A yougov poll of about 1100 Americans shows that people support bike lanes in their communities by a pretty wide margin. Now, you could say this is a small sample size and people who ride bikes might be more likely to have answered. But, it is weighted for demographics and respondents were asked whether they own a car, own a bike, and how often they use these modes of transportation. There are plenty of respondents who do not own or ride bikes. And by a large margin, people support bike lanes. Not only that, they support separated, protected bike lanes, they are willing to give up some parking (but not car travel lanes) to add bike lanes, and they support (the only morally correct view in my opinion) that it should be legal to ride bikes on sidewalks when there are no bike lanes.

Respondents are grudgingly in favor of allowing e-bikes in bike lanes, but majorities oppose scooters, rollerbladers, skateboarders, robots, and people in wheelchairs. Sidewalks ideally should be designed and maintained to support some of these uses, but we all know that does not always happen when responsibility for sidewalks is often pinned on the individual property owner.

So my verdict is that, as is so often the case in our cities, the loudest, angriest voices opposing change create a disproportionate perception that people in general oppose change. And in the case of our streets and sidewalks, choices made by a few cynical public officials and reckless drivers can ruin it for all the rest of us.