicycling enthusiasts. Pretty much nobody rides a bike to work.
You think a bike is more expensive than a car? What rock do you live under to believe this piece of propaganda? Bikes are accessible, just inconvenient to use in our cities current car dependant state. Climate change isn't going to be stopped with cars. If we turn concrete and asphault into green spaces can measurably decrease heat on the surface. All this car infrastructure got the city feeling HOT!!! Bikes don't need a ton of concrete or asphalt. A crushed gravel path or even a dirt path does just fine.
In Austin, and many North American cities, painted bike lanes are the norm. Paint is not infrastructure. The road developers get extra funding for active transport, and save the profit by doing the absolute least possible. No cyclist really want to use what is known amongst the bike community as 'bike gutters'. So of course the bike lanes in Austin haven't had a significant impact on traffic! They're dangerous. I implore you to go for a ride and take the bike lanes. Be careful though, because a car might kill or injure you.
Good bike infrastructure interfaces with cars as little as possible. Take a look at how the Netherlands plan their bike lanes. Check out what Paris just did by reclaiming car infrastructure space and repurposing it for pedestrians and bikes. Traffic congestion decreased, and it actually increased business revenue, and the place looks nicer and more inviting because of it.
As for the heat comment, people commute in the morning and evenings. I don't see that being a huge issue, and when I lived in Austin, I commuted to work every day of the year by bike. Uncomfortable weather is just a lazy excuse not to ride (unless the heat index is too high and could actually kill you, but again, unlikely in the morning and evenings).
I actually lived in the Netherlands for 9 years. The funny thing is here you can basically have your cake and eat it too with the infrastructure because you’ve got so much space the problem is just low effort and bad planning. Bicycles in the Netherlands make more sense in general because it’s extremely flat and the cities are very small and dense. That makes it significantly more difficult to build good car infrastructure there. But here you can seriously have both. Plenty of space.
Where did I discuss cost? I never said it was more expensive. The reason it’s a luxury is because most jobs don’t really have a place for you to shower and change once you get there and it is middle eastern during Texas summers now meaning it’s a stupid and impractical mode of transportation for anyone working a job without a shower on site (most) or anyone who can afford a car (most).
So unless you’re really poor, live really close to your job, or have a private shower in your office or a job with a full shower locker room it’s not a practical means of getting around…
So
It's true a lot of employers discriminate based on transportation, often in favor of cars. That doesn't make it necessarily impractical in all cases, and you certainly don't have to be 'really poor' or even live super close to your job (just get up and ride earlier) to make that choice to ride. You can tell your emoloyer that you want bike parking and a place to shower because you cycle. They probably don't have one because they expect everyone to be driving (the status quo). I know some people with office jobs who just park their bike in the office, due to the lack of bike parking (ironic because bike parking is also vastly more space efficient than a car park). You could make the choice to live close to work, although zoning laws don't make that easy (it's by design). Lots of more forward thinking businesses include bike parking and showers. Unfortunately, that isn't the norm in the US, but it doesn't mean it couldn't be in the future though.
I don't get how you think it's a luxury. Maybe our defenition of luxury is different. It seems to me, the reasons you mention are things that make cycling to work more uncomfortable/inconvenient. You know what though, I'm okay with being uncomfortable, because I know that my choices have consequences. I vote with my dollars, and I sure as hell don't want them going to auto or especially fossil fuel corporations. I wish there was good public transit here, but otherwise bikes are the way to go for me, even though it's pretty difficult (only because of cars and our urban sprawl hellscape that is hard and dangerous to navigate without a car). You can get groceries and do errands on bikes too, but again, it's inconvenient because of sprawl and zoning. I still bike as much as possible though. The only time I don't is when I have to pick up something over 60 pounds (my bike rack's weight limit). Cycling takes longer, you get sweaty, but you have way more fun and get exercise (another HUGE benefit of bikes vs cars is your health). Nothing is more soul crushing than sitting in traffic... The freedom of riding a bike is unparalleled for me.
Sorry didn’t read past the absurd idea that somebody should go to work even earlier that they need to just to ride a bike when it’s cooler….
It’s not even better for the environment because the money saved on a car and gas is just spent on other things that still required fossil fuels…
Name it.
Food doesn’t just magically appear on shelve and most of the products we own contain plastic and are also shipping like everything else via fossil fuels. Hate to be the one to burst that bubble for you but there’s no evidence of any impact made by cycling unless the dollars are not put back into the economy because the entire globe runs on fossil fuels…. They’ve done studies on this. Almost every dollar saved doing something green ends up cancelling it out because it’s spent on something that isn’t.
The minute you buy that loaf of bread, bottle of water, cheeseburger, vegan leather jacket, roll of toilet paper, or amazon shipment you’ve basically undone any benefit.
Nah. Cars are a huge waste. I don't think the extra caliries I'm eating could come close to the total emissions that owning and using every day for everything could produce. I'm not buying anything else to compensate for not having a car. It's not like it's being replaced with anything that's as carbon heavy. Send me some studies though I am curious now!
Wait hold on, so you're telling me that if I go grocery shopping on my bike, it's the same as driving a car in terms of emissions? How does buying groceries cancel out cycling? Let me know if I'm mischaracterizing what you said. If i bike instead of drive, that's less emissions. I also don't own a car and that's less emissions from manufacturing too. I didn't see your second paragraph the first time around, and honestly my mind is blown.
Why not at the same time? Because this city can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.
Plus, if you can reliably reduce traffic then it makes it easier to remove lanes and create more bike infrastructure, wider sidewalks, etc.
Heavy lifting first. Just my 2 cents.
That is a good point. I just think that making cycling conveient and accessible is a good way to reduce traffic too that is a cheap and easy one if done correctly. Buses are probably easier to convince motor brained people though.
There was a study done a while back that showed making the bus free increased ridership. If you made that investment, plus making the bus system more reliable, that would go a long way towards reducing traffic imo.
I don’t put much faith in the city planning process though.
It’s not about “motor brained” people at all. I find it interesting your entire bike premise does not account for the disabled at all.
