Combining 2 insufferable demographics:
Meme - "The lamb here is supposed to be great"
"Oh. I'm a vegan. I wish I could tune out that moral voice inside me that says eating animals is murder, but I guess I'm just not as strong as you are."
"That's because you need protein. I'll have the lamb"
PETA on Twitter - "Cows are friends, not food 💗"
FAROUQ on Twitter - "Name one cow you’re friends with"
Monkeys enslaved by cruel coconut farmers who make them work in chains to meet growing demand for trendy vegan milk - "But the horrors don't stop there - according to Peta, the creature's sharp front teeth are often removed to stop them from biting themselves or the farmers."
"Cruelty free"
Vegan landlord seeks tenants for $5,750 New York apartment. Meat eaters need not apply - "Lerer’s ex-husband, who co-owns the building and is also vegan, claimed they had refused to rent to meat-eaters who cook since buying the property in 2007. “It’s not about discrimination,” Motti Lerer said. “You have to fit into the building.” According to the New York Post, the broker said that the tenants are welcome to order meat and fish-based takeaways, but the meals cannot be cooked on-site... Putting dietary restrictions in a rental contract is very common in India. In many states, landlords refuse to entertain tenants who consume non-vegetarian food. In recent years, these rules have led to many prospective tenants being forced to undergo extensive and stressful hunts for places they are able to rent."
Celebrity chef John Mountain bans vegans from Fyre restaurant ‘for mental health reasons’ - "A celebrity chef has “banned” vegans from his restaurant after reportedly receiving a negative review from a customer who criticised the lack of plant-based options. On Tuesday, Chef John Mountain revealed on the Facebook page for his restaurant Fyre that the eatery would no longer be catering to vegan diners. According to Mountain, the decision to ban vegans from the Perth, Australia, restaurant was due to “mental health reasons”. “Sadly all vegans are now banned from Fyre (for mental health reasons),” the post on the restaurant’s Facebook reads. “We thank you for your understanding. Xx.” The post also included the caption: “Yep. I’m done.” and the hashtags #vegan, #not, #pleasegoelsewhere, #veganfreezone, and #nomorevegans. The decision allegedly stemmed from a bad review posted by a vegan customer, with Chef Mountain telling PerthNow that a customer had reached out to him to ask if there were any vegan options at the restaurant, and that he’d promised he would accommodate her. “A young girl reached out to me and said she was coming to the restaurant… and asked if there were vegan options,” he said. “It was my only shortfall… I said I would accommodate her, I said we had gnocchi, vegetables… and that was that.”... the woman wrote a complaint to the restaurant on Facebook the following day, in which she’d criticised the $32 vegetable dish that had been her “only option”. The woman’s message also reportedly read: “I think it’s incredibly important nowadays that restaurants can accommodate everyone and to not be able to have actual plant-based meals shows your shortcomings as a chef. “I hope to see some improvements in your menu as I have lived in Connolly for quite some time and have seen many restaurants come and go from that building and none of them last. If you don’t get with the times, I don’t hold out faith that your restaurant will be the one that does.”... The chef also claimed that, as a result of the woman’s complaint, his restaurant was flooded with negative one-star reviews on Google, which he said “really hurts the business”. “F*** vegans seriously… I’m done. At the end of the day, it’s not what I want to do, they can f*** off,” he added... Mountain also claimed that customers should “know what they’re getting from me,” as he has previously written a cookbook titled Pig. “I once wrote and sold a book called Pig which had pork recipes. People know what they’re getting from me,” he said. “I understand where vegans are coming from but my job is to make food taste as good as I can and I can’t always cater to everybody’s dietary requirements.”... The restaurant has also received a flood of positive reviews on its Facebook, where many have praised both the food and the staff, while others have applauded the restaurant’s “principles” and “ethics”."
Meme - "Johnson BBQ in Plant City Florida just released a t-shirt with their favorite yelp review. Epic.
