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Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by keiferski on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @12:26PM (#50368732)
It's pretty easy to do in most cities, you just have to eliminate a lane of traffic and/or parking spots. It's quite rare for a modern city to have streets too narrow to do that.
Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by drnick1 on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @12:30PM (#50368787)
> eliminate a lane of traffic and/or parking spots

It's out of the question in most places, it slows car traffic down and makes it harder for people to park in places where parking is already scarce. Then residents and customers of local businesses have nowhere to park.

Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by keiferski on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @12:32PM (#50368813)
Eliminating parking on a single street is hardly a death sentence for nearby businesses.

And the whole idea is to encourage biking, ergo less parking is a good thing.

Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by hocusPokeUs on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @12:35PM (#50368855)
There should be more friction added to car travel. More walkable neighborhoods with local business around the corner would pop up right where people are if the norm wasn't "everyone make endless individual trips to Walmart."

So stupid all the suburbanites blocking my driveway to come eat at nice restaurants because all they have out there is fast food; such a huge waste of resources

Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by BobaFloutist on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @12:40PM (#50368932)
>It's out of the question in most places, it slows car traffic down

If you actually make a sufficiently high-quality bike network to convince people to bike that would otherwise drive, I would expect this to speed car traffic up by taking a lot of cars off the road.

Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by AlexandrB on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @12:49PM (#50369061)
This is very geography/climate dependent though. There are conditions where most people would not bike regardless of how high quality the bike network is.
Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by BobaFloutist on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @01:02PM (#50369226)
Are these conditions that typically can't be found in the Netherlands?

I guess heavy snow isn't too common there, maybe if we plowed the bike paths? Ok, now I'm getting distracted imagining a bike-path-plow, it would presumably be mounted on a powered bike of some sort, or maybe on those little parking enforcement trikes.

Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by alexanderchr on Thursday November 05, 2026 @12:44AM (#50375636)
In Scandinavia they have an army of tiny tractors for this purpose:

https://cykelmagasinet.se/facit-finns-nu-sopsaltade-cykelvag...

Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by BobaFloutist on Thursday November 05, 2026 @11:47AM (#50381342)
Adorable!
Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by crote on Thursday November 05, 2026 @03:27AM (#50376626)
Bidirectional dedicated bike paths are usually at least car-sized. They will fit a regular plow just fine. Monodirectional bike lanes usually lack separation from the rest of the road, so they get plowed for free as a side-effect of plowing the car lane.
Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by hutattedonmyarm on Thursday November 05, 2026 @06:33AM (#50377923)
In the city where I live (which is _usually_ pretty bike friendly) the plow moves the snow from the car lanes onto the bike lanes a lot of the time :/
Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by esposm03 on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @01:10PM (#50369342)
The effect is a lot less pronounced that you might expect. See, for example, this video talking about Oulu, Finland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU
Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by deadbunny on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @04:49PM (#50372036)
Buy a coat and a pair of gloves. You're not made of sugar.
Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by asdff on Thursday November 05, 2026 @05:05AM (#50377351)
So what? On nice days you get a safer way to bike. Why are people in favor of more risk of death to others?
Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by esikich on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @01:26PM (#50369563)
Not everywhere is San Francisco. Where I live, it's below freezing almost half the year. No one wants to add bike lanes that will only get lightly used 3 months a year.
Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by keiferski on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @01:29PM (#50369611)
Denmark has excellent bike infrastructure and terrible weather.
Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by astral_drama on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @02:26PM (#50370351)
I bike 9 to 10 months out of the year in southern Wisconsin. It would do people well to get outside and off the gadgets in the Winter.
Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by deadbunny on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @04:47PM (#50372020)
Scandinavia, The Netherlands, London, Paris. Great for cycling, shit weather.

Buy a coat and some gloves.

Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by esikich on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @08:43PM (#50374003)
No one wants to. Great plan you have.
Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by prmoustache on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @07:08PM (#50373220)
Have you ever heard of Oulu, Finland?
Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by esikich on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @08:43PM (#50374008)
Have you ever heard of the sprawling Midwest?
Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by asdff on Thursday November 05, 2026 @05:02AM (#50377332)
So what? People bike there. They make products for winter cycling commuting. They don’t sell them to people in miami after all. There is a market evidently.

