EDITORIAL - Bike lanes are impractical

The proposal to designate bike lanes in major thoroughfares in the city is no different from the proposal (if it is not a done deed already) to add two more years to basic education. The main premise for both is that they are being done in other countries.

Just because certain things are being done in other countries does not necessarily mean we have to do the same things in this country. It is time we try to do things because they answer our own needs and that doing them is practical, meaningful, and beneficial to the greater number.

There is no argument bike lanes answer a particular need. But the issue does not stop there. We still need to ask how big is the need, and how urgent. More importantly, we have to find out if life as we know it in Cebu City rises or falls on whether he have bike lanes or not.

Cebu City, as they say, has a “daytime population” of more than a million people. Just how many of those one million people have bikes must be known. Not only that, we need to consider how many of those who have bikes actually use them regularly to merit pushing for bike lanes.

Never mind safety because that is the concern of the biker (the Chinese fully understand this and never asked for bike lanes). But what about the situation in the streets being eyed as sites for bike lanes. Is it wise to slice off a portion from them for use as bike lanes?

A few decades ago, there were more people who had bikes than there are now. That was because bikes at the time performed a more practical purpose. Few public transportation meant bikes afforded a practical means of moving about. Why, bikes were even used to do business then.

One of the great Cebuano success stories is that of a young John Gokongwei peddling a variety of wares around Cebu on a bicycle. There was no need for bike lanes then because traffic conditions at the time allowed bikes and motor vehicles to share roads safely and efficiently.

But that was then. Now, motor vehicles outnumber bikes thousands to one because they have become the more practical means of moving around. The few bikes there are now are mostly for fun, leisure and exercise, certainly not reason enough to further constrict already limited space.

Let us be very clear about one thing: It is not as if bike enthusiasts are being shut out. They are free, as they always have, to do their thing, whether in the city or anywhere else on the island. It is just that they are asking for something that is no longer there to be given.