1 star
No vegan food here"
Actually, Raising Beef Is Good for the Planet - WSJ - "People who advocate eating less beef often argue that producing it hurts the environment. Cattle, we are told, have an outsize ecological footprint: They guzzle water, trample plants and soils, and consume precious grains that should be nourishing hungry humans. Lately, critics have blamed bovine burps, flatulence and even breath for climate change... cattle are key to the world’s most promising strategy to counter global warming: restoring carbon to the soil. One-tenth of all human-caused carbon emissions since 1850 have come from soil, according to ecologist Richard Houghton of the Woods Hole Research Center. This is due to tillage, which releases carbon and strips the earth of protective vegetation, and to farming practices that fail to return nutrients and organic matter to the earth. Plant-covered land that is never plowed is ideal for recapturing carbon through photosynthesis and for holding it in stable forms. Most of the world’s beef cattle are raised on grass. Their pruning mouths stimulate vegetative growth as their trampling hoofs and digestive tracts foster seed germination and nutrient recycling. These beneficial disturbances, like those once caused by wild grazing herds, prevent the encroachment of woody shrubs and are necessary for the functioning of grassland ecosystems. Research by the Soil Association in the U.K. shows that if cattle are raised primarily on grass and if good farming practices are followed, enough carbon could be sequestered to offset the methane emissions of all U.K. beef cattle and half its dairy herd. Similarly, in the U.S., the Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that as much as 2% of all greenhouse gases (slightly less than what’s attributed to cattle) could be eliminated by sequestering carbon in the soils of grazing operations. Grass is also one of the best ways to generate and safeguard soil and to protect water. Grass blades shield soil from erosive wind and water, while its roots form a mat that holds soil and water in place. Soil experts have found that erosion rates from conventionally tilled agricultural fields average one to two orders of magnitude greater than erosion under native vegetation, such as what’s typically found on well-managed grazing lands. Nor are cattle voracious consumers of water. Some environmental critics of cattle assert that 2,500 gallons of water are required for every pound of beef. But this figure (or the even higher ones often cited by advocates of veganism) are based on the most water-intensive situations. Research at the University of California, Davis, shows that producing a typical pound of U.S. beef takes about 441 gallons of water per pound—only slightly more water than for a pound of rice—and beef is far more nutritious. Eating beef also stands accused of aggravating world hunger. This is ironic since a billion of the world’s poorest people depend on livestock. Most of the world’s cattle live on land that cannot be used for crop cultivation, and in the U.S., 85% of the land grazed by cattle cannot be farmed, according to the U.S. Beef Board. The bovine’s most striking attribute is that it can live on a simple diet of grass, which it forages for itself. And for protecting land, water, soil and climate, there is nothing better than dense grass"
Lab-grown meat could be 25 times worse for the climate than beef | New Scientist - "They found that the nutrient broth used to culture the animal cells has a large carbon footprint because it contains components like sugars, growth factors, salts, amino acids and vitamins that each come with energy costs. For example, energy is required to grow crops for sugars and to run laboratories that extract growth factors from cells. Each component must also be carefully purified using energy-intensive techniques like ultrafiltration and chromatography before they can be mixed into the broth. This “pharmaceutical-grade” level of purification is required so that there are no contaminants such as bacteria or their associated toxins in the broth, says Risner. “Otherwise the animal cells won’t grow, because the bacteria will multiply much faster,” he says."
Has the vegan bubble burst? Sales stagnate in UK as brands withdraw plant-based products - "When the dairy-free brand Oatly launched a range of vegan ice-creams, including chocolate fudge and hazelnut swirl, in October 2019, it hoped to entice consumers with flavours described as “unashamedly indulgent”. The range – described by fans as “silky” and “creamy” – was part of what food experts described as a “gold rush” to tap into the vegan market, including “vegfurters”, vegan mayonnaise and marbled plant-based steaks. One analysis found nearly a quarter of all food products launched in 2019 were labelled vegan. But it appears the boom-time for some vegan products may now be over. While Oatly’s range of oat drinks enjoys high demand, the Swedish company confirmed last week it was withdrawing its ice-cream tubs from the UK market... Oatly’s 500ml ice-cream tubs, sold in supermarkets for £4.50, are the latest casualty in the vegan sector. Nestlé announced in March it was withdrawing its plant-based Garden Gourmet and Wunda brands from sale in the UK, saying the products, including a split-pea-based alternative milk drink were “not viable” in current market conditions. Innocent Drinks, owned by Coca-Cola, announced in March it was discontinuing its dairy-free coconut, almond and hazelnut smoothies after disappointing sales. Sausage maker Heck announced earlier this month it was reducing its range of meat-free products from 10 to just two. While it is claimed the global vegan market may be as worth as much as £50bn by 2030, sales of many products in the UK have flatlined or fallen. The challenges have been compounded by the cost of living crisis – with vegan products often more expensive than competing meat or dairy products – and an overcrowded market. Clive Black, a retail analyst at investment group Shore Capital, said the vegan market had been overhyped. He said: “The real market is nowhere as big as some people hoped and some people ramped up. Reality is dawning. “We looked with some incredulity at the number of companies that were drawn into this space and the amount of shelf space that was given to it in supermarkets. There will be some winners, but the numbers will be relatively small because we’ve been through a bubble.”... The challenges in the marketplace in the UK and overseas are reflected in values of the leading specialist vegan food manufacturers, which in some cases have plummeted. Shares in meat-free brand Beyond Meat have crashed, down from more than $230 after it went public on the Nasdaq stock exchange in May 2019 to about $11. The meat-free market in the US is described by experts as “stagnating”."
