alt Hacker NewsBike lanes don't just compete against car lanes. They also compete against sidewalks and bus/tram lanes.
There is also the question of what you are going to do with your bike once you are at your destination, where are you going to park it?
For those who went to Amsterdam as a pedestrian, I don't know how it felt, but to me, it was not great. Lots of narrow sidewalks littered with stuff, the stuff in question is often bikes, so you have to step onto the adjacent bike lane, where you are usually greeted by an angry cyclist, because for some reason, parking your bike on the sidewalk is fine but stepping on the bike lane is not.
So, as a pedestrian, I wished Amsterdam converted its car lanes into trams and sidewalks rather than bike lanes. And yes, I hated bikes for as long as I stayed in Amsterdam, and so did everyone in my group.
The cars vs bikes debate tend to get a lot of attention, but the bikes vs pedestrians and public transit aspect matters too.
Note that bikes + buses can be a particularly dangerous combination. Buses are long and can block off the path of a careless cyclist as they turn, who may fall right under the wheels of the bus.
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To provide a different anecdote, Amsterdam is the best city I've ever had the pleasure of exploring as a pedestrian.
There were well-maintained sidewalks everywhere I needed to go. The reduced amount of automobile traffic made it easier to cross smaller roads and intersections without risking my life. At larger intersections, I often received a crossing signal almost immediately upon requesting one, instead of waiting multiple minutes.
Negotiating interactions with cyclists was trivial, because I could always make eye contact with them. Unlike drivers, who barely pay attention to those outside of cars, have their heads buried in their phone, or are obscured behind tinted glass.
It was also the quietest major city I've ever visited, which I largely attribute to the prevalence of bikes instead of automobiles. Some of the semi-tractors / HGVs I saw making deliveries were even electric, which is a great reduction in noise and other forms of pollution.
If I ever have the pleasure of visiting Amsterdam again, I intend to rent a bike. I hope to explore more of the city via the obviously superior mode of transportation, as demonstrated by so many locals.
> Bike lanes don't just compete against car lanes. They also compete against sidewalks and bus/tram lanes.
Tram lanes are a travesty, but bus lanes make pretty decent bike lanes. I biked through Seattle to work for a year or so in 2018/2019 where bikes are allowed in bus lanes, and it's a good compromise. There's a couple of streets where the bus lanes are always full of busses, but most of the bus lanes are a nice place to ride; unless they've got rails, of course.
Seattle has put in a lot more separated bike lanes since I've been there, but on routes I wouldn't have used anyway, so I dunno. There was one on my route that was terrible, but I don't think they used that pattern very often; they put a separated bike lane between parking and the side walk, and parking ended close to an intersection where many cars wanted to turn right; limited visibility and limited space made it hard to get to the center or left of the lane to avoid conflicts with vehicles turning right.
IMHO, there's a conflict between bike infrastructure appropriate for beginner / slow bicyclists and infrastructure appropriate for experienced / faster bicyclists. Separated lanes can be nice, but they make it harder to mix with motor vehicles when that's appropriate and desirable. If separated bike infrastructure makes me take a longer path or wait for a signal change to turn left, but lack of infrastructure (and the traffic situation) would have let me mix with motor vehicles and take a permissive left without waiting for a signal change, that's a negative for me --- but the extra wait isn't an issue for someone who wouldn't have mixed with traffic for that left turn anyway.