Sometimes I care so much it hurts

James Dearden, Lehigh University, reviews the WSJ article "San Francisco Ponders: Could Bike Lanes Cause Pollution?" in the Micro Weekly Review ("Easily Integrate These Wall Street Journal Articles in Your Class ").

San Francisco Ponders: Could Bike Lanes Cause Pollution?
by Phred Dvorak
Aug 20, 2008
Page: A1

TOPICS: Cost Benefit Analysis, Environmental Regulation

SUMMARY: Plans to expand San Francisco's bicycle infrastructure, including bike lanes and racks, have been put on hold thanks to local gadfly Rob Anderson. The 65-year-old successfully sued for an environmental review, arguing the plan would cause more pollution.

CLASSROOM APPLICATION: The article offers a great point about regulation and measuring the value of the regulation. When deciding whether to construct bicycle-only lanes in cities, the effect of the lanes on congestion should be included. "Cars always will vastly outnumber bikes, [political activist Rob Anderson] reasons, so allotting more street space to cyclists could cause more traffic jams, more idling and more pollution. Mr. Anderson says the city has been blinded by political correctness. It's an 'attempt by the anti-car fanatics to screw up our traffic on behalf of the bicycle fantasy,' he wrote in his blog this month." The cost of not designating bicycle-only lanes: "Cyclists say the irony is killing them -- literally. At least four bikers have died and hundreds more have been injured in San Francisco since mid-2006."

QUESTIONS:
1. (Introductory) Do bicycle-only lanes, which encourage workers to commute, reduce pollution and gasoline consumption?

2. (Advanced) What is the opportunity cost to society of designative bicycle-only lanes? What is the cost to bicyclists of not designating the lanes?

3. (Advanced) What criterion should cities use to determine whether to designate more bicycle lanes?

Comments

[Don]

A technological fix for Mr. Anderson's fears. Auto engines that stop when the car is stopped for more than 15 seconds (as per the Prius). This would save fuel too, lots of fuel.

[Ami Ganguli]

The obvious solution: rather than reducing the number of lanes of motor vehicle traffic, just get rid of road-side parking and use that space for bicycle lanes.

That way there will be less incentive to drive (since there's no parking). Fewer drivers on the same amount of road will mean less congestion and less gasoline usage. And that's before even considering the beneficial effect of more people cycling.

[odograph]

I'm with Ami ... and if we can at all possible start with Pacific Coast Highway through Laguna, that would be great.

[Dano]

A technological fix for Mr. Anderson's fears. Auto engines that stop when the car is stopped for more than 15 seconds (as per the Prius). This would save fuel too, lots of fuel.

Aaaaa-men, Don, with a caveat about not before reaching operating temp.

Although here on the Front Range, it is a Constitutional Right and Privilege to idle your car while running into the store or waiting for the driver to return from an errand.

Best,

D

[odograph]

I go hiking at a little park, just back from the ocean. It's sad to people come back down to their SUVs and fire them up, sitting to idle and let the AC run ... even though it will be 75 degrees once they get down and rolling on PCH.

Of course, down on PCH everybody has their windows up, is running AC, and is missing the ocean breeze entirely. It's like people run on auto, not just their climate control.

[odograph]

oops, this time it was me.

[tidal]

Pshaw... this is minor-league lunacy. If you want really serious wacko stuff on this, consider Peter Huber.

Given the choice, the wilderness will also take an SUV over a bicycle.... The biker, by contrast, is fueled too -- by granola, one presumes. It takes a lot of field to grow the granola to move a useful pound of biker payload down the road. Bottom-line: per mile, and per useful pound moved, drilling for oil and building an SUV-grade highway system uses ten times less land than growing food to fuel the bicyclist.

He also points out that air travel is the most environmentally-friendly mode of travel of all, since the planes are in the air and don't even need a road or bike path to go from A to B!

Yer welcome fer yer daily wingnuts... sigh...

[Andrew]

Don't worry folks, I'll close that pesky tag.

There we go. Move along... nothing to see here.

[Silas]

-Am I the only one who can't stop laughing at the reaction of environmentalists to having to follow their own rules?

-Calculating whether human power or oil-fueled machine power has a greater environmental impact is an important task and has a non-obvious answer.