Meat is crucial for human health, scientists warn - "Meat is crucial for human health, scientists have warned, as they called for an end to the “zealotry” pushing vegetarian and vegan diets. Dozens of experts were asked to look into the science behind claims that meat eating causes disease and is harmful for the planet in a special issue of Animal Frontiers. They warned that it is difficult to replace the nutritional content of meat, arguing that poorer communities with low meat intake often suffer from stunting, wasting and anaemia driven by a lack of vital nutrients and protein... researchers argue that unprocessed meat delivers most of the vitamin B12 intake in human diets, plays a major role in supplying retinol, omega-3 fatty acids and minerals such as iron and zinc, as well as important compounds for metabolism, such as taurine and creatine. In one paper published in the issue, experts found no good evidence to support red meat being dangerous below intakes of 75g per day, and argued that the link between red meat and disease vanished when part of a healthy diet, suggesting it was the rest of the diet that was fuelling health problems. Dr Alice Stanton, of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, one of the authors of the review, said: “The peer-reviewed evidence published reaffirms that [the 2019 Global Burden of Disease Risk Factors Report] which claimed that consumption of even tiny amounts of red meat harms health is fatally scientifically flawed. “In fact, removing fresh meat and dairy from diets would harm human health. Women, children, the elderly and low income would be particularly negatively impacted.”... The new edition includes a declaration signed by nearly 1,000 scientists across the globe arguing that livestock farming was too important to society to “become the victim of zealotry”. The Dublin Declaration includes signatories from the universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Bristol, Belfast, Newcastle, Nottingham, Surrey as well as several scientists from Britain’s world-leading agricultural and farming university Harper Adams. “Livestock-derived foods provide a variety of essential nutrients and other health-promoting compounds, many of which are lacking in diets even among those populations with higher incomes,” the declaration states. “Well-resourced individuals may be able to achieve adequate diets while heavily restricting meat, dairy and eggs. However, this approach should not be recommended for general populations.” The researchers warned that those who need to eat animal products included young children, adolescents, pregnant and lactating women, women of reproductive age, older adults and the chronically ill. Dr Wilhelm Windisch, a farming nutrition expert at the Technical University of Munich, said: “Farmed and herded animals maintain a circular flow of materials in agriculture by using and upcycling large amounts of materials humans cannot eat, turning them into high-quality nutrient dense food. “One-size-fits-all agendas, such as the drastic reductions of livestock numbers could incur environmental and nutritional consequences on a massive scale.”"