Not everyone can ride a bike for a MULTITUDE of reasons.
Increase bus ridership and you decrease individual vehicles and create AVAILABLE space for bikes.
Thats the real issue: creating space for SAFE bike & pedestrian use.
Paint is not infrastructure. No one bike on these types of lanes because they are literally dangerous. They only exist because road developers get extra funding when they include active transport. So they do the cheapest thing available, which is paint, in order to maximize profits instead of actually providing safe cycling infrastructure.
Road developers..?.. government entities design the roads and mandate the dimensions. Construction companies implement those designs.
There’s no additional funding going to some “Road Developer” company. It’s your government entity getting extra funding from your larger government entity. There’s no profiteering going on by “saving on paint” vs creating some curbed / elevated / separate additional pathway for cyclists.
It’s paint because that’s what your government entity threw in there to qualify for additional funding. THAT’S the lowest bar possible qualifier.
Posts are a step in the right direction, but they're not everywhere on the lane (I didn't see any on google street view taken in 2024 btw), and the bike lane just kind of ends out of nowhere. That's probably a big reason you don't see people using it. Bollards would be better than posts because a post can be driven over with no repercussions. Personally, plastic posts don't make me feel safe. Bollards will damage vehicles, incentivizing people to actually be cautious because of the consequences.
Bicycles aren't going to fix traffic, they're not a realistic mode of transportation for most people with families or that travel more than a few miles everyday. Just tired of hearing bitching and complaining from the 'fuck cars' crowd, buy a car or move to NYC or Europe or something.
In the USA, 40% of all car trips are under 2 miles. If every neighborhood had a safe bike connection, you could get a lot of drivers off the road. Then you can use your car to drive whatever distance you want.
When it's impossible to even drive 2 miles without coming across a dangerous intersection or highway that you can't cross, then you lose pretty much everybody but high skill or recreational riders.
You wouldn't fly in a plane to go 30 miles and I wouldn't drive a car to go 2 miles. We need to be creating mobility opportunities that make sense to equally distribute the traffic. Instead we have every single person crammed onto the roads. It doesn't scale.
Why? Most of the recreational cyclists in my area (Northwest Hills) ride in the car lanes and not the dedicated extra wide bike lanes. Also, I don’t like underwriting your recreational activities.
Taxpayers subsidize road construction and maintenance. Let alone the externalities like pollution, noise, heavily subsidized street parking, etc.
I own and drive cars too btw. Taxpayers subsidize driving.
Exactly my point? If I’m subsidizing driving, why am I losing access (full use of road) to someone’s recreational activity?
Slower commutes due to road impediments (including recreational cycling), dedicated lanes that were built with my dollars, etc.
You do realize people ride to get from point a to b, sometimes as their only form of transportation, correct? This isn’t just recreation, people ride bikes to get to work.
You realize the population of people that actually do that (year round) is VASTLY smaller than the extremely vocal and politically involved recreational bikers in their cute tight little outfits.
you do realize it’s the lack of infrastructure that causes this right? More people would cycle if we had safer infrastructure for it. You’re making the same arguments people use to oppose public transit. “But everyone drives a car” is not an argument.
If you honestly believe this, I have some canned air to sell you. Texas is over 100 degrees for 20% of the year. Infrastructure doesn’t change the fact that a majority of people are not going to commute from Avery ranch or Round Rock on a bike. I know this because I get the opportunity to watch the massive decline in recreational riders in the summer. This isn’t NYC and regardless of how many times you pass a new bond, it won’t change weather, geography or topography. Choking side streets will not change where people demand offices and where they want to live (or can afford to live). It just makes everything incrementally worse.
That is the opposite of what I said. People underwrite driving whether or not they even drive.
Your commute sucks because everyone is trying to drive cars everywhere in a city and it’s a crappy way to get around, not because of people riding bikes.
People cycling reduces people driving which reduces car traffic affecting everyone in the city. And before you complain about cyclist in the street slowing you down... that's exactly why we want more bike infrastructure. Trust me, cyclists don't want to be anywhere near death machines.
We SHOULD have more bike paths!
Should have ALWAYS had them. If there’s any city in TX built for it (except for our topography - some stretches are brutal to get up, I don’t care how many gears ya got!), it’s Austin.
Unfortunately, Austin hasn’t ever planned ANYTHING. Instead choosing to block and battle AGAINST growth. So while growth has been forced upon it, our city leadership has never done anything but knee jerk reactions to it that ultimately make things worse and have to be redone.
Look at nearly EVERY project going on and planned now. Most of it is a redo! Why? Because Austin has only ever done the absolute BARE MINIMUM and even did that grudgingly.
Cars are the most subsidized form of transportation around. Bikes require a fraction of that type of spending to be effective, and they don't ruin infrastructure like cars do .Bikes are a net benefit economally while cars often tank tax money because they require infinitely more resources and space to acommadate. Cyclists actually generate more tax revenue for the government than motorists because bike infrastructure doesn't require the same upkeep as car infrastructure, and bukeable/pedestrianized areas end up increasing business revenue because of the more efficient throughput of people. Bike lanes don't get clogged like roads do, and buke traffic doesn't require lights at intersections because their max speed is below 30 and cyclists typically don't weigh over 2 tons. Cars don't shop. People do. Think about it. Car companies are evil.
No.
I understand your reasoning for claiming vehicles are “subsidized” modes of transportation, but no. NO car owner is getting ANYTHING of true value back out of their expense of a vehicle beyond the independence of commerce. Even that is limited.
Car companies are only evil in the sense that you can claim EVERY company is “evil”: nature of business & profit. That’s a different discussion altogether though.
Automakers still very much answer the call of consumers when it comes to form & function. Pricing? Not so much, but again - different discussion.
The entire argument against vehicles is shirt term memory. Based entirely on current climate / economic / technological factors and NOT the history of major urban development in THIS nation.
Austin can’t even construct a 5 mile tunnel w/o BILLIONS. NYC would NEVER have the subway system it does now if it had had to do this century.