-There's really no point to debates like these. If you really people don't do X (instead of Y) enough, figure out the cost Y spills over onto others that you object to, slap the tax on Y, and call it a day. If you don't already have a number in mind, you haven't been thinking about the problem correctly.

[tidal]

Eat less!

[odograph]

Stop and think about it Silas, are "environmentalists" one monolithic block, and "non-environmentalists" another?

If you don't like pesticides in your shrimp does that move you to the "environmentalist" side, and does it make you lock-step on everything?

(Sadly, people who do actually expect "someone" to protect the environment that they use and value, can at the same time expect "environmentalists" to be some foreign tribe. Smells of both cognitive dissonance and tribalism, to me.)

[odograph]

BTW, on "slap a tax and call it a day", I think common sense says that is the path, even if the tax rate has to be trial and error.

[Silas]

odograph: Yes, there are environmentalists who have a clue what they're talking about (e.g. the people who run this site), and yes, I like nonlethal products. And both points are totally irrelevant.

-Just because you can show a few of them who have a clue (like the people who run this site), doesn't change the fact that the overwhelming majority are clamoring for a bunch of ridiculously inefficient mandates that have more to do with envy and yes, tribalism, than actual protection of the environment. If this were not the case, the major debate right now would be about the magnitude of the carbon externality tax, not whether it should be the solution at all!

And as long as the overwhelming majority of enviros are that way, I am perfectly justified in in my characterization. If you demand ultra-high precision in my speech, I can play the same game with you.

-Not wanting poisoned shrimp is not a test of one's environmentalistm.

[odograph]

Well, the serious discussion would be about what questions people ask themselves before they self-identify as "environmentalists."

There are a group who have a vested interest in making that a far and distant line, basically binding the words 'wacko' and 'environmentalist' in the public mind.

That is a totally irrational marketing gambit, on the part of "anti-environmentalists" out to protect the pesticides industry at the expense of the shrimp and shrimp-eaters.

I mean, we have to agree that it is simply irrational, because we all (every one of us) need an environment to get though each and every day.

[odograph]

BTW Silas, on "a few" versus "majority" ...

I was not so low as to claim statistics without any, actual, say, statistics.

[Dano]

And as long as the overwhelming majority of enviros are that way, I am perfectly justified in in my characterization.

Piffle.

Talk about argument by hasty generalization and/or conflation. Ah, well. As long as you can console yourself with faulty logic, whatever works for you, I guess.

Best,

D

[Dano]

That is a totally irrational marketing gambit, on the part of "anti-environmentalists" out to protect the pesticides industry at the expense of the shrimp and shrimp-eaters.

Right. Tactics like this rely on emotion, not rationality. Hence the prevalence of demonization tactics (Algore the Goreacle is fat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1).

Best,

D

[Silas]

Dano, odo: I explained what kinds of things we should see if my characterization were false. We don't see them. Now, either claim we do see them (which you don't believe); claim that we wouldn't see such things if my characterization were false; or concede the point.

Nothing "hasty" about that generalization.

[reason]

It is hard to say how this C/B analysis should be made. The problem is that like oil prices there is a short term effect (more congestion) and a long term effect (more people on bikes).

Shorter Silas... you're all long-haired hippies! No actually, there is a difference between what one wants to acchieve and seeing the best way to go about it. People on both sides are a bit blind to that.

[reason]

P.S. I'll out myself, I'm a C/B analysis skeptic. I think C/B typically are used to hide information rather than clarify issues. I've had to make them in businesses and know that by changing what is included or excluded you can often tune them to produce whatever result the decision maker a priori wants to see.

[odograph]

Silas, a prejudice without statistics is just that.

[Dano]

Nothing "hasty" about that generalization.

Sure there is. Where is the evidence for your assertion, besides the false premise in your mind, put there by a generation of marginalization tactics?

Best,

D

[Alan M]

a well-informed decision will have to take into account the short- and long-term effects on drivers and bikers in terms of the number of people who choose to drive or bike, congestion, accident rates...

a bike lane could certainly be justified with a sufficiently high estimate of certain parameters that you're taking into account... (i.e. one more bike lane will instantly half the number of cars on the road! no traffic! healthy people! no accidents! etc). The reverse holds too (i.e. total gridlock, suffocating drivers, prevalent road rage, no one switches to biking).

C/B analysis is a good tool, and it CAN be used to obscure information, but there's nothing wrong with it inherently. just be inclusive, yeah?