This is what #CarBrain does to people.
#CarBrain makes well-respected environmental advocacy organizations claim that providing facilities for all people in all public spaces is impractical, that people must already be walking & biking on a street before that street can have facilities for walking and biking, that investing in infrastructure for walking & biking costs more than infrastructure for driving, and that streets cause "car congestion," whatever that is.
There is no such thing as car trip demand. Cars do not demand to make trips. People make trips. Often, they make them by car. Usually because there is not a better option provided. The fact that you can recognize a road needs to exist but argue that it doesn't need to serve the needs of people is absurd.
@DrTCombs
A case in point, personal situation: looking to spend time in a rural area, and want to be car-free
The distances & terrain are perfect for an e-bike as the only means of transportation; a cargo bike or trailer has ample carrying capacity.
Can't (or rather, won't) do it because speed limits are 45 mph, with 60 mph not unknown, no shoulder or bike lane, and well, drivers do look at the cell phone ... So safety considerations determine the decision.
There is an unmet demand for safe infrastructure for other than car/SUV/truck transportation.
@PaulWermer @DrTCombs a couple years ago had to pick up sister-in-law from an ER visit, late at night on the suburbanizing frontier of Tampa metro. Multilane highways there have godawful dogshit bike lines just pasted onto the edge of 55-65mph highways, and AT NIGHT, I still saw a half dozen people using those shitty lanes, late, in the dark. Can you imagine what it would be like if those lanes were not the worst bike lanes in the world?
@dr2chase @PaulWermer I know those dogshit bike lanes. The fact that they are so famously awful and yet are still used under horrific conditions should be all the evidence anyone needs to support immediate reallocation of our entire* transportation infrastructure budget toward providing safe places to walk and bike
*minus whatever it takes to keep bridges from collapsing
