It has long been suspected that broken glass is being seeded along a stretch of bike lane on a major-ish arterial route many cyclists use.

The bike lane goes through Devonport, in Auckland New Zealand. Devonport is an affluent suburb at the end of a penninsula. There is only one road in and out, one lane each way. Traffic buildup is a concern. there has always only been one lane each way and even with the bike lane it's only one lane each way. The famed NIMBY syndrome reared its head when the bike lane was touted and then installed. It's been a contentious issue with residents ever since. I'm not sure why, as traffic surveys before and after have shown that even at rush hour, the 5km journey is maximum 25 seconds slower that previously. Much of that can be attributed to the increase in the number of cars using the road over that period.

I use that road to cycle commute to work every day. I rode it before the bike lane and for the 5 years or so it's been in place. Glass in the bike lane seems to go in waves. Nothing for a while (months at a time) then lots for a number of weeks. It's not obviously from a bottle tossed out the window as I virtually never see the resilient bottom of the bottle or the bits stuck to the (beer) label or other branding. It's like someone has a small bucket of glass and dribbles it out the car window for 50-100m at a time, then stops till the next spot. Eventually rain washes it away of course. As the glass is almost always small pieces, I just ride with very puncture resistant tires and no longer even bother weaving out of the way for glass when I see it :-)

When I come across people with an opinion contrary to mine, most times I try to see why they'd form that opinion. Quite often, that influences my own view as they may have information or whatever, that I didn't have when forming my opinion. With bike lanes specifically, and cycling generally, I really don't see what the angst is all about. Sure, there are some visible dickheads on bikes, and maybe that's the problem, but there's plenty of dickheads in cars, and the person getting pissed off at cyclists never seems to react to dickhead motorists in the same way they react to dickhead cyclists.

I'm still a bit confused to be honest. I'm particularly confused why motorists hate bike lanes. They seem to only put bike lanes where there's sufficient room. It's not like they take a 4 lane road and change it to 2 lanes for cars and 2 for cyclists (in my experience at least)

Tacks on the road? That's just bewildering to me.

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

also WSJ article today on expensive bikes