Rob Anderson

Jerk of the day.

If you haven't seen his blog yet it's worth a look. He's stopped up a major bike facility improvement in Frisco with a fake bit about a lack of environmental research. It's the perfect example of the abuse of truth by failure to mention scale. His concern is that bike lanes, which will generally remove traffic lanes, will increase congestion and therefore increase pollution.

This is only an issue if:
* The bike lanes go unused. If the cyclists were there, in regular traffic lanes, they were occupying one lane anyway. And if they weren't there, but use the new cycle lanes, then there is less traffic. I know it's the first of those two, but it doesn't matter.
* No one (by percentage, we'll define no one as less than 10%) buys a hybrid. Hybrids don't pollute at rest. They're just that much more efficient from the decreased speed. Although the lost time sure sucks!
* Road use does not change: The roads have to be updated for their real use and their planned use. If road use will increase the congestion point is moot. The city will be building new lanes, or doing something to reduce use, in the future. Now, if these are central areas cycle facilities are a great idea: You probably can't make new lanes for cars. So why not compress traffic by a factor of 10 by getting people on bikes? Because it's impossible? I don't think so. We used to do manual labor, are we so deformed that we can't pedal now?

However, it's much easier to debunk Mr. Anderson: If you read his posts you'll see that he's continually on the attack.