It’s all-too-easy to get hacked off by cyclists. Whether its the hideous sight of flabby, middle-aged arses wobbling along in lycra, or a tangle of bicycles clogging up the footpath while their owners preen and pose at cafe tables, everything cyclists do seems calculated to raise the blood pressure of the rest of us. Not to mention the too-often flagrant disregard for road rules coupled with a towering sense of moral self-righteousness.
But if there’s one thing that really gets blood boiling, it’s the spreading cancer of cycle lanes choking up city thoroughfares at exorbitant cost. Especially when cyclists shun them.
A video of a group of cyclists riding outside of a newly completed bike lane in Brisbane has sparked a heated debate online.
“Stanley St Bikeway, $100mil well spent,” a Reddit user wrote, sharing a video of the group of bike riders waiting at the Stanley St intersection in Brisbane. The group was in a lane for drivers turning right or continuing straight ahead. In the video, the four cyclists wait for the lights to change while next to them a two-way cycle path remains empty.
Here’s the thing, though: can you blame them?
The real issue here is that cycle lanes are almost always multi-million-dollar, useless boondoggles imposed without even a rudiment of common-sense planning by virtue-signalling councils. Busy city roads are narrowed into chokeholds, street parking is wiped out, costing high street businesses. And for all that, the lanes are so basically useless that even cyclists avoid them.
For instance, the “cycle lane” on the West Tamar highway in Tasmania is nothing more than a spray-painted line on the existing verge. Which means that cyclists would be forced to ride on the broken asphalt and gravel of the road’s edge – an insanely dangerous proposition. Even when councils spend millions building dedicated lanes, they are rarely properly planned.
“The protected cycle lane doesn’t take them where they want to go, though,” one user commented. “Why should they use it? […]clearly want to go to the left hand side of Annerley Road […]The bike crossing takes them somewhere else.”
news.com.au/national/queensland/news/heated-debate-after-cyclists-shun-100-million-cycle-lane
Cycle lanes are just another example of watermelon virtuous intentions creating a planning nightmare in cities. Blaming cyclists is not unreasonable – after all, it’s their lobbying which spurs idiot councillors to try and pander to them. However it misses the fact that it is know-nothing politicians, virtue-signalling as usual, who are stuffing everything up for everybody.