Canada

The objections are kind of infuriating to listen to:

“They’re necessary, however, it doesn’t hurt to review what goes on with bike lanes and the money that is spent on them,” Hatcher says. “The reason why I say that is if you look downtown, for instance on Rainnie Drive, if you ever had to evacuate the city for a short term or an event downtown or what we do, it wouldn’t hurt to look at the traffic congestion.

Sigh. In an emergency evacuation or event, car traffic is what would be the most problematic.

“I don’t see that many people riding them. These thousand a day, I don’t know where they’re at. Not anywhere I see,” says De Angelis, who believes they pose a safety concern.

First, unless this person is watching all the bike lanes 24/7, of course she wouldn't "see them". And if connected cycling infrastructure isn't already there, then you won't see as many cyclists as you would.

“They make me nervous because people are wiggling back and forth, you don’t know whether to slow down, speed up or whatever.”

Exactly why cyclists need to be separated from “nervous” drivers. We can't safely share space if you're nervous, and we need room to negotiate around manhole grates, road debris, potholes, and parked cars.

“A lot of people ride bikes but there are more people driving and why didn’t they put them on the side streets instead of the main streets where there isn’t as much traffic?” says Adams. “There is enough traffic on the main roads already without putting more on the main roads.”

A) traffic comes from cars, not cyclists. You can fit 100 cyclists in the same space you can fit 10 cars, and you'll never have "traffic congestion" moving 100 or even 1000 cyclists.

B) Accessible, safe infrastructure needs to be places that lead to destinations, not away from them. If main streets are a direct link to a destination, then it should be for active transportation, public transportation, and pedestrians. Motorists should only use their car to drive long distances, then the last mile should be using any other method available.

C) The argument that there are more car drivers than cyclists is lame. You can induce demand for forms of transportation outside of car driving, simply by building the infrastructure. The fact that there may be more drivers than cyclists at any given time is more of a symptom of a car dependency and a lack of safe, connected active transportation infrastructure.