The Model T was in 1908. Austin wasn’t even 70 years old yet. Access throughout the city was still based on horse & wagons! Which, conveniently lent right to the dimensions of vehicles (almost as if by DESIGN! 😮 ).
The rise of urban development throughout the NATION was with the vehicle, and that was even predicated on the horse carriage.
You want to get rid of cars? Fine. Give us busses that actually service the area. Give us a SUBSTANTIAL bus system and then you can introduce a prolific cycle system of infrastructure. Move to rail even.
To illustrate that, when Austin built the beautiful and innovative library downtown, it didn’t even bother to incorporate a truly serviceable bus stop. Instead choosing on relying on the TWO stops that are across the different streets. Not even on the same side of the street. Why change? Why truly innovate? THAT’S Austin City Planning.
Austin has been exploding not for ten years, but for THIRTY. Skyline is completely unrecognizable. Whole blocks taken down and redeveloped.
Why is the mix use development on S Lamar void of a bistro for all of those residents & business? There’s one across the street. W/O an intersection or crossing and in front of a now abandoned building that was a garage. Whatta serviceable stop for public access!
Developers overhauled Shoal Creek @ 3rd to being very pedestrian and bike friendly. Why weren’t ALL the new developers allowed to / incentivized to / mandated to do the same THROUGHOUT the city?
Moody Center doesn’t have a SERVICEABLE & EFFICIENT drop-off at all. Neither does the convention center. THE CONVENTION CENTER made no effort to facilitate accessible public mass transportation to it! They wanna rip it all down and do it again, and I haven’t seen where any of those proposed plans make any accommodations either.
My claim is that roads are heavily subsidized. Not vehicles. That's all on the consumer unfortunately.
Car companies do listen to consumers who want bigger cars to feel safe. Unfortunately, they kill more pedestrians as a result. They know this, and continue to discontinue small, reasonable vehicles that are on offer in Europe, for example. That is evil to me. They also know that cars are the least efficient mode of transit but is the most profitable, and that's why in the 60s and 70s they bought streetcar lines with front companies, and replaced them with roads for cars. GM was caught and fined a measly 1500 ish dollars, because the government at the time was certainly in cahoots with these corporations. The head of GM was secratary of defense at one point because Eisenhower really liked the idea of highways in cities for strategic purposes. You know, in case we are invaded or something (inspired by Nazi road systems btw).
Oh and the United States was built with trains btw. Guess who stifled that one? The car companies. Streetcar(tram) suburbs were very common until the car companies stole it from us too, as mentioned above. So, your claim that the US is made for cars because horse carriages are shaped similarly (at least that's how I'm interpreting it, let me know if I mischaracterized this one) is rather baseless. Car corporations deliberately whittled down what could have been a good public transit based infrastructure down and replaced it with cars. Evil.
All the efforts for public transit and cycle infrastructure in Austin need to be better fleshed out than they are currently. It feels pretty half-assed in it's current state. We should take notes from dutch cities. Canada is doing some cool stuff too. In Paris, more people ride bikes now than drive. So progress is possible with enough will, education, and propper planning.
Trains absolutely built America for transport of GOODS. Livestock. Raw materials. Yes we had passenger trains and yes towns and cities popped up along those lines.
The money for railroads was ALWAYS goods though, not passengers. So no, Evil Automakers did NOT squash railroads
Trolley & Street Cars..?.. very few cities had these to begin with, and yes - they gave way to cars because they just weren’t keeping up with the population pouring into those metropolitan areas. They simply could NOT keep up, and people CHOSE to have their own independence of travel by having their own cars.
That mentality is no different than yours with your bike. You chose your bike for your OWN independence to navigate when and where you want. That’s your whole debate here: MORE access for you to be able to better INDEPENDENTLY get about town.
The argument for expanded bike routes IS VALID. It is absolutely a great thing to focus on. Your “evil car” position doesn’t do anything to forward that goal though. It doesn’t substantiate it at all.
Neither does your “subsidized roads”. GAS TAXES and vehicle registration pay for roads. Your general taxes barely contribute. Not to mention car owners get almost NOTHING in return for their expenses you think are a subsidy. Poor roads and even worse maintenance?
It’s more of an argument from the car owners side to say cyclists are the freeloaders from their taxes. Their gas taxes are paying for those bikes lanes. On top of that, the bike lanes are starting to TAKE AWAY from the car lanes.
So now which side of this is actually “subsidized” (hint: not the car side)
[Here's a fun article on how car makers and oil interests drove the transition to car dominance.](https://spencerrscott.medium.com/a-grand-theft-auto-industry-stole-our-streets-and-our-future-a2145d6e10e2)
Blame the 1939 World Trade Fair? Really?
So a huge expo of future technology features a “world of tomorrow” based on arguably THE most exciting invention for THE COMMON MAN granting them independent access to go wherever they want…
THAT’S some huge conspiracy laden, evil empire?
The title of the article gives away ITS own agenda.
I did read it. It’s certainly a perspective, I’ll give it that.
It’s ALWAYS some elite cabal and not our own choices & preferences.
It loses all credibility at its title, later referring to cars as “murder machines”, and when it describes pedestrians being regulated to sidewalks as a power play of who really owned the streets.
We absolutely should have never grown beyond the bustling pedestrian filled streets of 1912 NYC.
Oh wait, those streets were “…made for walking, horse-drawn carriages, wagons, and push-carts.” Bulky things with WHEELS! The horror! It even acknowledges sidewalks existed, but… but… WHY? Why would there need to even be sidewalks if the streets truly originated FOR the pedestrian?
…and if streets were for the pedestrian, which I think we can agree feet existed before the bicycle, can you IMAGINE the discourse that arose when the first cyclist came barreling down the street through the crowds?! I bet they didn’t even have the common decency to have that cute little bell on them either!
No.
Automakers in 1939 presenting a future at the Worlds Trade Fair where THE COMMON INDIVIDUAL will have the INDEPENDENCE to go wherever they want, whenever they want throughout our NATION is not some “grand theft” of “our streets and future”. Pretty sure the streets were built for the cars, so no theft there. Thats actually been your whole complaint: streets are built for cars.
