During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, cities including Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles installed dedicated bus lanes within a matter of months.
To aid struggling restaurants, many cities eliminated parking spaces to allow curbside pickup zones for takeout and delivery. Communities closed off lanes or even whole streets to make space for pedestrian-only zones and for outdoor restaurant seating.
Overall, the measures resulted in residents walking and cycling more. Combined with increased remote work and fewer people driving into cities, that curbed traffic congestion and the tailpipe emissions that contribute to climate change.
But even as traffic has returned to pre-pandemic levels in many places, some cities are keeping the changes in place, stoking the long-running feud among motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians over control of public rights of way.
“There’s a recognition that our transportation system needs to work for all people. It shouldn’t be all car culture,” said Ken McLeod, policy director for the League of American Bicyclists, a national bicycling advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.
Some drivers see it differently.
“It’s like they’re demonizing the motorist,” said Shelia Dunn, spokesperson for the National Motorists Association, a drivers’ rights group. “There’s this idea that we can have a society without vehicles on the road in major cities. It’s just not true.”
In recent years, the clash between motorists and bicyclists has intensified.
Drivers complain of cyclists who weave in and out of traffic, run red lights and ignore car horns because they’re wearing headsets or earbuds.
Bicyclists complain of a spike in speeding, aggressive motorists and distracted driving, often caused by drivers texting or talking on cellphones.
It was understandable, Dunn said, that cities made adjustments during the pandemic.
Now that the emergency is receding, she said, some cities are keeping the changes to advance urban planners’ larger, longstanding goal of discouraging driving.
And that could make it tougher for drivers to navigate the roads, Dunn said.
In New York, state legislators are considering a measure that would allow New York City to install cameras in bike lanes to target and fine motorists who obstruct the lanes. Chicago officials are considering a similar strategy, and in Washington, D.C., Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser wants to expand automated traffic enforcement to add more cameras that target drivers who illegally use bike and bus lanes.
Austin, Texas, may go even further.
In June, the city’s Urban Transportation Commission, an advisory group appointed by the city council, unanimously recommended that the city institute a so-called bike bounty program. Under the proposal, people could report vehicles parked or idled in bike lanes and get 25% of the revenue from the citation.
“It is a very common problem here. I ride my bike a lot, but I don’t want to confront people,” said commission Chair Mario Champion, who came up with the idea.
“Crowdsourcing it makes easy sense to me. The people most affected tend to have phones and cameras.”
Stateline.org is an independent nonprofit organization that is part the Pew Charitable Trusts. This story is distributed through the Tribune Content Agency.
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