This is a common optical illusion with bike lanes. Bicycles are a lot smaller than cars and are 100x less likely to encounter traffic congestion, so bicycle traffic always looks much lighter than a similar number of cars.
The only way to be certain about traffic numbers is to do a traffic survey, where you actually go and count the traffic amount during rush hour.
Heres an example of a traffic counter where bicycle traffic looks a lot lighter than it actually is.
Also, even if a bike lane is underutilized, it is often a first step towards a proper bike network. Once a bike network reaches a critical mass, the traffic grows exponentially as people feel safe biking and new kinds of business is enabled by bicycle transport.
In countries like the Netherlands it is very rare to build a road WITHOUT a bike path, and I think that should be the standard. We should be asking why it didn’t have a bike lane when the road was first built.
That bike lane looks so cramped tho. Why not take both the bike lane and the pedestrian walkway and merge them into one wide bike+pedestrian road (still keeping it physically separate from the car lanes of course)? So much comfier, easier on the eyes, and you don’t have to make bike traffic one way so cyclists don’t have to cross the street just to go in the direction they need to. I’d feel so cramped cycling there, like how do I even pass people with any real speed without jumping onto the raised pedestrian bit? They could just swerve in front of me and there’s nowhere to go in the bike lane.
I’ll add an example from my country. Bikes and pedestrians have plenty of space and cars aren’t cramped either. There’s a marked pedestrian lane and bike lane, but since they’re not physically divided, it’s easy to temporarily use the pedestrian side for overtaking if necessary. This road in Montreal doesn’t really need the divider between car lanes since speeds there are likely to be quite low, that could be taken away to increase the width of the potential combined bike+pedestrian roads.
The cyclist is going to be hurt just as much as the pedestrian if there’s a crash. Physical separation there makes it much more uncomfortable to use and an eyesore as well.
This is a common optical illusion with bike lanes. Bicycles are a lot smaller than cars and are 100x less likely to encounter traffic congestion, so bicycle traffic always looks much lighter than a similar number of cars.
The only way to be certain about traffic numbers is to do a traffic survey, where you actually go and count the traffic amount during rush hour.
Heres an example of a traffic counter where bicycle traffic looks a lot lighter than it actually is.
https://youtu.be/3F_B0HtewDU
Also, even if a bike lane is underutilized, it is often a first step towards a proper bike network. Once a bike network reaches a critical mass, the traffic grows exponentially as people feel safe biking and new kinds of business is enabled by bicycle transport.
In countries like the Netherlands it is very rare to build a road WITHOUT a bike path, and I think that should be the standard. We should be asking why it didn’t have a bike lane when the road was first built.
That bike lane looks so cramped tho. Why not take both the bike lane and the pedestrian walkway and merge them into one wide bike+pedestrian road (still keeping it physically separate from the car lanes of course)? So much comfier, easier on the eyes, and you don’t have to make bike traffic one way so cyclists don’t have to cross the street just to go in the direction they need to. I’d feel so cramped cycling there, like how do I even pass people with any real speed without jumping onto the raised pedestrian bit? They could just swerve in front of me and there’s nowhere to go in the bike lane.
I’ll add an example from my country. Bikes and pedestrians have plenty of space and cars aren’t cramped either. There’s a marked pedestrian lane and bike lane, but since they’re not physically divided, it’s easy to temporarily use the pedestrian side for overtaking if necessary. This road in Montreal doesn’t really need the divider between car lanes since speeds there are likely to be quite low, that could be taken away to increase the width of the potential combined bike+pedestrian roads.
Because bikes are still vehicles, so it is safer for everyone for bikes and pedestrians to be separated.
The cyclist is going to be hurt just as much as the pedestrian if there’s a crash. Physical separation there makes it much more uncomfortable to use and an eyesore as well.