For 2 million years, humans ate meat and little else -- study - "The results, which were published in the Yearbook of the American Physical Anthropology Association, have implications not only for how we see the past, but also for our modern diets, Barkai maintained. He cited the fad Paleolithic diet, which assumes prehistoric humans ate vegetables, fruits, nuts, roots, and meat — making those foods the most natural for consumption... “For many people today, the Paleolithic diet is a critical issue, not only with regard to the past, but also concerning the present and future,” Barkai said. “It is hard to convince a devout vegetarian that his/her ancestors were not vegetarians, and people tend to confuse personal beliefs with scientific reality. Our study is both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary.” The researchers blended genetics, metabolism, physiology, morphology and archaeology of tool development to resolve the question of whether Stone Age humans were specialized carnivores or generalist omnivores. “So far, attempts to reconstruct the diet of stone-age humans were mostly based on comparisons to 20th-century hunter-gatherer societies,” explained fellow TAU researcher Miki Ben-Dor. “This comparison is futile, however, because two million years ago hunter-gatherer societies could hunt and consume elephants and other large animals – while today’s hunter-gatherers do not have access to such bounty.” The team examined the acidity of our stomachs, which is high even for predators, indicating a meat diet in which the acid would provide protection from harmful bacteria. They also looked at fat’s structure in human cells: Similar to predators, human fat is stored in large numbers of small fat cells, whereas in omnivores it tends to be the other way around. They further cited the human genome as evidence. “For example, geneticists have concluded that ‘areas of the human genome were closed off to enable a fat-rich diet, while in chimpanzees, areas of the genome were opened to enable a sugar-rich diet,’” Ben-Dor said. Further archaeological evidence supports their hypothesis, they argued, including the study of stable isotopes in the bones of prehistoric humans that point to consumption of meat with a high fat content, likely from large animals... The researchers believe humans only began moving toward a diet that is much more plant-based some 85,000 years ago, possibly as a result of a decline in larger animals as a food source."
Vegan family writes letter to neighbours requesting they close their windows when cooking meat - "A vegan family has been called “entitled” after they sent a letter to their neighbours asking them to close their windows when cooking meat. The neighbourhood dispute began in Perth, Australia, when a Burns Beach resident claimed that the smell of meat wafting from their neighbour’s home was making the plant-based family “sick and upset”."
New York City stores are locking up Spam and other foods amid shoplifting surge - "Cans of Spam, a cooked pork product that retails for $3.99 per 12-ounce tin, appeared to be encased in an antitheft container at a Duane Reade store in Manhattan... The COVID-19 pandemic has also led to a rise in retail crime, due in part to the increase in online shopping. Thieves have become more brazen in stealing from stores because they can sell items online"
Of course, liberals claim that if you see someone stealing food, you didn't
Stop hating on bicyclists and share the road - "Ultimately, hate of bicyclists comes from the same place as racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia: a desire to cling to the status quo power arrangements that favor some over others... The answer, of course, is to support protected or separated street infrastructure that will allow people on bicycles to go places safely"
They're getting more and more obnoxious, and then pretending to be persecuted when others push back
Two women arrested after cyclist jumps onto moving car’s bonnet in Katong - "The police have arrested two women – a driver and a cyclist – after an altercation where the latter jumped onto the bonnet of the driver’s car near the i12 Katong shopping mall... A 39-second video on Facebook page Beh Chia Lor – Singapore Road shows the female cyclist obstructing a grey car in the three-lane road. Other cars can be heard honking as the cyclist, wearing a yellow top and blue helmet, speaks on the phone as she blocks the grey car before hopping onto its bonnet as the vehicle tries to go past her... According to Chinese-language newspaper Lianhe Zaobao, the owner of a nearby massage shop had heard the arguing for more than five minutes amid traffic... The cyclist initially refused to get off the car and continued screaming, the stallholder said, adding that the woman got off only after some persuasion."
Caught on camera: Cyclist hangs on bonnet of car as it moves off - " According to a lawyer interviewed by 8world, the actions of both parties appear to violate traffic laws which may constitute criminal offences. Besides the possible offence of reckless driving on the part of the driver, the lawyer added that the cyclist could also be found guilty of contravening laws against public order."