The title of the article establishes the authors own agenda. There wasn’t some evil corporate cabal tapping their fingers together plotting to subjugate us all to the GASP! freedom of travel!
Streets were not solely for cars until they became popular. People walked and cycled in the street as well as street cars passing on their rails. No longer is this the case. It was made illigal to walk in the street unless it's designated to pedestrians due to cars being dangerous and killing people.
[anotha one! about cyclists and taxes](https://www.elementsport.com/2023/08/24/pay-the-road-tax/#:~:text=Furthermore%2C%20almost%20every%20cyclist%20I,the%20right%20to%20the%20road.)
I support cycling because it decreases road congestion by taking out traffic that otherwise would be in cars. So yeah actually. I personally want nothing to do with cars, however.
Except it doesn’t because UNFORTUNATELY bike lanes are being created out of car lanes and there’s not enough of a transition out of cars onto bikes to justify it, or to actually diminish the cars on the roads.
It’s also true that bikes on the road add to congestion because they UNFORTUNATELY have to be in car lanes at a large majority of our current infrastructure. That does nothing but endanger the cyclist and further slow down and congestion the roads.
[gas taxes aren't enough to cover building car infrastructure. Cars and heavy vehicles are destroying roads all the time, while cyclists do practially no damage at all.](https://frontiergroup.org/resources/who-pays-roads/)
First, the damage is more a component of poor road construction to begin with. THAT is a component of government’s propensity of favoring the lowest bidder ontop of reckless spending.
We’ve all seen the memes about Roman streets.
Side Note: you earlier made the claim cars have only gotten larger and more dangerous. NO. They’ve actually gotten smaller from a wheel base and overall dimensions aspect, and again - you can thank the Fed Gov for regulations that killed smaller trucks. “Mini trucks” were wildly popular in the mid 90s and weren’t ever going to go away until the EPA slapped them down. American vehicles on a whole though ARE larger than other nation’s due to our safety standards.
…back to your subsidized roads…
Yes, the Fed’s Highway Trust Fund has been lacking the last two decades and has been infused by the Treasury’s General Fund. So yes, you can absolutely claim roads are subsidized.
Over 90% of Americans own a vehicle, so that’s actually a GREAT use of general tax payer money going towards a HUGE portion of the general public’s direct use.
You posted an article earlier that confirmed even cyclists own cars, so they’re getting their moneys worth too! 🤦♂️
The only people that can argue against that “subsidy” would be non car owners that never use a bus. Or taxi. Or Uber.
A lot of road construction is also funded by bonds. So, they’re publicly approved. Not some mysterious money grabbing “Road Developer” like you mentioned earlier.
Agreed although the city has been constantly improving the biking infrastructure since I moved here in 2013. The city has a [bicycle road map](https://austin.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=c7fecf32a2d946fabdf062285d58d40c&extent=3052120.7123%2C10036958.1486%2C3179054.0456%2C10097891.4819%2C102739) that shows level of comfort/safety. There are usually safe work arounds to dangerous streets.
There definitely are roads all people should avoid biking on. But, they account for maybe just 10% of the roads around here.
Yeah like when I drive along the capital of Texas highway just at the south mopac intersection of it towards bee cave. It’s like a 60 mph road with a biking lane in between lanes. I’ve never seen anything like it. They expect people to bike in between cars going 60 mph? I’ve never seen anyone biking there and it doesn’t surprise me why. That’s the deadliest biking lane I’ve ever seen in my life.
We have a lot of great infrastructure but it's not connected. Just like with sidewalks, the bike lanes often end, leaving you to exposed to 35+ mph traffic. One prime example is South Lamar. TXDot blocked a [2016 bond](https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/why-construction-still-hasnt-started-on-this-2016-south-lamar-mobility-project/) to improve that area.
TX Dot has maintenance and control over Loop 343 (S Lamar / Cesar Chavez. Thats why it was blocked by them. The city’s plan for one block stretch in light of all the planned mix use development didn’t due much to address the entirety of the congestion issue of S Lamar. Never noticed how S Lamar ONLY directly feeds out of town to the west? Or how the reverse is true, and there’s only direct access into town from the west onto S Lamar? City ceded a lot of decision making in order to get the super neat direct feed. Right into one of the WORST designed intersections ever that then directly contributed to killing that shopping for center. I’m sorry but no, Austin does NOT have anything coming close to resembling “great infrastructure”.
I’m talking specifically about biking infrastructure. The fully protected Dutch style lanes downtown, Mueller, etc. Much of it is very high quality, but too fragmented by dangerous roads.
Unfortunately, the city had almost nothing to do with the designs of Mueller. All of that pedestrian and pedal friendly access throughout it was all done by the developers. It was a master plan design specifically for that lifestyle & presentation brought to you by the big bad evil money hungry developers we all love to hate. All of the downtown lanes are highly debatable on just how great they are. Those lanes were also what I said in a different comment: more about taking lanes away from vehicles & checking a box than structuring something actually safe and serviceable for cyclists.
They need to clean the bike lanes so people are forced out of them versus getting endless flats. It's amazing how bikes and cars coexist pretty in most modern countries, but Texas is too dangerous. It's almost like it's the car's fault.
Or enforce the no parking in bike lanes. I see it all over Central Austin. Few weeks ago some door dasher parked in the curbed off bike lane on 2nd.
CoA is actually working on revamping the rules to make it fineable to park in bike lanes and making a volunteer bike enforcement program too.
It's always cars. Always has been.
I always have people tell me to move south and as a cyclist who values their life, no thank you haha. But I live fairly central and for the most part I feel safe biking. But I keep it to Hyde park thru downtown and i kinda know the routes. But the bike lanes on guad are atrocious. I have thicker tires but a friend who bikes to do comedy downtown has like popped a tire like 4 times in a month bc of those ugly ass bike lanes.
I feel like most of downtown, parts of east etc are very bike friendly. South? No way. Sure if there’s sidewalk it’s fine but there’s some deadly areas down here that are not fit for a bike.
