car and truck lanes should be secondary in nearly all cases
Cars should be prioritized secondarily compared to other forms of transit, including: bicycles; personal mobility devices; walking; trains; and trams.
Of course some cargo and commercial uses for small trucks are necessary for business to be conducted, but many of the uses even of this could be replaced with safer and more affordable means of last mile distribution. And of course cars are still useful modes of transit for traversing this huge, mostly-rural country of ours. But the city is not for cars, it's for people, and large personal cars have proven far too deadly to be the primary focus of transit development in a dense urban city like New York.
I'll link to this argument basically whenever I write about bicycle transit theory, because it is tedious to have to argue that bicycle transit is a worthwhile area of investment and city prioritization.
- Cycling has fewer negative externalities on the neighborhood, city, and society
- The cause of fewer deaths than motor vehicles
- The cause of fewer environmental impacts than motor vehicles
- The cause of no noise pollution, while motor vehicles get several sections in the NYC Noise Code summary
- The cause of no air pollution, unlike motor vehicles
- The cause of no water runoff pollution, unlike motor vehicles
- Cycling is possible by all people
- in Amsterdam I saw wheelchair cycles, cargo cycles, school bus cycles, motor scooter cycles, and micro cars for those that could not cycle, all in bicycle lanes.
- Cycling infrastructure requires a fraction of the infrastructure and maintenance costs of larger transit
- Cycles don't need traffic lights, stop signs, or roundabouts. That's infrastructure the cars and trucks need.
- Highways, roads, berms, easements, etc etc etc
- Did you know bridge engineers don't even count the cars, cyclists, or pedestrians in their stress and maintenance projections? A bicycle and pedestrian bridge will basically never fail, and will rarely need maintenance.