why though? building good cycling infrastructure at grade just isn't that difficult, other than finding the political will to make it happen. it doesn't take up a lot of space, it's cheap, and when it's at grade it provides easy access for cyclists to stop at all the shops or other destinations along their route.
the biggest impediment to cycling infrastructure is a social perception that cycling is elitist, and that spending money on it is a waste. if we can't even fund an 3m wide strip of asphalt or a couple of jersey walls to protect a bike lane, how are you going to find the money for tunnels?
While I support the infrastructure, I don't entirely agree with the analysis:
On city roads, a lane is very valuable real estate. As a simple example, taking a lane out of a busy NYC street can have a big effect on car traffic.
> the biggest impediment to cycling infrastructure is a social perception that cycling is elitist, and that spending money on it is a waste.
IME it is elitist, unfortunately. I see mostly delivery people and 'elites' cycling in the city, and the cycling clubs advocate for a lot of infrastructure but they don't make much effort to bring people into cycling. The infastructure is highly underutilized - it looks like those cycling clubs insisted on building that infrastructure just for their small membership.
It's a real risk to the infrastructure: Eventually other people are going to notice and say, 'why are we bothering with it' and 'let's use the mostly unused space for this other project'.
So valuable we let people park on it for free. As for utilization it's far more space efficient: we have a path in my town that handles a few thousand people while a street that did the same would be unpleasantly busy.
Most cities have a large infrastructure to manage availability of parking, including laws, signs, meters, and meter enforcement. And in many of them, parking space utilization is very high.
If cycling were safer and a more realistic option in regards to city layout, every walk of life would be cycling. It's a chicken and egg problem, lack of infra means cycling sucks for normal people, so no cyclists except roadies. No cyclists means no push for infra, no advocates.
I'm sure that's true in some places, but my original point (somewhere upthread) was that I've been in cities with plenty of cycling infra but where utilization was very low and mostly two walks of life, wealthy white people and delivery people.
So the a first step has been taken there, building the infrastructure. But they need to actively take the second step and spread cycling. 'Build it and they will come' doesn't seem to work.
I'd argue the biggest impediment to good cycling infrastructure is the low utilization of the existing cycling infrastructure. I had a friend who insisted that most people want to cycle to work, but they are lacking the infrastructure. If we only build more bike lanes and bike paths, more people would choose to cycle instead of drive. The thing is, my city has an extensive set of bike paths. They're really nice and are a viable way to get places. They're also rarely used except for exercise or leisurely strolls.
Given most bike paths in my city are empty most of the time, why would we spend money on more cycling infrastructure? The low utilization - not a social perception - are why spending more money would be a waste.
Are you sure they are empty most of the time - bikes are small and so you may not notice them even though that paths are well used.
Are you sure those paths are viable to get places? In my city they appear that way if you don't ride them, but then you discover they can't get places because there is no useful connections. They have have a fence between them and stores. Or they only go through residential neighborhoods. Where I live they are setup to drive your bike to the trail head and go for a long exercise ride.
the biggest impediment to cycling infrastructure is a social perception that cycling is elitist, and that spending money on it is a waste. if we can't even fund an 3m wide strip of asphalt or a couple of jersey walls to protect a bike lane, how are you going to find the money for tunnels?