The dash cam video of the altercations between a female cyclist and a female driver at Katong : SingaporeRaw
Cyclists: a menace all over the world
'Bike swerving': A new, dangerous pastime for kids police say must stop - "The accident last Thursday was almost the disaster Little Ferry police have been bracing for — a teenage bicycle rider, intent on emulating the tricks so popular on social media, popped a wheelie and steered toward an oncoming car on Marshall Avenue. He meant to veer away at the last moment. He failed. Surveillance video given to the Record and NorthJersey.com by borough police shows the rider, a 15-year-old boy from Ridgefield Park, tumbling to the pavement after colliding with the white Mercedes’ front bumper. He was lucky to escape with only minor injuries. Still, the recording illuminates the dangers of “swerving,” the internet fad in which kids — mostly male — charge their bikes at oncoming cars and angle away just before impact. They ride in groups, often straddling the road and blocking traffic, with individual riders breaking off to challenge passing vehicles. The kids record the tricks and post them to social media as part of the burgeoning “Bike life” movement... Most of the riders are Black and Latino, younger than 18 and live in poor neighborhoods. Many have said they view "Bike life" as an alternative to the more dangerous street life. “You can’t ride your bike and deal drugs at the same time,” said Rich Isaacs, a 23-year-old who organized a ride last summer... Walters, of Little Ferry, said an August incident devolved into violence when a group of juveniles riding in the middle of the road allegedly surrounded a motorist’s car after he honked at them to move, according to police reports. The driver got out of the car and a fight ensued... The Ridgewood Police Department also faced backlash this summer from a local civil rights group after a viral recording captured two of its officers wrestling a 15-year-old New York boy to the ground during another rideout. Police issued the boy four summonses and freed him when his parents arrived. It might be hard for older people to understand why children, most of whom belong to the social-media-centric "Generation Z," would risk their lives to impress nameless internet followers. But experts said kids who've grown up with their eyes welded to cell phone screens rarely distinguish between online and offline life. And the fleeting fame they attain through a viral bike trick is every bit as concrete as a more lasting achievement in the real world... “Happens all the time in front of the 7-Eleven on Main Street,” one man wrote. “I told them all to get out of the road and they started yelling at me, cussing me out, and following me on my afternoon walk. Glad to hear something’s being done!” “It happened to me, and it was terrible,” another woman wrote. “You’re so afraid to hit them, but they try to get close and taunt you on purpose.”"
Damn motorists and the racist police on their side!
This is why bike lanes are working - "The Kent Street cycleway moves 34 per cent of the people using that road in the morning peak, but takes up 25 per cent of the road space. The College Street cycleway, which the government proposes to rip up, moves 20 per cent of the people on 20 per cent of the road space"
Bike lanes don't clog up our roads, they keep London moving - "The new protected cycle lanes that opened last year in London can move five times as many people per hour as a main carriageway lane in the most congested parts of our city. At peak times, the new cycling infrastructure moves an average of 46% of people along the route despite occupying only 30% of the equivalent road space. Just two weeks after opening, the east-west and north-south cycle superhighway roads were moving 5% more people per hour than they could without cycle lanes – and that number is increasing as more cyclists are attracted to the routes."
These studies ignore the fact that putting in bike lanes probably worsened traffic during peak hour. Also it assumes that without bike lanes, cyclists will not cycle at all: a convenient assumption when you're lobbying for goodies
What is the best cost-benefit analysis of cycling investments? - "what are the best cost-benefit studies of urban investments in bicycle lanes and other bicycle-friendly policies? They have to take into account the opportunity cost of the land for bike lanes, the cost of cycling deaths and injuries, and the costs of slower vehicular traffic. Counting those variables in addition to the rather considerable benefits of cycling is hardly a genius-level move, right? Funny that, I can’t seem to find such a study! But I am not an expert. I am sure there are many such studies, so I am opening comments to all of you, so that I may pull in the appropriate references. I will then read the best study or studies, and report back. And if by some freak chance of nature no such studies can be found, what should we infer from that?"
I have never been able to find a proper cost-benefit analysis on bicycle lanes. I even looked at more than half the comments on here. All the CBAs out there myopically look at construction costs (not to mention tons of other methodological issues), which stacks the deck in favour of bike lanes. And other studies are on *cycling*, not bike lanes (one can cycle without a bike lane). The closest I've seen is from Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute, which at least honestly tries to list the holistic costs of bike lanes, but there're no numbers to weigh against the deck of the cyclist lobby
Someone made the point that "The opportunity costs of cycle infrastructure in most cases is wider roads, but for the most part narrower roads cause people to drive more slowly and therefore more safely. This is the hidden reason why Fairfax County (for instance) is so big on bike lanes lately." This only applies to wide roads though
Another pointed out that a good way to do it is if "bike lanes are put into the existing breakdown lane"
Bloor bike lanes boost cyclist traffic by 36%, increase drive times, says city - "Drivers who travel westbound on Bloor Street during the evening rush hour have seen just over eight minutes added to their commute. In the morning, the drive is taking approximately four minutes longer for people travelling eastbound."