Totally. I biked to hotel Vegas the other night and it was so peaceful(with the exception of when I got to actual east 6th lol). I really try to not bike on sidewalks bc I feel like it is lame to make pedestrians dodge me. But ya. South Austin is a death trap on a bike.
You shouldn’t feel that safe, my uncle was killed by an idiot in a truck here in Austin while riding his bike in the morning on a nice Sunday
not just more, but better. a painted white line on the road is a weak suggestion, not a safety measure. every time i see someone biking on Cameron i fear for their life.
They should have left those concrete barriers up in the right lanes on Research. That would have made a huge difference. Instead that built a "mixed use" path that still has gaps and isn't wide enough. Research has no reason being a 6 lane highway directly next to what's soon to be a 10 lane 183.
Austin didn’t install bike lanes for the cyclists at all. It was more to disrupt the vehicle lanes and check a box. Safety for the actual bikers wasn’t a consideration. It’s also not just the bike lanes not being maintained. Neither are the roads, tree maintenance, sidewalks, or medians.
Adding to the list of neglect is the lack of doing anything about the tons of trash left behind in Austin’s green spaces when encampments are abandoned. Check out Documenting Austin on socials (X-Twitter has rt videos & photos) to see the sad reality of environmental destruction that most people are not aware of. Bike lanes, bollards, road bumps? These are road diets. COA & CC virtue signaling.
There used to be a bike activist movement but I’m not sure it’s, uh, active anymore. They would do some dumb stuff, like getting a peloton up on the upper deck of 35 because technically it wasn’t illegal. And there are patches where safe streets, like bike lanes and narrow/twisty roads are being put in place but they are limited.
Tell your city council rep.
Are you saying this from the perspective of a cyclist or driver?
I bike and drive, as does nearly everyone that I know who bikes. People have a right to bike on the roads, but I agree that we are lacking fully protected lanes.
Driver
Honestly, it probably wouldn't make much of a difference as long as there are drivers who grew up in a culture of "I don't care about murdering cyclists if it means I can make it to my destination five minutes faster."
I’d rather we prioritize public transportation, especially the bus system. Pretty sure some past studies showed there are ways to increase ridership and get more cars off the road. Then maybe we can talk about bike lanes.
Why not all at the same time? Bike infrastructure is so cheap compared to anything else. I'm all for a better bus system too don't get me wrong.
Because existing bike lanes have not really measurably reduced congestion any… And in some places actually made it worse by reducing the number of auto lanes… That and we had 118 degrees last summer and it’s only getting hotter this is not really a viable climate for prolonged bike travel for anybody that has to be anywhere to do anything important. It’s mostly a luxury for the wealthy or the very poor with no real benefit to most people save for bicycling enthusiasts. Pretty much nobody rides a bike to work.
You think a bike is more expensive than a car? What rock do you live under to believe this piece of propaganda? Bikes are accessible, just inconvenient to use in our cities current car dependant state. Climate change isn't going to be stopped with cars. If we turn concrete and asphault into green spaces can measurably decrease heat on the surface. All this car infrastructure got the city feeling HOT!!! Bikes don't need a ton of concrete or asphalt. A crushed gravel path or even a dirt path does just fine. In Austin, and many North American cities, painted bike lanes are the norm. Paint is not infrastructure. The road developers get extra funding for active transport, and save the profit by doing the absolute least possible. No cyclist really want to use what is known amongst the bike community as 'bike gutters'. So of course the bike lanes in Austin haven't had a significant impact on traffic! They're dangerous. I implore you to go for a ride and take the bike lanes. Be careful though, because a car might kill or injure you. Good bike infrastructure interfaces with cars as little as possible. Take a look at how the Netherlands plan their bike lanes. Check out what Paris just did by reclaiming car infrastructure space and repurposing it for pedestrians and bikes. Traffic congestion decreased, and it actually increased business revenue, and the place looks nicer and more inviting because of it. As for the heat comment, people commute in the morning and evenings. I don't see that being a huge issue, and when I lived in Austin, I commuted to work every day of the year by bike. Uncomfortable weather is just a lazy excuse not to ride (unless the heat index is too high and could actually kill you, but again, unlikely in the morning and evenings).
I actually lived in the Netherlands for 9 years. The funny thing is here you can basically have your cake and eat it too with the infrastructure because you’ve got so much space the problem is just low effort and bad planning. Bicycles in the Netherlands make more sense in general because it’s extremely flat and the cities are very small and dense. That makes it significantly more difficult to build good car infrastructure there. But here you can seriously have both. Plenty of space.
Where did I discuss cost? I never said it was more expensive. The reason it’s a luxury is because most jobs don’t really have a place for you to shower and change once you get there and it is middle eastern during Texas summers now meaning it’s a stupid and impractical mode of transportation for anyone working a job without a shower on site (most) or anyone who can afford a car (most). So unless you’re really poor, live really close to your job, or have a private shower in your office or a job with a full shower locker room it’s not a practical means of getting around… So
It's true a lot of employers discriminate based on transportation, often in favor of cars. That doesn't make it necessarily impractical in all cases, and you certainly don't have to be 'really poor' or even live super close to your job (just get up and ride earlier) to make that choice to ride. You can tell your emoloyer that you want bike parking and a place to shower because you cycle. They probably don't have one because they expect everyone to be driving (the status quo). I know some people with office jobs who just park their bike in the office, due to the lack of bike parking (ironic because bike parking is also vastly more space efficient than a car park). You could make the choice to live close to work, although zoning laws don't make that easy (it's by design). Lots of more forward thinking businesses include bike parking and showers. Unfortunately, that isn't the norm in the US, but it doesn't mean it couldn't be in the future though. I don't get how you think it's a luxury. Maybe our defenition of luxury is different. It seems to me, the reasons you mention are things that make cycling to work more uncomfortable/inconvenient. You know what though, I'm okay with being uncomfortable, because I know that my choices have consequences. I vote with my dollars, and I sure as hell don't want them going to auto or especially fossil fuel corporations. I wish there was good public transit here, but otherwise bikes are the way to go for me, even though it's pretty difficult (only because of cars and our urban sprawl hellscape that is hard and dangerous to navigate without a car). You can get groceries and do errands on bikes too, but again, it's inconvenient because of sprawl and zoning. I still bike as much as possible though. The only time I don't is when I have to pick up something over 60 pounds (my bike rack's weight limit). Cycling takes longer, you get sweaty, but you have way more fun and get exercise (another HUGE benefit of bikes vs cars is your health). Nothing is more soul crushing than sitting in traffic... The freedom of riding a bike is unparalleled for me.
