[asoneth]

> when bike lanes are added, nobody uses them

People generally take the mode that makes the most sense from a time, money, safety, and comfort perspective.

If a city wants more people to switch from driving to walking, biking, or transit the only way to do that is to make the latter options some combination of faster, cheaper, and/or safer than driving. Adding a bike lane here or there only induces those people who were right at the boundary to switch from driving to biking.

Given that most cities have spent the last several generations making automobile transportation as efficient and cheap as possible it would be very hard for a few bike lanes to convince people to get out of their cars.

To really move the needle you'd have to start charging market rates for parking and road use and/or make walking/biking safe and enjoyable. Or you could just wait until population increases inevitably result in auto traffic slowing to biking speed.

[ZeroGravitas]

> Given that most cities have spent the last several generations making automobile transportation as efficient and cheap as possible it would be very hard for a few bike lanes to convince.

I agree but would phrase it as "externalising all the costs of automobile traffic onto other people (and some of those 'other people' are other car commuters who in turn externalise their costs onto other drivers)"

The kind of nerdy efficiency argument free-market libertarians would make if they weren't owned by fossil fuel interests.