This is evidence that bike lanes can worsen congestion
Installing Bike Lanes in Busy Cities: The #1 Tip to Prevent Traffic Congestion - "According to a report detailed by FiveThirtyEight, bike lanes do not cause traffic jams if they are constructed in the right locations. Just look at Minneapolis, considered by Bicycling magazine to be the ‘best city for biking in the US’ for several years running. Despite the fact several months of the year are freezing in Minneapolis, the city decided to add 45 miles of bike lanes in 2010 and 2011. FiveThirtyEight compared congestion levels before and after bike lanes were added. They did so by looking at the Average Annual Daily Traffic (AADT), measured by black pneumatic tubes or sensors placed on roadways to track traffic. Minneapolis maintains records of AADT for the same roads over the years. This allowed researchers to compare roadway congestion before and after bike lanes were added. You might be thinking—but, wouldn’t fewer traffic lanes automatically increase vehicle congestion? To prevent faulty results, AADT is converted into an estimated number of cars on the road during peak traffic times. This number is then divided by the road’s capacity, giving us what traffic engineers refer to as volume-to-capacity (V/C) ratio. V/C ratios between 0.5 to 0.75 indicate mild or moderate congestion, while V/C ratios between 0.75 and 0.9 indicate heavy congestion. Heavier congestion levels show roadways are at capacity and motorists have little to no room to switch lanes. We all know what it’s like to be stuck in traffic… it sucks. Adding bike lanes to roads with high V/C ratios will only make the problem worse. Looking at the results from Minneapolis, it’s clear that taking away a motor lane in exchange for a bike lane increases the estimated V/C ratio in rush-hour traffic. Post-bike lane installation, busier streets show noticeably less room for vehicles to navigate between lanes. Although, these changes are not significant enough to increase congestion or further slowdown traffic... An important take away from Minneapolis is that bike lanes do not lead to increased congestion when installed in the right places. You don’t want to add bike lanes to a street that is already at or near capacity because taking away a lane will lead to some increase in congestion. On the other hand, adding bike lanes to streets that are under capacity can produce favorable results without adding to traffic issues... In 2010, New York’s Department of Transportation added a protected bike lane to a 1-mile stretch of road in Brooklyn, Prospect Park West. One of three vehicle travel lanes was removed to make room for the new protected bike lane...The city had collected plenty of data before adding the bike lane. This data was compared to new data collected after the bike lane was installed. The result? V/C ratios did increase during peak traffic times—morning and afternoon. Yet, none of these changes were significant enough to throw the street over capacity during rush hour. Additionally, it was found that commute times did not change after the bike lane was added. Largely, because Prospect Park West was under traffic capacity prior to the addition of the bike lane."
In the 2 instances here, they were installed on non-busy roads (a comparison with the claims above about bike lanes being more efficient at peak hour in London and Sydney) is instructive)
Study: More Bike Lanes Needed to Reduce Traffic Congestion
The bike lobby claims is that bike lanes *reduce* congestion, which is a very strong claim. This study is touted as claiming that bike lanes reduce congestion, but it is just based on modelling (which we have learnt from covid is often dodgy). Basically the result depends on people switching modes of transport - which we know isn't guaranteed
Safety and Bike Lanes-- Study Finds Inverse Relationship - "Do protected bike lanes make cyclists safer? According to a study conducted by the University of Nebraska, they do not. According to its thesis, protected bike lanes lead to an increase in serious cycling accidents. The reason is because bike lanes do not eliminate conflict at intersections, where the most serious accidents occur, and in fact can cause cyclists to feel a false sense of security and ride faster through the intersection. These effects are amplified on busy streets with many intersections and curb cuts... In sum, the study finds that riding in a bike lane doubles the likelihood of a cycling accident and riding in a cycle track, like the one proposed for Connecticut Ave, increases the likelihood 400%, or 5x, above that."
