I think that is public transport is using that road, the bus will still transport more people/day, but I’m a bit uncertain if much of public transport is available in this case, or pretty much anywhere in the US
It’s a well-known fallacy in urbanism that bike lanes “see almost zero use.” Bikes have much less visual weight than a car, so one driver in a lane will look like a lane being used while one bicyclist in a lane will look like the same lane being “half-used.” In addition, bike lanes are much more efficient at keeping travelers moving at a constant rate so that they don’t bunch up, meaning that a busy road with backed-up traffic will look like it’s getting more use when what’s actually happening is that the bike lane is just moving travelers more efficiently.
Furthermore, the “induced demand” phenomenon means that adding capacity actually doesn’t reduce traffic, at least not in the long term. We have decades of data proving it. The amount of cars that the lane can accommodate will invariably be taken up by people taking that route who had previously taken a different route. The only way to reduce traffic for a given route is to either create more routes or remove traffic from the road. Bike lanes do both.
In reality, for most routes, if you compare the number of people being moved on the bike lane, you’ll often find that it equals or even exceeds the number of people being moved on the car lane immediately adjacent to it. More importantly, they also tend to reduce the number of drivers on the same route and nearby routes as they encourage travelers who would ordinarily be afraid of biking to ditch the car.
I can’t speak to that specific bike lane, of course, but in general the argument that “it’s not doing anything!” is a fallacy, and replacing the bike lane with a motor vehicle travel lane would almost certainly result in worse traffic, not better.
sukhmel@programming.dev 3 days ago
pbjelly@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
There’s a bus service, but historically, there have been some very nimby reasons for why there’s no faster transit in and out of this region of the Bay Area.
TL;DR: having access to a light rail train would have meant less drivers paying tolls and the board owning the Golden Gate Bridge would want that.
For more about this in SFGate. I know this doesn’t make the journey from Richmond to San Rafael shorter, but BART has been known to expand their services and it’d probably still be faster going around than waiting in a car.
ilinamorato@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I believe the Bay Area has pretty good transit, but I don’t know the specifics at this location. The bus is probably more theoretically efficient, but I would wonder about usage in this case. I believe it’s slightly too suburban for light rail.
CookieOfFortune@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I mean… the Bay Area has transit at least, but I don’t think you can call it good compared to places with actual transit.
ilinamorato@lemmy.world 3 days ago
America-good, not Europe-good.
knexcar@lemmy.world 2 days ago
It’s not. Marin doesn’t get BART or Caltrain. There’s a once-an-hour bus service that gets stuck in traffic. In fact it gets stuck in worse traffic than the cars because it takes a highly congested off-ramp (which shares car flow with an on ramp) to crawl to the Tewksbury Ave & Castro St stop. Then has to take the same on ramp. Sometimes the delay is so much you can not only miss your transfer, but the transfer an hour after that.
ilinamorato@lemmy.world 2 days ago
That is incredibly frustrating.
pbjelly@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
There’s tons of people living up there who make the commute up and down. If Bart can go as far as Antioch, I don’t see why it can’t go there and has in the past, proposed going through Marin County.
knexcar@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Sadly I doubt the once-an-hour bus service that’s notably slower than driving and gets stuck in even worse traffic than the cars (because it has to take congested off ramps to reach stops) is getting enough ridership to make a dent. One time the bus was so delayed I missed not only my timed transfer, but the transfer that came an hour later.
sukhmel@programming.dev 2 days ago
I don’t know the local specific, but what I was talking about is more like the bus that comes at least every 15 minutes, and those do get quite a lot of ridership in my experience
knexcar@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Yeah sadly not the case here. Marin is quite suburban and hourly bus service is standard, with the only people taking it being those with no other option. They seem to be slowly moving toward half hourly at least
knexcar@lemmy.world 2 days ago
On one hand, I wouldn’t be surprised if this bike lane actually doesn’t get as much use, considering it’s across a 5 mile bridge, and neither end has a lot lot of destinations until you get further inland. There aren’t any 3 mile trips being replaced, and most cars are traveling farther (think Berkeley to Novato or Richmond to Santa Rosa).
On the other hand, there is no other cycling alternative to get between those places. The bridge is a freeway so bikes aren’t allowed in the car lanes (and weren’t allowed before the bike lanes). Sure there’s Golden Gate Transit route 580 with bike racks but it’s hourly, gets stuck in the car traffic (but even worse since it takes very congested exits), and you can’t take oddly shaped cargo bikes or trailers on it. So anyone who commuted by bike would be screwed.
ilinamorato@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Five miles. Dang, I hadn’t processed that. Even at highway speeds, that bridge would take more than five minutes to cross; if you’re a strong cyclist, you could do it in, what, 30 minutes?
Still, you’re right. The next closest way for a bike to get around would be something like 20+ miles out of your way in one direction or the other, it looks like. So it would turn any hour-long errands you might be able to run by bicycle into day trips of 4-8 hours.
I dunno. Tough choice.
knexcar@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I personally still firmly believe in keeping the bike lane. Cars have 2 other lanes they can take, but bikes don’t have many other options. I don’t believe they can go via San Francisco or highway 37 so it’s an even bigger detour than I thought. The hourly bus theoretically works if you have a “normal” bike but cargo bikes, fat bikes, recumbents, trikes, and heavier e-bikes are screwed.
The only compromise I could see is closing it off to bikes during rush hour only, but providing a shuttle bus or van, ideally one that’s always waiting at the side of the bridge (not some number you have to call), has room for cargo bikes/trailers, and only covers the actual bridge to minimize headways and traffic delays. And even then it would just result in induced demand as people start commuting yet longer distances.
ilinamorato@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Yeah, the more I think about it, the less I think they should get rid of the lane. If anyone at all relies on it, it’s worth the lane.