@michael @smeg
So we have three peer-reviewed scenarios... Who sponsored them?
I reject the stated conclusions.
1 - "Narrower roads rarely lead to more crashes and reduce speed of crashes...."
Duh! You restrict road capacity and speed by making it narrower, you thus force fewer cars and slower speeds.
Did you reduce the number of people that need to get from one end of that road to the other? No? So who gets screwed and who benefits in this scenario?
Guaranteed more people get screwed and become highly motivated opposition to this and similar measures.
2 - "Increasing lanes increases traffic..."
Again, Duh! They don't increase lanes on roads that are under used or not surpassing capacity. They increase lanes on routes that are highly congested or getting there fast. This allows more traffic in less time. It does NOT increase the number of people that need to get where that road goes. It decreases the time required to get X cars from point a to point b. FURTHER.... its done generally where urban growth is clearly projected to exceed road capacity, because its INCREASING ANYWAY.
3 - "Reducing lanes reduces crashes and only causes a little more congestion..."
Reduce lanes on a congested road? Just how much more congested will it get beyond stop and go where it is now? Not much, because its at capacity/hr. To maintain same congestion while reducing lanes 50% (eg: 2 lanes down to 1 lane) there must be an alternate route available or created. Otherwise, it just turns into stopped traffic. Which I know bike riders love, because I ride, and I'd MUCH RATHER ride on a road with fucked up slow traffic than cars going 55 mph.
In my view (nobody asked for... I get that...) both sides in this debate are far more selfish than constructive, far less considerate of other perspectives.... and both sides have constant ulterior motives for the solutions they typically suggest.
I'd like to see "bike only" routes created for the safety of everyone.
