Bike Lanes Waste Money

They're everywhere. They can be found all over Detroit, and more are appearing all the time. Our old road markers are being erased and new solid white lines are taking their place, narrowing lanes for vehicular traffic as they are marked. We are seeing in Detroit the installation of dedicated bike lanes on our city streets.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with that on its own terms, so far as it goes. Bicyclists have as much right to the road as cars and trucks. Oh, there are reasons which we find shallow for encouraging riding bikes over using our cars: all the environmental overstatements or the hue and cry over burning fossil fuels come to mind immediately. Even the idea of the government encouraging bike riding for the sake of exercise we find to be beyond the province of our elected and bureaucratic officials, though we will concede such as better for any given human being than the other claptrap. Still, isn't it fair to ask, exactly why is this being done?

There simply are few bikes on Detroit streets as it is. Perhaps they mean to encourage bike riding by having the visible lanes installed. But, again, bikes could use the roads anyway, and we can't see where such antics would particularly tempt more folks to get out the old two wheeler. Especially on routes such as 14th Street and Rosa Parks Boulevard, where there are simply few riders. Yet each have bike lanes now.

There certainly doesn't appear to be an increase in cyclists on Michigan Avenue, where the lanes first came to our notice several months ago. We should, maybe, point out here that we at the Wayne County Conservative Examiner's Office are avid bike riders. We are on the byways of Detroit frequently. But we rarely see other such enthusiasts as we bandy about town.

What we are taking a very roundabout way of saying is that, with all the difficulties governments at all levels are having with cash flow, why all this splurging on bike lanes which almost certainly will not result in more bike riding? To increase awareness of those who do ride? To, once more, increase ridership? That hardly seems likely or necessary. It would seem that we are seeing money spent pointlessly, and at a time when money is tight and existing cyclists don't seem to care to use bike lanes anyway.

Yet our friends wonder why conservatives are so against government spending.