And then, so what about the lane? Drive all you want it doesn’t affect you, other than lessening the risk you kill a cyclist or someone you know dies riding a bike.

Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by drnick1 on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @06:26PM (#50372876)
NO

I like the comfort of my car too much to freeze my ass on a bike. Cities were built around the vision of economic prosperity and a car for everyone, and they should stay that way.

Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by Fricken on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @08:15PM (#50373771)
Cars are built around the idea of enslaving humanity in a cage manufactured from their own stupidity. It's works.
Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by convolvatron on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @08:26PM (#50373864)
for me prosperity implies not spending a big chunk of my day trapped in a metal box with no way to get out. are you really saying that everyone except a couple freaks like me would rather fight traffic and sit on your ass than take nice walk? to the degree that we shouldn't even be allowed to have little pockets where driving isn't the only modality?

the US is huge, and its all car all the time. you have thousands of options of where to live like that - I have like 5. and you think I shouldn't even have that.

Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by prmoustache on Thursday November 05, 2026 @03:14AM (#50376531)
> I like the comfort of my car too much to freeze my ass on a bike.

you usually don't get cold when cycling. If anything you are warming up.

> Cities were built around the vision of economic prosperity and a car for everyone,

That is a false statement. Most cities predate the existence of cars for a start.

Also economic prosperity is unrelated to cars. If anything cars are a financial burden for most people and people buy them because they feel they are forced to need them, not because they want them. This is the antithesis of prosperity.

Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by asdff on Thursday November 05, 2026 @05:04AM (#50377346)
Then don’t? How come every bike lane thread has these annoying people assuming a bike lane means a gun goes to the head and forces you on a bike. Keep driving if you want. Doesn’t matter. But why fight a bike lane when it doesn’t affect your life at all, I will never understand.
Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by tim333 on Thursday November 05, 2026 @06:25AM (#50377874)
Depends where you are but bikes are actually kind of fun. It doesn't mean you can't have cars. I have both but bikes are more practical around central London at any rate.
Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by kube-system on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @01:04PM (#50369262)
It's a self-fulfilling situation. It's that way only because those places have designed their infrastructure to be car dependent.

The opposite is also true: If you take a place where people primarily walk and bike, and take out the sidewalks and bike lanes to widen the road, people will also be pissed.

All you're pointing out is that humans are resistant to change. We already know that is true. The question is not whether people don't like change, the question is: which is better urban planning? What is a better environment to live in?

Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by jandrese on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @01:06PM (#50369286)
It's absolutely impossible everywhere except where it has been tried and works great. Car centric design is a poor match for dense urban development and reverting the city to be more transit and pedestrian focused almost always improves the situation, bringing more people to shops and restaurants and revitalizing previously moribund downtown districts.
Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by platevoltage on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @04:54PM (#50372087)
Cool. Leave your car somewhere else.
Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by reactormonk on Thursday November 05, 2026 @10:47AM (#50380587)
Foot traffic is on average more revenue than car traffic. https://www.magazin-quartier.de/article/mobilitaet-in-innens...
Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by GuB-42 on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @01:17PM (#50369418)
Bike lanes don't just compete against car lanes. They also compete against sidewalks and bus/tram lanes.

There is also the question of what you are going to do with your bike once you are at your destination, where are you going to park it?

For those who went to Amsterdam as a pedestrian, I don't know how it felt, but to me, it was not great. Lots of narrow sidewalks littered with stuff, the stuff in question is often bikes, so you have to step onto the adjacent bike lane, where you are usually greeted by an angry cyclist, because for some reason, parking your bike on the sidewalk is fine but stepping on the bike lane is not.

So, as a pedestrian, I wished Amsterdam converted its car lanes into trams and sidewalks rather than bike lanes. And yes, I hated bikes for as long as I stayed in Amsterdam, and so did everyone in my group.