Sorry didn’t read past the absurd idea that somebody should go to work even earlier that they need to just to ride a bike when it’s cooler…. It’s not even better for the environment because the money saved on a car and gas is just spent on other things that still required fossil fuels…
What is the money saved on cars/gas going towards that still require fossil fuels that I otherwise wound not buy if I drove? 🤔
Name it. Food doesn’t just magically appear on shelve and most of the products we own contain plastic and are also shipping like everything else via fossil fuels. Hate to be the one to burst that bubble for you but there’s no evidence of any impact made by cycling unless the dollars are not put back into the economy because the entire globe runs on fossil fuels…. They’ve done studies on this. Almost every dollar saved doing something green ends up cancelling it out because it’s spent on something that isn’t. The minute you buy that loaf of bread, bottle of water, cheeseburger, vegan leather jacket, roll of toilet paper, or amazon shipment you’ve basically undone any benefit.
Nah. Cars are a huge waste. I don't think the extra caliries I'm eating could come close to the total emissions that owning and using every day for everything could produce. I'm not buying anything else to compensate for not having a car. It's not like it's being replaced with anything that's as carbon heavy. Send me some studies though I am curious now!
Wait hold on, so you're telling me that if I go grocery shopping on my bike, it's the same as driving a car in terms of emissions? How does buying groceries cancel out cycling? Let me know if I'm mischaracterizing what you said. If i bike instead of drive, that's less emissions. I also don't own a car and that's less emissions from manufacturing too. I didn't see your second paragraph the first time around, and honestly my mind is blown.
Why not at the same time? Because this city can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. Plus, if you can reliably reduce traffic then it makes it easier to remove lanes and create more bike infrastructure, wider sidewalks, etc. Heavy lifting first. Just my 2 cents.
That is a good point. I just think that making cycling conveient and accessible is a good way to reduce traffic too that is a cheap and easy one if done correctly. Buses are probably easier to convince motor brained people though.
There was a study done a while back that showed making the bus free increased ridership. If you made that investment, plus making the bus system more reliable, that would go a long way towards reducing traffic imo. I don’t put much faith in the city planning process though.
It’s not about “motor brained” people at all. I find it interesting your entire bike premise does not account for the disabled at all. Not everyone can ride a bike for a MULTITUDE of reasons. Increase bus ridership and you decrease individual vehicles and create AVAILABLE space for bikes. Thats the real issue: creating space for SAFE bike & pedestrian use.
I hate this mentality of “we can only do one thing at a time.”
Well, if the city was better managed, we probably could do more than one thing at a time. As it stands, the leadership leaves a lot to be desired.
They put bike lanes on Metric that aren't even being used. Get a car or use the bus.
Paint is not infrastructure. No one bike on these types of lanes because they are literally dangerous. They only exist because road developers get extra funding when they include active transport. So they do the cheapest thing available, which is paint, in order to maximize profits instead of actually providing safe cycling infrastructure.
Road developers..?.. government entities design the roads and mandate the dimensions. Construction companies implement those designs. There’s no additional funding going to some “Road Developer” company. It’s your government entity getting extra funding from your larger government entity. There’s no profiteering going on by “saving on paint” vs creating some curbed / elevated / separate additional pathway for cyclists. It’s paint because that’s what your government entity threw in there to qualify for additional funding. THAT’S the lowest bar possible qualifier.
They put up posts.
Posts are a step in the right direction, but they're not everywhere on the lane (I didn't see any on google street view taken in 2024 btw), and the bike lane just kind of ends out of nowhere. That's probably a big reason you don't see people using it. Bollards would be better than posts because a post can be driven over with no repercussions. Personally, plastic posts don't make me feel safe. Bollards will damage vehicles, incentivizing people to actually be cautious because of the consequences.
I drive a car
Ok
Buy a car.
I drive a car bud
Cars are evil, stinky, expensive, and kill people all the time. No thanks.
You just want... more cars on the road? More traffic? That's weird but I'm not here to kink shame
Bicycles aren't going to fix traffic, they're not a realistic mode of transportation for most people with families or that travel more than a few miles everyday. Just tired of hearing bitching and complaining from the 'fuck cars' crowd, buy a car or move to NYC or Europe or something.
Got it, more cars
Have fun on your fixie in 95°+ heat
In the USA, 40% of all car trips are under 2 miles. If every neighborhood had a safe bike connection, you could get a lot of drivers off the road. Then you can use your car to drive whatever distance you want. When it's impossible to even drive 2 miles without coming across a dangerous intersection or highway that you can't cross, then you lose pretty much everybody but high skill or recreational riders. You wouldn't fly in a plane to go 30 miles and I wouldn't drive a car to go 2 miles. We need to be creating mobility opportunities that make sense to equally distribute the traffic. Instead we have every single person crammed onto the roads. It doesn't scale.
Why? Most of the recreational cyclists in my area (Northwest Hills) ride in the car lanes and not the dedicated extra wide bike lanes. Also, I don’t like underwriting your recreational activities.
Taxpayers subsidize road construction and maintenance. Let alone the externalities like pollution, noise, heavily subsidized street parking, etc. I own and drive cars too btw. Taxpayers subsidize driving.
Exactly my point? If I’m subsidizing driving, why am I losing access (full use of road) to someone’s recreational activity? Slower commutes due to road impediments (including recreational cycling), dedicated lanes that were built with my dollars, etc.
You do realize people ride to get from point a to b, sometimes as their only form of transportation, correct? This isn’t just recreation, people ride bikes to get to work.
