Please stop and think about…

Please stop and think about the premise of this bill—that preventing motor vehicle lanes from being repurposed will have a negative impact on people commuting via car/SUV/etc. Setting aside for a moment that these vehicles are the least efficient and most dangerous/deadly method of moving people around, wide streets don't actually move traffic faster.

In order to move traffic faster, you need to look at the bottlenecks that are actually slowing down traffic—things like poorly timed traffic lights, speed limits being too high, etc.

Allow me to share an example—I live on a busy street that has four lanes dedicated to motor vehicles. I watch as everyone races as fast as they can to the next intersection, usually to find themselves at another red light. Even during 'rush hour', when all lanes are being used for through traffic, there is rarely a time when more than half the block is being used by motor vehicles in each direction—all the cars would have fit in a single lane.

The extra lanes could then be used for other modes of transportation, freeing up space they currently take elsewhere, and incidentally making them faster and safer too—which then allows more people to feel safe using them, thus freeing up even more space for the people in cars.

So even if you only care about increasing the efficiency of driving a car, this bill does not support that end—quite the opposite.