View Single Post
  #2052  
Old Posted Jul 23, 2011, 9:58 PM
flight_from_kamakura's Avatar
flight_from_kamakura flight_from_kamakura is offline
testify
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: san francisco and montreal
Posts: 1,319
^ right on. and thus we come to the crux of the issue: separated bike lanes in the core is pretty good public policy. and not to get into a conversation on the legitimacy of certain forms of market constraint, but arguing that roadway subsidies, because they pre-existed bikeway subsidies, represent a greater or lesser government action - qua action - against a "free market", that's totally strange and obviously incorrect. even serious clint eastwood-type automobile radicals will concede something so obvious. it's not about yes vs. no, it's about the form and function.

vancouver is hardly alone in either the policy or the backlash from business owners and motorists (who very frequently don't even live in the areas concerned, as in toronto, which was very unfortunately subjected to an absurd agglomeration). people were accustomed to a certain way of things, and when it changes, a certain percentage will oppose that. you can debate the desirability of the policy, but there's no reasonable market-oriented argument to be made there, it just doesn't come into it - unless we're talking about effects, which forms only part of a much larger transportation, livability, neighborhood-rights and environmental equation, the resolution of which is the reason for which we have elective government and political parties that present their visions and platforms.
Reply With Quote