I had a difficult time agreeing with very much of the author's arguments made in this article. In particular, the opening argument "What's the number one most important thing that we have to fight for? ... Well that's easy: 10-foot lanes instead of 12-foot lanes.", which caused me to read the rest of the article. This argument was, at best, poorly supported and at worst, an attempt to inflate the argument and keep me reading the remainder of the article.
To back up this statement, he cited two studies and states that there's few good studies. The lack of studies is, in itself, a big problem. Making large changes on little data invites unintended consequences -- much like those he's stating were caused by the original change to 12-foot lanes[0]. This would be OK if the studies had a very strong supporting conclusion about current circumstances facing drivers, today, but the studies' conclusions are weak. One states that "10 feet or more [rather than 12 feet] resulted in accident rates that were either reduced or unchanged" and the other indicated "analyses conducted were generally either not statistically significant or indicated that narrower lanes were associated with lower rather than higher crash frequencies."
He later draws a few conclusions about drivers "feeling more safe" in 12-foot lanes, causing more risky driving (supported only by anecdote). He stretches quite a bit with the anecdote about how when we merge onto a freeway with their really wide lanes, we set the cruise control 5MPH higher than the speed limit and relax more because the 12-foot lanes give us the illusion of additional safety. This is presented as a "Common Sense" anecdote, but I'd be willing to bet there's more data that people feel safer on highways because traffic all moves around the same speed, there are no traditional intersections, and no sudden stops except in cases of high traffic volumes (where it's anticipated) and accidents. I've never even noticed that highway lanes are wider, but I can picture it now. He then goes on to compare things that are not comparable -- residential roads that are 12-foot wide with traffic going in both directions -- those streets are safer because there's almost no traffic to compete with and people are usually driving far slower than they are on county roads.
I support the last part of the article, about adding bike lanes, but that argument suffers from the same weaknesses. Though I suspect adding marked bike lanes improves roadway safety for cyclists, I can't point to data showing that and the author did not provide it. In addition, his original argument that reducing lanes to 10-foot is "The #1 most important thing" isn't covered by this unless road engineers -- in designing roadways at 10 feet -- automatically include bike lanes as a result. We have a strong drivers lobby in the state that I live -- Michigan. In areas where shrinking the lanes would leave a half or more of another lane, you're more likely to see the road widened that extra half-lane to increase capacity for vehicles, not cyclists. That would make intersections like 12-mile and Telegraph[1] more dangerous with yet another lane of traffic that might not notice a pedestrian.
As much as I'm sure this is something the author feels strongly about, the facts provided don't add up to the conclusion he drew and if I'm being particularly uncharitable, after reading this article, I felt like I'd been taken in click-bait fashion. Before reading the article, I thought interesting, here's an issue I didn't know about and apparently I might want to care about it and after reading, unfortunately, I concluded almost the opposite -- that we shouldn't change anything until we have solid data proving that 12-foot lanes are a problem.
[0] One that comes to mind is how does this change affect the safety of self-driving vehicles that we're likely to see in a few years?
[1] About a decade ago, this intersection was in the top 20 or so of most dangerous in the United States. It's still high on the list in Michigan, so either a bunch of new intersections became more dangerous or when they reconstructed the intersection, they improved safety. I'm not sure, but I worked near there and the reconstruction, which moved the sidewalk closer to the road, made it a lot easier to notice pedestrians preparing to cross the street when turning.
To back up this statement, he cited two studies and states that there's few good studies. The lack of studies is, in itself, a big problem. Making large changes on little data invites unintended consequences -- much like those he's stating were caused by the original change to 12-foot lanes[0]. This would be OK if the studies had a very strong supporting conclusion about current circumstances facing drivers, today, but the studies' conclusions are weak. One states that "10 feet or more [rather than 12 feet] resulted in accident rates that were either reduced or unchanged" and the other indicated "analyses conducted were generally either not statistically significant or indicated that narrower lanes were associated with lower rather than higher crash frequencies."
He later draws a few conclusions about drivers "feeling more safe" in 12-foot lanes, causing more risky driving (supported only by anecdote). He stretches quite a bit with the anecdote about how when we merge onto a freeway with their really wide lanes, we set the cruise control 5MPH higher than the speed limit and relax more because the 12-foot lanes give us the illusion of additional safety. This is presented as a "Common Sense" anecdote, but I'd be willing to bet there's more data that people feel safer on highways because traffic all moves around the same speed, there are no traditional intersections, and no sudden stops except in cases of high traffic volumes (where it's anticipated) and accidents. I've never even noticed that highway lanes are wider, but I can picture it now. He then goes on to compare things that are not comparable -- residential roads that are 12-foot wide with traffic going in both directions -- those streets are safer because there's almost no traffic to compete with and people are usually driving far slower than they are on county roads.
I support the last part of the article, about adding bike lanes, but that argument suffers from the same weaknesses. Though I suspect adding marked bike lanes improves roadway safety for cyclists, I can't point to data showing that and the author did not provide it. In addition, his original argument that reducing lanes to 10-foot is "The #1 most important thing" isn't covered by this unless road engineers -- in designing roadways at 10 feet -- automatically include bike lanes as a result. We have a strong drivers lobby in the state that I live -- Michigan. In areas where shrinking the lanes would leave a half or more of another lane, you're more likely to see the road widened that extra half-lane to increase capacity for vehicles, not cyclists. That would make intersections like 12-mile and Telegraph[1] more dangerous with yet another lane of traffic that might not notice a pedestrian.
As much as I'm sure this is something the author feels strongly about, the facts provided don't add up to the conclusion he drew and if I'm being particularly uncharitable, after reading this article, I felt like I'd been taken in click-bait fashion. Before reading the article, I thought interesting, here's an issue I didn't know about and apparently I might want to care about it and after reading, unfortunately, I concluded almost the opposite -- that we shouldn't change anything until we have solid data proving that 12-foot lanes are a problem.
[0] One that comes to mind is how does this change affect the safety of self-driving vehicles that we're likely to see in a few years?
[1] About a decade ago, this intersection was in the top 20 or so of most dangerous in the United States. It's still high on the list in Michigan, so either a bunch of new intersections became more dangerous or when they reconstructed the intersection, they improved safety. I'm not sure, but I worked near there and the reconstruction, which moved the sidewalk closer to the road, made it a lot easier to notice pedestrians preparing to cross the street when turning.