Build it and they won't come

On Thu, 21 Sep 2017 14:27:18 +1000, James
wrote:

The helmet law supporting researchers (Jake Olivier, Raphael
Grzebieta, Soufiane Boufous, Rebecca Ivers, Royal Australian College
of Surgeons, etc.), are all trying to "move on" from discussing helmet
laws, spouting the need for protected biking infrastructure. They
know the health benefits of cycling, but reject the evidence that the
helmet law stops many people from cycling. They think that by
building infrastructure that somehow cycling will blossom regardless.

Well, that actually has worked here where I live. The numbers of people
using bikes as transportation rather than recreation has doubled or
trebled (although is still only 1-2% of trips at best). A few years
back when gas nearly hit $5 per gallon bumped up the numbers of folks on
bikes and it seems like many of them kept riding.

For the public cost in terms of building out cycling infrastructure, I
think the return on investment has been paltry. We've spent hundreds of
millions of dollars to gain a few thousand cyclists. Perhaps the number
of riders replacing drives with rides will grow more over time; the
millenials in particular seem more likely to ride, but my guess is that
as they get older, have kids, buy houses, etc., the bikes will end up
gathering dust. By comparison, the ridership performnce of the light
rail facilities we've built out have been surpassing expectations
handily, despite the conservative ire about "social engineering" via
transit (I find it interesting that *increasing* the citizen's options
for getting around is "social engineering" to some).

Around here I think one of the real purposes of bike infrastrcture is
really just to get them out of the way of cars- driving is still the
real focus of transportation policy.