This post is inspired by me seeing an ambulance in the bike lane by the apartment building opposite of mine.
By this point, I’m sure we’ve all had just about enough of anti-urbanists and NIMBYs claiming in bad faith that bike lanes and bus lanes will be obstructive for emergency vehicles, and as such cannot be built.
You’re probably well aware that exactly the opposite is the case - cars are the principal obstruction for emergency vehicles, and emergency vehicles can actually make very efficient use of bike and bus lanes to shorten response times.
I propose that we flip the argument on its head by rebranding bike and bus lanes as Emergency Vehicle-lanes, which just so happen to afford permission to buses and bikes when not in active use by emergency vehicles (which is of course already the case, everyone is required to yield any space to emergency vehicles, at least where I live).
This way, we kill this particular argument against bike and bus lanes in its crib, and expose the opposition as being actually against emergency vehicle mobility, in favour of having more lanes to drive their cars on.
Let me know what you think!
Sounds like a great way to get the functionality of bike lanes destroyed piecemeal as they’re adapted first and foremost to the use of oversized North American emergency vehicles. In the end you get pulled over by an asshole cop on your bike for riding in “the ambulance lane” and you’ve gotta pay the fine as you can’t miss work to dispute it.
No. Stand your ground here. Keep pushing back against the use of nonsensically oversized, outrageously expensive emergency vehicles. Cut down their argument at the ankles by bringing North American emergency response vehicles in line with the standards used by the rest of the world.