Some protected bike lanes leave cyclists vulnerable to injury - "Bike lanes separated from the roadway by physical barriers make cyclists feel safer and encourage more people to ride. But a new IIHS study shows that protected bike lanes vary in terms of injury risk. Factors such as the number of driveways or alleys intersecting the lanes and whether the lanes are one- or two-direction affect the likelihood of a crash or fall... For the new study, IIHS collaborated with George Washington University, Oregon Health and Science University and New York University... Compared with a major road with no bike infrastructure, the risk of a crash or fall was much lower on two-way protected bike lanes on bridges or raised from the roadway — for example, within greenways. In contrast, the risk of a crash or fall on a two-way protected bike lane at street level was much higher than that of a major road. One-way protected bike lanes differed little from major roads in terms of injury risk."
Bike Lanes Don’t Make Cycling Safe - "Forester estimated that accidents on bike lanes are 2.6 times higher than on roadways, because bike paths are more dangerous. He forecast more car-bike collisions, because it is difficult to make intersections between cycle lanes and roads as safe as normal roads. Almost 90 percent of urban accidents were caused by crossing or turning—either by the cyclist failing to obey the rules of the road or the motorist turning into the cyclist... Writing about California plans for bike lanes, Forester stated, “Nobody with traffic-engineering training could believe that [bikeway] designs that so contradicted normal traffic-engineering knowledge would produce safe traffic movements.... If these designs had been proposed for some class of motorized traffic—say, trucks or motorcycles—the designers would have been considered crazy.” Jan Heine, editor-in-chief of Bicycle Quarterly, wrote, “Any barrier that separates the cyclist visually from other traffic effectively hides the cyclist. This is counterproductive to safety. Moving cyclists out of the roadway altogether, on separate bike paths, is even more dangerous, because drivers don’t look for (or cannot see) cyclists off to the side.” He continued, “On streets with frequent intersections, separate paths only make cycling less safe. I wish those who advocate for them would look at the data and stop asking for facilities that will cause more accidents.”... In many urban settings the safest place for a bike is in the middle of a car lane, with bike lights and a helmet lamp for the rider, cycling behind vehicles rather than beside them. Naturally, cyclists have no place on urban or interstate highways. Cyclists should operate with the same rules as motor vehicles, stopping at STOP signs and traffic lights, and signaling when they turn... Despite their dangers, bike lanes are proliferating... Cities are spending millions of dollars on bike lanes. That money could be better used for other purposes, such as app-based intelligent transportation systems that would connect drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists, and alert them to potential crashes. Bike lanes give cyclists and drivers a false sense of security, leading to increased accidents. Cyclists should be aware that the term Protected Bike Lane is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. It’s time to change."
The bike lobby gets it backwards - we can encourage cycling without lobbying for bike lanes, and it may even be safer for them. They just want bike lanes to feel special
Of course, the bike lobby will now demand bike lanes that are totally independent from traffic
Addendum: The relationship between separated bicycle lanes and bicycle
crashes in Denver, Colorado. - "previous research has proven that separated bicycle lanes cause more crashes... a separated bike lane is estimated to increase the average number of crashes by 117% compared to a shared road. The second result showed that a cycle track facility is estimated to increase the average number of crashes 401% compared to a bike lane facility"
This is the University of Nebraska study
Portland needs more political pressure following large drop in cycling numbers - "A new city of Portland, Oregon report indicates a large drop in cycling numbers in 2022, a trend that should be of great concern to many. For as long as bicycle-friendly cities have been ranked in the United States, the city of Portland, Oregon has been near the top. In a 2021 Forbes ranking, Rose City was a solid number two tucked lovingly behind San Francisco. And, although it might still rank just as highly, which is the point of all the infrastructure and outreach, its numbers are going in the wrong direction to levels that haven’t been seen since 2006 According to the report: “Overall, Portland bicycle traffic in 2022 dropped more than a third compared to 2019, to levels not seen since approximately 2005-2006 (Table 1). This is based on a comparison of people counted at the 184 locations that were counted in both 2022 and 2019.”... The troubling trend has PBOT searching for answers... One thing that hasn’t changed in the past 20 or 30 years ago is the need to exert political pressure on decision-makers. And that pressure, according to Johnson, should be directed away from cute neighborhood green routes and positioned directly at taking space away from cars and giving it to more vulnerable road users.