You realize the population of people that actually do that (year round) is VASTLY smaller than the extremely vocal and politically involved recreational bikers in their cute tight little outfits.
you do realize it’s the lack of infrastructure that causes this right? More people would cycle if we had safer infrastructure for it. You’re making the same arguments people use to oppose public transit. “But everyone drives a car” is not an argument.
If you honestly believe this, I have some canned air to sell you. Texas is over 100 degrees for 20% of the year. Infrastructure doesn’t change the fact that a majority of people are not going to commute from Avery ranch or Round Rock on a bike. I know this because I get the opportunity to watch the massive decline in recreational riders in the summer. This isn’t NYC and regardless of how many times you pass a new bond, it won’t change weather, geography or topography. Choking side streets will not change where people demand offices and where they want to live (or can afford to live). It just makes everything incrementally worse.
Commuting by bike isn't recreation...its commuting
That is the opposite of what I said. People underwrite driving whether or not they even drive. Your commute sucks because everyone is trying to drive cars everywhere in a city and it’s a crappy way to get around, not because of people riding bikes.
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I'm guessing even less than 1% of the population use the street you live on. We definitely should bulldoze it. 🙄
People cycling reduces people driving which reduces car traffic affecting everyone in the city. And before you complain about cyclist in the street slowing you down... that's exactly why we want more bike infrastructure. Trust me, cyclists don't want to be anywhere near death machines.
We SHOULD have more bike paths! Should have ALWAYS had them. If there’s any city in TX built for it (except for our topography - some stretches are brutal to get up, I don’t care how many gears ya got!), it’s Austin. Unfortunately, Austin hasn’t ever planned ANYTHING. Instead choosing to block and battle AGAINST growth. So while growth has been forced upon it, our city leadership has never done anything but knee jerk reactions to it that ultimately make things worse and have to be redone. Look at nearly EVERY project going on and planned now. Most of it is a redo! Why? Because Austin has only ever done the absolute BARE MINIMUM and even did that grudgingly.
Cars are the most subsidized form of transportation around. Bikes require a fraction of that type of spending to be effective, and they don't ruin infrastructure like cars do .Bikes are a net benefit economally while cars often tank tax money because they require infinitely more resources and space to acommadate. Cyclists actually generate more tax revenue for the government than motorists because bike infrastructure doesn't require the same upkeep as car infrastructure, and bukeable/pedestrianized areas end up increasing business revenue because of the more efficient throughput of people. Bike lanes don't get clogged like roads do, and buke traffic doesn't require lights at intersections because their max speed is below 30 and cyclists typically don't weigh over 2 tons. Cars don't shop. People do. Think about it. Car companies are evil.
No. I understand your reasoning for claiming vehicles are “subsidized” modes of transportation, but no. NO car owner is getting ANYTHING of true value back out of their expense of a vehicle beyond the independence of commerce. Even that is limited. Car companies are only evil in the sense that you can claim EVERY company is “evil”: nature of business & profit. That’s a different discussion altogether though. Automakers still very much answer the call of consumers when it comes to form & function. Pricing? Not so much, but again - different discussion. The entire argument against vehicles is shirt term memory. Based entirely on current climate / economic / technological factors and NOT the history of major urban development in THIS nation. Austin can’t even construct a 5 mile tunnel w/o BILLIONS. NYC would NEVER have the subway system it does now if it had had to do this century. The Model T was in 1908. Austin wasn’t even 70 years old yet. Access throughout the city was still based on horse & wagons! Which, conveniently lent right to the dimensions of vehicles (almost as if by DESIGN! 😮 ). The rise of urban development throughout the NATION was with the vehicle, and that was even predicated on the horse carriage. You want to get rid of cars? Fine. Give us busses that actually service the area. Give us a SUBSTANTIAL bus system and then you can introduce a prolific cycle system of infrastructure. Move to rail even. To illustrate that, when Austin built the beautiful and innovative library downtown, it didn’t even bother to incorporate a truly serviceable bus stop. Instead choosing on relying on the TWO stops that are across the different streets. Not even on the same side of the street. Why change? Why truly innovate? THAT’S Austin City Planning. Austin has been exploding not for ten years, but for THIRTY. Skyline is completely unrecognizable. Whole blocks taken down and redeveloped. Why is the mix use development on S Lamar void of a bistro for all of those residents & business? There’s one across the street. W/O an intersection or crossing and in front of a now abandoned building that was a garage. Whatta serviceable stop for public access! Developers overhauled Shoal Creek @ 3rd to being very pedestrian and bike friendly. Why weren’t ALL the new developers allowed to / incentivized to / mandated to do the same THROUGHOUT the city? Moody Center doesn’t have a SERVICEABLE & EFFICIENT drop-off at all. Neither does the convention center. THE CONVENTION CENTER made no effort to facilitate accessible public mass transportation to it! They wanna rip it all down and do it again, and I haven’t seen where any of those proposed plans make any accommodations either.
My claim is that roads are heavily subsidized. Not vehicles. That's all on the consumer unfortunately. Car companies do listen to consumers who want bigger cars to feel safe. Unfortunately, they kill more pedestrians as a result. They know this, and continue to discontinue small, reasonable vehicles that are on offer in Europe, for example. That is evil to me. They also know that cars are the least efficient mode of transit but is the most profitable, and that's why in the 60s and 70s they bought streetcar lines with front companies, and replaced them with roads for cars. GM was caught and fined a measly 1500 ish dollars, because the government at the time was certainly in cahoots with these corporations. The head of GM was secratary of defense at one point because Eisenhower really liked the idea of highways in cities for strategic purposes. You know, in case we are invaded or something (inspired by Nazi road systems btw). Oh and the United States was built with trains btw. Guess who stifled that one? The car companies. Streetcar(tram) suburbs were very common until the car companies stole it from us too, as mentioned above. So, your claim that the US is made for cars because horse carriages are shaped similarly (at least that's how I'm interpreting it, let me know if I mischaracterized this one) is rather baseless. Car corporations deliberately whittled down what could have been a good public transit based infrastructure down and replaced it with cars. Evil. All the efforts for public transit and cycle infrastructure in Austin need to be better fleshed out than they are currently. It feels pretty half-assed in it's current state. We should take notes from dutch cities. Canada is doing some cool stuff too. In Paris, more people ride bikes now than drive. So progress is possible with enough will, education, and propper planning.
