I no longer think that bike lanes will get the job done.

Long ago, when I was working in western Tennessee, I noticed that, in that area, the painted bike lanes were almost always on arterial roads. I even found one that was on a stretch of controlled access highway. Asked a colleague who worked for TDOT about that, and it turns out that you could get extra federal money for roads with bike lanes. So of course, the counties would put the bike lanes on the roads that cost the most to maintain, not the ones that made sense for bicycles.

Outside of a few major cities, I suspect that's invariably how bike lanes are going to end up working in the US.

What you could get people on board behind, though, is traffic calming measures. Bill it as fighting back against the hordes of Waze drivers blasting through your neighborhood as a shortcut, and you might be able to get some political momentum behind it. That would then get you to roads that could support mixed traffic without half-assing it by painting cyclists into a thin ghetto full of potholes and broken glass.

And then pair it with movements to get some questions about how to share the road with bicyclists onto the written driving test, so that drivers at least know how to share the road with cyclists. Right now, nobody's telling them, so they genuinely don't know. Even here in Chicago, I've had surprisingly many water cooler conversations where I had to correct a complaining car commuter who thought that it was illegal for all these bikes to be in the road and that they're supposed to stay on the sidewalk.

> how to share the road with bicyclists onto the written driving test, so that drivers at least know how to share the road with cyclists.

That's one of the reasons why the "Share the road" sign is being phased out in favor of the "bikes may use full lane sign".

The proper way to share a lane is in serial fashion, not parallel. This is because lanes are rarely wide enough for a car or truck to pass a cyclist with sufficient distance between the two while both remain within the lane itself.

In fact, many state laws that specify that cyclists must ride as far right as practicable actually have the substandard width lane exception (described above) to that requirement.

The very concept of "traffic calming" is a lie. It's cause for road rage, distraction from watching for pedestrians, slamming brakes, and loud hard-revving engines.

One day when I had reduced ride height due to a tire issue, a "traffic calming" device cracked my oil pan. That was just great for the environment. I leaked carcinogenic used oil all along the way, and then had to get the oil pan replaced. The creation of that new oil pan involved industrial activity that surely was not good for the environment.

Bike lanes are fine on arterial roads if they are separated from traffic well enough. In santa monica they actually give a little room in the bike lane. Arterials get you to places more directly than side streets, that inevitably have to cross 6 lanes of an arterial from a stop sign. Good luck putting a light there without protest.

>People don't like to bike because it's (rightly) perceived as dangerous.

I don't like to bike because it rains 9+ months out of the year here.

Rain gear does a pretty fantastic job of keeping you dry in the rain. And, needless to say, it's significantly cheaper than a car.

While that is true, motorcycles are cheaper than cars, but you don't see the majority of people riding motorcycles. Protection from the elements and the ability to carry more cargo is the reason why most people drive cars as opposed to riding bicycles or motorcycles.

Motorcycles are more hassle than both bikes and cars (licensing, attire, helmets) and a WAAAAAAAY more dangerous (about 40 times as likely to die per mile was the figure in the California Motorcycle Safety Course, if memory serves). They're also a pretty big expense since for most people they won't replace a car, and you still need to insure/maintain a motorcycle.

I'm very pro-motorcycle but bicycles have a much lower barrier to entry.

> ...the ability to carry more cargo...

I'll grant you that a car is more convenient for carrying cargo. But with a bike trailer, a bicycle can pretty easily handle most people's cargo requirements—anything from groceries to large appliances like refrigerators. Check out some of these bicycle trailer plans: https://bikecart.pedalpeople.coop

The cargo argument comes up all the time. No, you don't need to buy a truck for the trip to a hardware store. I know some people do, but they often visit the hardware store every day, the majority of people don't. Yet everyone drives a truck up in Montana, I mean so do I, but it was $800 and I can maintain it myself since I bike primarily.

Where do you live? And how often is it actually seriously raining?

> If you add more bike lanes, people start riding their bikes.

Which may be true, but they encourage cyclists to ride at the edge instead of the middle of the general traffic lane. A motorist not paying attention is going to notice an edge riding cyclist later than they would if they were in the center of the general traffic lane.

> People don't like to bike because it's (rightly) perceived as dangerous.

Not really. Assuming one is riding a bicycle in traffic that's not moving at more than 40 mph, it's not that dangerous at all.

> There needs to be more separation from the batshit drivers here who wouldn't shrug at a hit and run too.

That's a problem with law enforcement, not a problem with the road design. Also, separation doesn't work when there are frequent intersections. It makes more sense to build bike lanes along side arterial roads where traffic is moving in excess of 40 mph and intersections are no more frequent than once every mile or so. On city streets with traffic moving at 0 to 30 mph, it makes far more sense to ride in the center of the general traffic lane while following the rules of the road.