Weird. I thought if you build bike lanes and infrastructure, they will cycle more. No wonder the cyclist lobby ignores facts and just puts political pressure in lobbying for benefits
New eco-friendly routes get ONE biker for every 400 motorists on road - "New eco-friendly cycle lanes are seeing one biker for every 400 vehicles, spelling embarrassment for the Government's £250million 'green transport revolution'. Bikes make up just 1.75 per cent of total traffic on roads which lost a carriageway to a cycle-friendly route, new research has shown. Of the 34,726 vehicles counted on eight adapted roads in Bradford, Brighton, Bristol, Gloucester, Hull, Birmingham, Liverpool and Southampton, just 608 bikes were seen. The research suggests that cycle lanes may be doing more harm than good by increasing congestion levels and making pollution worse. The Department for Transport has promised to spend £2billion on cycle lanes in the next five years... But critics say the measures have blocked emergency response vehicles and brought gridlock to towns and cities across the country... New research conducted by The Sunday Telegraph counted the amount of bikes on these newly-introduced lanes in eight cities - compared to the number of motor vehicles. The survey was conducted at the morning and evening rush hours - for a total of five hours - and there were no adverse weather conditions that may have put cyclists off. In Bradford - where an entire lane of a three-lane road was lost to a bike route - a massive 12,306 motor vehicles were counted - compared to just 31 bikes. Traffic jams of up to 30 minutes were also reported at these peak times - with 30-car queues seen. In Harrow in London, one cycle lane has seen just 98 cyclists per day in October. Others in the same borough saw 77 and 61 cyclists every 24 hours throughout the same month... Transport Secretary Grant Shapps this week admitted that cycle lanes brought in during the pandemic are blocking emergency vehicles and causing chaos for motorists... An academic study also concluded that if current Government spending on schemes to encourage more people to get on bikes continues for the next ten years, there would be an increase of no more than one per cent in the number of people using a bike. The report found that for every £4,915 spent in cycle lanes in London, there is likely to be an increase of one 'commuter cyclist'. The cost for inner London boroughs would come to £6,153 for every extra bike user, while the amount for outlying areas would be £4,174, the report in the respected Economics And Human Biology journal said."
This disappeared from The Telegraph, so I took a while to find it
This is the only full quantification I've been able to find which lets us see how popular cycling lanes are compared to driving. This needs to figure in to cost-benefit analyses about bike lanes
But of course, the cope is that you need more of them for them to be used. The problem is that if you build a lot of them and they're still not used, there will be more excuses and you'll be even more into the red
Exclusive: Cyclists shun roads designed to be bike friendly in £250m scheme - "The locations were chosen because there was no heavy rain or winds or freezing conditions which could have deterred cyclists from taking to the roads"
Does new bicycle infrastructure result in new or rerouted bicyclists? A longitudinal GPS study in Oslo - "Well-connected bicycle infrastructure networks are widely accepted to be an important factor for increasing the level of bicycling in urban environments where motorised and active transport modes must co-exist. However, little is known about the extent to which new bicycle infrastructure results in changes of route amongst existing bicyclists as opposed to changes in the mode of transport. This article addresses the route-mode research gap through a panel study in which participant travel behaviour (n = 113) is recorded with a smartphone Global Positioning System (GPS) application. The study observes short-term changes to route and mode choice of participants before and after the establishment of a contraflow bicycle lane in Oslo, Norway. Video and radar-based traffic counting are used as supplementary methods to affirm bicycle volume changes in the broader population. The bicycle lane intervention resulted in a shift in the preferred route in the neighbourhood. The intervention street saw increased numbers of bicycle trips taken whilst the two nearest parallel routes in the same neighbourhood witnessed a decrease. For bicycle trips taken on the intervention street, the mean deviation from the shortest path increased (from 171 to 221 m, p < .05). Bicycle counts based on video observations also support the route shift finding. Bicycle modal share did not significantly increase when comparing the panel sub-group exposed to the intervention (n = 39) with a quasi-control group (n = 47) who were not exposed but had made at least one trip in the near vicinity of the intervention in both time periods. This natural experiment study provides evidence to suggest that route substitution from nearby streets and paths can explain more of the change in bicycling levels than modal shifts to bicycling in the short term following the opening of the bike lane."
Bike lanes don't actually make more people cycle - they just shift routes so it looks like they're very successful, because fewer cyclists use other routes. Ironically, this is a mirror of the myth of induced demand that the bike lobby (who overlap highly with the anti-car lobby) keeps trying to push. Projection is at work again!
