[burrows]

> What a weird take.

Agreed, like looking at the case inside out.

> Bike lanes do not take away the possibility for those less able to use a car, they strictly add options.

But, that is true only if the bike lanes are “free to build and maintain”. Otherwise, the city is allocating money toward bike lanes rather than something OP would argue is “less ableist”.

[danhor]

Since bike lanes suffer way less stress due to less weight (to the power of 4!), they are a lot cheaper to build and maintain for the same throughput. But they do take some money, for sure.

[burrows]

(I know basically zero about city planning, although I have lived in cities for a decade)

The “roadway” itself is another fixed resource, I think? So, either the street gets a bike lane or another vehicle lane, but not both because there is only so much space between the two rows of buildings.

[danhor]

(I'm also very much only an interested citizen)

Yeah, that gets into the whole "take the space away from cars" thing.

My opinion is that in cities due to the much higher throughput of bike lanes it can also help reduce congestion, but if the bike lanes don't get used, e.g. due to a fractured network with "high-risk" shared road in-between or very unattractive gutter lanes, that doesn't really do anything. My hope is that cities would be aware of that and that it would only be a temporary thing, but the whole point that initiatives of Strong Towns and others like Not Just Bikes make (among others) is that many cities don't seem to have a clue on how to handle transportation, especially mixed-mode.