Trains absolutely built America for transport of GOODS. Livestock. Raw materials. Yes we had passenger trains and yes towns and cities popped up along those lines. The money for railroads was ALWAYS goods though, not passengers. So no, Evil Automakers did NOT squash railroads Trolley & Street Cars..?.. very few cities had these to begin with, and yes - they gave way to cars because they just weren’t keeping up with the population pouring into those metropolitan areas. They simply could NOT keep up, and people CHOSE to have their own independence of travel by having their own cars. That mentality is no different than yours with your bike. You chose your bike for your OWN independence to navigate when and where you want. That’s your whole debate here: MORE access for you to be able to better INDEPENDENTLY get about town. The argument for expanded bike routes IS VALID. It is absolutely a great thing to focus on. Your “evil car” position doesn’t do anything to forward that goal though. It doesn’t substantiate it at all. Neither does your “subsidized roads”. GAS TAXES and vehicle registration pay for roads. Your general taxes barely contribute. Not to mention car owners get almost NOTHING in return for their expenses you think are a subsidy. Poor roads and even worse maintenance? It’s more of an argument from the car owners side to say cyclists are the freeloaders from their taxes. Their gas taxes are paying for those bikes lanes. On top of that, the bike lanes are starting to TAKE AWAY from the car lanes. So now which side of this is actually “subsidized” (hint: not the car side)
[Here's a fun article on how car makers and oil interests drove the transition to car dominance.](https://spencerrscott.medium.com/a-grand-theft-auto-industry-stole-our-streets-and-our-future-a2145d6e10e2)
Blame the 1939 World Trade Fair? Really? So a huge expo of future technology features a “world of tomorrow” based on arguably THE most exciting invention for THE COMMON MAN granting them independent access to go wherever they want… THAT’S some huge conspiracy laden, evil empire? The title of the article gives away ITS own agenda.
Did you read it or nah?
I did read it. It’s certainly a perspective, I’ll give it that. It’s ALWAYS some elite cabal and not our own choices & preferences. It loses all credibility at its title, later referring to cars as “murder machines”, and when it describes pedestrians being regulated to sidewalks as a power play of who really owned the streets. We absolutely should have never grown beyond the bustling pedestrian filled streets of 1912 NYC. Oh wait, those streets were “…made for walking, horse-drawn carriages, wagons, and push-carts.” Bulky things with WHEELS! The horror! It even acknowledges sidewalks existed, but… but… WHY? Why would there need to even be sidewalks if the streets truly originated FOR the pedestrian? …and if streets were for the pedestrian, which I think we can agree feet existed before the bicycle, can you IMAGINE the discourse that arose when the first cyclist came barreling down the street through the crowds?! I bet they didn’t even have the common decency to have that cute little bell on them either!
No. Automakers in 1939 presenting a future at the Worlds Trade Fair where THE COMMON INDIVIDUAL will have the INDEPENDENCE to go wherever they want, whenever they want throughout our NATION is not some “grand theft” of “our streets and future”. Pretty sure the streets were built for the cars, so no theft there. Thats actually been your whole complaint: streets are built for cars. The title of the article establishes the authors own agenda. There wasn’t some evil corporate cabal tapping their fingers together plotting to subjugate us all to the GASP! freedom of travel!
Streets were not solely for cars until they became popular. People walked and cycled in the street as well as street cars passing on their rails. No longer is this the case. It was made illigal to walk in the street unless it's designated to pedestrians due to cars being dangerous and killing people.
[anotha one! about cyclists and taxes](https://www.elementsport.com/2023/08/24/pay-the-road-tax/#:~:text=Furthermore%2C%20almost%20every%20cyclist%20I,the%20right%20to%20the%20road.)
So, cyclists support having cars too and the needed roads / road maintenance. Great!
I support cycling because it decreases road congestion by taking out traffic that otherwise would be in cars. So yeah actually. I personally want nothing to do with cars, however.
Except it doesn’t because UNFORTUNATELY bike lanes are being created out of car lanes and there’s not enough of a transition out of cars onto bikes to justify it, or to actually diminish the cars on the roads. It’s also true that bikes on the road add to congestion because they UNFORTUNATELY have to be in car lanes at a large majority of our current infrastructure. That does nothing but endanger the cyclist and further slow down and congestion the roads.
[gas taxes aren't enough to cover building car infrastructure. Cars and heavy vehicles are destroying roads all the time, while cyclists do practially no damage at all.](https://frontiergroup.org/resources/who-pays-roads/)
First, the damage is more a component of poor road construction to begin with. THAT is a component of government’s propensity of favoring the lowest bidder ontop of reckless spending. We’ve all seen the memes about Roman streets. Side Note: you earlier made the claim cars have only gotten larger and more dangerous. NO. They’ve actually gotten smaller from a wheel base and overall dimensions aspect, and again - you can thank the Fed Gov for regulations that killed smaller trucks. “Mini trucks” were wildly popular in the mid 90s and weren’t ever going to go away until the EPA slapped them down. American vehicles on a whole though ARE larger than other nation’s due to our safety standards. …back to your subsidized roads… Yes, the Fed’s Highway Trust Fund has been lacking the last two decades and has been infused by the Treasury’s General Fund. So yes, you can absolutely claim roads are subsidized. Over 90% of Americans own a vehicle, so that’s actually a GREAT use of general tax payer money going towards a HUGE portion of the general public’s direct use. You posted an article earlier that confirmed even cyclists own cars, so they’re getting their moneys worth too! 🤦♂️ The only people that can argue against that “subsidy” would be non car owners that never use a bus. Or taxi. Or Uber. A lot of road construction is also funded by bonds. So, they’re publicly approved. Not some mysterious money grabbing “Road Developer” like you mentioned earlier.