Transportation
How to Kill a Bike Lane
In cities nationwide, efforts to redesign streets for bikes and pedestrians can face stiff resistance.
On a rainy March evening in Pasadena, California, about 350 people packed the auditorium of Pasadena City College for a standing-room-only public meeting. The issue of the hour: Reducing the number of travel lanes of Orange Grove Boulevard. Authorities wanted to put the lightly used four-lane thoroughfare on a “road diet.” Two of its lanes would be repurposed; one would be used for a center-left turn lane, the other would become a bike lane.
When staff flipped to a slide that showed how the redesign would only increase travel time along the 2.9-mile stretch of Orange Grove from 45 to 100 seconds, a woman screamed out: “You’re manipulating the data! NOBODY WANTS THIS.”