Kalamazoo's War on Motorists: Bicycle Lanes

The city of Kalamazoo is making life more difficult for motorists.  One big way is adding bicycle lanes to many major roads.

Bicycles can be used for either transportation or recreation.  But do either of these goals justify dedicating part of the road to bicycles?

I won't judge the merits of bicycles for recreation except to note that some people obviously like them.  But recreational bicycling doesn't need to be done on roads. A much better option are bicycle paths, some of which parallel roads, and others don't (often following old railroad beds or power lines).

For transportation, have the advantage of being cheaper than cars and faster than walking.  However, there are some serious disadvantages.

One major disadvantage is safety.  Putting bicycles on roads creates a major risk of being hit by cars.  Back in 2016, a pickup driver hit and killed five bicyclists and injured four others on North Westnedge Avenue in Cooper Township.  The driver was high on drugs at the time.  Obviously, the driver was legally and morally responsible for the deaths.  Nonetheless, it should be noted that the road the bicyclists were traveling on had a bike path parallel to it that the bicyclists were not using.

The Kalamazoo tragedy was particularly dramatic, but the news is full of stories of bicyclists killed by collisions with cars, almost all of which could have been avoided if bicycles were not allowed on roads.  Bicycles are not allowed on freeways, where drivers can legally drive 70 miles per hour, so why should they be on roads where cars can travel 55 miles per hour?

There are also many reasons why riding bicycles for transportation is impractical.  Many people live too far away from work, and in many jobs, arriving sweaty and in bicycle gear would be frowned upon.  Some people aren't physically capable of riding a bike (get on your bike, grandma!).  Biking when it rains is unpleasant, not to mention dangerous when the "bicycle gutters" turn into ponds.  During winter, temperatures are usually cold, and roads are often covered with snow (that gets plowed into the bicycle lanes), making bicycling impractical.

Another problem with bicycles on streets is that they are an obstacle to drivers.  Passing a bicycle often requires swerving into a lane of oncoming traffic.  When this is not possible, an entire line of drivers will be limited to the speed of a bicycle, often around 10 mph.

Another obstacle to drivers is the fact that Kalamazoo has been eliminating vehicle lanes in favor of bicycle lanes.  This has happened on Michigan Avenue, Kalamazoo Avenue, Westnedge and Park Avenue, Rose Street, and elsewhere.  Cork Street, a major thoroughfare (particularly when traffic is detoured from I-94), was put on a "road diet".  Specifically, it was reduced from four lanes to three (one each way with a turn lane).

Perhaps the craziest proposal yet would convert Winchell Avenue to a single vehicle lane and two bicycle lanes.  The single vehicle lane would somehow accommodate cars traveling in both directions, with drivers swerving into the bicycle lanes to avoid crashing into each other.  Perhaps the city could save some money by pre-building the memorial to all the drivers and bicyclists who will get killed by this insanity.

What is amazing about Kalamazoo's obsession with adding bike lanes is that almost nobody uses them.  Driving around Kalamazoo, it is easy to observe that the bike lanes are almost always empty, except in the vicinity of Western Michigan University, where some students and employees use bikes to commute to campus.  The number of travelers per unit area is far less in bicycle lanes than in vehicle lanes.

There are some countries where biking to work is common, whether because people are too poor to afford cars, or just because of cultural differences.  However, Kalamazoo citizens have not adopted this culture, despite the city planners' attempts to encourage them to do so.  So what is driving the proliferation of bike lanes, if not public demand?  It appears to be an ideology hostile to cars, driven by environmentalism and fear of global warming.