Thanks for those excellent points Ken, and for that useful link. Makes me think of an interesting way to evaluate money spent on roads, too. If we factor in the costs associated with the deaths and injury caused by cars, roads become enormously expensive. So far this year, I believe 9 pedestrians have died in Vancouver so far this year, while many more have sustained serious injuries due to being run down by cars. This represents an enormous financial cost, apart from the massive emotional costs.

So if we need to spend a bit more now to catch up, it seems only fair, right? After all, 100 years ago, there were only bicycles.

.. And we haven’t even gotten into the topic of cost savings yet. Bike infrastructure encourages people to bike instead of drive. People who bike are healthier: “The charity Sustrans reports that investment in cycling provision can give a 20:1 return from health and other benefits.” (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling#Health), and healthier people cost the health care system far less than unhealthy people do.

When we take a big picture look at cycling, these capital investments are a bargain at 10x the price.

The Knight Street bridge carries 38-55,000 vehicles per day (http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20091103/documents/ttra2.pdf).

Meanwhile, as many as 2,000 or more bicycles use the Dunsmuir bike lane on a good day (http://vancouver.ca/engsvcs/transport/cycling/separated/dunsmuir_results.htm)

While I agree that Knight Street is a much more important corridor to the city’s economic well-being, let’s not get carried away. It’s traffic volume is perhaps only something like 25X more than the Hornby bike lanes are likely to see.

Indeed. But building bike lanes acknowledges the reality of a future that will inevitably look different from our current reality; while endlessly pouring money into a mode of transport that is obviously going to have to change beyond what we can even now imagine, entails clinging lemming-like to a mode of living that the planet cannot possibly sustain. So while Knight st currently has more value for US, bike lanes have more value for our children and grandchildren. IMHO.