The cars vs bikes debate tend to get a lot of attention, but the bikes vs pedestrians and public transit aspect matters too.

Note that bikes + buses can be a particularly dangerous combination. Buses are long and can block off the path of a careless cyclist as they turn, who may fall right under the wheels of the bus.

Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by dublinben on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @01:56PM (#50369970)
To provide a different anecdote, Amsterdam is the best city I've ever had the pleasure of exploring as a pedestrian.

There were well-maintained sidewalks everywhere I needed to go. The reduced amount of automobile traffic made it easier to cross smaller roads and intersections without risking my life. At larger intersections, I often received a crossing signal almost immediately upon requesting one, instead of waiting multiple minutes.

Negotiating interactions with cyclists was trivial, because I could always make eye contact with them. Unlike drivers, who barely pay attention to those outside of cars, have their heads buried in their phone, or are obscured behind tinted glass.

It was also the quietest major city I've ever visited, which I largely attribute to the prevalence of bikes instead of automobiles. Some of the semi-tractors / HGVs I saw making deliveries were even electric, which is a great reduction in noise and other forms of pollution.

If I ever have the pleasure of visiting Amsterdam again, I intend to rent a bike. I hope to explore more of the city via the obviously superior mode of transportation, as demonstrated by so many locals.

Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by toast0 on Wednesday November 04, 2026 @02:12PM (#50370161)
> Bike lanes don't just compete against car lanes. They also compete against sidewalks and bus/tram lanes.

Tram lanes are a travesty, but bus lanes make pretty decent bike lanes. I biked through Seattle to work for a year or so in 2018/2019 where bikes are allowed in bus lanes, and it's a good compromise. There's a couple of streets where the bus lanes are always full of busses, but most of the bus lanes are a nice place to ride; unless they've got rails, of course.

Seattle has put in a lot more separated bike lanes since I've been there, but on routes I wouldn't have used anyway, so I dunno. There was one on my route that was terrible, but I don't think they used that pattern very often; they put a separated bike lane between parking and the side walk, and parking ended close to an intersection where many cars wanted to turn right; limited visibility and limited space made it hard to get to the center or left of the lane to avoid conflicts with vehicles turning right.

Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by rfc3092 on Thursday November 05, 2026 @12:11AM (#50375463)
I agree: Amsterdam was the scariest pedestrian experience ever! To add to the described situation delivery cars often stop in bike lanes, which shifts bikes not to the car lane but to a sidewalk! I was practically assaulted when cyclist hit me from behind and was yelling and swinging bike lock at me for not letting him the right of way. Downtown Amsterdam? Never again.
Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by crote on Thursday November 05, 2026 @03:22AM (#50376591)
On the positive side: if you hadn't yielded to a car, you would've been dead!
Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by hobo123 on Thursday November 05, 2026 @01:40PM (#50382746)
Yeah, is a bit weird when people jump in front of traffic and then complain that they almost got hurt.
Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by rfc3092 on Thursday November 05, 2026 @08:39PM (#50387078)
I was on a sidewalk. Yes I expect not to be hurt on sidewalk by cars as well as bikes.
Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by hobo123 on Friday November 06, 2026 @04:09AM (#50389951)
True, adults on bikes or scooters should have no business there, but way too often they ride there.

I routinely turn all "angry old man" on them and tell them "bike lane's on the road / other side of the street." Rules aren't just for cars.

Re:Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrast... by crote on Thursday November 05, 2026 @03:21AM (#50376578)
American tourists somehow lacking any kind of situational awareness and stumbling into bike lanes right in front of traffic have pretty much become a meme in Amsterdam. You wouldn't step in front of a car speeding past, so why would you suddenly become suicidal when it is a bike?

As someone who regularly walks on what is almost certainly the street with the busiest cycle path in the world[0], and who regularly walks through some incredibly congested mixed-use streets: it just... isn't a problem? Stay in your designated area, yield when you are not, behave predictably, and things will be Just Fine.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RQrKP9a0XE